Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 2 (1853).djvu/145

 of those things to which the effective or the passive is added, should be discrepant with the idea, since ideas appear to those who say that there are ideas, to be impassive and immoveable, and against these such arguments are useful.

Yet further, in things predicated equivocally, (observe) whether a person has assigned one common definition of them all. For those are synonymous, of which there is one definition according to the name, wherefore the assigned definition is of no one of those (contained) under the name, since, indeed, the equivocal similarly suits every thing. The definition given by Dionysius, of life, has this fault, if it be the motion innate and consequent of a nourished genus, for this is not more inherent in animals, than in plants, but life does not seem predicated as to one species, but one kind of life to be inherent in animals, and another in plants. Therefore it is possible on purpose to assign a definition thus, as if all life were synonymous and predicated of one species, yet nothing prevents a man while he sees the equivocation, and wishes to assign the definition of the other, from being ignorant, that he does not assign a proper definition, but one common to both: notwithstanding, he will no less err if he has framed it in either way. Since, indeed, some equivocations escape us, the interrogator ought to use them as synonyms, (as the definition of the one will not be adapted to the other, so that it will appear in a way not to have been defined, as the synonymous ought to suit every thing,) on the other hand, the respondent must distinguish by division. Still since some respondents say, that the synonymous is equivocal, when the assigned definition does not suit every thing, but that the equivocal is synonymous if it suit both; it must be previously acknowledged, or previously inferred of these, that they are equivocal or synonymous, whichever they may be, since they