Page:Metaphysics by Aristotle Ross 1908 (deannotated).djvu/134

 wise); and further that he who is willingly bad is better. This is a false result of induction; for a man who limps willingly is better than one who does so unwillingly; by 'limping' Plato means 'mimicking a limp', for if the man were actually lame willingly, he would perhaps be worse in this case as in the corresponding case of moral character.

Chapter 30

'Accident' means that which attaches to something and can be truly asserted, but neither of necessity nor usually, e.g. if one in digging a hole for a plant found treasure. This — the finding of treasure — happens by accident to the man who digs the hole; for neither does the one come of necessity from the other or after the other, nor, if a man plants, does he usually find treasure. And a musical man might be white; but since this does not happen of necessity nor usually, we call it an accident. Therefore since there are attributes and they attach to a subject, and some of them attach in a particular place and at a particular time, whatever attaches to a subject, but not because it is this subject, at this time or in this place, will be an accident. Therefore there is no definite cause for an accident, but a chance cause, i.e. an indefinite one. Going to Aegina was an accident, if the man went not in order to get there, but because he was carried out of his way by a storm or captured by pirates. The accident has happened or exists, — not in virtue of itself, however, but of something else; for the storm was the cause of his coming to a place for which he was not sailing, and this was Aegina.

'Accident' has also another meaning, i.e. what attaches to each thing in virtue of itself but is not in its essence, as having its angles equal to two right angles attaches to the triangle. And accidents of this sort may be eternal, but no accident of the other sort is. This is explained elsewhere.