from the gold. But it is equally true that the gold cannot
exist apart from its qualities. Strip off all its qualities in
thought, and then ask yourself what the gold itself is apart
from its qualities. You will find that your mind is a total
blank. In taking away the qualities you have taken away
the gold itself. The gold can only be thought through its
qualities. It only exists through its qualities. The gold,
therefore, just as much depends on the qualities for its ex-
istence as the qualities depend upon the gold. Hence nei-
ther of them, considered apart from the other, is substance.
But the qualities are the universal element in the gold, the
gold without the qualities is the absolutely particular and
isolated. For, first, the yellowness is a quality which this
gold has in common with that gold, and is therefore a uni-
versal, and so with all the qualities. Even if a particular
piece of gold has a quality possessed by no other gold, it
is yet possessed by some other object in the universe, or
it would be unknowable. Every quality is consequently a
universal. Secondly, the gold without its qualities is the ab-
solutely particular. For, being stripped of all qualities, it is
stripped of whatever it has in common with other things; it
is stripped of whatever universality it has, and it remains
an absolute particular. Hence the {267} universal is not
substance, nor is the particular. For neither of them can
exist without the other. Substance must be a compound of
the two; it must be the universal in the particular. And this
means that that alone which is substance is the individual
object, for example, the gold with all its qualities attached
to it.
It is usually believed that Aristotle contradicted himself
in as much as he first states, as above, that the individ-
ual object, the compound of universal and particular, is
substance, but later on allows a superior reality to the uni-
versal, or “form” as he calls it, and in effect teaches, like
Plato, that the universal is what alone is absolutely real,
that is, that the universal is substance. I do not agree that
there is any real inconsistency in Aristotle. Or rather, the
inconsistency is one of words and not of thought. It must
be remembered that, whenever Aristotle says that the in-
dividual, and not the universal, is substance, he is thinking
of Plato. What he means to deny is that the universal can
exist on its own account, as Plato thought. Nevertheless
he agrees with Plato that the universal is the real. When
he says that the universal is not substance he means, as
against Plato, that it is not existent. What alone exists is
the individual thing, the compound of universal and par-
ticular. When he says, or implies, that the universal is
substance, he means that, though it is not existent, it is
real. His words are contradictory, but his meaning is not.
He has not expressed himself as clearly as he should; that
is all.The further development of Aristotle’s metaphysics de-
pends upon his doctrine of causation. By causation here,
however, is meant a very much wider conception {268} than
what is understood by that term in modern times. I have in
previous lectures attempted to make clear the distinction
between causes and reasons. The cause of a thing does not
give any reason for it, and therefore does not explain it. The
cause is merely the mechanism by which a reason produces
its consequence. Death is caused by accident or disease,