CHAPTER III.

CATEGORIÆ.

Of the prodigious total of works composed by Aristotle, I have already mentioned that the larger number have perished. But there still remain about forty treatises, of authenticity not open to any reasonable suspicion, which attest the grandeur of his intelligence, in respect of speculative force, positive as well as negative, systematizing patience, comprehensive curiosity as to matters of fact, and diversified applications of detail. In taking account of these treatises, we perceive some in which the order of sequence is determined by assignable reasons; as regards others, no similar grounds of preference appear. The works called 1. De Cœlo; 2. De Generatione et Corruptione; 3. Meteorologica, — are marked out as intended to be studied in immediate succession, and the various Zoological treatises after them. The cluster entitled Parva Naturalia is complementary to the treatise De Animâ. The Physica Auscultatio is referred to in the Metaphysica, and discusses many questions identical or analogous, standing in the relation of prior to a posterior, as the titles indicate; though the title ‘Metaphysica’ is not affixed or recognized by Aristotle himself, and the treatise so called includes much that goes beyond the reach of the Physica. As to the treatises on Logic, Rhetoric, Ethics, Politics, Poetics, Mechanics, &c., we are left to fix for ourselves the most convenient order of study. Of no one among them can we assign the date of composition or publication. There are indeed in the Rhetorica, Politics, and Meteorologica, various allusions which must have been written later than some given events of known date; but these allusions may have been later additions, and cannot be considered as conclusively proving, though they certainly raise a presumption, that the entire work was written subsequently to those events.

The proper order in which the works of Aristotle ought to be studied (like the order proper for studying the Platonic dialogues),1 was matter of debate from the time of his earliest 55editors and commentators, in the century immediately preceding the Christian era. Boêthus the Sidonian (Strabo’s contemporary and fellow-student) recommended that the works on natural philosophy and physiology should be perused first; contending that these were the easiest, the most interesting, and, on the whole, the most successful among all the Aristotelian productions. Some Platonists advised that the ethical treatises should be put in the front rank, on the ground of their superior importance for correcting bad habits and character; others assigned the first place to the mathematics, as exhibiting superior firmness in the demonstrations. But Andronikus himself, the earliest known editor of Aristotle’s works, arranged them in a different order, placing the logical treatises at the commencement of his edition. He considered these treatises, taken collectively, to be not so much a part of philosophy as an Organon or instrument, the use of which must be acquired by the reader before he became competent to grasp or comprehend philosophy; as an exposition of method rather than of doctrine.2 From the 56time of Andronikus downward, the logical treatises have always stood first among the written or printed works of Aristotle. They have been known under the collective title of the ‘Organon,’ and as such it will be convenient still to regard them.3

These treatises are six in number:— 1. Categoriæ;4 2. De Interpretatione, or De Enunciatione; 3. Analytica Priora; 4. Analytica Posteriora; 5. Topica; 6. De Sophisticis Elenchis. This last short treatise — De Sophisticis Elenchis — belongs naturally to the Topica which precedes it, and of which it ought to be ranked as the ninth or concluding book. Waitz has printed it as such in his edition of the Organon; but as it has been generally known with a separate place and title, I shall not depart from the received understanding.

Aristotle himself does not announce these six treatises as forming a distinct aggregate, nor as belonging to one and the same department, nor as bearing one comprehensive name. We find indeed in the Topica references to the Analytica, and in the Analytica references to the Topica. In both of them, the ten Categories are assumed and presupposed, though the treatise describing them is not expressly mentioned: to both also, the contents of the treatise De Interpretatione or Enunciatione, though it is not named, are indispensable. The affinity and interdependence of the six is evident, and justifies the practice of the commentators in treating them as belonging to one and the same department. To that department there belonged also several other treatises of Aristotle, not now preserved, but specified in the catalogue of his lost works; and these his disciples Theophrastus, Eudemus, and Phanias, had before them. As all these three disciples composed treatises of their own on the same or similar topics,5 amplifying, elucidating, or controverting the 57views of their master, the Peripatetics immediately succeeding them must have possessed a copious logical literature, in which the six treatises now constituting the Organon appeared as portions, but not as a special aggregate in themselves.

Of the two treatises which stand first in the Aristotelian Organon — the Categoriæ and the De Interpretatione — each forms in a certain sense the complement of the other. The treatise De Interpretatione handles Propositions (combinations of terms in the way of Subject and Predicate), with prominent reference to the specific attribute of a Proposition — the being true or false, the object of belief or disbelief; the treatise Categoriæ deals with these same Terms (to use Aristotle’s own phrase) pronounced without or apart from such combination. In his definition of the simple Term, the Proposition is at the same time assumed to be foreknown as the correlate or antithesis to it.6

The first distinction pointed out by Aristotle among simple, uncombined Terms, or the things denoted thereby, is the Homonymous, the Synonymous, and the Paronymous. Homonymous are those which are called by the same name, used in a different sense or with a different definition or rational explanation. Synonymous are those called by the same name in the same sense. Paronymous are those called by two names, of which the one is derived from the other by varying the inflexion or termination.7

We can hardly doubt that it was Aristotle who first gave this peculiar distinctive meaning to the two words Homonymous and Synonymous, rendered in modern phraseology (through the Latin) Equivocal and Univocal. Before his time this important distinction between different terms had no technical name to designate it. The service rendered to Logic by introducing such a technical term, and by calling attention to the lax mode of speaking which it indicated, was great. In every branch of his 58writings Aristotle perpetually reverts to it, applying it to new cases, and especially to those familiar universal words uttered most freely and frequently, under the common persuasion that their meaning is not only thoroughly known but constant and uniform. As a general fact, students are now well acquainted with this source of error, though the stream of particular errors flowing from it is still abundant, ever renewed and diversified. But in the time of Aristotle the source itself had never yet been pointed out emphatically to notice, nor signalized by any characteristic term as by a beacon. The natural bias which leads us to suppose that one term always carries one and the same meaning, was not counteracted by any systematic warning or generalized expression. Sokrates and Plato did indeed expose many particular examples of undefined and equivocal phraseology. No part of the Platonic writings is more valuable than the dialogues in which this operation is performed, forcing the respondent to feel how imperfectly he understands the phrases constantly in use. But it is rarely Plato’s practice to furnish generalized positive warnings or systematic distinctions. He has no general term corresponding to homonymous or equivocal; and there are even passages where (under the name of Prodikus) he derides or disparages a careful distinctive analysis of different significations of the same name. To recognize a class of equivocal terms and assign thereto a special class-name, was an important step in logical procedure; and that step, among so many others, was made by Aristotle.8

Though Aristotle has professed to distinguish between terms implicated in predication, and terms not so implicated,9 yet 59when he comes to explain the functions of the latter class, he considers them in reference to their functions as constituent members of propositions. He immediately begins by distinguishing four sorts of matters (Entia): That which is affirmable of a Subject, but is not in a Subject; That which is in a Subject, but is not affirmable of a Subject; That which is both in a Subject, and affirmable of a Subject; That which is neither in a Subject, nor affirmable of a Subject.10

This fundamental quadruple distinction of Entia, which serves as an introduction to the ten Categories or Predicaments, belongs to words altogether according to their relative places or functions in the proposition; the meanings of the words being classified accordingly. That the learner may understand it, he ought properly to be master of the first part of the treatise De Interpretatione, wherein the constituent elements of a proposition are explained: so intimate is the connection between that treatise and this.

The classification applies to Entia (Things or Matters) universally, and is thus a first step in Ontology. He here looks at Ontology in one of its several diverse aspects — as it enters into predication, and furnishes the material for Subjects and Predicates, the constituent members of a proposition.

Ontology, or the Science of Ens quatenus Ens, occupies an important place in Aristotle’s scientific programme; bearing usually the title of First Philosophy, sometimes Theology, though never (in his works) the more modern title of Metaphysica. He describes it as the universal and comprehensive Science, to which all other sciences are related as parts or fractions. Ontology deals with Ens in its widest sense, as an Unum not generic but analogical — distinguishing the derivative varieties into which it may be distributed, and setting out the attributes and accompaniments of Essentia universally; while other sciences, such as Geometry, Astronomy, &c., confine themselves to distinct branches of that whole;11 each having its own separate class of Entia for special and exclusive study. This is the characteristic distinction of Ontology, as Aristotle conceives it; he does not set it in antithesis to Phenomenology, according to 60the distinction that has become current among modern metaphysicians.

Now Ens (or Entia), in the doctrine of Aristotle, is not synonymous or univocal word, but an homonymous or equivocal word; or, rather, it is something between the two, being equivocal, with a certain qualification. Though not a Summum Genus, i.e. not manifesting throughout all its particulars generic unity, nor divisible into species by the addition of well-marked essential differentiæ, it is an analogical aggregate, or a Summum Analogon, comprehending under it many subordinates which bear the same name from being all related in some way or other to a common root or fundamentum, the relationship being both diverse in kind and nearer or more distant in degree. The word Ens is thus homonymous, yet in a qualified sense. While it not univocal, it is at the same time not absolutely equivocal. It is multivocal (if we may coin such a word), having many meanings held together by a multifarious and graduated relationship to one common fundamentum.12 Ens (or Entia), in this widest sense, is the theme of Ontology or First Philosophy, and is looked at by Aristotle in four different principal aspects.13

1. Τὸ ὂν κατὰ συμβεβηκός — Ens per Accidens — Ens accidental, or rather concomitant, either as rare and exceptional attribute to a subject, or along with some other accident in the same common subject.

