"... It was based on Aristotle's discussion of the nature of existence. Aristotle divided the being of a particular object into substance and accidents. Take a sheep, for instance: its substance, which is its reality, its participation in the universal quality of being a sheep, is manifested in its gambolling on the hills, munching grass and baaing. Its accidents are things particular to the individual sheep at which we are looking: the statistics of its weight, the curliness of its wool, or the timbre of its baa. When the sheep dies, it ceases to gambol on the hills, munch grass and baa: its substance, its 'sheepiness', is instantly extinguished and only the accidents remain - its corpse, including its weight, curly wool or voice-box - and they will gradually decay.They are not significant to its former sheepiness, which has ended with the extinguishing of its substance in death. It is no longer a sheep."
From p.25, Chapter 1, "The Old Church 1490 - 1517" in MacCulloch, Diarmaid, The Reformation, Penguin Books, USA, 2005.
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