This will make you wish you too were reading Aristotle.
Physics, Book I, Chapter 7
¶ We must first give an account of becoming, beginning with general things and getting more specific.
¶ There are examples of simple becoming and complex.
¶ In simple becoming the something does not survive in the process of becoming (e.g. non-music becomes musical).
¶ In the case of complex becoming the something survives the process (a man goes from being a non-musical man to a musical man).
¶ There is an underlying something in all change which survives, but the other element of the compound (e.g. non-musical) does not survive.
¶ We use the two forms “becoming that from this” and “this becoming that” in slightly difference senses.
¶ Only with regard to substances can we technically say “come to be.”
¶ In all cases other than substances there is an other underlying something which becomes.
¶ But we will see even in the case of substances, something underlies coming to be.
¶ Things come to be in different ways: change of shape, addition, subtraction, putting together, etc. In all cases there is something underlying.
¶ Thus, whatever comes to be is complex.
¶ Everything that comes to be comes from subject and form (opposite).
¶ Subject is one numerically (though it is two in form).
¶ Yet, there is also a sense in which the principles are three since being man is different than both being musical and being unmusical.
¶ It is clear then, that there must be something underlying the contraries and the that contraries must be two.
¶ The underlying nature can be known by analogy, wood to bed, bronze to statue, etc.
¶ While it’s not clear whether the form or what underlies is substance, we’ve at least seen the three principles of becoming.
So that’s what that’s about.