Authors/Aristotle/metaphysics/l5/c30

Chapter 30 Accident

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English

Accidens dicitur quod inest alicui et verum est dicere, ↵ non tamen neque ex necessitate nec secundum magis, puta iam aliquis fodiens plante fossam thesaurum invenit. Hoc igitur accidens fodienti fossam, invenire thesaurum; nec enim ex necessitate hoc ex hoc aut post hoc, nec ut secundum magis si quis plantat inveniet thesaurum. Et musicus utique quis ↵ erit albus; sed quoniam nec ex necessitate nec ut secundum magis hoc fit, accidens ipsum dicimus. Quare quoniam est existens aliquid et alicui, et horum quaedam et alicubi et quandoque, quodcumque extiterit quidem, sed non quia hoc * aut nunc aut hic, accidens erit. Nec est aliqua causa determinata accidentis sed contingens; hoc autem * indeterminatum. ↵ ƿ Accidit enim alicui eginam venire, * si non propter hoc advenit ut illuc veniat, sed ab hyeme expulsus aut a latronibus captus. Evenit quidem et est accidens, at non in quantum ipsum sed in quantum alterum; hyemps enim est causa veniendi non ↵ quo navigabat, hoc autem erat egina. Dicitur et aliter accidens, ut quaecumque existunt unicuique secundum se non in substantia entia, velut * triangulo duos rectos habere. Et haec quidem contingit sempiterna esse, illorum vero nullum. Huius autem ratio * in aliis.

Chapter 30. Accident means (1) that which attaches to something and can be truly asserted, but neither of necessity nor usually, e.g. if some one in digging a hole for a plant has found treasure. This – the finding of treasure – is for the man who dug the hole an accident; 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 pale; but since this does not happen of necessity nor usually, we call it an accident. Therefore since there are attributes and they attach to subjects, and some of them attach to these only in a particular place and at a particular time, whatever attaches to a subject, but not because it was this subject, or the time this time, or the place this place, will be an accident. Therefore, too, there is no definite cause for an accident, but a chance cause, i.e. an indefinite one. Going to Aegina was an accident for a man, if he 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 the subject's nature, 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 (2) another meaning, i.e. all that 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.