Few Versus Many

Contraries are other in form.

The perishable and the imperishable are contraries

This means that the perishable and the imperishable must be different in kind.

Every imperishable thing does not need to be different from every perishable thing in form just as not every pale thing is different in form from every dark thing.

This is because the same thing can be both. Even at the same time, if it is a universal (e.g. man can be both pale and dark), and if it is an individual it can still be both; for the same man can be, though not at the same time, pale and dark. Yet pale is contrary to dark.

Some contraries belong to certain things by accident.

Other contraries cannot belong to certain things by accident.

Among these are ‘perishable’ and ‘imperishable’.

This is because nothing is by accident perishable.

For what is accidental is capable of not being present, but perishableness is one of the attributes that belong of necessity to the things to which they belong; or else one and the same thing may be perishable and imperishable, if perishableness is capable of not belonging to it.

Perishableness then must either be the essence or be present in the essence of each perishable thing.

The same account holds good for imperishableness also; for both are attributes which are present of necessity.

The characteristics, then, in respect of which and in direct consequence of which one thing is perishable and another imperishable, are opposite, so that the things must be different in kind.

Thus, there cannot be Forms such as some maintain, for then one man would be perishable and another imperishable.

Yet the Forms are said to be the same in form with the individuals and not merely to have the same name; but things which differ in kind are farther apart than those which differ in form.