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12 CONCERNING BEING AND ESSENCE designated in it, which certain perfection is materially disposed towards further perfection. In truth, on the contrary, difference is taken determinately as a certain determination by form, for the reason that determined matter is involved in the primary conception of it, as appears when it is called animate or that which has soul; for what it is, whether body or something else, is not determined. Whence Avicenna says 14 that genus is not intellected in difference as a part of essence, but only as a being beyond its essence (extra essentiam), just as a subject is in re- gard to the intellection of the passions. And therefore, likewise, speaking per se, genus is not predicated concerning difference, as the Philosopher remarks in the third of the Metaphysics 16 and the fourth of the Topics, unless perchance as a subject is predicated of passion. But definition or species comprehends both, namely, determinate matter which the name of genus designates, and determinate form which the name of difference designates. And from this the reason is clear why genus and species and difference are proportionally disposed towards (se habeant ad) matter and form and the composite in nature, although they are not the same as nature, since genus is not matter but taken from matter as signifying the whole, nor is difference form but taken from form as signifying the whole. Wherefore we call man a rational animal, not from the composite of animal and rational, as we say that he is composed of body and soul; for man is said to be composed of soul and body, just as from two things a third thing is truly constituted, which is neither of the two; for man is neither soul nor body. But if man can be said to be composed in some manner of animal and rational, it is not as a third thing from two things but as a third concept from two concepts; for the concept of animal is one expressing, i* Met, V, 6, f, 90 a BC. 16 Aristotle, Met, B, 998 b 24.