Page - 319 - in The Complete Aristotle

which), the one character is annulled and not the other, showing that they are not the same. Speaking generally, one ought to be on the look-out for any discrepancy anywhere in any sort of predicate of each term, and in the things of which they are predicated. For all that is predicated of the one should be predicated also of the other, and of whatever the one is a predicate, the other should be a predicate of it as well. Moreover, as ‘sameness’ is a term used in many senses, see whether things that are the same in one way are the same also in a different way. For there is either no necessity or even no possibility that things that are the same specifically or generically should be numerically the same, and it is with the question whether they are or are not the same in that sense that we are concerned. Moreover, see whether the one can exist without the other; for, if so, they could not be the same. < div id=“section65” class=“section” title=“2”> 2 Such is the number of the commonplace rules that relate to ‘sameness’. It is clear from what has been said that all the destructive commonplaces relating to sameness are useful also in questions of definition, as was said before:’ for if what is signified by the term and by the expression be not the same, clearly the expression rendered could not be a definition. None of the constructive commonplaces, on the other hand, helps in the matter of definition; for it is not enough to show the sameness of content between the expression and the term, in order to establish that the former is a definition, but a definition must have also all the other characters already announced. < div id=“section66” class=“section” title=“3”> 3 This then is the way, and these the arguments, whereby the attempt to demolish a definition should always be made. If, on the other hand, we desire to establish one, the first thing to observe is that few if any who engage in discussion arrive at a definition by reasoning: they always assume something 319