not be able to change the whole B at all.’ This is still non- sense, but may be taken as evidence for the existence of the words ἢ τὸ ἥμισυ ἐν διπλασίῳ, which are not in our Mss. These words (with καὶ for #), if placed after ἀνάγκη, express what is wanted—a consequence that might be expected, but does not necessarily follow. My correction assumes that they have been ousted by the other clauses, καὶ τὸ ἥμισυ ἐν ἡμίσει ἢ ἐν ἡμίσει ἥμισυ, which, placed after ἀλλοιοῖ, make sense that is both good and relevant to the argument. The last clause might be completed thus: οὐκ ἀνάγκη καὶ τὸ ἥμισν ἐν διπλασίῳ ἢ ἐν ἴσῳ ἥμισυ, but the last four words are not represented in Simplicius.—C.]
BOOK VIII INTRODUCTION [Tuzs Book leads up to the conclusion that all change and motion in the universe are ultimately caused by a Prime Mover that is itself unchanging and unmoved and is not dimensional.
Chapter I. proves that motion in the universe is eternal: there can never have been a time before any motion existed, and there never will be a time when all motion will have ceased. Some objections are answered in Chapter II., especially the objection that animals in a state of rest can make a clear beginning of motion in themselves by the self-moving power of the soul: so why should not the universe, if we suppose it animate, have passed at some moment from rest to motion? This apparent self-motion of animals is really caused from without.
But the problem remains: how is it that transition from rest to motion or from motion to rest does occur? In Chapter III. theories which deny this obvious fact are refuted, and Aristotle undertakes to establish that some things are always in motion, some things always at rest, and some can either move or rest.
The demonstration occupies the next three chapters. Chapter IV. proves that the primary agent of any motion or change is distinguishable from the primary patient. But there cannot be an unlimited series of things, each of which is moved by the one before it and moves the one after it. The series must terminate in an original PHYSICS, VIII. INTRODUCTION agent that is either unmoved or self-moved; and when we analyse ‘self-motion’ we find that it involves an un- moved agent. Hence the primary agent of all motion is unmoved (Chapter V.). If, as we have proved, there is eternal motion, there must be at least one eternal unmoved mover, and it is superfluous to assume more than one. In seeking for the Prime Cause of motion, ‘continuous’ (i.e. everlasting, uninterrupted, and uniform) movements and also varying and intermittent movements must be taken into account. In each case the one eternal and unmoved agent is shown to be the cause. It causes the uniform proper movements and the regular but not uniform derivative and compound movements of the heavenly bodies; and also, through a chain of celestial and terrestrial intermediaries, the variable and inter- mittent movements of terrestrial things (Chapter VI.). Chapter VII. makes a fresh start. The motion caused by the primary mover must be both prior to all other forms of change and such that it can continue for ever. Locomotion is the only form of change which satisfies both conditions. Chapters VIII. and IX. add that, of all species of locomotion, rotation is the only one that can be everlasting and continuous. This conclusion is supported by the testimony of all earlier philosophers. Chapter X. reaches the final conclusion that, since the Prime Mover cannot be either a finite or an infinite magnitude, it is not a magnitude at all and has no parts, but is immaterial and not in space, though its operation is directly felt at the circumference of the universe.—C. | © CHAPTER I ARGUMENT [Do motion and change exist at all tumes, or had they a beginning and will they have an end? (250 Ὁ 11-15).
All physicists (as opposed to the Eleatics) admit the existence of motion. The Atomists hold it to be everlasting, for they believe in innumerable cosmoi always coming into existence and perishing. Of believers in a single cosmos, some hold that the cosmos and motion had no beginning in time; some (Anaxagoras) that they began at some mo- ment after an indefinite duration of motionlessness; others (Empedocles) that periods in which a cosmos and motion exist alternate with periods of motionlessness (b 15-251 a 8).
