We do not describe any chance quantity as “mutilated”; it must have parts, and must be a whole. The number 2 is not mutilated if one of its 1’s is taken away—because the part lost by mutilation is never equal to the remainder—nor in general is any number mutilated; because the essence must persist. If a cup is mutilated, it must still be a cup; but the number is no longer the same. Moreover, not even all things which have dissimilar parts are mutilated; for a number has in a sense dissimilar as well as similar parts—e.g. 2, 3. But in general of things whose position makes no difference, e.g. water or fire, none is mutilated;— to be mutilated, things must be such as have their position according to their essence. Further, they must be continuous; for a musical scale is composed of dissimilar parts, and has position; but it does not become mutilated. Moreover, even things which are wholes are not mutilated by the removal of any of their parts; the parts removed must be neither proper to their essence nor in any chance location. E.g., a cup is not mutilated if a hole is made in it, but only if the handle or some projection is broken; and a man is not mutilated if he loses flesh or his spleen, but if he loses some extremity; and not every extremity, but only such as cannot grow again when completely removed. Hence bald people are not mutilated.

The term “genus” 〈or “race”〉 is used: (a) When there is a continuous generation of things of the same type; e.g., “as long as the human race exists” means “as long as the generation of human beings is continuous.” (b) Of anything from which things derive their being as the prime mover of them into being. Thus some are called Hellenes by race, and others Ionians, because some have Hellen and others Ion as their first ancestor. (Races are called after the male ancestor rather than after the material.¹ Some derive their race from the female as well; e.g. “the descendants of Pyrrha².” ) 1024b(c) In the sense that the plane is the “genus” of plane figures, and the solid of solids (for each one of the figures is either a particular plane or a particular solid); i.e., that which underlies the differentiae. (d) In the sense that in formulae the first component, which is stated as part of the essence, is the genus, and the qualities are said to be its differentiae. The term “genus,” then, is used in all these senses—(a) in respect of continuous generation of the same type; (b) in respect of the first mover of the same type as the things which it moves; (c) in the sense of material. For that to which the differentia or quality belongs is the substrate, which we call material. Things are called “generically different” whose immediate substrates are different and cannot be resolved one into the other or both into the same thing. E.g., form and matter are generically different, and all things which belong to different categories of being; for some of the things of which being is predicated denote the essence, others a quality, and others the various other things which have already been distinguished. For these also cannot be resolved either into each other or into any one thing.

“False” means: (i) false as a thing ; (a) because it is not or cannot be substantiated; such are the statements that the diagonal of a square is commensurable, or that you are sitting. Of these one is false always, and the other sometimes; it is in these senses that these things are not facts. (b) Such things as really exist, but whose nature it is to seem either such as they are not, or like things which are unreal; e.g. chiaroscuro and dreams. For these are really something, but not that of which they create the impression. Things, then, are called false in these senses: either because they themselves are unreal, or because the impression derived from them is that of something unreal. (2.) A false statement is the statement of what is not, in so far as the statement is false. Hence every definition is untrue of anything other than that of which it is true; e.g., the definition of a circle is untrue of a triangle. Now in one sense there is only one definition of each thing, namely that of its essence; but in another sense there are many definitions,³ since the thing itself, and the thing itself qualified (e.g. “Socrates” and “cultured Socrates”) are in a sense the same. But the false definition is not strictly a definition of anything. Hence it was foolish of Antisthenes⁴ to insist that nothing can be described except by its proper definition: one predicate for one subject; from which it followed that contradiction is impossible, and falsehood⁵ nearly so. But it is possible to describe everything not only by its own definition but by that of something else; quite falsely, and yet also in a sense truly—e.g., 8 may be described as “double” by the definition of 2. 1025aSuch are the meanings of “false” in these cases. (3.) A false man is one who readily and deliberately makes such statements, for the sake of doing so and for no other reason; and one who induces such statements in others—just as we call things false which induce a false impression. Hence the proof in the Hippias⁶ that the same man is false and true is misleading; for it assumes (a) that the false man is he who is able to deceive, i.e. the man who knows and is intelligent; (b) that the man who is willingly bad is better. This false assumption is due to the induction; for when he says that the man who limps willingly is better than he who does so unwillingly, he means by limping pretending to limp. For if he is willingly lame, he is presumably worse in this case just as he is in the case of moral character.

“Accident” 〈or “attribute”〉 means that which applies to something and is truly stated, but neither necessarily nor usually; as if, for example, while digging a hole for a plant one found a treasure. Then the finding of treasure is an accident to the man who is digging the hole; for the one thing is not a necessary consequence or sequel of the other, nor does one usually find treasure while planting. And a cultured man might be white; but since this does not happen necessarily or usually, we call it an accident. Thus since there are attributes and subjects, and some attributes apply to their subjects only at a certain place and time, any attribute which applies to a subject, but not because it was a particular subject or time or place, will be an accident. Nor is there any definite cause for an accident, but only a chance, i.e. indefinite, cause. It was by accident that X went to Aegina if he arrived there, not because he intended to go there but because he was carried out of his course by a storm, or captured by pirates. The accident has happened or exists, but in virtue not of itself but of something else; for it was the storm which was the cause of his coming to a place for which he was not sailing—i.e. Aegina. “Accident” has also another sense,⁷ namely, whatever belongs to each thing in virtue of itself, but is not in its essence; e.g. as having the sum of its angles equal to two right angles belongs to the triangle. Accidents of this kind may be eternal, but none of the former kind can be. There is an account of this elsewhere.⁸