Note 22 — Chapter III · CATEGORIÆ.

Arist. Categ. p. 1, a. 26; b. 7: Ἁπλῶς δὲ τὰ ἄτομα καὶ ἓν ἀριθμῷ κατ’ οὐδενὸς ὑποκειμένου λέγεται, ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ δὲ ἕνια οὐδὲν κωλύει εἶναι· ἡ γάρ τις γραμματικὴ τῶν ἐν ὑποκειμένῳ ἐστίν. Aristotle here recognizes an attribute as “individual and as numerically one;” and various other logicians have followed him. But is it correct to say, that an attribute, when it cannot be farther divided specifically, and is thus the lowest in its own predicamental series, is Unum Numero? The attribute may belong to an indefinite number of different objects; and can we count it as One, in the same sense in which we count each of these objects as One? I doubt whether Unum Numero be applicable to attributes. Aristotle declares that the δευτέρα οὐσία is not Unum Numero like the πρώτη οὐσία — οὐ γὰρ ἐν ἐστι τὸ ὑποκείμενον ὥσπερ ἡ πρώτη οὐσία, ἀλλὰ κατὰ πολλῶν ὁ ἄνθρωπος λέγεται καὶ τὸ ζῷον (Categ. p. 3, b. 16). Upon the same principle, I think, he ought to declare that the attribute is not Unum Numero; for though it is not (in his language) predicable of many Subjects, yet it is in many Subjects. It cannot correctly be called Unum Numero, according to the explanation which he gives of that phrase in two passages of the Metaphysica, B. p. 999, b. 33; Δ. p. 1016, b. 32: ἀριθμῷ μὲν ὧν ἡ ὕλη μία, &c.