Motion being the actuahzing of a potential movable, there must be movables if there is to be actual motion; but we cannot suppose that they existed in a state of im- mobility up to a moment when motion or change began. Suppose they did so, they must either (a) have come into being or (Ὁ) have been ungenerated (a 8-17). If (a), then their coming into being was itself a change; so we should have a change earlier than the first change (a 17-20). If 250 "11 Πότερον δὲ γέγονέ ποτε κίνησις οὐκ οὖσα πρότερον, καὶ φθείρεται πάλιν οὕτως ὥστε κινεῖσθαι μηδέν, ἢ οὔτ᾽ ἐγένετο οὔτε φθείρεται ἀλλ᾽ ἀεὶ ἦν καὶ ἀεὶ BOOK VIII CHAPTER I ARGUMENT (continued) (b), some change must have occurred to release them from ammobility—again a change before the first change (a 20-28); for the withdrawal of a negative hindrance is a change, which converts what merely “has the possibility’ of move- ment into something ‘ actually able’ to move (a 28--Ὁ 10). Also there could not ever be a time when there is no motion, because time is defined as the measure of motion (Ὁ 10-28).
By the same reasoning it is impossible to conceive in the future a time after all motion has ceased. Motion is, there- Fore, everlasting (Ὁ 28-252 a 5).
Empedocles’ alternate periods of motion and rest do at least provide for some order in natural changes, such as is lacking in Anaxagoras. But Empedocles fails to account for the alternation. Democritus too does not account for motion when he simply declares it to be an eternal fact So much in proof that there never was nor will be a time without motion (Ὁ 5-6).—C.]
Dip motion itself ever come into existence, never having been before? And will it in like manner cease to be, so that nothing will move thereafter? Or did it never begin to be and will it never cease to be, so that there always has been and always will ARISTOTLE 860} ἔσται, καὶ τοῦτ᾽ ἀθάνατον καὶ ἄπαυστον ὑπάρχει 16 τοῖς οὖσιν, οἷον ζωή τις οὖσα τοῖς φύσει συνεστῶσι πᾶσιν; Εἶναι μὲν οὖν κίνησιν πάντες φασὶν ot περὶ φύσεώς τι λέγοντες, διὰ τὸ κοσμοποιεῖν καὶ περὶ γενέσεως Kat φθορᾶς εἶναι τὴν θεωρίαν πᾶσιν αὐτοῖς, ἣν ἀδύνατον ὑπάρχειν μὴ κινήσεως οὔσης. ὔ ἀλλ᾽ ὅσοι μὲν ἀπείρους τε κόσμους εἶναί φασι καὶ 20 τοὺς μὲν γίγνεσθαι τοὺς δὲ φθείρεσθαι τῶν κόσμων, ἀεί φασιν εἶναι κίνησιν (ἀναγκαῖον yap τὰς γενέσεις καὶ τὰς φθορὰς εἷναι μετὰ κινήσεως αὐτῶν)" ὅσοι δὲ ἕνα ἢ μὴ ἀεί, καὶ περὶ τῆς κινήσεως ὑποτίθενται κατὰ λόγον. Ke δὴ ἐνδέχεταί ποτε μηδὲν κινεῖσθαι, διχῶς ἀνάγκη τοῦτο συμβαίνειν: ἢ γὰρ ὡς ᾿Αναξαγόρας 25 λέγει (φησὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνος, ὁμοῦ πάντων ὄντων καὶ ἠρεμούντων τὸν ἄπειρον χρόνον, κίνησιν ἐμποιῆσαι τὸν Nody καὶ διακρῖναι) 7) ὡς Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, ἐν μέρει κινεῖσθαι καὶ πάλιν ἠρεμεῖν---κινεῖσθαι μὲν ὅταν ἡ Φιλία ἐκ πολλῶν ποιῇ τὸ ἕν ἢ τὸ Νεῖκος πολλὰ 1 [ἕνα ἢ μὴ ἀεί. The Oxf. Trans. infers that Themistius read ie ἢ del ἢ μὴ ἀεί Sone world whether everlasting or * |The Atomists, Leucippus and Democritus, whose view was adopted, after Aristotle’s time, by Epicurus. There is, in my opinion, no satisfactory evidence for this doctrine being held by any other Pre-Socratic school. ΟἿ “‘ Innumer- able Worlds in Pre-Socratic Philosophy,’’ Class. Quarterly, ὑ [Believers in a single cosmos (all except the Atomists) fall into three classes: (a) Heracleitus and Aristotle himself, who believed in a single cosmos having no beginning or end in time. So, it is generally held, did Plato, though in the Timaeus he describes in mythical form a generation of the cosmos. For these motion had no beginning in time; PHYSICS, VIII. 1.
be motion, belonging to all things as their deathless and never-failing property and constituting a kind of life for everything that is constituted by nature?
