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. For there is nothing either great or small, many or few, or, in
general, relative to something else, which without having a nature
of its own is many or few, great or small, or relative to something
else. A sign that the relative is least of all a substance and a
real thing is the fact that it alone has no proper generation or
destruction or movement, as in respect of quantity there is increase
and diminution, in respect of quality alteration, in respect of
place locomotion, in respect of substance simple generation and
destruction. In respect of relation there is no proper change; for,
without changing, a thing will be now greater and now less or equal,
if that with which it is compared has changed in quantity. And (c) the
matter of each thing, and therefore of substance, must be that which
is potentially of the nature in question; but the relative is
neither potentially nor actually substance. It is strange, then, or
rather impossible, to make not-substance an element in, and prior
to, substance; for all the categories are posterior to substance.
Again, (d) elements are not predicated of the things of which they are
elements, but many and few are predicated both apart and together of
number, and long and short of the line, and both broad and narrow
apply to the plane. If there is a plurality, then, of which the one
term, viz. few, is always predicated, e.g. 2 (which cannot be many,
for if it were many, 1 would be few), there must be also one which
is absolutely many, e
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