Thus the sitting posture is an accident, but will be a temporary
property, whenever a man is the only person sitting, while if he be
not the only one sitting, it is still a property relatively to those
who are not sitting. So then, there is nothing to prevent an
accident from becoming both a relative and a temporary property; but a
property absolutely it will never be.
6
We must not fail to observe that all remarks made in criticism of
a 'property' and 'genus' and 'accident' will be applicable to
'definitions' as well. For when we have shown that the attribute in
question fails to belong only to the term defined, as we do also in
the case of a property, or that the genus rendered in the definition
is not the true genus, or that any of the things mentioned in the
phrase used does not belong, as would be remarked also in the case
of an accident, we shall have demolished the definition; so that, to
use the phrase previously employed,' all the points we have enumerated
might in a certain sense be called 'definitory'. But we must not on
this account expect to find a single line of inquiry which will
apply universally to them all: for this is not an easy thing to
find, and, even were one found, it would be very obscure indeed, and
of little service for the treatise before us.
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