Authors/Aristotle/metaphysics/l5/c28

Chapter 28 Genus

Latin	English
* Genus dicitur hoc quidem si sit generatio continua speciem eandem habentium, ut dicitur ‘donec utique homi↵num genus sit, quia donec est generatio continua ipsorum. Illud vero a quo sunt primo movente ad esse; sic enim dicuntur ellines genere et iones, quia hii ab elline et illi a ione primo generante. Et magis qui a generante quam qui a materia; ↵ dicuntur enim et a femina genere, ut a pirra, amplius autem ut superficies figurarum genus superficialium et solidum soli↵darum; figurarum enim unaqueque haec quidem superficies talis haec autem solidum tale; hoc autem est quod subicitur differentiis. Amplius ut in rationibus quod primum inest, quod ƿ ↵ dicitur in eo quod quid est, hoc genus, cuius differentie dicuntur qualitates. Genus igitur totiens dicitur: aliud quidem secundum generationem continuam eiusdem speciei, aliud quidem secundum primum movens eiusdem speciei, aliud ut materia; cuius enim differentia et qualitas est, hoc est subiectum, quod dicimus materiam.	Chapter 28. The term race or genus is used (1) if generation of things which have the same form is continuous, e.g. while the race of men lasts means "while the generation of them goes on continuously".(2) It is used with reference to that which first brought things into existence; for it is thus that some are called Hellenes by race and others Ionians, because the former proceed from Hellen and the latter from Ion as their first begetter. And the word is used in reference to the begetter more than to the matter, though people also get a race-name from the female, e.g. the descendants of Pyrrha .(3) There is genus in the sense in which [24b] plane is the genus of plane figures and solid of solids; for each of the figures is in the one case a plane of such and such a kind, and in the other a solid of such and such a kind; and this is what underlies the differentiae. Again (4) in definitions the first constituent element, which is included in the what , is the genus, whose differentiae the qualities are said to be Genus then is used in all these ways, (1) in reference to continuous generation of the same kind, (2) in reference to the first mover which is of the same kind as the things it moves, (3) as matter; for that to which the differentia or quality belongs is the substratum, which we call matter.
↵ Diversa vero * genere dicuntur quorum diversum primum * subiectum et non resolvitur alterum in alterum nec ambo in idem, ut species et materia diversum genere, et quaecumque secundum diversam figuram cathegorie entis dicuntur (alia namque quid est significant entium, alia quale quid, alia ut ↵ divisum est prius); nec enim haec resoluuntur neque in invicem neque in unum aliquod.	Those things are said to be other in genus whose proximate substratum is different, and which are not analysed the one into the other nor both into the same thing (e.g. form and matter are different in genus); and things which belong to different categories of being (for some of the things that are said to be signify essence, others a quality, others the other categories we have before distinguished); these also are not analysed either into one another or into some one thing.