Return to Porphyry, Introduction
1. Accident is that which may be present and absent, without the corruption of its subject.
2. But it receives a twofold division; for one kind of it is separable, but another inseparable. Thus, to sleep is a separable Accident; but to be black happens inseparably to a crow and an Aethiopian. It is possible however to conceive a white crow, and an Ethiopian casting off his colour, without the corruption of the subject.
3. They also define it as follows: Accident is that which may be present and not present to the same thing.
4. Likewise, that which is neither Genus nor Difference, which is neither Species, nor Peculiarity, but is always inexistent in a subject.
Return to Porphyry, Introduction
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