Page - 385 - in The Complete Aristotle

he happens to be both yours and a child; but he is not ‘your child’. There is also the proof that ‘something “of evils” is good’; for wisdom is a ‘knowledge “of evils”’. But the expression that this is ‘of so and-so’ (=’so- and-so’s’) has not a number of meanings: it means that it is ‘so-and-so’s property’. We may suppose of course, on the other hand, that it has a number of meanings-for we also say that man is ‘of the animals’, though not their property; and also that any term related to ‘evils’ in a way expressed by a genitive case is on that account a so-and-so ‘of evils’, though it is not one of the evils-but in that case the apparently different meanings seem to depend on whether the term is used relatively or absolutely. ‘Yet it is conceivably possible to find a real ambiguity in the phrase “Something of evils is good”.’ Perhaps, but not with regard to the phrase in question. It would occur more nearly, suppose that ‘A servant is good of the wicked’; though perhaps it is not quite found even there: for a thing may be ‘good’ and be ‘X’s’ without being at the same time ‘X’s good’. Nor is the saying that ‘Man is of the animals’ a phrase with a number of meanings: for a phrase does not become possessed of a number of meanings merely suppose we express it elliptically: for we express ‘Give me the Iliad’ by quoting half a line of it, e.g. ‘Give me “Sing, goddess, of the wrath… ”’ < div id=“section25” class=“section” title=“25”> 25 Those arguments which depend upon an expression that is valid of a particular thing, or in a particular respect, or place, or manner, or relation, and not valid absolutely, should be solved by considering the conclusion in relation to its contradictory, to see if any of these things can possibly have happened to it. For it is impossible for contraries and opposites and an affirmative and a negative to belong to the same thing absolutely; there is, however, nothing to prevent each from belonging in a particular respect or relation or manner, or to prevent one of them from belonging in a particular respect and the other absolutely. So that if this one belongs absolutely and that one in a particular respect, there is as yet no refutation. This is a feature one has to find in the conclusion by examining it in comparison with its contradictory. All arguments of the following kind have this feature: ‘Is it possible for what is-not to be? “No.” But, you see, it is something, despite its not being.’ Likewise also, Being will not be; for it will not he some particular form of being. Is it possible for the same man at the same time to be a keeper and a 385