2. Τὸ ὂν ὡς ἀληθές, καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν ὡς ψεῦδος — Ens, in the sense /of Truth, Non-Ens, in the sense of Falsehood. This is the Ens of the Proposition; a true affirmation or denial falls under Ens in this mode, when the mental conjunction of terms agrees with reality; a false affirmation or denial, where no such agreement exists, falls under Non-Ens.14

613. Τὸ ὂν δυνάμει καὶ τὸ ὂν ἐνεργείᾳ — Ens, potential, actual.

4. Τὸ ὂν κατὰ τὰ σχήματα τῶν κατηγοριῶν — Ens, according to the ten varieties of the Categories, to be presently explained.

These four are the principal aspects under which Aristotle looks at the aggregate comprised by the equivocal or multivocal word Entia. In all the four branches, the varieties comprised are not species under a common genus, correlating, either as co-ordinate or subordinate, one to the other; they are analoga, all having relationship with a common term, but having no other necessary relationship with each other. Aristotle does not mean that these four modes of distributing this vast aggregate, are the only modes possible; for he himself sometimes alludes to other modes of distributions.15 Nor would he maintain that the four distributions were completely distinguished from each other, so that the same subordinate fractions are not comprehended in any two; for on the contrary, the branches overlap each other and coincide to a great degree, especially the first and fourth. But he considers the four as discriminating certain distinct aspects of Entia or Entitas, more important than any other aspects thereof that could be pointed out, and as affording thus the best basis and commencement for the Science called Ontology.

Of these four heads, however, the first and second are rapidly dismissed by Aristotle in the Metaphysica,16 being conceived as having little reference to real essence, and therefore belonging more to Logic than to Ontology; i.e. to the subjective processes of naming, predicating, believing, and inferring rather than to the objective world of Perceivables and Cogitables.17 It is the 62third and fourth that are treated in the Metaphysica; while it is the fourth only (Ens according to the ten figures of the Categories) which is set forth and elucidated in this first treatise of the Organon, where Aristotle appears to blend Logic and Ontology into one.

Of this mixed character, partly logical, partly ontological, is the first distinction set forth in the Categoriæ — the distinction between matters predicated of a Subject, and matters which are in a Subject — the Subject itself being assumed as the fundamentum correlative to both of them. The definition given of that which is in a Subject is ontological: viz., “In a Subject, I call that which is in anything, not as a part, yet so that it cannot exist separately from that in which it is.”18 By these two negative characteristics, without any mark positive, does Aristotle define what is meant by being in a Subject. Modern logicians, and Hobbes among them, can find no better definition for an Accident; though Hobbes remarks truly, that Accident cannot be properly defined, but must be elucidated by examples.19

63The distinction here drawn by Aristotle between being predicated of a Subject, and being in a Subject, coincides with that between essential and non-essential predication: all the predicates (including the differentia) which belong to the essence, fall under the first division;20 all those which do not belong to the essence, under the latter. The Subjects — what Aristotle calls the First Essences or Substances, those which are essences or substances in the fullest and strictest meaning of the word — are concrete individual things or persons; such as Sokrates, this man, that horse or tree. These are never employed as predicates at all (except by a distorted and unnatural structure of the proposition, which Aristotle indicates as possible, but declines to take into account); they are always Subjects of different predicates, and are, in the last analysis, the Subjects of all predicates. But besides these First Essences, there are also Second Essences — Species and Genus, which stand to the first Essence in the relation of predicates to a Subject, and to the other Categories in the relation of Subjects to predicates.21 These Second Essences are less of Essences than the First, which alone is an Essence in the fullest and most appropriate sense. Among the Second Essences, Species is more of an Essence than Genus, because it belongs more closely and specially to the First Essence; while Genus is farther removed from it. Aristotle thus recognizes a graduation of more or less in Essence; the individual is more Essence, or more complete as an Essence, than the Species, the Species more than the Genus. As he recognizes a First Essence, i.e. an individual object (such as Sokrates, this horse, &c.), so he also recognizes an individual accident (this particular white colour, that particular grammatical knowledge) which is in a Subject, but is not predicated of a Subject; this particular white colour exists in some given body, but is not predicable of any body.22

Respecting the logical distinction, which Aristotle places in 64the commencement of this treatise on the Categories — between predicates which are affirmed of a Subject, and predicates which are in a Subject23 — we may remark that it turns altogether upon the name by which you describe the predicate. Thus he tells us that the Species and Genus (man, animal), and the Differentia (rational), may be predicated of Sokrates, but are not in Sokrates; while knowledge is in Sokrates, but cannot be predicated of Sokrates; and may be predicated of grammar, but is not in grammar. But if we look at this comparison, we shall see that in the last-mentioned example, the predicate is described by an abstract word (knowledge); while in the preceding examples it is described by a concrete word (man, animal, rational).24 If, in place of these three last words, we substitute the abstract words corresponding to them — humanity, animality, rationality — we shall have to say that these are in Sokrates, though they cannot (in their abstract form) be predicated of Sokrates, but only in the form of their concrete paronyms, which Aristotle treats as a distinct predication. So if, instead of the abstract word knowledge, we employ the concrete word knowing or wise, we can no longer say that this is in Sokrates, and that it may be predicated of grammar. Abstract alone can be predicated of abstract; concrete alone can be predicated of concrete; if we describe the relation between Abstract and Concrete, we must say, The Abstract is in the Concrete — the Concrete contains or embodies the Abstract. Indeed we find Aristotle referring the same predicate, when described by the abstract name, to one Category; and when described by the concrete paronymous adjective, to another and different Category.25 The names Concrete and Abstract were not in the 65philosophical vocabulary of his day. In this passage of the Categoriæ, he establishes a distinction between predicates essential and predicates non-essential; the latter he here declares to be in the Subject, the former not to be in it, but to be co-efficients of its essence. But we shall find that he does not adhere to this distinction even throughout the present treatise, still less in other works. It seems to be a point of difference between the Categoriæ on one side, and the Physica and Metaphysica on the other, that in the Categoriæ he is more disposed to found supposed real distinctions on verbal etiquette, and on precise adherence to the syntactical structure of a proposition.26

Lastly, Aristotle here makes one important observation respecting those predicates which he describes as (not in a Subject but) affirmed or denied of a Subject — i.e. the essential predicates. In these (he says) whatever predicate can be truly affirmed or denied of the predicate, the same can be truly affirmed or denied of the Subject.27 This observation deserves notice, because it is in fact a brief but distinct announcement of his main theory of the Syllogism; which theory he afterwards expands in the Analytica Priora, and traces into its varieties and ramifications.

After such preliminaries, Aristotle proceeds28 to give the enumeration of his Ten Categories or Predicaments; under one or other of which, every subject or predicate, considered as capable of entering into a proposition, must belong: 1. Essence or Substance; such as, man, horse. 2. How much or Quantity; such as, two cubits long, three cubits long. 3. What manner of or Quality; such as, white, erudite. 4. Ad aliquid — To something or Relation; such as, double, half, greater. 5. Where; such as, in the market-place, in the Lykeium. 6. When; such as, 66yesterday, last year. 7. In what posture; such as, he stands up, he is sitting down. 8. To have; such as, to be shod, to be armed. 9. Activity; such as, he is cutting, he is turning. 10. Passivity; such as, he is being cut, he is being burned.

Ens in its complete state — concrete, individual, determinate — includes an embodiment of all these ten Categories; the First Ens being the Subject of which the rest are predicates. Whatever question be asked respecting any individual Subject, the information given in the answer must fall, according to Aristotle, under one or more of these ten general heads; while the full outfit of the individual will comprise some predicate under each of them. Moreover, each of the ten is a Generalissimum; having more or fewer species contained under it, but not being itself contained under any larger genus (Ens not being a genus). So that Aristotle does not attempt to define or describe any one of the ten; his only way of explaining is by citing two or three illustrative examples of each. Some of the ten are even of wider extent than Summa Genera; thus, Quality cannot be considered as a true genus, comprehending generically all the cases falling under it. It is a Summum Analogon, reaching beyond the comprehension of a genus; an analogous or multivocal name, applied to many cases vaguely and remotely akin to each other.29 And again the same particular predicate may be ranked both under Quality and under Relation; it need not belong exclusively to either one of them.30 Moreover, Good, like Ens or Unum, is common to all the Categories, but is differently represented in each.31

Aristotle comments at considerable length upon the four first of the ten Categories. 1. Essence or Substance. 2. Quantity. 3. Quality. 4. Relation. As to the six last, he says little upon any of them; upon some, nothing at all.

His decuple partition of Entia or Enunciata is founded entirely upon a logical principle. He looks at them in their relation to Propositions; and his ten classes discriminate the relation which they bear to each other as parts or constituent elements of a proposition. Aristotle takes his departure, not from any results of scientific research, but from common speech; and from the 67dialectic, frequent in his time, which debated about matters of common life and talk, about received and current opinions.32 We may presume him to have studied and compared a variety of current propositions, so as to discover what were the different relations in which Subjects and Predicates did stand or could stand to each other; also the various questions which might be put respecting any given subject, with the answers suitable to be returned.33

Aristotle ranks as his first and fundamental Category Substance or Essence — Οὐσία; the abstract substantive word corresponding to Τὸ ὄν; which last is the vast aggregate, not generically One but only analogically One, destined to be distributed among the ten Categories as Summa Genera. The First Ens or First Essence — that which is Ens in the fullest sense — is the individual concrete person or thing in nature; Sokrates, Bukephalus, this man, that horse, that oak-tree, &c. This First Ens is indispensable as Subject or Substratum for all the other Categories, and even for predication generally. It is a Subject only; it never appears as a predicate of anything else. As Hic Aliquis or Hoc Aliquid, it lies at the bottom (either expressed or implied) of all the work of predication. It is Ens or Essence most of all, par excellence; and is so absolutely indispensable, that if all First Entia were supposed to be removed, neither Second Entia nor any of the other Categories could exist.34

The Species is recognized by Aristotle as a Second Ens or Essence, in which these First Essences reside; it is less (has less completely the character) of Essence than the First, to which it serves as Predicate. The Genus is (strictly speaking) a Third Essence,35 in which both the First and the Second 68Essence are included; it is farther removed than the Species from the First Essence, and has therefore still less of the character of Essence. It stands as predicate both to the First and to the Second Essence. While the First Essence is more Essence than the Second, and the Second more than the Third, all the varieties of the First Essence are in this respect upon an equal footing with each other. This man, this horse, that tree, &c., are all Essence, equally and alike.36 The First Essence admits of much variety, but does not admit graduation, or degrees of more or less.

Nothing else except Genera and Species can be called Second Essences, or said to belong to the Category Essence; for they alone declare what the First Essence is. If you are asked respecting Sokrates, What he is? and if you answer by stating the Species or the Genus to which he belongs — that he is a man or an animal — your answer will be appropriate to the question; and it will be more fully understood if you state the Species than if you state the Genus. But if you answer by stating what belongs to any of the other Categories (viz., that he is white, that he is running), your answer will be inappropriate, and foreign to the question; it will not declare what Sokrates is.37 Accordingly, none of these other Categories can be called Essences. All of them rank as predicates both of First and of Second Essence; just as Second Essences rank as predicates of First Essences.38

Essence or Substance is not in a Subject; neither First nor Second Essence. The First Essence is neither in a Subject nor predicated of a Subject; the Second Essences are not in the First, but are predicated of the First. Both the Second Essence, and the definition of the word describing it, may be predicated of the First; that is, the predication is synonymous or univocal; whereas, of that which is in a Subject, the name may often be predicated, but never the definition of the name. What is true of the Second Essence, is true also of the Differentia; that it is not in a Subject, but that it may be predicated univocally of a Subject — not only its name, but also the definition of its name.39

69All Essence or Substance seems to signify Hoc Aliquid Unum Numero. The First Essence really does so signify, but the Second Essence does not really so signify: it only seems to do so, because it is enunciated by a substantive name, like the First.40 It signifies really Tale Aliquid, answering to the enquiry Quale Quid? for it is said not merely of one thing numerically, but of many things each numerically one. Nevertheless, a distinction must be drawn. The Second Essence does not (like the Accident, such as white) signify Tale Aliquid simply and absolutely, or that and nothing more. It signifies Talem Aliquam Essentiam; it declares what the Essence is, or marks off the characteristic feature of various First Essences, each Unum Numero. The Genus marks off a greater number of such than the Species.41

Again, Essences have no contraries.42 But this is not peculiar to Essences, for Quanta also have no contraries; there is nothing contrary to ten, or to that which is two cubits long. Nor is any one of the varieties of First Essence more or less Essence than any other variety. An individual man is as much Essence as an individual horse, neither more nor less. Nor is he at one time more a man than he was at another time; though he may become more or less white, more or less handsome.43

But that which is most peculiar to Essence, is, that while remaining Unum et Idem Numero, it is capable by change in itself of receiving alternately contrary Accidents. This is true of no other Category. For example, this particular colour, being one and the same in number, will never be now black, and then white; this particular action, being one and the same in number, will not be at one time virtuous, at another time vicious. The like is true respecting all the other Categories. But one and the same man will be now white, hot, virtuous; at another time, he will be black, cold, vicious. An objector may say that this is true, not merely of Essence, but also of Discourse and of Opinion; each of which (he will urge) remains Unum Numero, but is nevertheless recipient of contrary attributes; for the proposition or assertion, Sokrates is sitting, 70may now be true and may presently become false. But this case is different, because there is no change in the proposition itself, but in the person or thing to which the proposition refers; while one and the same man, by new affections in himself, is now healthy, then sick; now hot, then cold.44

Here Aristotle concludes his first Category or Predicament-—Essence or Substance. He proceeds to the other nine, and ranks Quantity first among them.45 Quantum is either Continual or Discrete; it consists either of parts having position in reference to each other, or of parts not having position in reference to each other. Discrete Quanta are Number and Speech; Continual Quanta are Line, Surface, Body, and besides these, Time and Place. The parts of Number have no position in reference to each other; the parts of Line, Surface, Body, have position in reference to each other. These are called Quanta, primarily; other things are called Quanta in a secondary way, κατὰ συμβεβηκός.46 Thus we say much white, when the surface of white is large; we say, the action is long, because much time and movement have been consumed in it. If we are asked, how long the action is? we must answer by specifying its length in time — a year or a month.

To Quantum (as to Essence or Substance) there exists no contrary.47 There is nothing contrary to a length of three cubits or an area of four square feet. Great, little, long, short, are more properly terms of Relation than terms of Quantity; thus belonging to another Category. Nor is Quantum ever more or less Quantum; it does not admit of degree. The Quantum a yard is neither more nor less Quantum than that called a foot. That which is peculiar to Quanta is to be equal or unequal:48 the relations of equality and inequality are not properly affirmed of anything else except of Quanta.

From the Category of Quantity, Aristotle proceeds next to that of Relation;49 which he discusses in immediate sequence after Quantity, and before Quality, probably because in the course of his exposition about Quantity, he had been obliged to intimate how closely Quantity was implicated with Relation, and how essential it was that the distinction between the two should be made clear.

Relata (τὰ πρός τι — ad Aliquid) are things such, that what they are, they are said to be of other things, or are said to in some other manner towards something else (ὅσα αὐτὰ ἅπερ ἐστὶν 71ἑτέρων εἶναι λέγεται, ἢ ὁπωστοῦν ἄλλως πρὸς ἕτερον). Thus, that which is greater, is said to be greater than another; that which is called double is called also double of another. Habit, disposition, perception, cognition, position, &c., are all Relata. Habit, is habit of something; perception and cognition, are always of something; position, is position of something. The Category of Relation admits contrariety in some cases, but not always; it also admits, in some cases, graduation, or the more or less in degree; things are more like or less like to each other.50 All Relata are so designated in virtue of their relation to other Correlata; the master is master of a servant — the servant is servant of a master. Sometimes the Correlatum is mentioned not in the genitive case but in some other case; thus cognition is cognition of the cognitum, but cognitum is cognitum by cognition; perception is perception of the perceptum, but the perceptum is perceptum by perception.51 The correlation indeed will not manifestly appear, unless the Correlate be designated by its appropriate term: thus, if the wing be declared to be wing of a bird, there is no apparent correlation; we ought to say, the wing is wing of the winged, and the winged is winged through or by the wing; for the wing belongs to the bird, not quâ bird, but quâ winged,52 since there are many things winged, which are not birds. Sometimes there is no current term appropriate to the Correlate, so that we are under the necessity of coining one for the occasion: we must say, to speak with strict accuracy, ἡ κεφαλή, τοῦ κεφαλωτοῦ κεφαλή not ἡ κεφαλή, τοῦ ζῷου κεφαλή; τὸ πηδάλιον, τοῦ πηδαλιωτοῦ πηδάλιον, not τὸ πηδάλιον, πλοίου πηδάλιον.53

The Relatum and its Correlate seem to be simul naturâ. If you suppress either one of the pair, the other vanishes along with it. Aristotle appears to think, however, that there are many cases in which this is not true. He says that there can be no cognoscens without a cognoscibile, nor any percipiens without a percipibile; but that there may be cognoscibile without any cognoscens, and percipibile without any percipiens. He says that τὸ αἰσθητὸν exists πρὸ τοῦ αἴσθησιν εἶναι.54 Whether any Essence 72or Substance can be a Relatum or not, he is puzzled to say; he seems to think that the Second Essence may be, but that the First Essence cannot be so. He concludes, however, by admitting that the question is one of doubt and difficulty.55

Quality is that according to which Subjects are called Such and Such (ποιοί τινες). It is, however, not a true genus, but a vague word, of many distinct, though analogous, meanings including an assemblage of particulars not bound together by any generic tie.56 The more familiar varieties are — 1. Habits or endowments (ἕξεις) of a durable character, such as, wise, just, virtuous; 2. Conditions more or less transitory, such as, hot, cold, sick, healthy, &c. (διαθέσεις); 3. Natural powers or incapacities, such as hard, soft, fit for boxing, fit for running, &c. 4. Capacities of causing sensation, such as sweet of honey, hot and cold of fire and ice. But a person who occasionally blushes with shame, or occasionally becomes pale with fear, does not receive the designation of such or such from this fact; the occasional emotion is a passion, not a quality.57

A fifth variety of Quality is figure or circumscribing form, straightness or crookedness. But dense, rare, rough, smooth, are not properly varieties of Quality; objects are not denominated such and such from these circumstances. They rather declare position of the particles of an object in reference to each other, near or distant, evenly or unevenly arranged.58

Quality admits, in some cases but not in all, both contrariety and graduation. Just is contrary to unjust, black to white; but there is no contrary to red or pale. If one of two contraries belongs to Quality, the other of the two will also belong to Quality. In regard to graduation, we can hardly say that Quality in the abstract is capable of more and less; but it is indisputable that different objects have more or less of the same quality. One man is more just, healthy, wise, than another; though justice or health in itself cannot be called more or less. 73One thing cannot be more a triangle, square, or circle than another; the square is not more a circle than the oblong.59

What has just been said is not peculiar to Quality; but one peculiarity there is requiring to be mentioned. Quality is the foundation of Similarity and Dissimilarity. Objects are called like or unlike in reference to qualities.60

In speaking about Quality, Aristotle has cited many illustrations from Relata. Habits and dispositions, described by their generic names, are Relata; in their specific varieties they are Qualities. Thus cognition is always cognition of something, and is therefore a Relatum; but grammatiké (grammatical cognition) is not grammatiké of any thing, and is therefore a Quality. It has been already intimated61 that the same variety may well belong to two distinct Categories.

After having thus dwelt at some length on each of the first four Categories, Aristotle passes lightly over the remaining six. Respecting Agere and Pati, he observes that they admit (like Quality) both of graduation and contrariety. Respecting Jacēre he tells us that the predicates included in it are derived from the fact of positions, which positions he had before ranked among the Relata. Respecting Ubi, Quando, and Habere, he considers them all so manifest and intelligible, that he will say nothing about them; he repeats the illustrations before given — Habere, as, to be shod, or to be armed (to have shoes or arms); Ubi, as, in the Lykeium; Quando, as, yesterday, last year.62

No part of the Aristotelian doctrine has become more incorporated with logical tradition, or elicited a greater amount of comment and discussion,63 than these Ten Categories or Predicaments. I have endeavoured to give the exposition as near as may be in the words and with the illustrations of Aristotle; because in many of the comments new points of view are introduced, sometimes more just than those of Aristotle, but not present to his mind. Modern logicians join the Categories side by side with the five Predicables, which are explained in the Eisagoge of Porphyry, more than five centuries after Aristotle’s death. As expositors of Logic they are right in doing this; but my purpose is to illustrate rather the views of Aristotle.74 The mind of Aristotle was not altogether exempt from that fascination64 which particular numbers exercised upon the Pythagoreans and after them upon Plato. To the number Ten the Pythagoreans ascribed peculiar virtue and perfection. The fundamental Contraries, which they laid down as the Principles of the Universe, were ten in number.65 After them, also, Plato carried his ideal numbers as far as the Dekad, but no farther. That Aristotle considered Ten to be the suitable number for a complete list of general heads — that he was satisfied with making up the list of ten, and looked for nothing beyond — may be inferred from the different manner in which he deals with the different items. At least, such was his point of view when he composed this treatise. Though he recognizes all the ten Categories as co-ordinate in so far that (except Quale) each is a distinct Genus, not reducible under either of the others, yet he devotes all his attention to the first four, and gives explanations (copious for him) in regard to these. About the fifth and sixth (Agere and Pati)66 he says a little, though much less than we should expect, considering their extent and importance. About the last four, next to nothing appears. There are even passages in his writings where he seems to drop all mention of the two last (Jacere and Habere), and to recognize no more than eight Predicaments. In the treatise Categoriæ where his attention is fastened on Terms and their signification, and on 75the appropriate way of combining these terms into propositions, he recites the ten seriatim; but in other treatises, where his remarks bear more upon the matter and less upon the terms by which it is signified, he thinks himself warranted in leaving out the two or three whose applications are most confined to special subjects. If he had thought fit to carry the total number of Predicaments to twelve or fifteen instead of ten,67 he would probably have had little difficulty in finding some other general heads not less entitled to admission than Jacere and Habere; the rather, as he himself allows, even in regard to the principal Categories, that particulars comprised under one of them may also be comprised under another, and that there is no necessity for supposing each particular to be restricted to one Category exclusively.

These remarks serve partly to meet the difficulties pointed out by commentators in regard to the Ten Categories. From the century immediately succeeding Aristotle, down to recent times, the question has always been asked, why did Aristotle fix upon Ten Categories rather than any other number? and why upon these Ten rather than others? And ancient commentators68 as well as modern have insisted, that the classification is at once defective and redundant; leaving out altogether some particulars, while it enumerates others twice over or more than twice. (This last charge is, however, admitted by Aristotle himself, who considers it no ground of objection that the same particular may sometimes be ranked under two distinct heads.) The replies made to the questions, and the attempts to shew cause for the selection of these Ten classes, have not been satisfactory; though it is certain that Aristotle himself treats the classification as if it were real and exhaustive,69 obtained by 76comparing many propositions and drawing from them an induction. He tries to determine, in regard to some particular enquiries, under which of the Ten Summa Genera the subject of the enquiry is to be ranged; he indicates some predicate of extreme generality (Unum, Bonum, &c.), which extend over all or several Categories, as equivocal or analogous, representing no true Genera. But though Aristotle takes this view of the completeness of his own classification, he never assigns the grounds of it, and we are left to make them out in the best way we can.

We cannot safely presume, I think, that he followed out any deductive principle or system; if he had done so, he would probably have indicated it. The decuple indication of general heads arose rather from comparison of propositions and induction therefrom. Under each of these ten heads, some predicate or other may always be applied to every concrete individual object, such as a man or animal. Aristotle proceeded by comparing a variety of propositions, such as were employed in common discourse or dialectic, and throwing the different predicates into genera, according as they stood in different logical relation to the Subject. The analysis applied is not metaphysical but logical; it does not resolve the real individual into metaphysical ἀρχαὶ or Principles, such as Form and Matter; it accepts the individual as he stands, with his full complex array of predicates embodied in a proposition, and analyses that proposition into its logical constituents.70 The predicates derive 77their existence from being attached to the First Subject, and have a different manner of existence according as they are differently related to the First Subject.71 What is this individual, Sokrates? He is an animal. What is his Species? Man. What is the Differentia, limiting the Genus and constituting the Species? Rationality, two-footedness. What is his height and bulk? He is six feet high, and is of twelve stone weight. What manner of man is he? He is flat-nosed, virtuous, patient, brave. In what relation does he stand to others? He is a father, a proprietor, a citizen, a general. What is he doing? He is digging his garden, ploughing his field. What is being done to him? He is being rubbed with oil, he is having his hair cut. Where is he? In the city, at home, in bed. When do you speak of him? As he is, at this moment, as he was, yesterday, last year. In what posture is he? He is lying down, sitting, standing up, kneeling, balancing on one leg. What is he wearing? He has a tunic, armour, shoes, gloves.

Confining ourselves (as I have already observed that Aristotle does in the Categories) to those perceptible or physical subjects which every one admits,72 and keeping clear of metaphysical entities, we shall see that respecting any one of these subjects the nine questions here put may all be put and answered; that the two last are most likely to be put in regard to some living being; and that the last can seldom be put in regard to any other subject except a person (including man, woman, or child). Every individual person falls necessarily under each of the ten Categories; belongs to the Genus animal, Species man; he is of a certain height and bulk; has certain qualities; stands in certain relations to other persons or things; is doing something and suffering something; is in a certain place; must be described with reference to a certain moment of time; is in a certain attitude or posture; is clothed or equipped in a certain manner. Information of some kind may always be given respecting him under each of these heads; he is always by necessity quantus, but not always of any particular quantity. Until such information is given, the concrete individual is not 78known under conditions thoroughly determined.73 Moreover each head is separate and independent, not resolvable into any of the rest, with a reservation, presently to be noticed, of Relation in its most comprehensive meaning. When I say of a man, that he is at home, lying down, clothed with a tunic, &c., I do not predicate of him any quality, action, or passion. The information which I give belongs to three other heads distinct from these last, and distinct also from each other. If you suppress the two last of the ten Categories and leave only the preceding eight, under which of these eight are you to rank the predicates, Sokrates is lying down, Sokrates is clothed with a tunic, &c.? The necessity for admitting the ninth and tenth Categories (Jacere and Habere) as separate general heads in the list, is as great as the necessity for admitting most of the Categories which precede. The ninth and tenth are of narrower comprehension,74 and include a smaller number of distinguishable varieties, than the preceding; but they are not the less separate heads of information. So, among the chemical elements enumerated by modern science, some are very rarely found; yet they are not for that reason the less entitled to a place in the list.

If we seek not to appreciate the value of the Ten Categories as a philosophical classification, but to understand what was in the mind of Aristotle when he framed it, we shall attend, not so much to the greater features, which it presents in common with every other scheme of classification, as to the minor features which constitute its peculiarity. In this point of view the two last Categories are more significant than the first four, and the tenth is the most significant of all; for every one is astonished when he finds Habere enrolled as a tenth Summum Genus, co-ordinate79 with Quantum and Quale. Now what is remarkable about the ninth and tenth Categories is, that individual persons or animals are the only Subjects respecting whom they are ever predicated, and are at the same time Subjects respecting whom they are constantly (or at least frequently) predicated. An individual person is habitually clothed in some particular way in all or part of his body; he (and perhaps his horse also) are the only Subjects that are ever so clothed. Moreover animals are the only Subjects, and among them man is the principal Subject, whose changes of posture are frequent, various, determined by internal impulses, and at the same time interesting to others to know. Hence we may infer that when Aristotle lays down the Ten Categories, as Summa Genera for all predications which can be made about any given Subject, the Subject which he has wholly, or at least principally, in his mind is an individual Man. We understand, then, how it is that he declares Habere and Jacere to be so plain as to need no farther explanation. What is a man’s posture? What is his clothing or equipment? are questions understood by every one.75 But when Aristotle treats of Habere elsewhere, he is far from recognizing it as narrow and plain per se. Even in the Post-Predicamenta (an appendix tacked on to the Categoriæ, either by himself afterwards, or by some follower) he declares Habere to be a predicate of vague and equivocal signification; including portions of Quale, Quantum, and Relata. And he specifies the personal equipment of an individual as only one among these many varieties of signification. He takes the same view in the fourth book (Δ.) of the Metaphysica, which book is a sort of lexicon of philosophical terms.76 This enlargement of the meaning of the word Habere seems to indicate an alteration of Aristotle’s point of view, dropping that special reference to an individual man as Subject, which was present to him when he drew up the list of Ten 80Categories. The like alteration carried him still farther, so as to omit the ninth and tenth almost entirely, when he discusses the more extensive topics of philosophy. Some of his followers, on the contrary, instead of omitting Habere out of the list of Categories, tried to procure recognition for it in the larger sense which it bears in the Metaphysica. Archytas ranked it fifth in the series, immediately after Relata.77

The narrow manner in which Aristotle conceives the Predicament Habere in the treatise Categoriæ, and the enlarged sense given to that term both in the Post-Predicaments and in the Metaphysica, lead to a suspicion that the Categoriæ is comparatively early, in point of date, among his compositions. It seems more likely that he should begin with the narrower view, and pass from thence to the larger, rather than vice versâ. Probably the predicates specially applicable to Man would be among his early conceptions, but would by later thought be tacitly dropped,78 so as to retain those only which had a wider philosophical application.

I have already remarked that Aristotle, while enrolling all the Ten Predicaments as independent heads, each the Generalissimum of a separate descending line of predicates, admitted at the same time that various predicates did not of necessity belong to one of these lines exclusively, but might take rank in more than one line. There are some which he enumerates under all the different heads of Quality, Relation, Action, Passion. The classification is evidently recognized as one to which we may apply a remark which he makes especially in regard to Quality and Relation, under both of which heads (he says) the same predicates may sometimes be counted.79 And the observation is much more extensively true than he was aware; for he both conceives and defines the Category of Relation or Relativity 81(Ad Aliquid) in a way much narrower than really belongs to it. If he had assigned to this Category its full and true comprehension, he would have found it implicated with all the other nine. None of them can be isolated from it in predication.

That Agere and Pati (with the illustrations which he himself gives thereof — urit, uritur) may be ranked as varieties under the generic Category of Relation or Relativity, can hardly be overlooked. The like is seen to be true about Ubi and Quando, when we advert to any one of the predicates belonging to either; such as, in the market-place, yesterday.80 Moreover, not merely the last six of the ten Categories, but also the second and fourth (Quantum and Quale) are implicated with and subordinated to Relation. If we look at Quantum, we shall find that the example which Aristotle gives of it is τριπῆχυς, tricubital, or three cubits long; a term quite as clearly relative as the term διπλάσιος or double, which he afterwards produces as instance of the Category Ad Aliquid.81 When we are asked the questions, How much is the height? How large is the field? we cannot give the information required except by a relative predicate — it is three feet — it is four acres; we thereby carry back the mind of the questioner to some unit of length or superficies already known to him, and we convey our meaning by comparison with such unit. Again, if we turn from Quantum to Quale, we find the like Relativity implied in all the predicates whereby answer is made to the question Ποιὸς τίς ἐστι; Qualis est? What manner of man is he? He is such as A, B, C — persons whom we have previously seen, or heard, or read of.82

82We thus see that all the predicates, not only under the Category which Aristotle terms Ad Aliquid, but also under all the last nine Categories, are relative. Indeed the work of predication is always relative. The express purpose, as well as the practical usefulness, of a significant predicate is, to carry the mind of the hearer either to a comparison or to a general notion which is the result of past comparisons. But though each predicate connotes Relation, each connotes a certain fundamentum besides, which gives to the Relation its peculiar character. Relations of Quantity are not the same as relations of Quality; the predicates of the former connote a fundamentum different from the predicates of the latter, though in both the meaning conveyed is relative. In fact, every predicate or concrete general name is relative, or connotes a Relation to something else, actual or potential, beyond the thing named. The only name not relative is the Proper name, which connotes no attributes, and cannot properly be used as a predicate (so Aristotle remarks), but only as a Subject.83 Sokrates, Kallias, Bukephalus &c., denotes the Hoc Aliquid or Unum Numero, which, when pronounced alone, indicates some concrete aggregate (as yet unknown) which may manifest itself to my senses, but does not, so far as the name is concerned, involve necessary reference to anything besides; though even these names, when one and the same name continues to be applied to the same object, may be 83held to connote a real or supposed continuity of past or future existence, and become thus to a certain extent relative.

We must observe that what the proper name denotes is any certain concrete One and individual,84 with his attributes essential and non-essential, whatever they may be, though as yet undeclared, and with his capacity of receiving other attributes different and even opposite. This is what Aristotle indicates as the most special characteristic of Substance or Essence, that while it is Unum et Idem Numero, it is capable of receiving contraries. This potentiality of contraries, described as characterizing the Unum et Idem Numero,85 is relative to something about to come; the First Essence is doubtless logically First, but it is just as much relative to the Second, as the Second to the First. We know it only by two negations and one affirmation, all of which are relative to predications in futuro. It is neither in a Subject, nor predicable of a Subject. It is itself the ultimate Subject of all predications and all inherencies. Plainly, therefore, we know it only relatively to these predications and inherencies. Aristotle says truly, that if you take away the First Essences, everything else, Second Essences as well as Accidents, disappears along with them. But he might have added with equal truth, that if you take away all Second Essences and all Accidents, the First Essences will disappear equally. The correlation and interdependence is reciprocal.86 It may be suitable, with a view to clear and retainable philosophical explanation, to state the Subject first and the predicates afterwards; so that the Subject may thus be considered as logically prius. But in truth the Subject is only a substratum for predicates,87 as much as the predicates are superstrata upon 84the Subject. The term substratum designates not an absolute or a per se, but a Correlatum to certain superstrata, determined or undetermined: now the Correlatum is one of the pair implicated directly or indirectly in all Relation; and it is in fact specified by Aristotle as one variety of the Category Ad Aliquid.88 We see therefore that the idea of Relativity attaches to the first of the ten Categories, as well as to the nine others. The inference from these observations is, that Relation or Relativity, understood in the large sense which really belongs to it, ought to be considered rather as an Universal, comprehending and pervading all the Categories, than as a separate Category in itself, co-ordinate with the other nine. It is the condition and characteristic of the work of predication generally; the last analysis of which is into Subject and Predicate, in reciprocal implication with each other. I remark that this was the view taken of it by some well-known Peripatetic commentators of antiquity;89 by Andronikus, for example, and by Ammonius after him. Plato, though he makes no attempt to draw up a list of Categories, has an incidental passage respecting Relativity;90 conceiving it in a very extended sense, apparently as belonging more or less to all predicates. Aristotle, though in the Categoriæ he gives a narrower explanation of it, founded upon grammatical rather than real considerations, yet intimates in other places that predicates ranked under the heads of Quale, Actio, Passio, Jacere, &c., may also be looked at as belonging to the head of Ad Aliquid.91 This latter, moreover, he himself 85declares elsewhere to be Ens in the lowest degree, farther removed from the Prima Essentia than any of the other Categories; to be more in the nature of an appendage to some of them, especially to Quantum and Quale;92 and to presuppose, not only the Prima Essentia (which all the nine later Categories presuppose), but also one or more of the others, indicating the particular mode of comparison or Relativity in each case affirmed. Thus, under one aspect, Relation or Relativity may be said to stand prius naturâ, and to come first in order before all the Categories, inasmuch as it is implicated with the whole business of predication (which those Categories are intended to resolve into its elements), and belongs not less to the mode of conceiving what we call the Subject, than to the mode of conceiving what we call its Predicates, each and all. Under another aspect, Relativity may be said to stand last in order among the Categories — even to come after the adverbial Categories Ubi et Quando; because its locus standi is dim and doubtful, and because every one of the subordinate predicates belonging to it may be seen to belong to one or other of the remaining Categories also. Aristotle remarks that the Category Ad Aliquid has no peculiar and definite mode of generation corresponding to it, in the manner that Increase and Diminution belong to Quantum, Change to Quale, Generation, simple and absolute, to Essence or Substance.93 New relations may become predicable of a thing, without any change in the thing itself, but simply by changes in other things.94

86Those among the Aristotelian commentators who denied the title of Ad Aliquid to a place among the Categories or Summa Genera of predicates, might support their views from passages where Aristotle ranks the Genus as a Relatum, though he at the same time declares that the Species under it are not Relata. Thus scientia is declared by him to be a Relatum; because it must be of something—alicujus scibilis; while the something thus implied is not specified.95 But (scientia) musica, grammatica, medica, &c., are declared not to be Relata; the indeterminate something being there determined, and bound up in one word with the predication of Relativity. Now the truth is that both are alike Relata, though both also belong to the Category of Quality; a man is called Talis from being sciens, as well as from being grammaticus. Again, he gives as illustrative examples of the Category Ad Aliquid, the adjectives double, triple. But he ranks in a different Category (that of Quantum) the adjectives bicubital, tricubital (διπῆχυς, τριπῆχυς). It is plain that the two last of these predicates are species under the two first, and that all four predicates are alike relative, under any real definition that can be given of Relativity, though all four belong also to the Category of Quantum. Yet Aristotle does not recognize any predicates as belonging to Ad Aliquid, except such as are logically and grammatically elliptical; that is, such as do not include in themselves the specification of the Correlate, but require to be supplemented by an additional word in the genitive or dative case, specifying the latter. As we have already seen, he lays it down generally, that all Relata (or Ad Aliquid) imply a Correlatum; and he prescribes that when the Correlatum is indicated, care shall be taken to designate it by a precise and specific term, not of wider import than the Relatum,96 but specially reciprocating therewith: thus he regards ala (a wing) as Ad Aliquid, but when you specify its correlate in order to speak with propriety (οἰκείως), you must describe it as ala 87alati (not as ala avis), in order that the Correlatum may be strictly co-extensive and reciprocating with the Relatum. Wing, head, hand, &c., are thus Ad Aliquid, though there may be no received word in the language to express their exact Correlata; and though you may find it necessary to coin a new word expressly for the purpose.97 In specifying the Correlatum of servant, you must say, servant of a master, not servant of a man or of a biped; both of which are in this case accompaniments or accidents of the master, being still accidents, though they may be in fact constantly conjoined. Unless you say master, the terms will not reciprocate; take away master, the servant is no longer to be found, though the man who was called servant is still there; but take away man or biped, and the servant may still continue.98 You cannot know the Relatum determinately or accurately, unless you know the Correlatum also; without the knowledge of the latter, you can only know the former in a vague and indefinite manner.99 Aristotle raises, also, the question whether any Essence or Substance can be described as Ad Aliquid.100 He inclines to the negative, though not decisively pronouncing. He seems to think that Simo and Davus, when called men, are Essences or Substances; but that when called master and slave, they are not so; this, however, is surprising, when he had just before spoken of the connotation of man as accidents (συμβεβηκότα) belonging to the connotation of master. He speaks of the members of an organized body (wing, head, foot) as examples of Ad Aliquid; while in other 88 treatises, he determines very clearly that these members presuppose, as a prius naturâ, the complete organism whereof they are parts, and that the name of each member connotes the performance of, or aptitude to perform, a certain special function: now, such aptitude cannot exist unless the whole organism be held together in co-operative agency, so that if this last condition be wanting, the names, head, eye, foot, can no longer be applied to the separate members, or at least can only be applied equivocally or metaphorically.101 It would seem therefore that the functioning something is here the Essence, and that all its material properties are accidents (συμβεβηκότα).

In the fourth book of the Metaphysica, Aristotle gives an explanation of Ad Aliquid different from, and superior to, that which we read in the Categoriæ; treating it, not as one among many distinct Categories, but as implicated with all the Categories, and taking a different character according as it is blended with one or the other — Essentia, Quantum, Quale, Actio, Passio, &c.102 He there, also, enumerates as one of the varieties of Relata, what seems to go beyond the limit, or at least beyond the direct denotation, of the Categories; for, having specified, as one variety, Relata Numero, and, as another, Relata secundum actionem et passionem (τὸ θερμαντικὸν πρὸς τὸ θερμαντόν, &c.), he proceeds to a third variety, such as the mensurabile with reference to mensura, the scibile with reference to scientia, the cogitabile with reference to cogitatio; and in regard to this third variety, he draws a nice distinction. He says that mensura and cogitatio are Ad Aliquid, not because they are themselves related to mensurabile and cogitabile, but because mensurabile and cogitabile are related to them.103 You cannot say (he thinks) that mensura is referable 89to the mensurabile, or cogitatio to the cogitabile, because that would be repeating the same word twice over — mensura est illius cujus est mensura — cogitatio est illius cujus est cogitatio. So that he regards mensura and cogitatio as Correlata, rather than as Relata; while mensurabile and cogitabile are the Relata to them. But in point of fact, the distinction is not important; of the relative pair there may be one which is more properly called the Correlatum; yet both are alike relative.

If we compare together the various passages in which Aristotle cites and applies the Ten Categories (not merely in the treatise before us, but also in the Metaphysica, Physica, and elsewhere), we shall see that he cannot keep them apart steadily and constantly; that the same predicate is referred to one head in one place, and to another head in another: what is here spoken of as belonging to Actio or Passio, will be treated in another place as an instance of Quale or Ad Aliquid; even the derivative noun ἕξις (habitus) does not belong to the Category ἔχειν (Habere), but sometimes to Quale, sometimes to Ad Aliquid.104 This is inevitable; for the predicates thus differently referred have really several different aspects, and may be classified in one way or another, according as you take them in this or that aspect. Moreover, this same difficulty of finding impassable lines of demarcation would still be felt, even if the Categories, instead of the full list of Ten, were reduced to the smaller list of the four principal Categories — Substance, Quantity, Quality, and Relation; a reduction which has been recommended by commentators on Aristotle as well as by acute logicians of modern times. Even these four cannot be kept clearly apart: the predicates which declare Quantity or Quality must at the same time declare or imply Relation; while the predicates which declare Relation 90must also imply the fundamentum either of Quantity or of Quality.105

91The most capital distinction, however, which is to be found among the Categories is that of Essence or Substance from all the rest. This is sometimes announced as having a standing per se; as not only logically distinguishable, but really separable from the other nine, if we preserve the Aristotelian list of ten,106 or from the other three, if we prefer the reduced list of four. But such real separation cannot be maintained. The Prima Essentia (we are told) is indispensable as a Subject, but cannot appear as Predicate; while all the rest can and do so appear. Now we see that this definition is founded upon the function enacted by each of them in predication, and therefore presupposes the fact of predication, which is in itself a Relation. The Category of Relation is thus implied, in declaring what the First Essence is, together with some predicabilia as correlates, though it is not yet specified what the predicabilia are. But besides this, the distinction drawn by Aristotle, between First and Second Essence or Substance, abolishes the marked line of separation between Substance and Quality, making the former shade down into the latter. The distinction recognizes a more or less in Substance, which graduation Aristotle expressly points out, stating that the Species is more Substance or Essence, and that Genus less so. We see thus that he did not conceive Substance (apart from attributes) according to the modern view, as that which exists without the mind (excluding within the mind or relation to the mind); for in that there can be no graduation. That which is without the mind, must also be within; and that which is within must also be without; the subject and the object correlating. This implication of within and without understood, there is then room for graduation, according as the one or the other aspect may be more or less prominent. Aristotle, in point of fact, confines himself to the mental or logical work of predication, to the conditions thereof, and to the component terms whereby the mind accomplishes that act. When he speaks of the First Essence or Substance, without the Second, all that he 92can say about it positively is to call it Unum numero and indivisible:107 even thus, he is compelled to introduce unity, measure, and number, all of which belong to the two Categories of Quantity and Relation; and yet still the First Essence or Substance remains indeterminate. We only begin to determine it when we call it by the name of the Second Substance or Essence; which name connotes certain attributes, the attributes thus connoted being of the essence of the Species; that is, unless they be present, no individual would be considered as belonging to the Species, or would be called by the specific name.108 When we thus, however, introduce attributes, we find ourselves not merely in the Category of Substantia (Secunda), but also in that of Qualitas. The boundary between Substantia and Qualitas disappears; the latter being partially contained in the former. The Second Substance or Essence includes attributes or Qualities belonging to the Essence. In fact, the Second Substance or Essence, when distinguished from the First, is both here and elsewhere characterized by Aristotle, as being not Substance at all, but Quality,109 though when considered as being in implication with the First, it takes on the nature of Substance and becomes substantial or essential Quality. The Differentia belongs thus both to Substance and to Quality (quale quid), making up as complement that which is designated by the specific name.110

93We see, accordingly, that neither is the line of demarcation between the Category of Substance or Essence and the other Categories so impassable, nor the separability of it from the others so marked as some thinkers contend. Substance is represented by Aristotle as admitting of more and less, and as graduating by successive steps down to the other Categories; moreover, neither in its complete manifestation (as First Substance), nor in its incomplete manifestation (as Second Substance), can it be explained or understood without calling in the other Categories of Quantity, Quality, and Relation. It does not correspond to the definition of Substantia given by Spinoza — “quod in se est et per se concipitur.” It can no more be conceived or described without some of the other Categories, than they can be conceived or described without it. Aristotle defines it by four characteristics, two negative, and two positive. It cannot be predicated of a Subject: it cannot inhere in a Subject: it is, at bottom, the Subject of all Predicates: it is Unum numero and indivisible.111 Not one of these four determinations can be conceived or understood, unless we have in our minds the idea of other Categories and its relation to them. Substance is known only as the Subject of predicates, that is, relatively to them; as they also are known relatively to it. Without the Category of Relation, we can no more understand what is meant by a Subject than what is meant by a Predicate. The Category of Substance, as laid out by Aristotle, neither exists by itself, nor can be conceived by itself, without that of Relation and the generic notion of Predicate.112 All three lie 94together at the bottom of the analytical process, as the last findings and residuum.

Aristotle, taking his departure from an analysis of the complete sentence or of the act of predication, appears to have regarded the Subject as having a natural priority over the Predicate. The noun-substantive (which to him represents the Subject), even when pronounced alone, carries to the hearer a more complete conception than either the adjective or the verb when pronounced alone; these make themselves felt much more as elliptical and needing complementary adjuncts. But this is only true in so far as the conception, raised by the substantive named alone (ἄνευ συμπλοκῆς), includes by anticipation what would be included, if we added to it some or all of its predicates. If we could deduct from this conception the meaning of all the applicable predicates, it would seem essentially barren or incomplete, awaiting something to come; a mere point of commencement or departure,113 known only by the various lines which may be drawn from it; a substratum for various attributes to lie upon or to inhere in. That which is known only as a substratum, is known only relatively to a superstructure to come; the one is Relatum, the other Correlatum, and the mention of either involves an implied assumption of the other. There may be a logical priority, founded upon expository convenience, belonging to the substratum, because it remains numerically one and the same, while the superstructure is variable. But the priority is nothing more than logical and notional; it does not amount to an ability of prior independent existence. On the contrary, 95there is simultaneity by nature (according to Aristotle’s own definition of the phrase) between Subject, Relation, and Predicate; since they all imply each other as reciprocating correlates, while no one of them is the cause of the others.114

When Aristotle says, very truly, that if the First Substances were non-existent, none of the other Predicaments could exist, we must understand what he means by the term first. That term bears, in this treatise, a sense different from what it bears elsewhere: here it means the extreme concrete and individual; elsewhere it means the extreme abstract and universal. The First Substance or First Essence, in the Categories, is a Hoc Aliquid (τόδε τι), illustrated by the examples hic homo, hic equus. Now, as thus explained and illustrated, it includes not merely the Second Substance, but various accidental attributes besides. When we talk of This man, Sokrates, Kallias, &c., the hearer conceives not only the attributes for which he is called a man, but also various accidental attributes, ranking under one or more of the other Predicaments. The First Substance thus (as explained by Aristotle) is not conceived as a mere substratum without Second Substance and without any Accidents, but as already including both of them, though as yet indeterminately; it waits for specializing words, to determine what its Substance or Essence is, and what its accompanying Accidents are. Being an individual (Unum numero), it unites in itself both the essential attributes of its species, and the unessential attributes peculiar to itself.115 It is already understood as including attributes of both kinds; but we wait for predicates to declare (δηλοῦν — ἀποδιδόναι116) what these attributes are. The First or Complete Ens embodies in itself all the Predicaments, though as yet potential and indeterminate, until the predicating adjuncts are specified. There is no priority, in the order of existence, belonging to Substance over Relation or Quality; take away either one of the three, and the First Ens disappears. But in regard to the order of exposition, there is a natural priority, founded on convenience and facility of understanding. The Hoc Aliquid or Unum Numero, which intimates in general 96outline a certain concretion or co-existence of attributes, though we do not yet know what they are — being as it were a skeleton — comes naturally as Subject before the predicates, whose function is declaratory and specifying as to those attributes: moreover, the essential attributes, which are declared and connoted when we first bestow a specific name on the subject, come naturally before the unessential attributes, which are predicated of the subject already called by a specific name connoting other attributes.117 The essential characters are native and at home; the accidental attributes are domiciliated foreigners.118

It is thus that Aristotle has dealt with Ontology, in one of the four distinct aspects thereof, which he distinguishes from each other; that is, in the distribution of Entia according to their logical order, and the reciprocal interdependence, in predication. Ens is a multivocal word, neither strictly univocal nor altogether equivocal. It denotes (as has been stated above) not a generic aggregate, divisible into species, but an analogical aggregate, starting from one common terminus and ramifying into many derivatives, having no other community except that of relationship to the same terminus.119 The different modes of Ens are distinguished by the degree or variety of such relationship. The Ens Primum, Proprium, Completum, is (in Aristotle’s view) the concrete individual; with a defined essence or essential constituent attributes (τί ἥν εἶναι), and with unessential accessories or accidents also — all embodied and implicated in the One Hoc Aliquid. In the Categoriæ Aristotle analyses this Ens Completum (not metaphysically, into Form and Matter, as we shall find him doing elsewhere, but) logically into Subject and Predicates. In this logical analysis, the Subject which can never be a Predicate stands first; next, come the near kinsmen, Genus and Species (expressed by substantive names, as the First Substance is), which are sometimes Predicates — as applied to Substantia Prima, sometimes Subjects — in regard to the extrinsic accompaniments or accidents;120 in the third rank, come the more remote kinsmen. Predicates pure and 97simple. These are the logical factors or constituents into which the Ens Completum may be analysed, and which together make it up as a logical sum-total. But no one of these logical constituents has an absolute or independent locus standi, apart from the others. Each is relative to the others; the Subject to its Predicates, not less than the Predicates to their Subject. It is a mistake to describe the Subject as having a real standing separately and alone, and the Predicates as something afterwards tacked on to it. The Subject per se is nothing but a general potentiality or receptivity for Predicates to come; a relative general conception, in which the two, Predicate and Subject, are jointly implicated as Relatum and Correlatum.121

The logical aspect of Ontology, analysing Ens into a common Subject with its various classes of Predicates, appears to begin with Aristotle. He was, as far as we can see, original, in taking as the point of departure for his theory, the individual man, horse, or other perceivable object; in laying down this Concrete Particular with all its outfit of details, as the type of Ens proper, complete and primary; and in arranging into classes the various secondary modes of Ens, according to their different relations to the primary type and the mode in which they contributed to make up its completeness. He thus stood opposed to the Pythagoreans and Platonists, who took their departure from the Universal, as the type of full and true Entity;122 while he also 98dissented from Demokritus, who recognized no true Ens except the underlying, imperceptible, eternal atoms and vacuum. Moreover Aristotle seems to have been the first to draw up a logical analysis of Entity in its widest sense, as distinguished from that metaphysical analysis which we read in his other works; the two not being contradictory, but distinct and tending to different purposes. Both in the one and in the other, his principal controversy seems to have been with the Platonists, who disregarded both individual objects and accidental attributes; dwelling upon Universals, Genera and Species, as the only real Entia capable of being known. With the Sophists, Aristotle contends on a different ground, accusing them of neglecting altogether the essential attributes, and confining themselves to the region of accidents, in which no certainty was to be found;123 in Plato, he points out the opposite mistake, of confining himself to the essentials, and ascribing undue importance to the process of generic and specific subdivision.124 His own logical analysis takes account both of the essential and accidental, and puts them in what he thinks their proper relation. The Accidental (συμβεβηκός, concomitant, i.e. of the essence) is per se not knowable at all (he contends), nor is ever the object of study pursued in any science; it is little better than a name, designating the lowest degree of Ens, bordering on Non-Ens.125 It is a term comprehending all that he includes under his nine last Categories; yet it is not a term connoting either generic communion, or even so much as analogical relation.126 In the treatise now before us, he does not recognize either that or any other general term as common to all those nine Categories; each of the nine is here treated as a Summum Genus, having its own mode of relationship, and clinging by its own separate thread to the Subject. He acknowledges the Accidents in his classification, not as a class by themselves, but as subordinated to the Essence, and, as so many threads of distinct, variable, and irregular accompaniments,99 attaching themselves to this constant root, without uniformity or steadiness.127

In discriminating and arranging the Ten Categories, Trendelenburg supposes that Aristotle was guided, consciously or unconsciously, by grammatical considerations, or by a distinction among the parts of speech. It should be remembered that what are now familiarly known as the eight parts of speech, had not yet been distinguished or named in the time of Aristotle, nor did the distinction come into vogue before the time of the Stoic and Alexandrine grammarians, more than a century after him. Essentia or Substantia, the first Category, answers (so Trendelenburg thinks128) to the Substantive; Quantum and Quale represent the Adjective; Ad Aliquid, the comparative Adjective, of which Quantum and Quale are the positive degree; Ubi and Quando the Adverb; Jacere, Habere, Agere, Pati the Verb. Of the last four, Agere and Pati correspond to the active and passive voices of the Verb; Jacere to the neuter or intransitive Verb; and Habere to the peculiar meaning of the Greek perfect — the present result of a past action.

This general view, which Trendelenburg himself conceives as having been only guiding and not decisive or peremptory in the mind of Aristotle,129 appears to me likely and plausible, though Bonitz and others have strongly opposed it. We see from Aristotle’s own language, that the grammatical point of view had great effect upon his mind; that the form (e.g.) of a substantive implied in his view a mode of signification belonging to itself, which was to be taken into account in arranging and explaining the Categories.130 I apprehend that Aristotle was induced to distinguish and set out his Categories by analysing 100various complete sentences, which would of course include substantives, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. It is also remarkable that Aristotle should have designated his four last Categories by the indication of verbs, the two immediately preceding by adverbs, the second and third by adjectives, and the first by a substantive. There remains the important Category Ad Aliquid, which has no part of speech corresponding to it specially. Even this Category, though not represented by any part of speech, is nevertheless conceived and defined by Aristotle in a very narrow way, with close reference to the form of expression, and to the requirement of a noun immediately following, in the genitive or dative case. And thus, where there is no special part of speech, the mind of Aristotle still seems to receive its guidance from grammatical and syntactic forms.

We may illustrate the ten Categories of Aristotle by comparing them with the four Categories of the Stoics. During the century succeeding Aristotle’s death, the Stoics, Zeno and Chrysippus (principally the latter), having before them what he had done, proposed a new arrangement for the complete distribution of Subject and Predicates. Their distribution was quadruple instead of decuple. Their first Category was τί, Aliquid or Quiddam — τὸ ὑποκείμενον, the Substratum or Subject. Their second was ποιόν, Quale or Quality. Their third was πὼς ἔχον, certo Modo se habens. Their fourth was, πρός τι πὼς ἔχον, Ad Aliquid certo Modo se habens.131

We do not possess the advantage (which we have in the case of Aristotle) of knowing this quadruple scheme as stated and enforced by its authors. We know it only through the abridgment of Diogenes Laertius, together with incidental remarks and criticisms, chiefly adverse, by Plutarch, Sextus Empiricus, Plotinus, and some Aristotelian commentators. As far as we can make out upon this evidence, it appears that the first Stoic Category corresponded with the Πρώτη Οὐσία, First Essence or Substance of Aristotle. It was exclusively Subject, and could 101never become Predicate; but it was indispensable as Subject, to the three other Predicates. Its meaning was concrete and particular; for we are told that all general notions or conceptions were excluded by the Stoics from this Category,132 and were designated as Οὔτινα, Non-Individuals, or Non-Particulars. Homo was counted by them, not under the Category τί, Quid, but under the Category ποιόν, Quale; in its character of predicate determining the Subject τίς or τί. The Stoic Category Quale thus included the Aristotelian Second Essences or Substances, and also the Aristotelian differentia. Quale was a species-making Category (εἰδοποιός).133 It declared what was the Essence of the Subject τί — the essential qualities or attributes, but also the derivative manifestations thereof, coinciding with what is called the proprium in Porphyry’s Eisagoge. It therefore came next in order immediately after τί: since the Essence of the Subject must be declared, before you proceed to declare its Accidents.

The Third Stoic Category (πὼς ἔχον) comprised a portion of what Aristotle ranked under Quale, and all that he ranked under Quantum, Ubi, Quando, Agere, Pati, Jacere, Habere. The 102fourth Stoic Category coincided with the Aristotelian Ad Aliquid. The third was thus intended to cover what were understood as absolute or non-relative Accidents; the fourth included what were understood as Relative Accidents.

The order of arrangement among the four was considered as fixed and peremptory. They were not co-ordinate species under one and the same genus, but superordinate and subordinate,134 the second presupposing and attaching to the first; the third, presupposing and attaching to the first, plus the second; the fourth, presupposing and attaching to the first, plus the second and third. The first proposition to be made is, in answer to the question Quale Quid? You answer Tale Aliquid, declaring the essential attributes. Upon this, the next question is put, Quali Modo se habens? You answer by a term of the third Category, declaring one or more of the accidental attributes non-relative, Tale Aliquid, tali Modo se habens. Upon this, the fourth and last question follows, Quali Modo se habens ad alia? Answer is made by the predicate of the fourth Category, i.e. a Relative. Hic Aliquis — homo (1), niger (2), servus (3).

In comparing the ten Aristotelian with the four Stoic Categories we see that the first great difference is in the extent and comprehension of Quale, which Aristotle restricts on one side (by distinguishing from it Essentia Secunda), and enlarges on the other (by including in it many attributes accidental and foreign to the Essence). The second difference is, that the Stoics did not subdivide their third Category, but included therein all the matter of six Aristotelian Categories,135 and much of the matter of the Aristotelian Quale. Both schemes agree on two points:— 1. In taking as the point of departure the concrete, particular, individual, Substance. 2. In the narrow, restricted, inadequate conception formed of the Relative — Ad Aliquid.

Plotinus himself recognizes five Summa or Prima Genera,136 (he 103does not call them Categories) Ens, Motus, Quies, Idem, Diversum; the same as those enumerated in the Platonic Sophistes. He does not admit Quantum, Quale, or Ad Aliquid, to be Prima Genera; still less the other Aristotelian Categories. Moreover, he insists emphatically on the distinction between the intelligible and the sensible world, which distinction he censures Aristotle for neglecting. His five Genera he applies directly and principally to the intelligible world. For the sensible world he admits ultimately five Catgories; Substantia or Essentia (though he conceives this as fluctuating between Form, Matter, and the Compound of the two), Ad Aliquid, Quantum, Quale, Motus. But he doubts whether Quantum, Quale, and Motus, are not comprehended in Ad Aliquid.137 He considers, moreover, that Sensible Substance is not Substance, properly speaking, but only an imitation thereof; a congeries of non-substantial elements, qualities and matter.138 Dexippus,139 in answering the objections of Plotinus, insists much on the difference between Aristotle’s point of view in the Categoriæ, in the Physica, and in the Metaphysica. In the Categoriæ, Aristotle dwells mainly on sensible substances (such as the vulgar understand) and the modes of naming and describing them.

Galen also recognizes five Categories; but not the same five as Plotinus. He makes a new list, formed partly out of the Aristotelian ten, partly out of the Stoic four:— Οὐσία, ποσόν, ποιόν, πρός τι, πρό τι πὼς ἔχον.140

The latter portion of this Aristotelian treatise, on the Categories or Predicaments, consists of an Appendix, usually known 104under the title of ‘Post-Predicamenta;’140 wherein the following terms or notions are analysed and explained — Opposita, Prius, Simul, Motus, Habere.

Of Opposita, Aristotle reckons four modes, analogous to each other, yet not different species under the same genus:142 — 1. Relative-Opposita — Relatum and Correlatum. 2. Contraria. 3. Habitus and Privatio. 4. Affirmatio and Negatio.

These four modes of opposition have passed from the Categoriæ of Aristotle into all or most of the modern treatises on Logic. The three last of the four are usefully classed together, and illustrated by their contrasts with each other. But as to the first of the four, I cannot think that Aristotle has been happy in the place which he has assigned to it. To treat Relativa as a variety of Opposita, appears to me an inversion of the true order of classification; placing the more comprehensive term in subordination to the less comprehensive. Instead of saying that Relatives are a variety of the Opposite, we ought rather to say that Opposites are varieties of the Relative. We have here another proof of what has been remarked a few pages above; the narrow and inadequate conception which Aristotle formed of his Ad Aliquid or the Relative; restricting it to cases in which the describing phrase is grammatically elliptical.143 The three classes last-mentioned by Aristotle105 (1. Contraria, 2. Habitus and Privatio, 3. Affirmatio and Negatio) are truly Opposita; in each there is a different mode of opposition, which it is good to distinguish from the others. But the Relatum and its Correlatum, as such, are not necessarily Opposite at all; they are compared or conceived in conjunction with each other; while a name, called relative, which connotes such comparison, &c., is bestowed upon each. Opposita fall under this general description, as parts (together with other parts not Opposita) of a larger whole. They ought properly to be called Opposite-Relativa: the phrase Relative-Opposita, as applied to Relatives generally, being discontinued as incorrect.144

From Opposita Aristotle passes to Prius and Simul; with the different modes of each.145 Successive and Synchronous, are the two most general classes under which facts or events can be cast. They include between them all that is meant by Order in Time. They admit of no definition, and can be explained only by appeal to immediate consciousness in particular cases. Priority and Simultaneity, in this direct and primary sense, are among the clearest and most impressive notions of the human mind. But Aristotle recognizes four additional meanings of these same words, which he distinguishes from the primary, in the same way as he distinguishes (in the ten Categories) the different meanings of Essentia, in a gradually descending scale of analogy. The secondary Prius is that which does not reciprocate according to the order of existence with its Posterius; where the Posterius presupposes the Prius, while the Prius does not presuppose the Posterius: for example, given two, the existence of one is necessarily implied; but given one, the existence of two is not implied.146 The tertiary Prius is that which comes first in the arrangements of science or discourse: as, in geometry, point and line are prior as compared with the diagrams and 106demonstrations; in writing, letters are prior as compared with syllables; in speeches, the proem is prior as compared with the exposition. A fourth mode of Prius (which is the most remote and far-fetched) is, that the better and more honourable is prius naturâ. Still a fifth mode is, when, of two Relatives which reciprocate with each other as to existence, one is cause and the other effect: in such a case, the cause is said to be prior by nature to the effect.147 For example, if it be a fact that Caius exists, the proposition “Caius exists,” is a true proposition; and vice versâ, if the proposition “Caius exists” is a true proposition, it is a fact that Caius exists. But though from either of these you can infer the other, the truth of the proposition is the effect, and not the cause, of the reality of the fact. Hence it is correct to say that the latter is prius naturâ, and the former posterius naturâ.

This is a sort of article in a Philosophical Dictionary, tracing the various derivative senses of two very usual correlative phrases; and there is another article in the fourth book of the Metaphysica, where the derivations of the same terms are again traced out, though by roads considerably different.148 The two terms are relatives; Prius implies a Posterius, as Simul implies another Simul; and it is an useful process to discriminate clearly the various meanings assigned to each. Aristotle has done this, not indeed clearly nor consistently with himself, but with an earnest desire to elucidate what he felt to be confused and perplexing. Yet there are few terms in his philosophy which are more misleading. Though he sets out, plainly and repeatedly the primary and literal sense of Priority, (the temporal or real), as discriminated from the various secondary and metaphorical senses, nevertheless when he comes to employ the term Prius in the course of his reasonings, he often does so without specifying in which sense he intends it to be understood. And as the literal sense (temporal or real priority) is the most present and familial to every man’s mind, so the term is often construed in this sense when it properly bears only the metaphorical sense. The confusion of logical or emotional priority (priority either in logical order of conception, or in esteem and respect) with priority in the order of time, involving separability of existence, is a frequent source of misunderstanding in the Aristotelian Physics and 107Metaphysics. The order of logical antecedence and sequence, or the fact of logical coexistence, is of great importance to be understood, with a view to the proof of truth, to the disproof of error, or to the systematization of our processes of thought; but we must keep in mind that what is prior in the logical order is not for that reason prior in temporal order, or separable in real existence, or fit to be appealed to as a real Cause or Agent.149

[END OF CHAPTER III]

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