To begin with, all who have discoursed on nature admit that there is such a thing as motion. And so they must, since they are all of them concerned with the formation of the cosmos and the genesis of things and their evanishment, which could not be at all were there no movement. But whereas those 4 who believe in innumerable cosmoi, some coming into being and others passing out of it, say that motion is ever-existing, for the genesis and evanish- ment of these cosmoi must needs involve motion, those, on the other hand, who believe that there is a single cosmos, and perhaps that there is not always a cosmos in existence,® hold views as to motion con- sonant with their general theory.
Now if it is possible that there should ever be a complete absence of motion it can only be conceived in one of the two ways set forth respectively by Anaxagoras and Empedocles. The former holds that, all things having remained congested and motionless for an unlimited period, ἡ Mind ’ imposed motion upon them and separated them out; whereas Empedocles conceived of alternations between movement and its absence, holding that things are in motion when ‘attraction’ is drawing them into unity from plurality or ‘repulsion’ is thrusting them (6) Anaxagoras and others, who held that our cosmos is the only one that has ever existed, but that it had a beginning in time, and (c) Empedocles, who had a series of single cosmoi separated by intervals in which no cosmos or motion exists. For the last two classes there is ‘ not always a cosmos’ and they have (δ) one or (c) more beginnings of motion in time.—C. ] ARISTOTLE 8δ0" ἐξ ἑνός, ἠρεμεῖν δὲ ἐν τοῖς μεταξὺ χρόνοις, λέγων οὕτως, 8 ἧ μὲν ἕν ἐκ πλεόνων μεμάθηκε φύεσθαι € noe πάλιν διαφύντος ἑνὸς πλέον ἐκτελέθουσι, τῇ μὲν γίγνονταί τε καὶ οὔ σφισιν ἔμπεδος αἰών" ἡ δὲ τάδ᾽ ἀλλάσσοντα διαμπερὲς οὐδαμὰ λήγει, ταύτῃ δ᾽ αἰὲν ἔασιν ἀκίνητοι κατὰ κύκλον τὸ γὰρ΄ ἣ δὲ τάδ᾽ ἀλλάσσοντα᾽ ἐνθένδε ἐκεῖσε λέγειν 5 QUTOV ὑποληπτέον. OKETTEOV δὴ TEPl τούτων πῶς ἔχει: πρὸ ἔργου γὰρ οὐ μόνον πρὸς τὴν περὶ φύ- σεως θεωρίαν ἰδεῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πρὸς τὴν μέθοδον τὴν περὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς πρώτης. ᾿Αρξώμεθα δὲ πρῶτον ἐκ τῶν διωρισμένων ἡμῖν ἐν τοῖς Φυσικοῖς πρότερον. φαμὲν δὴ τὴν κίνησιν 10 εἶναι ἐντελέχειαν τοῦ κινητοῦ 4 κινητόν. ἀναγ- + [Empedocles, frag. 26. 8 ff. Cf. frag. 17. 9 ff., where the same lines are repeated with διαλλάσσοντα (which appears in Fl here) for τάδ᾽ ἀλλάσσοντα. Though the first line quoted began with οὕτως, the οὕτως in our text may belong to Aristotle (with \éywv).—C.]
2 [τὸ yap ἢ δὲ (τῆδε FI) τάδ᾽ ἀλλάσσοντα (διαλάσσοντα I) ἐνθένδε...ὑποληπτέον FHI Oxf. Trans.: δεῖ γὰρ ὑπολαβεῖν λέγειν αὐτὸν ἣ δὲ τάδ᾽ ἐνθένδε τὰ ἀλλάσσοντα cett., Bekker, Prantl.—C. ] * [We must distinguish (a) what Empedocles meant in these lines and (6) what Aristotle makes them mean.
