The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

which the form
supervenes; yet they are nearer the form than the bronze is when
roundness is produced in bronze. But in a sense not even every kind
of letter will be present in the formula of the syllable, e.g.
particular waxen letters or the letters as movements in the air;
for in these also we have already something that is part of the
syllable only in the sense that it is its perceptible matter. For
even if the line when divided passes away into its halves, or the
man into bones and muscles and flesh, it does not follow that they
are composed of these as parts of their essence, but rather as
matter; and these are parts of the concrete thing, but not also of
the form, i.e. of that to which the formula refers; wherefore also
they are not present in the formulae. In one kind of formula, then,
the formula of such parts will be present, but in another it must
not be present, where the formula does not refer to the concrete
object. For it is for this reason that some things have as their
constituent principles parts into which they pass away, while some
have not. Those things which are the form and the matter taken
together, e.g. the snub, or the bronze circle, pass away into these
materials, and the matter is a part of them; but those things which
do not involve matter but are without matter, and whose formulae
are formulae of the form only, do not pass away,-either not at all
or at any rate not in this way. Therefore these materials are
principles and parts of the concrete things, while of the form they
are neither parts nor principles. And therefore the clay statue is
resolved into clay and the ball into bronze and Callias into flesh
and bones, and again the circle into its segments; for there is a
sense of ‘circle’ in which involves matter. For ‘circle’ is used
ambiguously, meaning both the circle, unqualified, and the
individual circle, because there is no name peculiar to the
individuals.
    The truth has indeed now been stated, but still let us state it
yet more clearly, taking up the question again. The parts of the
formula, into which the formula is divided, are prior to it, either
all or some of them. The formula of the right angle, however, does
not include the formula of the acute, but the formula of the acute
includes that of the right angle; for he who defines the acute uses
the right angle; for the acute is ‘less than a right angle’. The
circle and the semicircle also are in a like relation; for the
semicircle is defined by the circle; and so is the finger by the
whole body, for a finger is ‘such and such a part of a man’.
Therefore the parts which are of the nature of matter, and into
which as its matter a thing is divided, are posterior; but those
which are of the nature of parts of the formula, and of the
substance according to its formula, are prior, either all or some
of them. And since the soul of animals (for this is the substance
of a living being) is their substance according to the formula,
i.e. the form and the essence of a body of a certain kind (at least
we shall define each part, if we define it well, not without
reference to its function, and this cannot belong to it without
perception), so that the parts of soul are prior, either all or
some of them, to the concrete ‘animal’, and so too with each
individual animal; and the body and parts are posterior to this,
the essential substance, and it is not the substance but the
concrete thing that is divided into these parts as its matter:-this
being so, to the concrete thing these are in a sense prior, but in
a sense they are not. For they cannot even exist if severed from
the whole; for it is not a finger in any and every state that is
the finger of a living thing, but a dead finger is a finger only in
name. Some parts are neither prior nor posterior to the whole, i.e.
those which are dominant and in which the formula, i.e. the
essential substance, is immediately present, e.g. perhaps the heart
or the brain; for it does not matter in the least which of the two
has this quality. But man and horse and terms which are thus
applied to individuals, but universally, are not substance but
something composed of this particular formula and this particular
matter treated as universal; and as regards the individual,
Socrates already includes in him ultimate individual matter; and
similarly in all other cases. ‘A part’ may be a part either of the
form (i.e. of the essence), or of the compound of the form and the
matter, or of the