Note 83 — Chapter III · CATEGORIÆ.

You may make Sokrates a predicate, in the proposition, τὸ λευκὸν ἐκεῖνο Σωκράτης ἐστίν, but Aristotle dismisses this as an irregular or perverse manner of speaking (see Analytic. Priora, i. p. 43, a. 35; Analyt. Poster. i. p. 83, a. 2-16).

Alexander calls these propositions αἱ παρὰ φύσιν προτάσεις (see Schol. ad Metaphys. Δ. p. 1017, a. 23).

Mr. James Harris observes (Philosophical Arrangements, ch. x. p. 214; also 317, 348):— “Hence too we may see why Relation stands next to Quantity; for in strictness the Predicaments which follow are but different modes of Relation, marked by some peculiar character over their own, over and above the relative character, which is common to them all.” To which I would add, that the first two Categories, Substance and Quantity, are no less relative or correlative than the eight later Categories; as indeed Harris himself thinks; see the same work, pp. 90, 473: “Matter and Attribute are essentially distinct, yet, like convex and concave, they are by nature inseparable. We have already spoken as to the inseparability of attributes; we now speak as to that of matter. Ἡμεῖς δὲ φαμὲν μὲν εἶναί τινα ὕλην τῶν σωμάτων τῶν αἰσθητῶν, ἀλλὰ ταύτην οὐ χωριστὴν ἀλλ’ ἀεὶ μετ’ ἐναντιώσεως — ὕλην τὴν ἀχώριστον μὲν, ὑποκειμένην δὲ τοῖς ἐναντίοις (Aristot. De Gen. et Corr. p. 329, a. 24). By contraries, Aristotle means here the several attributes of matter, hot, cold, &c.; from some one or other of which matter is always inseparable.”