(a) Empedocles had a cycle of 4 periods. In (1) the Reign of Love and (3) the Reign of Stmfe, no cosmos or motion exists. In (2) and (4) cosmoi are formed by the operation respectively of Strife breaking the ‘one’ into ‘many’ and Love drawing the ‘many’ into ‘one.’ These lines answer the question: In what sense are the four immutable elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire) involved in a process of ‘becoming’? The answer is: in so far as (by their motion, PHYSICS, VIIT. 1.
into plurality from unity, but that all is motionless in the intermediate periods. These are his words: ‘‘ In as far as the one is wont to spring out of the many, and reversely the many to rise out of the dis- integrating one, in so far they ‘ become’ and their life is not stable; but inasmuch as the succession of these reversals never comes to an end at all, there is always a periodical recurrence of the motion- less state.”
For we must understand him to be speaking of the reversals from the one process to the other.* So we must look into this question of whether there was a beginning of motion; for it is worth while to get at the truth not only with a view to our specula- tions as to nature, but also for its bearing on our study of the first principle.
Let us start from the points established in the earlier part of our Physics. We said? that motion is the actualizing of the potentiality of the mobile as rushing through one another and combining to form various substances, inorganic or organic) they come to be a formed world, in so far they may be said to ‘ become’ and change (‘ their life is not stable’); but the elements themselves do not come into being or change but ‘in so far as they never ceasé in their perpetual alternation, in that sense they exist for ever unchangeable (ἀκίνητοι) in their cycle.’ There is no reference to the motionless conditions (1) and (3).
(6) But Aristotle, with his usual carelessness in quoting the Pre-Socratics, apparently takes the last two lines as containing such a reference. The translation above is intended to convey this false construction (which the words will hardly bear), justified by Aristotle in the following sentence: ‘For by the expression “‘ in so far as these alter- nating, etc.”” we must take Empedocles to mean “ alter- pra! from the one process of world-formation to the other.”’ ’>—C.
ARISTOTLE 21a καῖον ἄρα ὑπάρχειν τὰ πράγματα τὰ δυνάμενα κινεῖσθαι καθ᾽ ἑκάστην κίνησιν. καὶ χωρὶς δὲ τοῦ τῆς κινήσεως ὁρισμοῦ, πᾶς ἂν ὁμολογήσειεν ἀναγ- Katov εἶναι κινεῖσθαι τὸ δυνατὸν κινεῖσθαι καθ 16 ἑκάστην Kivnow—olov ἀλλοιοῦσθαι μὲν τὸ ἀλλοιω- 4 τόν, φέρεσθαι δὲ τὸ κατὰ τόπον μεταβλητόν---ὥστε δεῖ πρότερον καυστὸν εἷναι πρὶν κάεσθαι, καὶ καυστικὸν πρὶν κάειν. οὐκοῦν καὶ ταῦτα ἀναγκαῖον ἢ γενέσθαι ποτὲ οὐκ ὄντα ἢ ἀΐδια εἶναι. Ki μὲν τοίνυν ἐγένετο τῶν κινητῶν ἕκαστον, 20 ἀναγκαῖον πρότερον τῆς ληφθείσης ἄλλην γενέσθαι μεταβολὴν καὶ κίνησιν, καθ᾽ ἣν ἐγένετο τὸ δυνατὸν κινηθῆναι ἢ κινῆσαι. Εἰ δ᾽ ὄντα προυπῆρχεν ἀεὶ κινήσεως μὴ οὔσης, ἄλογον μὲν φαίνεται καὶ αὐτόθεν ἐπιστήσασιν, οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ μᾶλλον ἔτι προιοῦσι τοῦτο συμβαίνειν ἀναγκαῖον. εἰ γάρ, τῶν μὲν κινητῶν ὄντων τῶν 25 δὲ KWYTLKWV, OTE μὲν EOTOL TL πρῶτον KLVOUV TO δὲ K } ¢ oN δὲ δὲ ἰλλ᾽ 3 “A b “" WOULLEVOD, OTE OE OVOEV α ἤρεμει, αναγκαιον * Fach of these being a kind of motion, for they are qualitive modifications of their material.
