Kitap 8
3
Why are not these Ideas man, and why should not man exist by participation, not in any man, but in two Ideas, those of animal and two-footed? And in general man will be not one, but two things—animal and two-footed. Evidently if we proceed in this way, as it is usual to define and explain, it will be impossible to answer and solve the difficulty.
4
But if, as we maintain, man is part matter and part form—the matter being potentially, and the form actually man—, the point which we are investigating will no longer seem to be a difficulty. For this difficulty is just the same as we should have if the definition of XLiterally cloak; cf. Aristot. Met. 7.4.7 n. were round bronze; for this name would give a clue to the formula, so that the question becomes what is the cause of the unification of round and bronze?
5
The difficulty is no longer apparent, because the one is matter and the other form. What then is it (apart from the active cause) which causes that which exists potentially to exist actually in things which admit of generation? There is no other cause of the potential sphere’s being an actual sphere; this was the essence of each.i.e., it was the essence of the potential sphere to become the actual sphere, and of the actual sphere to be generated from the potential sphere.
