Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
H. Rackham, Ed.

the Categories of Substance, of Quality, and Relation; yet the Absolute,¹ or Substance, is prior in nature to the Relative, which seems to be a sort of offshoot or ‘accident’ of Substance; so that there cannot be a common Idea corresponding to the absolutely good and the relatively good. [3]

Again, the word ‘good’ is used in as many senses as the word ‘is’; for we may predicate good in the Category of Substance, for instance of God, or intelligence; in that of Quality—the excellences; in that of Quantity—moderate in amount; in that of Relation—useful; in that of Time—a favorable opportunity; in that of Place—a suitable ‘habitat’²; and so on. So clearly good cannot be a single and universal general notion; if it were, it would not be predicable in all the Categories, but only in one. [4]

Again, things that come under a single Idea must be objects of a single science; hence there ought to be a single science dealing with all good things. But as a matter of fact there are a number of sciences even for the goods in one Category: for example, opportunity, for opportunity in war comes under the science of strategy, in disease under that of medicine; and the due amount in diet comes under medicine, in bodily exercise under gymnastics. [5]

One might also raise the question what precisely they mean by their expression the ‘Ideal so and-so,’³ seeing that one and the same definition of man