The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

subject, whereas the things which he has
said produce it are not found primarily in any single subject, but
each in a separate one. If so, clearly that term could not be the
product of these things: for the whole is bound to be in the same
things wherein its parts are, so that the whole will then be found
primarily not in one subject only, but in a number of them. If, on
the other hand, both parts and whole are found primarily in some
single subject, see if that medium is not the same, but one thing
in the case of the whole and another in that of the parts. Again,
see whether the parts perish together with the whole: for it ought
to happen, vice versa, that the whole perishes when the parts
perish; when the whole perishes, there is no necessity that the
parts should perish too. Or again, see if the whole be good or
evil, and the parts neither, or, vice versa, if the parts be good
or evil and the whole neither. For it is impossible either for a
neutral thing to produce something good or bad, or for things good
or bad to produce a neutral thing. Or again, see if the one thing
is more distinctly good than the other is evil, and yet the product
be no more good than evil, e.g. suppose shamelessness be defined as
‘the product of courage and false opinion’: here the goodness of
courage exceeds the evil of false opinion; accordingly the product
of these ought to have corresponded to this excess, and to be
either good without qualification, or at least more good than evil.
Or it may be that this does not necessarily follow, unless each be
in itself good or bad; for many things that are productive are not
good in themselves, but only in combination; or, per contra, they
are good taken singly, and bad or neutral in combination. What has
just been said is most clearly illustrated in the case of things
that make for health or sickness; for some drugs are such that each
taken alone is good, but if they are both administered in a
mixture, bad.
    Again, see whether the whole, as produced from a better and
worse, fails to be worse than the better and better than the worse
element. This again, however, need not necessarily be the case,
unless the elements compounded be in themselves good; if they are
not, the whole may very well not be good, as in the cases just
instanced.
    Moreover, see if the whole be synonymous with one of the
elements: for it ought not to be, any more than in the case of
syllables: for the syllable is not synonymous with any of the
letters of which it is made up.
    Moreover, see if he has failed to state the manner of their
composition: for the mere mention of its elements is not enough to
make the thing intelligible. For the essence of any compound thing
is not merely that it is a product of so-and-so, but that it is a
product of them compounded in such and such a way, just as in the
case of a house: for here the materials do not make a house
irrespective of the way they are put together.
    If a man has defined an object as ‘A+B’, the first thing to be
said is that ‘A+B’ means the same either as ‘A and B’, or as the
‘product of A and B.’ for ‘honey+water’ means either the honey and
the water, or the ‘drink made of honey and water’. If, then, he
admits that ‘A+B’ is + B’ is the same as either of these two
things, the same criticisms will apply as have already been given
for meeting each of them. Moreover, distinguish between the
different senses in which one thing may be said to be ‘+’ another,
and see if there is none of them in which A could be said to exist
‘+ B.’ Thus e.g. supposing the expression to mean that they exist
either in some identical thing capable of containing them (as e.g.
justice and courage are found in the soul), or else in the same
place or in the same time, and if this be in no way true of the A
and B in question, clearly the definition rendered could not hold
of anything, as there is no possible way in which A can exist B’.
If, however, among the various senses above distinguished, it be
true that A and B are each found in the same time as the other,
look and see if possibly the two are not used in the same relation.
Thus e.g. suppose courage to have been defined as ‘daring with
right reasoning’: here it is possible that the person exhibits
daring in robbery, and right reasoning in regard to the means of
health: but he may have ‘the former quality+the latter’ at the same
time, and not as yet be courageous! Moreover, even though both be
used