The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

character
common to these-’that which exceeds and that which is exceeded’.
None of these varieties of opinion makes any difference to speak
of, in view of some of the consequences; they affect only the
abstract objections, which these thinkers take care to avoid
because the demonstrations they themselves offer are abstract,-with
this exception, that if the exceeding and the exceeded are the
principles, and not the great and the small, consistency requires
that number should come from the elements before does; for number
is more universal than as the exceeding and the exceeded are more
universal than the great and the small. But as it is, they say one
of these things but do not say the other. Others oppose the
different and the other to the One, and others oppose plurality to
the One. But if, as they claim, things consist of contraries, and
to the One either there is nothing contrary, or if there is to be
anything it is plurality, and the unequal is contrary to the equal,
and the different to the same, and the other to the thing itself,
those who oppose the One to plurality have most claim to
plausibility, but even their view is inadequate, for the One would
on their view be a few; for plurality is opposed to fewness, and
the many to the few.
    ‘The one’ evidently means a measure. And in every case there is
some underlying thing with a distinct nature of its own, e.g. in
the scale a quarter-tone, in spatial magnitude a finger or a foot
or something of the sort, in rhythms a beat or a syllable; and
similarly in gravity it is a definite weight; and in the same way
in all cases, in qualities a quality, in quantities a quantity (and
the measure is indivisible, in the former case in kind, and in the
latter to the sense); which implies that the one is not in itself
the substance of anything. And this is reasonable; for ‘the one’
means the measure of some plurality, and ‘number’ means a measured
plurality and a plurality of measures. (Thus it is natural that one
is not a number; for the measure is not measures, but both the
measure and the one are starting-points.) The measure must always
be some identical thing predicable of all the things it measures,
e.g. if the things are horses, the measure is ‘horse’, and if they
are men, ‘man’. If they are a man, a horse, and a god, the measure
is perhaps ‘living being’, and the number of them will be a number
of living beings. If the things are ‘man’ and ‘pale’ and ‘walking’,
these will scarcely have a number, because all belong to a subject
which is one and the same in number, yet the number of these will
be a number of ‘kinds’ or of some such term.
    Those who treat the unequal as one thing, and the dyad as an
indefinite compound of great and small, say what is very far from
being probable or possible. For (a) these are modifications and
accidents, rather than substrata, of numbers and magnitudes-the
many and few of number, and the great and small of magnitude-like
even and odd, smooth and rough, straight and curved. Again, (b)
apart from this mistake, the great and the small, and so on, must
be relative to something; but what is relative is least of all
things a kind of entity or substance, and is posterior to quality
and quantity; and the relative is an accident of quantity, as was
said, not its matter, since something with a distinct nature of its
own must serve as matter both to the relative in general and to its
parts and kinds. 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