For these and many other reasons we must abstain from positing a single genus, and especially because neither Being nor Substance can be the predicate of any given thing.If we do predicate Being, it is only as an accidental attribute; just as when we predicate whiteness of a substance, we are not predicating the Absolute Whiteness.
3.We assert, then, a plurality of Existents, but a plurality not fortuitous and therefore a plurality deriving from a unity.
But even admitting this derivation from a unity- a unity however not predicated of them in respect of their essential being- there is, surely, no reason why each of these Existents, distinct in character from every other, should not in itself stand as a separate genus.
Is, then, this unity external to the genera thus produced, this unity which is their source though it cannot be predicated of them in respect of their essence? it is indeed external; the One is beyond;it cannot, therefore, be included among the genera: it is the [transcendent] source, while they stand side by side as genera.Yet surely the one must somehow be included [among the genera]? No: it is the Existents we are investigating, not that which is beyond Existence.
We pass on, then, to consider that which is included, and find to our surprise the cause included with the things it causes: it is surely strange that causes and effects should be brought into the same genus.
But if the cause is included with its effects only in the sense in which a genus is included with its subordinates, the subordinates being of a different order, so that it cannot be predicated of them whether as their genus or in any other relation, these subordinates are obviously themselves genera with subordinates of their own: you may, for example, be the cause of the operation of walking, but the walking is not subordinate to you in the relation of species to genus;and if walking had nothing prior to it as its genus, but had posteriors, then it would be a [primary] genus and rank among the Existents.
Perhaps, however, it must be utterly denied that unity is even the cause of other things; they should be considered rather as its parts or elements- if the terms may be allowed,- their totality constituting a single entity which our thinking divides.All unity though it be, it goes by a wonderful power out into everything; it appears as many and becomes many when there is a motion; the fecundity of its nature causes the One to be no longer one, and we, displaying what we call its parts, consider them each as a unity and make them into "genera," unaware of our failure to see the whole at once.We display it, then, in parts, though, unable to restrain their natural tendency to coalesce, we bring these parts together again, resign them to the whole and allow them to become a unity, or rather to be a unity.
All this will become clearer in the light of further consideration- when, that is to say, we have ascertained the number of the genera; for thus we shall also discover their causes.It is not enough to deny; we must advance by dint of thought and comprehension.The way is clear:
4.If we had to ascertain the nature of body and the place it holds in the universe, surely we should take some sample of body, say stone, and examine into what constituents it may be divided.There would be what we think of as the substrate of stone, its quantity-in this case, a magnitude; its quality- for example, the colour of stone.As with stone, so with every other body: we should see that in this thing, body, there are three distinguishable characteristics- the pseudo-substance, the quantity, the quality-though they all make one and are only logically trisected, the three being found to constitute the unit thing, body.If motion were equally inherent in its constitution, we should include this as well, and the four would form a unity, the single body depending upon them all for its unity and characteristic nature.
The same method must be applied in examining the Intellectual Substance and the genera and first-principles of the Intellectual sphere.
But we must begin by subtracting what is peculiar to body, its coming-to-be, its sensible nature, its magnitude- that is to say, the characteristics which produce isolation and mutual separation.
It is an Intellectual Being we have to consider, an Authentic Existent, possessed of a unity surpassing that of any sensible thing.
Now the wonder comes how a unity of this type can be many as well as one.In the case of body it was easy to concede unity-with-plurality; the one body is divisible to infinity; its colour is a different thing from its shape, since in fact they are separated.But if we take Soul, single, continuous, without extension, of the highest simplicity- as the first effort of the mind makes manifest- how can we expect to find multiplicity here too? We believed that the division of the living being into body and soul was final:
body indeed was manifold, composite, diversified; but in soul we imagined we had found a simplex, and boldly made a halt, supposing that we had come to the limit of our course.
Let us examine this soul, presented to us from the Intellectual realm as body from the Sensible.How is its unity a plurality? How is its plurality a unity? Clearly its unity is not that of a composite formed from diverse elements, but that of a single nature comprising a plurality.
This problem attacked and solved, the truth about the genera comprised in Being will thereby, as we asserted, be elucidated also.
5.A first point demanding consideration:
