about them;[1] while the ideal theory presents difficulties in many ways, the most paradoxical thing of all is the statement that there are certain things besides those in the material universe, and that these are the same as sensible things except that they are eternal while the latter are perishable. For they say there is a man-in-himself and a horse-in-itself and health-in-itself, with no further qualification,—a procedure like that of the people who said there are gods, but in human form. For they were positing nothing but eternal men, nor are the Platonists making the Forms anything other than eternal sensible things.—Further, if we are to posit besides the Forms and the sensibles the intermediates between them, we shall have many difficulties. For clearly on the same principle there will be lines besides the lines-in-themselves and the sensible lines, and so with each of the other classes of things; so that since astronomy is one of these mathematical sciences there will also be a heaven besides the sensible heaven, and a sun and a moon (and so with the other heavenly bodies) besides the sensible. Yet how are we to believe these things? It is not reasonable even to suppose these bodies immovable, but to suppose their moving is quite impossible. And similarly with the things of which optics and mathematical harmonics treat. For these also cannot exist apart from the sensible things, for the same reasons. For if there are sensible things and sensations intermediate between Form and individual, evidently there will also be animals intermediate between animals-in-themselves and the perishable animals.—We might as also raise the question, with reference to which kind of existing things we must look for these additional sciences. If geometry is to differ from mensuration only in this, that the latter of these deals with things that we perceive, and the former with things that are not perceptible, evidently there will be a science other than medicine, intermediate between medical-science-in-itself and this individual medical science, and so with each of the other sciences. Yet how is this possible? There would have to be also healthy things besides the perceptible healthy things and the healthy-in-itself. And at the same
- ↑ Cf. a. 6 and 9.