PHYSICS, VIII. 1.
such. The necessary presupposition of motion of any kind, then, is that things capable of motion of that kind should already be in existence. And apart from the definition, everyone would admit that what is in motion must be that which is capable of movement in the particular sense of the word in point—if the movement of modification, then the modifiable, if of transference that which is capable of changing its place—so that there must be some- thing combustible before there can be combustion and something that can burn before there can be burning. And so these things capable of move- ment either (a) must have come into existence at a definite moment, not previously having been there, or (6) must always be there eternally.
Now if (a) every one of these ‘movables’ came into existence, there must have been some other ‘change or movement, prior to the one under con- sideration, which prior movement marked the coming into existence of this very object, capable of ex- periencing or causing movement, which we have seen must itself be prior to movement.
On the other hand to suppose (6) that entities capable of being moved and agents capable of moving them had been in existence from everlasting but that no motion had taken place, will at once strike anyone who thinks as unreasonable, and when he goes on to examine it the irrationality will become clearer yet. For if we are to suppose that there was a time when the potentially-moved and potential movers were in existence but all was at rest and no movement took place, and then there came a time when first some potential mover actually moved something movable, there must necessarily have been VOL. II T 273 ARISTOTLE 21a τοῦτο μεταβάλλειν πρότερον" Hv yap τι αἴτιον THs ἠρεμίας, ἡ yap ἠρέμησις στέρησις THs κινήσεως. ὥστε πρὸ τῆς πρώτης μεταβολῆς ἔσται μεταβολὴ προτέρα. Τὰ μὲν yap κινεῖ μοναχῶς, τὰ δὲ Kal τὰς ἐναντίας 30 Κινήσεις, οἷον TO μὲν πῦρ θερμαίνει ψύχει δ᾽ οὔ, ἡ δὲ ἐπιστήμη δοκεῖ τῶν ἐναντίων εἶναι μία. φαίνεται μὲν οὖν κἀκεῖ τι εἶναι ὁμοιότροπον" τὸ γὰρ ψυχρὸν θερμαΐνει στραφέν πως καὶ ἀπελθόν, ὥσπερ καὶ ἁμαρτάνει ἑκὼν 6 ἐπιστήμων ὅταν “510 ἀνάπαλιν χρήσηται τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ. ἀλλ᾽ οὖν ὅσα γε δυνατὰ ποιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν ἢ κινεῖν, τὰ δὲ κινεῖσθαι, οὐ πάντως δυνατά ἐστιν ἀλλ᾽ ὡδὲ ἔχοντα ¢ [Literally, ‘this (τοῦτο, i.e. the subject of ἠρεμεῖ, the movable which was at rest before actual motion started) must previously have been in process of change’: something must have happened to it, to release it from arrest. If the potential agent and patient were previously too far apart for one to move the other, they must have come nearer; if there was some obstacle, 1t must have been re- moved (Themistius).—C.]
> (This paragraph justifies the rather paradoxical asser- tion that the potential agents and patients cannot suddenly pass from immobility to exercise of their activity without some previous change, viz. the removal of some ‘ cause’ of arrest. It is true that some ‘ powers’ (δυνάμεις) capable of causing change can positively cause change only in one direction (fire can only heat, snow can only cool); but negatively they can cause change the other way: snow causes warmth by its removal. So the presence of a mere negative obstacle to action can be said to ‘ cause’ the arrest and its withdrawal to ‘ cause’ the action so released.—C.]
¢ The commentators instance a physician who should destroy a man’s health or the dialectician who should pur- PHYSICS, VIII. 1.
some antecedent change.” For there must have been some cause of that stopping short of actual motion which constitutes being at rest; so before motion could take place, there must have been some change which prevented that cause from any longer hinder- ing motion. Thus before the supposed first change there must have been another change.
