also belonging to the name: there are then ten most generic genera. 16. Summa genera are ten: infimæ species a limited number: individuals infinite.On the other hand, the most specific they place in a certain number, yet not in an infinite one, but individuals which are after the most specific are infinite; wherefore, when we have come down to the most specific from the most generic, Plato exhorts us to rest,[1]*Plato, Phileb. Cf. An. Pr. i. 21; Post. ii. 5; Cat. 5. but to descend through those things which are in the middle, dividing by specific differences; he tells us however to leave infinites alone, as there cannot be science of these. 17.In descending from summa genera, we pass through media genera, dividing by specific differences; in ascent, on the contrary, we collect. Hill's Log. 46, et seq.In descending then, to the most specific, it is necessary to proceed by division through multitude, but in ascending to the most generic, we must collect multitude into one, for species is collective of the many into one nature, and genus yet more so; but particulars and singulars, on the contrary, always divide the one into multitude, for by the participation of species, many men become one man; but in particulars and singulars, the one, and what is common, becomes many; for the singular is always divisive, but what is common is collective and reductive to one.[2]
18. Summum genus predicated of subaltern genera, etc.; infima species predicated of individuals. Cf. ch. 15.}Genus then, and species, being each of them explained as to what it is, since also genus is one, but species many, (for there is always a division of genus into many species,) genus indeed is always predicated of species, and all superior of inferior, but species is neither predicated of its proximate genus, nor of those superior, since it does not reciprocate. For it is necessary that either equals should be predicated of equals, as neighing of a horse, or that the greater should be predicated of the less, as animal of man, but the less no longer of the greater, for you can no longer say that animal is man, as you can say that man is animal. Of those things however whereof species is predicated, that
- ↑ See notes to pp. 6 and 8, Categor. An infima species implies a notion so complex as to be incapable of further accessions, the Realist maintains it to be the whole essence of the individuals of which it is predicated. Cf. Boethius; also Wallis, lib. i. 13, et seq.; Whately, b. ii. ch. 5, sect. 3 and 5.
- ↑ Cf. Mansel, pp. 18 and 21, note; Whately, p. 52, 138; Outline of Laws of Thought, p. 44; Stewart, Philo. of Human Mind, part i. ch. 4.
