Yet, one must start somewhere, and logically explaining what it is that is or is not a substance seems an important and useful notion to explore on the way toward understanding the final goal.
Substance, for Aristotle (it is obvious that these thoughts were all for and from Aristotle so I will not mention it again, hopefully), is not universal, but rather, it is the particular. It is not a maybe, but a definite, not something hazy without definition, but something focused and cognitively concrete. Thus, substance is not in nor is it said with the subject (as are qualities), rather it is that which makes the subject a type, something countable, held and identified. Substance is that which makes the subject an individual so it stands apart form others, its substance creating its boundaries, making the subject henceforth numerically available to become a one or two etc Substance is "an individual man and or an individual horse." Aristotle classified his universals as substances, for universals are the notions that define what the structure and constitution of a substance is. Therefore, without this classification of universals substances would not have adequate substance!.
There are four characteristics of substances. The first I have already mentioned, it is its ability to be counted, numbered and seen. It is a "this" not a "such" an individual, not a hazy companion. The second attribute is the observation that nothing can be an opposite of a substance. The substance is a this, but nothing can stand akin and become a that because the other substances are individuals also and individuality allows only for differences not group in or opposite connections. Thirdly a substance admits more or less of anything, it has no degrees, and one cannot have just a little bit of substance. It is akin to the impossibility of being just a little bit pregnant; substance just is, as one would just be with child.
