Note 101 — LIFE OF SERTORIUS.

If this is obscure, the fault is Plutarch's. His word for Fortune is τύχη which he has often used in the Life of Sulla. The word for Spontaneity is τὸ αὐτόματον, the Self-moved. The word for Elemental things is τὰ ὑποκειμένα. The word ὑποκειμένον is used by Aristotle to signify both the thing of which something is predicated, the Subject of grammarians, and for the Substance, which is as it were the substratum on which actions operate. Aristotle (Metaphys. vi. vii. 3) says "Essence (οὐσία) or Being is predicated, if not in many ways, in four at least; for the formal cause (τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι), and the universal, and genus appear to be the essence of everything; and the fourth of these is the Substance (τὸ ὑποκειμένον). And the Substance is that of which the rest are predicated, but it is not predicated of any other thing. And Essence seems to be especially the first Substance; and such, in a manner, matter (ὕλη) is said to be; and in another manner, form; and in a third, that which is from these. And I mean by matter (ὕλη), copper, for instance; and by form, the figure of the idea; and by that which is from them, the statue in the whole," &c. I have translated τὸ τὶ ἦν εἶναι by "formal cause," as Thomas Taylor has done, and according to the explanation of Trendelenburg, in his edition of Aristotle On the Soul, i. 1, § 2. It is not my business to explain Aristotle, but to give some clue to the meaning of Plutarch.

The word "accidentally" (κατὰ τύχην) is opposed to "forethought" (προνοία), "design," "providence." How Plutarch conceived Fortune, I do not know; nor do I know what Fortune and Chance mean in any language. But the nature of the contrast which he intends is sufficiently clear for his purpose.