> For some moving principles can only cause move- ment in one direction, while others can reverse the direction of their action: thus fire can heat but cannot chill, whereas it seems that one and the same mental skill may act in opposite directions. There appears, however, to be something analogous to this reverse action even in the former class, since coldness may cause warmth by turning away and departing, just as the expert may do mischief on purpose if he reverse the direction in which to exercise his skill.¢ At any rate,? nothing that ‘has the possibility’ of producing motion or of being moved or, more gener- ally, of acting or being acted on, can actualize these potentialities under all circumstances but only when they are suitably disposed and approximated to each posely give currency to false beliefs. [Aristotle alludes, in particular, to the paradoxical conclusion of the argument between Socrates and Hippias in the Hippias Minor of Plato, Ὁ. 376 B ὁ dpa ἑκὼν ἁμαρτάνων.. εἴπερ τίς ἐστιν οὗτος, οὐκ ἂν ἄλλος εἴη ἢ ὁ ἀγαθός (=6 ἐπιστήμων).----Ο,} ὦ [It is now explained that to describe our potential movers and moved in the supposed previous condition of rest as ‘capable’ (δυνατά) of moving or being moved is to use an ambiguous phrase. They may not be ‘actually able ᾿ (δυνάμενα) to move or be moved unless some arresting cause is withdrawn. So we justify the reductio ad absurdum that a change—the withdrawal of the hindrance—would have to occur before the (ex hypothesi) first actual motion could occur.—C.]
ARISTOTLE Bib καὶ πλησιάζοντα ἀλλήλοις. ὥσθ᾽ ὅταν πλησιάσῃ κινεῖ, τὸ δὲ κινεῖται, καὶ ὅταν ὑπάρξῃ ὡς ἦν' τὸ 5 μὲν κινητικὸν τὸ δὲ κινητόν. εἰ τοίνυν μὴ ἄεὶ ἐκινεῖτο, δῆλον ὡς οὐχ οὕτως εἶχον ὡς ἣν δυνά- μενα τὸ μὲν κινεῖσθαι τὸ δὲ κινεῖν, ἀλλ᾽ ἔδει μετα- βάλλειν θάτερον αὐτῶν- ἀνάγκη γὰρ ἐν τοῖς πρός τι τοῦτο cupBaivew, οἷον εἰ μὴ ὃν διπλάσιον νῦν διπλάσιον, μεταβάλλειν, εἰ μὴ ἀμφότερα, θάτερον.
10 ἔσται ἄρα τις προτέρα μεταβολὴ τῆς πρώτης. Πρὸς δὲ τούτοις, τὸ πρότερον καὶ ὕστερον πῶς ἔσται, χρόνου μὴ ὄντος, ἢ 6 χρόνος, μὴ οὔσης κινήσεως; εἰ δή ἐστιν ὃ χρόνος κινήσεως ἀριθμὸς ἢ κίνησίς τις, εἴπερ ἀεὶ χρόνος ἔστιν, ἀνάγκη καὶ κίνησιν ἀΐδιον εἶναι. ἀλλὰ μὴν περί γε χρόνου, ἔξω ἑνός, ὁμονοητικῶς ἔχοντες φαίνονται πάντες" ἀγένητον γὰρ εἶναι λέγουσι. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο Δημό- κριτός γε δείκνυσιν ὡς ἀδύνατον ἅπαντα γεγο- νέναι: τὸν γὰρ χρόνον ἀγένητον εἶναι. ἰἰλάτων δ᾽ αὐτὸν γεννᾷ μόνος. ἅμα μὲν γὰρ αὐτὸν τῷ οὐρανῷ γεγονέναι, τὸν δὲ οὐρανὸν γεγονέναι φησίν. 20 εἰ οὖν ἀδύνατόν ἐστι καὶ εἶναι καὶ νοῆσαι χρόνον ἄνευ τοῦ νῦν, τὸ δὲ νῦν ἐστι μεσότης τις καὶ ἀρχὴν καὶ τελευτὴν ἔχον ἅμα--ἀρχὴν μὲν τοῦ ἐσομένου χρόνου, τελευτὴν δὲ τοῦ παρελθόντος--ἀνάγκη ἀεὶ εἶναι χρόνον: τὸ γὰρ ἔσχατον τοῦ τελευταίου 1 [ὡς ἣν E Oxf. Trans.: ὡς εἶναι cett.—C.]
a a σεν πον" « Compare the definition of time in Book IV. 219 Ὁ 3 ff. > [Timaeus 38 8. But Plato’s own followers maintained that he was here using the language of ‘ myth’ and really regarded the visible universe and time as having no beginning.
romero 1 σι PHYSICS, VIII. τ.
other. Motion takes place, then, when there exists a mobile and a potential motor and they are so approximated that the one really is able to act and the other to be acted on. So if they had been there eternally but without motion, it must obviously have been because they were not in such relations as to make them actually able to cause motion or to be moved. For motion to supervene, therefore, it must be necessary that one or the other should experience a change, for this must be so where we are dealing with any pair of related factors—for instance if A is now twice B and was not so before, either one or both must have changed. So there would have to be a change anterior to the supposed first change.
