The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

aspect.’ Again, ‘Is any mode of passivity a mode of
activity?’ ‘No.’ ‘Then “he is cut”, “he is burnt”, “he is struck by
some sensible object” are alike in expression and all denote some
form of passivity, while again “to say”, “to run”, “to see” are
like one like one another in expression: but, you see, “to see” is
surely a form of being struck by a sensible object; therefore it is
at the same time a form of passivity and of activity.’ Suppose,
however, that in that case any one, after granting that it is not
possible to do and to have done the same thing in the same time,
were to say that it is possible to see and to have seen it, still
he has not yet been refuted, suppose him to say that ‘to see’ is
not a form of ‘doing’ (activity) but of ‘passivity’: for this
question is required as well, though he is supposed by the listener
to have already granted it, when he granted that ‘to cut’ is a form
of present, and ‘to have cut’ a form of past, activity, and so on
with the other things that have a like expression. For the listener
adds the rest by himself, thinking the meaning to be alike: whereas
really the meaning is not alike, though it appears to be so because
of the expression. The same thing happens here as happens in cases
of ambiguity: for in dealing with ambiguous expressions the tyro in
argument supposes the sophist to have negated the fact which he
(the tyro) affirmed, and not merely the name: whereas there still
wants the question whether in using the ambiguous term he had a
single meaning in view: for if he grants that that was so, the
refutation will be effected.
    Like the above are also the following arguments. It is asked if
a man has lost what he once had and afterwards has not: for a man
will no longer have ten dice even though he has only lost one die.
No: rather it is that he has lost what he had before and has not
now; but there is no necessity for him to have lost as much or as
many things as he has not now. So then, he asks the questions as to
what he has, and draws the conclusion as to the whole number that
he has: for ten is a number. If then he had asked to begin with,
whether a man no longer having the number of things he once had has
lost the whole number, no one would have granted it, but would have
said ‘Either the whole number or one of them’. Also there is the
argument that ‘a man may give what he has not got’: for he has not
got only one die. No: rather it is that he has given not what he
had not got, but in a manner in which he had not got it, viz. just
the one. For the word ‘only’ does not signify a particular
substance or quality or number, but a manner relation, e.g. that it
is not coupled with any other. It is therefore just as if he had
asked ‘Could a man give what he has not got?’ and, on being given
the answer ‘No’, were to ask if a man could give a thing quickly
when he had not got it quickly, and, on this being granted, were to
conclude that ‘a man could give what he had not got’. It is quite
evident that he has not proved his point: for to ‘give quickly’ is
not to give a thing, but to give in a certain manner; and a man
could certainly give a thing in a manner in which he has not got
it, e.g. he might have got it with pleasure and give it with
pain.
    Like these are also all arguments of the following kind: ‘Could
a man strike a blow with a hand which he has not got, or see with
an eye which he has not got?’ For he has not got only one eye. Some
people solve this case, where a man has more than one eye, or more
than one of anything else, by saying also that he has only one.
Others also solve it as they solve the refutation of the view that
‘what a man has, he has received’: for A gave only one vote; and
certainly B, they say, has only one vote from A. Others, again,
proceed by demolishing straight away the proposition asked, and
admitting that it is quite possible to have what one has not
received; e.g. to have received sweet wine, but then, owing to its
going bad in the course of receipt, to have it sour. But, as was
said also above,’ all these persons direct their solutions against
the man, not against his argument. For if this were a genuine
solution, then, suppose any one to grant the opposite, he could
find no solution, just as happens in other cases; e.g. suppose the
true solution to be ‘So-and-so is partly true and partly not’,
then, if the answerer grants the