Kitap 7
2
It might be supposed very reasonably that the parts of living things and the corresponding parts of their vital principle are both, i.e. exist both actually and potentially, because they contain principles of motion derived from something in their joints; and hence some animalse.g. wasps, bees, tortoises (P. Nat. 467a 18, 468a 25). live even when they are divided. Nevertheless it is only potentially that all of them will exist when they are one and continuous by nature and not by force or concretion; for this sort of thing is malformation.i.e., it is only when they do not properly constitute a unity that parts can be said to exist actually.
3
And since unity has the same variety of senses as being, and the substance of Unity is one, and things whose substance is numerically one are numerically one, evidently neither Unity nor Being can be the substance of things, just as neither being an element or principle can be the substance; but we ask what the principle is so that we may refer to something more intelligible.i.e., a thing is a principle in relation to something else which it explains; therefore a principle is less substantial than unity or being, which belong to a thing in itself.