And besides this, how could there be any before or after at all if time were not, or time itself be if there were no motion? For surely if time is the numerical aspect of movement or is itself a movement, it follows that, if there has always been time, there must always have been movement; and as to that it seems that, with a single exception, all thinkers agree that time never came into existence but was always there. It is thus that Democritus shows how impossible it is that everything can have had an origin— because time has not. (Plato alone assigns an origin to time, for he says it came into existence simultaneously with the universe ® and he assigns an origin to that). Well then, if it is impossible for time to exist or to be conceived without the ‘ pres- ent now, and if this ‘now’ is a kind of midmostness, which combines beginning and end—the beginning, to wit, of future and the end of past time—then there must always have been time; for however far back ARISTOTLE ARISTOTLE 251} ληφθέντος χρόνου ἔν τινι τῶν νῦν ἔσται (οὐδὲν yap 25 ἔστι λαβεῖν ἐν τῷ χρόνῳ παρὰ τὸ νῦν), ὥστε ἐπεί ἐστιν ἀρχή τε Kal τελευτὴ TO νῦν, ἀνάγκη αὐτοῦ ἐπ᾿ ἀμφότερα εἶναι ἀεὶ χρόνον. ἀλλὰ μὴν εἴγε χρόνον, φανερὸν ὅτι ἀνάγκη εἶναι καὶ κίνησιν, εἴπερ ὁ χρόνος πάθος τι κινήσεως. αὐτὸς λόγος καὶ περὶ τοῦ ἄφθαρτον εἶναι 80 τὴν κίνησιν. καθάπερ yap ἐπὶ τοῦ γενέσθαι Ki- vnow συνέβαινε προτέραν eival τινα μεταβολὴν τῆς πρώτης: οὕτως ἐνταῦθα ὑστέραν τῆς τελευταίας" οὐ γὰρ ἅμα παύεται κινούμενον καὶ κινητὸν ὃν (οἷον καόμενον καὶ καυστὸν ὄν, ἐνδέχεται γὰρ 2528 καυστὸν εἶναι μὴ καόμενον) οὐδὲ κινητικὸν καὶ κινοῦν. Kat τὸ φθαρτικὸν δὲ δεήσει φθαρῆναι, ὅταν φθαρῇ, καὶ τὸ τούτου φθαρτικὸν πάλιν ὕστερον᾽" καὶ γὰρ ἡ φθορὰ μεταβολή τίς ἐστιν. εἰ δὴ ταῦτ᾽ 1 [φθαρτικὸν EK Simplic,: φθαρτὸν cett.—C.]
α [The reading is uncertain and the argument obscure. The previous argument about genesis (251 a 16 ff.) was a dilemma. The corresponding dilemma here would be as follows: if there will ever be a time when there is no motion or change, then the things capable of causing or suffering change (τὰ κινητικὰ καὶ κινητά) must either (a) perish after the last change has occurred or (6) endure unchanged for ever. Both suppositions should lead to an impossibility, viz. a change (destruction) occurring after what is ex hypothest the last change.
The sentence οὐ yap ἅμα παύεται κτλ, seems to refer to supposition (a) and to mean that ceasing to be (or to exist as) a thing capable of causing or suffering change (τὸ παύεσθαι κινητικὸν ἢ κινητὸν ὄν) is a change that will have to follow ceasing to be a thing that is actually causing or suffering change (τὸ παύεσθαι κινοῦν ἢ κινούμενον), 1.6. the ceasing- to-be of potential agents and patients of change will be a change later than the last actual change they cause or suffer.
