Kitap 14
16
There is nothing great or small, many or few, or in general relative, which is many or few, great or small, or relative to something else without having a distinct nature of its own. That the relative is in the lowest degree a substance and a real thing is shown by the fact that of it aloneCf. Aristot. Met. 11.12.1. There Aristotle refers to seven categories, but here he omits activity and passivity as being virtually identical with motion. there is neither generation nor destruction nor change in the sense that in respect of quantity there is increase and decrease, in respect of quality, alteration, in respect of place, locomotion, and in respect of substance, absolute generation and destruction.
17
There is no real change in respect of the relative; for without any change in itself, one term will be now greater, now smaller or equal, as the other term undergoes quantitative change. Moreover, the matter of every thing, and therefore of substance, must be that which is potentially of that nature; but the relative is neither potentially substance nor actually.
18
It is absurd, then, or rather impossible, to represent non-substance as an element of substance and prior to it; for all the other categories are posterior to substance. And further, the elements are not predicated of those things of which they are elements; yet many and few are predicated, both separately and together, of number; and long and short are predicated of the line, and the Plane is both broad and narrow.
