Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 1 (1853).djvu/34

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16
ARISTOTLE'S ORGANON.
[CHAP. VI.

some where, and you can distinguish, and set out, where each lies, in a superficies, and to which part of the rest, it is joined. So also the parts of a superficies, have a certain position, for it may be in like manner pointed out where each lies, and what have relation to each other, and the parts of a solid, and of a place, in like manner. 5. Parts have no relation in respect to number or time. On the contrary, in respect of number, it is impossible for any one to show that its parts have any relative position, or that they are situated any where, or which of the parts are joined to each other. Nor as regards parts of time, for not one of the parts of time endures, but that which does not endure, how can it have any position? you would rather say, that they have a certain order, inasmuch as one part of time is former, but another latter. In the same manner is it with number, because one, is reckoned before two, and two, before three, and so it may have a certain order, but you can, by no means, assume, that it has position. 6. Oratio. A speech likewise, for none of its parts endures, but it has been spoken, and it is no longer possible to bring back what is spoken, so that there can be no position of its parts, since not one endures: some things therefore consist of parts having position, but others of those which have not position. 7. The above-named are the only proper quanta—all others reducible to these.—Examples. What we have enumerated are alone properly termed quantities; all the rest being so denominated by accident, for looking to these, we call other things quantities, as whiteness is said to be much, because the superficies is great, and an action long, because of its time being long, and motion also, is termed, much. Yet each of these is not called a quantity by itself, for if a man should explain the quantity of an action, he will define it by time, describing it as yearly, or something of the sort; and if he were to explain the quantity of whiteness, he will define it by the superficies, for as the quantity of the superficies, so he would say is the quantity of the whiteness; whence the particulars we have mentioned are alone properly of themselves termed quantities, none of the rest being so of itself, but ac-

    the intellect, and confounds the distinction between order, in discrete, and position, in continued quantities. The point is touched upon also in lib. vi. of the Physics. Compare also ch. 12, on Priority, in the Categories, as to the relation in respect of number and time.