Kitap 5
11
These are the senses of potent which do not correspond to potency. Those which do correspond to it all refer to the first meaning, i.e. a source of change which exists in something other than that in which the change takes place, or in the same thing qua other.
12
Other things are said to be potentsc. in a passive sense, which the English word potent cannot bear. because something else has such a potency over them; others because it does not possess it; others because it possesses it in a particular way. The term impotent is similarly used. Thus the authoritative definition of potency in the primary sense will be a principle producing change, which is in something other than that in which the change takes place, or in the same thing qua other.
1
Quantity means that which is divisible into constituent parts, eachi.e., if there are only two. or every one of which is by nature some one individual thing. Thus plurality, if it is numerically calculable, is a kind of quantity; and so is magnitude, if it is measurable. Plurality means that which is potentially divisible into non-continuous parts; and magnitude that which is potentially divisible into continuous parts. Of kinds of magnitude, that which is continuous in one direction is length; in two directions, breadth; in three, depth.
