Book 6
8
It is by accident that a builder restores to health, because it is not a builder but a doctor who naturally does this; but the builder happened accidentally to be a doctor. A confectioner, aiming at producing enjoyment, may produce something health-giving; but not in virtue of his confectioner’s art. Hence, we say, it was accidental; and he produces it in a sense, but not in an unqualified sense.
9
For there are potencies which produce other things, but there is no art or determinate potency of accidents, since the cause of things which exist or come to be by accident is also accidental.
10
Hence, since not everything is or comes to be of necessity and always, but most things happen usually, the accidental must exist. E.g., the white man is neither always nor usually cultured; but since this sometimes happens, it must be regarded as accidental. Otherwise, everything must be regarded as of necessity.
11
Therefore the cause of the accidental is the matter, which admits of variation from the usual.
