Metaphysics

”Mutilated” is said of quantities, not of any chance quantity, but it must be both divisible and a whole. For two is not mutilated when one of the two is subtracted (for the part cut off and the remainder are never equal), nor is any number at all; for the substance must remain; if a cup is mutilated, it must still be a cup, but the number is no longer the same. And besides these, even if a thing consists of unlike parts, not even all of these can be mutilated (for number too in a way has unlike parts, as two and three); but in general, of things whose position makes no difference, nothing is mutilated, as water or fire, but they must be such as have position according to their substance. Further, they must be continuous; for a scale consists of unlike parts and has position, but it does not become mutilated. And besides these, not even things that are wholes are mutilated by the privation of any part whatever. For it must be neither the decisive parts of the substance nor those which are anywhere; for example, if the cup is pierced, it is not mutilated, but if its handle or some extremity is removed; and a man is not mutilated if he loses flesh or his spleen, but if he loses some extremity, and this not any extremity, but one which does not grow again when completely removed. For this reason, bald men are not mutilated.

”Genus” is said, in one way, if the generation of things having the same species is continuous, as it is said “so long as the genus of men exists”, because so long as their generation is continuous; in another way, of that from which as the first mover they came into being; for in this way some are called Hellenes by genus, and others Ionians, because some are from Hellen, and others from Ion, as the first generator; and more from the generator than from the matter (for they are also called genus from the female, as those from Pyrrha). And further, as the plane is the genus of plane figures, and the solid of solid figures; for each of the figures is a plane of a certain kind, or a solid of a certain kind; and this is the substrate for the differences. Further, in definitions, the first inherent element, which is said in the “what it is”, this is the genus, of which the qualities are said to be differences. Genus, then, is said in so many ways: in one way, according to the continuous generation of the same species; in another, according to the first mover of the same kind; in another, as matter; for that to which the difference and quality belong is the substrate, which we call matter. And things are said to be “different in genus” of which the first substrate is different, and the one is not resolved into the other, nor both into the same, as the form and the matter are different in genus, and all those things which are said according to a different figure of category of being (for some of the things that are signify the “what it is”, others a “quality”, and others as was distinguished before); for neither are these resolved into one another nor into any one thing.