e. neither a definition nor a property nor a genus yet
belongs to the thing: (something which may possibly either belong or
not belong to any one and the self-same thing, as (e.g.) the
'sitting posture' may belong or not belong to some self-same thing.
Likewise also 'whiteness', for there is nothing to prevent the same
thing being at one time white, and at another not white. Of the
definitions of accident the second is the better: for if he adopts the
first, any one is bound, if he is to understand it, to know already
what 'definition' and 'genus' and 'property' are, whereas the second
is sufficient of itself to tell us the essential meaning of the term
in question. To Accident are to be attached also all comparisons of
things together, when expressed in language that is drawn in any
kind of way from what happens (accidit) to be true of them; such as,
for example, the question, 'Is the honourable or the expedient
preferable?' and 'Is the life of virtue or the life of self-indulgence
the pleasanter?', and any other problem which may happen to be phrased
in terms like these. For in all such cases the question is 'to which
of the two does the predicate in question happen (accidit) to belong
more closely?' It is clear on the face of it that there is nothing
to prevent an accident from becoming a temporary or relative property.
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