[28] Ibid. p. 1, b. 25, seq.
Ens in its complete state — concrete, individual, determinate — includes an embodiment of all these ten Categories; the First Ens being the Subject of which the rest are predicates. Whatever question be asked respecting any individual Subject, the information given in the answer must fall, according to Aristotle, under one or more of these ten general heads; while the full outfit of the individual will comprise some predicate under each of them. Moreover, each of the ten is a Generalissimum; having more or fewer species contained under it, but not being itself contained under any larger genus (Ens not being a genus). So that Aristotle does not attempt to define or describe any one of the ten; his only way of explaining is by citing two or three illustrative examples of each. Some of the ten are even of wider extent than Summa Genera; thus, Quality cannot be considered as a true genus, comprehending generically all the cases falling under it. It is a Summum Analogon, reaching beyond the comprehension of a genus; an analogous or multivocal name, applied to many cases vaguely and remotely akin to each other.[29] And again the same particular predicate may be ranked both under Quality and under Relation; it need not belong exclusively to either one of them.[30] Moreover, Good, like Ens or Unum, is common to all the Categories, but is differently represented in each.[31]
[29] Aristot. Categor. p. 8, b. 26. ἔστι δὲ ἡ ποιότης τῶν πλεοναχῶς λεγομένων, &c.
See the Scholia, p. 68, b. 69 a., Brandis. Ammonius gives the true explanation of this phrase, τῶν πλεοναχῶς λεγομένων (p. 69, b. 7). Alexander and Simplikius try to make out that it implies here a συνώνομον.
[30] Aristot. Categor. p. 11, a. 37. Compare the Scholion of Dexippus, p. 48, a. 28-37.
[31] Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. i. p. 1096, a. 25; Ethic. Eudem. i. p. 1217, b. 25.
Aristotle comments at considerable length upon the four first of the ten Categories. 1. Essence or Substance. 2. Quantity. 3. Quality. 4. Relation. As to the six last, he says little upon any of them; upon some, nothing at all.
His decuple partition of Entia or Enunciata is founded entirely upon a logical principle. He looks at them in their relation to Propositions; and his ten classes discriminate the relation which they bear to each other as parts or constituent elements of a proposition. Aristotle takes his departure, not from any results of scientific research, but from common speech; and from the dialectic, frequent in his time, which debated about matters of common life and talk, about received and current opinions.[32] We may presume him to have studied and compared a variety of current propositions, so as to discover what were the different relations in which Subjects and Predicates did stand or could stand to each other; also the various questions which might be put respecting any given subject, with the answers suitable to be returned.[33]
[32] Waitz, ad Aristot. Categor. p. 284: “Id Categoriis non de ipsâ rerum natura et veritate exponit, sed res tales capit, quales apparent in communi vita homini philosophia non imbuto, unde fit, ut in Categoriis alia sit πρώτη οὐσία et in prima philosophia: illa enim partes habet, hæc vero non componitor ex partibus.â€�
Compare Metaphys. Z. p. 1032, b. 2, and the ἀπορία in Z. p. 1029, a., p. 1037, a. 28.