Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 1 (1853).djvu/310

 that. For when I say that that white thing is wood, then I say that what happens to be white is wood, but what is white is not, as it were, a subject to wood, since neither being white, nor what is a certain white thing, became wood, so that it is not (wood) except from accident. But when I say that the wood is white, I do not say that something else is white, but it happens to that to be wood, (as when I say that a musician is white, for then I mean that the man is white, to whom it happens to be a musician,) but wood is the subject which became (white), not being any thing else than what is wood, or a certain piece of wood. If indeed it is necessary to assign names, let speaking in this way be to predicate, but in that way be either by no means to predicate, or to predicate indeed, not simply, but according to accident. That which is predicated is as white, but that of which it is predicated as wood; now let it be supposed that the predicate is always spoken of what it is predicated of simply, and not according to accident, for thus demonstrations demonstrate. Therefore when one thing is predicated of one, it will be predicated either in respect of what a thing is, or that it is a quality, or a quantity, or a relative, or an agent, or a patient, or that it is some where, or at some time.

Moreover, those which signify substance, signify that the thing of which they are predicated, is that which it is, or something belonging to it, but whatever do not signify substance, but are predicated of another subject, which is neither the thing itself, nor something belonging to it, are accidents, as white is predicated of man, since man is neither white, nor any thing which belongs to white, but is perhaps animal, for man is that which is a certain animal. Such as do not signify substance it is necessary should be predicated of a certain subject, and not be something white, which is white, not being any thing else. For, farewell to ideas, for they are mere prattlings, and if they exist, are nothing to the subject, since demonstrations are not about such things.