The Meaning of Being in the Intelligible

Physical nature can receive the name of being only as a figure of speech, or rather should not receive it at all. We shall also have to acknowledge that the things that belong to generation are very different. Nevertheless, all bodies, some simple such as elements, the others composite as mixtures, together with their accidents and effects, must, during the process of classification, be reduced to a single genus. But what is the common element in matter and form? In what manner and of what is matter a genus? For what difference in hears in matter? How then could either be incorporated into a single genus along with the compound of both?