Authors/Aristotle/metaphysics/l9/c4

Chapter 4

Latin	English
Si autem est quod dictum est possibile in quantum sequitur, palam quia non contingit verum esse aliquid dicere quia possibile hoc, non erit autem, ut et impossibilia esse sic diffu↵giant. Dico autem puta si quis dicat possibile dyametrum commensurari non tamen commensurabitur, non cogitans impossibile esse, quia nihil prohibet possibile aliquod ens esse aut fieri, non esse vero aut non futurum esse. Sed illud necesse ex positis sit, et supponamus esse aut fieri quod non est qui↵dem possibile autem *, quia nihil erit impossibile. Non enim est idem * falsum et impossibile; nam te stare nunc falsum quidem est et non impossibile.	Chapter 4. If what we have described is identical with the capable or convertible with it, evidently it cannot be true to say this is capable of being but will not be , which would imply that the things incapable of being would on this showing vanish. Suppose, for instance, that a man-one who did not take account of that which is incapable of being-were to say that the diagonal of the square is capable of being measured but will not be measured, because a thing may well be capable of being or coming to be, and yet not be or be about to be. But from the premisses this necessarily follows, that if we actually supposed that which is not, but is capable of being, to be or to have come to be, there will be nothing impossible in this; but the result will be impossible, for the measuring of the diagonal is impossible. For the false and the impossible are not the same; that you are standing now is false, but that you should be standing is not impossible.
Simul autem palam quia, si a ente necesse b esse, et possibili ↵ ente esse a, et b necesse * esse possibile. Si enim non necesse * possibile esse, nihil prohibet non esse possibile esse. Sit autem a possibile. Ergo quando a possibile erit esse, si * ponatur a, nihil impossibile esse accidit; b autem necesse esse. ↵ ƿ sed erat impossibile. Sit itaque impossibile. Et si impossibile necesse esse a, necesse et b esse. Sed erat ergo primum impossibile * et secundum. Si igitur sit a possibile, et b erit possibile, siquidem sic se habebant, ergo a ente necesse * b esse. Si itaque ↵ sic se habentibus a b non est possibile b ita, nec a b habebunt ut positum est. Et si a possibili ente necesse b possibile esse, si est a, necesse esse b. Nam possibile esse ex necessitate b esse, si a possibile, hoc significat: si sit a et quando et ut ↵ erat possibile esse, et illud tunc et ita esse * necesse.	At the same time it is clear that if, when A is real, B must be real, then, when A is possible, B also must be possible. For if B need not be possible, there is nothing to prevent its not being possible. Now let A be supposed possible. Then, when A was possible, we agreed that nothing impossible followed if A were supposed to be real; and then B must of course be real. But we supposed B to be impossible. Let it be impossible then. If, then, B is impossible, A also must be so. But the first was supposed impossible; therefore the second also is impossible. If, then, A is possible, B also will be possible, if they were so related that if A,is real, B must be real. If, then, A and B being thus related, B is not possible on this condition, and B will not be related as was supposed. And if when A is possible, B must be possible, then if A is real, B also must be real. For to say that B must be possible, if A is possible, means this, that if A is real both at the time when and in the way in which it was supposed capable of being real, B also must then and in that way be real.