ng
that existence is not reality, but then (wrongly) going on to imagine
that the reality is an existence.

Out of this last objection grows Aristotle's own philosophy, the
fundamental principle of which is that the universal is indeed the
absolute reality, but that it is a universal which exists only in the
particular. What is reality? What is substance? This is the first
question for the metaphysician. Now substance is what has an
independent existence of its own; it is that whose being does not flow
into it from any source outside itself. Consequently, substance is
what is never a predicate; it is that to which all predicates are
applied. Thus in the proposition, "Gold is heavy," gold is the
subject, or substance, and "heavy" is its predicate. The heaviness is
dependent for its existence on the gold, and it is therefore the
latter, and not the former, that is the substance.

Now, keeping this in mind, are universals, as Plato asserts,
substances? No; because the universal is merely a common predicate
which attaches to many objects of a class. Thus the concept of man is
merely what is common to all men. It is the same thing as the
predicate "humanness." But humanness cannot exist apart from human
beings, any more than heaviness apart from the heavy object.
Universals, then, are not substances. But neither are particulars
substances. For there is no such thing as that which is absolutely
{266} particular and isolated. If humanness does not exist apart from
men, neither do men exist apart from humanness. Take away from a man
what he has in common with other men, and what he has in common with
other objects, and you will find that, having stripped him of all his
qualities, there is absolutely nothing left. We say gold is heavy,
yellow, malleable, etc. Now the heaviness, the yellowness, and the
other qualities, cannot exist apart 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 existence as the qualities depend
upon the gold. Hence neither of them, considered apart from the other,
is substance. But the