This in fact they acknowledge by counting them as the second category.
If then they form a distinct category, they must be simplex; that is to say they are not composite; that is to say that as qualities, pure and simple, they are devoid of Matter: hence they are bodiless and active, since Matter is their substrate- a relation of passivity.
If however they hold Qualities to be composite, that is a strange classification which first contrasts simple and composite qualities, then proceeds to include them in one genus, and finally includes one of the two species [simple] in the other [composite];it is like dividing knowledge into two species, the first comprising grammatical knowledge, the second made up of grammatical and other knowledge.
Again, if they identify Qualities with qualifications of Matter, then in the first place even their Seminal Principles [Logoi] will be material and will not have to reside in Matter to produce a composite, but prior to the composite thus produced they will themselves be composed of Matter and Form: in other words, they will not be Forms or Principles.Further, if they maintain that the Seminal Principles are nothing but Matter in a certain state, they evidently identify Qualities with States, and should accordingly classify them in their fourth genus.If this is a state of some peculiar kind, what precisely is its differentia? Clearly the state by its association with Matter receives an accession of Reality: yet if that means that when divorced from Matter it is not a Reality, how can State be treated as a single genus or species? Certainly one genus cannot embrace the Existent and the Non-existent.
And what is this state implanted in Matter? It is either real, or unreal: if real, absolutely bodiless: if unreal, it is introduced to no purpose; Matter is all there is; Quality therefore is nothing.
The same is true of State, for that is even more unreal; the alleged Fourth Category more so.
Matter then is the sole Reality.But how do we come to know this? Certainly not from Matter itself.How, then? From Intellect? But Intellect is merely a state of Matter, and even the "state" is an empty qualification.We are left after all with Matter alone competent to make these assertions, to fathom these problems.And if its assertions were intelligent, we must wonder how it thinks and performs the functions of Soul without possessing either Intellect or Soul.If, then, it were to make foolish assertions, affirming itself to be what it is not and cannot be, to what should we ascribe this folly?
Doubtless to Matter, if it was in truth Matter that spoke.But Matter does not speak; anyone who says that it does proclaims the predominance of Matter in himself; he may have a soul, but he is utterly devoid of Intellect, and lives in ignorance of himself and of the faculty alone capable of uttering the truth in these things.
30.With regard to States:
It may seem strange that States should be set up as a third class-or whatever class it is- since all States are referable to Matter.
We shall be told that there is a difference among States, and that a State as in Matter has definite characteristics distinguishing it from all other States and further that, whereas Qualities are States of Matter, States properly so-called belong to Qualities.But if Qualities are nothing but States of Matter, States [in the strict sense of the term] are ultimately reducible to Matter, and under Matter they must be classed.
Further, how can States constitute a single genus, when there is such manifold diversity among them? How can we group together three yards long" and "white"- Quantity and Quality respectively? Or again Time and Place? How can "yesterday," "last year," "in the Lyceum," "in the Academy," be States at all? How can Time be in any sense a State? Neither is Time a State nor the events in Time, neither the objects in Space nor Space itself.
And how can Action be a State? One acting is not in a state of being but in a state of Action, or rather in Action simply: no state is involved.Similarly, what is predicated of the patient is not a state of being but a state of Passion, or strictly, Passion unqualified by state.
But it would seem that State was the right category at least for cases of Situation and Possession: yet Possession does not imply possession of some particular state, but is Possession absolute.
As for the Relative State, if the theory does not include it in the same genus as the other States, another question arises: we must enquire whether any actuality is attributed to this particular type of relation, for to many types actuality is denied.
It is, moreover, absurd that an entity which depends upon the prior existence of other entities should be classed in the same genus with those priors: one and two must, clearly, exist, before half and double can.
The various speculations on the subject of the Existents and the principles of the Existents, whether they have entailed an infinite or a finite number, bodily or bodiless, or even supposed the Composite to be the Authentic Existent, may well be considered separately with the help of the criticisms made by the ancients upon them.
SECOND TRACTATE.
ON THE KINDS OF BEING (2).
1.We have examined the proposed "ten genera": we have discussed also the theory which gathers the total of things into one genus and to this subordinates what may be thought of as its four species.The next step is, naturally, to expound our own views and to try to show the agreement of our conclusions with those of Plato.
Now if we were obliged to consider Being as a unity, the following questions would be unnecessary:
