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| Paragraph 1 |
Since the science of the philosopher treats of being qua being universally
and not in respect of a part of it, and 'being' has many senses and
is not used in one only, it follows that if the word is used equivocally
and in virtue of nothing common to its various uses, being does not
fall under one science (for the meanings of an equivocal term do not
form one genus); |
| Paragraph 2 |
But since every pair of contraries falls to be examined by one and
the same science, and in each pair one term is the privative of the
other though one might regarding some contraries raise the question,
how they can be privately related, viz. those which have an intermediate,
e.g. unjust and just - in all such cases one must maintain that the
privation is not of the whole definition, but of the infima species. |
| Paragraph 3 |
As the mathematician investigates abstractions (for before beginning
his investigation he strips off all the sensible qualities, e.g. weight
and lightness, hardness and its contrary, and also heat and cold and
the other sensible contrarieties, and leaves only the quantitative
and continuous, sometimes in one, sometimes in two, sometimes in three
dimensions, and the attributes of these qua quantitative and continuous,
and does not consider them in any other respect, and examines the
relative positions of some and the attributes of these, and the commensurabilities
and incommensurabilities of others, and the ratios of others; |
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created 1996/11/25 modified 2009/04/26