"The term 'substance' is one of the most confusing terms in
philosophy. For Aristotle, at least some of the time, the
paradigm cases of substances were, as he put it, 'this man, this
horse', i.e. particular things of that kind. For complicated
historical reasons, however, substance has sometimes come to be
equated with what Aristotle called 'matter'; thus iron and
sulphur, and other stuffs, have come to be called 'substances'.
For further complicated historical reasons substance came to be
regarded by e.g. Locke as the underlying something or other
which is supposed to give support to the properties that inhere
in it. Indeed the Latin etymology of the term 'substance' will
suggest to anyone having a sensitivity to it that notion of
something standing beneath the properties. Locke thus called it
a 'something I know not what' -- a suggestion that is not
conveyed by either of the other two usages. The situation is
complicated still further by the fact that the Latin etymology
is relevant only to those modern dis