Certain other philosophers indeed have mentioned this nature, but not sufficiently. For in the first place, they acknowledge that something may be simply generated from non-being, so far as they confess that Parmenides is right in what he asserts. In the next place, it appeared to them that if this nature is one in number, it is also only one in capacity. There is, however, in this case, a great difference, for we say that matter and privation are different. And of these matter indeed, is non-being according to accident. But privation is non-being per se. Matter likewise, is near and is in a certain respect, essence. But this is by no means the case with privation. Others again assert that the great and the small are similarly non-being, either both together or each separate from the other, so that this mode of the triad entirely differs from that. For thus far they proceeded so as to conclude that there must necessarily be a certain nature as a subject, and this they made to be one. For though a certain person introduces the duad, asserting that this subject nature is the great and the small, nevertheless, he makes it to be the same because he neglects the other principle, viz., privation. Matter indeed remaining is a concause together with form of generated natures having the relation of a mother. But the other nature, privation, which is a part of contrariety may often seemed to him, who directs his dianoetic power to its noxious nature, to have no subsistence whatever. For, since there is something divine, good, and desirable, we say that there is one thing contrary to it, and another which is naturally adapted to desire and extend itself towards it. But from the assertions of some it happens that what is contrary desires the corruption of itself. But neither is it possible that form can desire itself, because it is not indignant of itself, nor that which is contrary to itself, for contraries are corruptive of each other. But this which desires is matter, just as the female desires the male, and the deformed, the beautiful. The deformed, however, does not essentially desire the beautiful, nor the female, the male. But the desire of both is according to accident. Matter however is partly corrupted and generated and partly not. For so far as it is that in which it is essentially corrupted, since that which is corrupted, viz., privation, is in matter. But so far as it subsists according to capacity, it is not essentially generated and corrupted. But it is necessary that it should be incorruptible and unbegotten. For, if it were generated, it is necessary that something which ranks as a first nature should subsist as the subject of it. From which being inherent, it is generated. But this is its nature, so that it will be before it is generated. For I call matter the first subject of everything from which a thing is generated when it is not accidentally inherent. And if anything is corrupted, it will ultimately arrive at this, so that matter will be corrupted before it is corrupted. Concerning the principle, however, which subsists according to form, whether it be one or many, and what it is or what they are, it is the business of the first philosophy accurately to determine. So that it must be deferred till that time. We shall whoever speak in what will be here after demonstrated concerning natural and corruptible forms. That there are principles therefore, and what they are, and how many in number, let it be thus determined by us. Let us, however, again speak from another beginning.
