Page - 453 - in The Complete Aristotle

to be ‘in’ another. (1) As the finger is ‘in’ the hand and generally the part ‘in’ the whole. (2) As the whole is ‘in’ the parts: for there is no whole over and above the parts. (3) As man is ‘in’ animal and generally species ‘in’ genus. (4) As the genus is ‘in’ the species and generally the part of the specific form ‘in’ the definition of the specific form. (5) As health is ‘in’ the hot and the cold and generally the form ‘in’ the matter. (6) As the affairs of Greece centre ‘in’ the king, and generally events centre ‘in’ their primary motive agent. (7) As the existence of a thing centres ‘in its good and generally ‘in’ its end, i.e. in ‘that for the sake of which’ it exists. (8) In the strictest sense of all, as a thing is ‘in’ a vessel, and generally ‘in’ place. One might raise the question whether a thing can be in itself, or whether nothing can be in itself-everything being either nowhere or in something else. The question is ambiguous; we may mean the thing qua itself or qua something else. When there are parts of a whole-the one that in which a thing is, the other the thing which is in it-the whole will be described as being in itself. For a thing is described in terms of its parts, as well as in terms of the thing as a whole, e.g. a man is said to be white because the visible surface of him is white, or to be scientific because his thinking faculty has been trained. The jar then will not be in itself and the wine will not be in itself. But the jar of wine will: for the contents and the container are both parts of the same whole. In this sense then, but not primarily, a thing can be in itself, namely, as ‘white’ is in body (for the visible surface is in body), and science is in the mind. It is from these, which are ‘parts’ (in the sense at least of being ‘in’ the man), that the man is called white, &c. But the jar and the wine in separation are not parts of a whole, though together they are. So when there are parts, a thing will be in itself, as ‘white’ is in man because it is in body, and in body because it resides in the visible surface. We cannot go further and say that it is in surface in virtue of something other than itself. (Yet it is not in itself: though these are in a way the same thing,) they differ in essence, each having 453