consequence of a capacity for existence. And this is, according to him, of a twofold nature. By the word ἐντελέχεια, he means something which has an incorporeal species, either in capacity, as a figure of Mercury in wax, which has a capacity for assuming any shape; or a statue in brass; and so the perfection of the Mercury or of the statue is called ἐντελέχεια, with reference to its habit. But when he speaks of the ἐντελέχεια2 of a natural body, he does so because, of bodies some are wrought by the hands, as for instance, those which are made by artists, for instance, a tower, or a ship; and some exist by nature, as the bodies of plants and animals. He has also used the term with reference to an organic body, that is to say, with reference to something that is made, as the faculty of sight for seeing, or the faculty of hearing for the purpose of hearing. The capacity of having life must exist in the thing itself. But the capacity is twofold, either in habit or in operation. In operation, as a man, when awake, is said to have a soul; in habit, as the same is said of a man when asleep. That, therefore, he may come under his definition, he has added the word capacity.
He has also given other definitions on a great many subjects, which it would be tedious to enumerate here. For he was in every thing a man of the greatest industry and ingenuity, as is plain from all his works which I have lately given a list of; which are in number nearly four hundred, the genuineness of which is undoubted. There are, also, a great many other works attributed to him, and a number of apophthegms which he never committed to paper.
XIV. There were eight persons of the name of Aristotle.