of the _ten_ categories, does not stand or fall with
only one portion of Aristotle's works.

It is surprising that there should yet be so much uncertainty as to
the real significance of the categories, and that we should be in
nearly complete ignorance as to the process of thought by which,
Aristotle was led to the doctrine. On both points It is difficult to
extract from the matter before us anything approaching a satisfactory
solution. The terms employed to denote the categories have been
scrutinized with the utmost care, but they give little help. The most
important--[Greek: k. tou ontos] or [Greek: tes ousias, gene tou
ontos] or [Greek: ton onton, gene] simply, [Greek: tha prota] or
[Greek: tha koina prota, ai ptoseis], or [Greek: ai diaireseis]--only
indicate that the categories are general classes into which Being as
such may be divided, that they are _summa genera_. The expressions
[Greek: gene ton kategorion] and [Greek: schemata ton k.], which are
used frequently, seem to lead to another and somewhat different view.
[Greek: kategoria] being taken to mean that which is predicated,
[Greek: gene ton k.] would signify the most general classes of
predicates, the framework into the divisions of which all predicates
must come. To this interpretation there are objections. The categories
must be carefully distinguished from predicables; in the scholastic
phraseology the former refer to _first intentions_, the latter to
_second intentions_, i.e. the one denote real, the other logical
connexion. Further, the categories cannot without careful explanation
be defined as predicates; they are this and something more. The most
important category, [Greek: ousia], in one of its aspects cannot be
predicate at all.

In the [Greek: Kategoriai] Aristotle prefixes to his enumeration a
grammatico-logical disquisition on homonyms and synonyms, and on the
elements of the proposition, i.e. subject and predicate. He draws
attention to the fact that things are spoken of either in the
connexion known as the proposition, e.g. "a man runs," or apart from
such connexion, e.g. "man" and "runs." He then proceeds, "Of things
spoken of apart from their connexion in a proposition ([Greek: ton
katha medemian sumplokhen legomenon]), each signifies either Substance
([Greek: ousia]), or Quantity ([Greek: poson]), or Quality ([Greek:
poion]), or Relation ([Greek: pros ti],) or Where