Aristotle ON GENERATION AND CORRUPTION Complete

Translated by H. Joachim.

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It is a coming-to-be of one substance and a passing-away of the other-especially if the change proceeds from an imperceptible something to something perceptible (either to touch or to all the senses), as when water comes-to-be out of, or passes-away into, air: for air is pretty well imperceptible. If, however, in such cases, any property (being one of a pair of contraries) persists, in the thing that has come-to-be, the same as it was in the thing which has passedaway-if, e.g. when water comes-to-be out of air, both are transparent or cold-the second thing, into which the first changes, must not be a property of this persistent identical something. Otherwise the change will be 'alteration.' Suppose, e.g. that the musical man passed-away and an unmusical man came-tobe, and that the man persists as something identical. Now, if 'musicalness and unmusicalness' had not been a property essentially inhering in man, these changes would have been a coming-to-be of unmusicalness and a passing-away of musicalness: but in fact 'musicalness and unmusicalness' are a property of the persistent identity, viz. man. (Hence, as regards man, these changes are 'modifications'; though, as regards musical man and unmusical man, they are a passing-away and a coming-to-be.) Consequently such changes are 'alteration.' When the change from contrary to contrary is in quantity, it is 'growth and diminution'; when it is in place, it is 'motion'; when it is in property, i.e. in quality, it is 'alteration': but, when nothing persists, of which the resultant is a property (or an 'accident' in any sense of the term), it is 'coming-to-be', and the converse change is 'passing-away'.

'Matter', in the most proper sense of the term, is to be identified with the substratum which is receptive of coming-to-be and passingaway: but the substratum of the remaining kinds of change is also, in a certain sense, 'matter', because all these substrata are receptive of 'contrarieties' of some kind. So much, then, as an answer to the questions (i) whether coming-to-be 'is' or 'is not'-i.e. what are the precise conditions of its occurrence and (ii) what 'alteration' is: but we have still to treat of growth.

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