Does this sentence also prove the impossibility of the PHYSICS, VIII. 1.
you go in time past, the extreme limit you take must be a certain ‘now’ (for in time there is nothing else to take except a ‘now’), and since every now is an end as well as a beginning, it follows that time stretches from it in both directions. And if time, then motion, in- asmuch as time is but an aspect or affection of motion.
The same line of argument further shows that movement is imperishable. For as we have seen that if we suppose movement to have had an origin we shall have to suppose that there was a change anterior to the first change, so also if we suppose it to cease we shall have to admit a change posterior to the last change. For what is movable does not cease to be movable because it is no longer being moved, nor does that which is capable of causing motion cease to have that capacity because it is not moving anything; for instance the combustible if it is not being burnt (for it may still be combustible all the same) or the potential agent of local shifting when it is shifting nothing. And so, if all the destructible were destroyed that would not destroy the destroy- ing agent, which would remain for destruction in its turn, and when it was destroyed its destroyer would remain; and being destroyed is a kind of change.
alternative supposition (6): that the potential agents and patients should endure unchanged for ever? Can it mean that the shift from being ‘ actually able’ to cause and suffer change to perpetual immobility could only be effected by some change that rendered agents and patients permanently incapable of affecting one another—e.g. put them out of range (cf. 251 b 1 ff.)—and this would be a change in their condition coming later than the last change? Then the ambiguous phrase τὸ ἱπαύεσθαι κινητικὸν ἢ κινητὸν ὅν would mean (not being simply blotted out, but) ‘ ceasing to be things actually capable of causing or suffermg change.’ Unless we interpret so, alternative (b) seems to be ignored, ARISTOTLE ARISTOTLE 252a ἀδύνατα, δῆλον ὡς ἔστιν ἀίδιος κίνησις, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ 5 ὁτὲ μὲν ἦν OTE δ᾽ οὔ: καὶ γὰρ ἔοικε τὸ οὕτω λέγειν πλάσματι μᾶλλον. Ομοίως δὲ Kal τὸ λέγειν ὅτι πέφυκεν οὕτως καὶ ταύτην δεῖ νομίζειν εἶναι ἀρχήν, ὅπερ ἔοικεν ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς ἂν εἰπεῖν, ὡς τὸ κρατεῖν καὶ κινεῖν al / a ev μέρει τὴν Φιλίαν καὶ τὸ Νεῖκος ὑπάρχει τοῖς πράγμασιν ἐξ ἀνάγκης, ἠρεμεῖν δὲ τὸν μεταξὺ τὸ χρόνον. τάχα δὲ Kal ot μίαν ἀρχὴν ποιοῦντες, ὥσπερ ᾿Αναξαγόρας, οὕτως dy εἴποιεν. ἀλλὰ μὴν οὐδέν γε ἄτακτον τῶν φύσει καὶ κατὰ φύσιν: ἡ γὰρ φύσις αἰτία πᾶσι τάξεως. τὸ δ᾽ ἄπειρον πρὸς τὸ ἄπειρον οὐδένα λόγον ἔχει" τάξις δὲ πᾶσα λόγος. τ τὸ δ᾽ ἄπειρον χρόνον ἠρεμεῖν, εἶτα κινηθῆναί ποτε, τούτου δὲ μηδεμίαν εἶναι διαφοράν, ὅτι νῦν μᾶλλον καὶ “ / ἢ πρότερον, μηδ᾽ αὖ twa τάξιν ἔχειν, οὐκέτι voews ἔργον. ἢ γὰρ ἁπλῶς ἔχει τὸ φύσει καὶ U4 “a οὐχ ὁτὲ μὲν οὕτως ὁτὲ δὲ GAAwWs—olov τὸ πῦρ ἄνω φύσει φέρεται καὶ οὐχ ὁτὲ μὲν ὁτὲ δὲ οὔ--ἢ λόγον 0 ἔχει τὸ μὴ ἁπλοῦν. διόπερ βέλτιον ws Ἔμπεδο- κλῆς, κἂν εἴτις ἕτερος εἴρηκεν οὕτως ἔχειν, ἐν for the next sentence καὶ τὸ φθαρτικόν, κτλ. cannot (with any ms. reading) be construed as referring to it. It ἢ ae to be an afterthought. If the κινητικά and κινητά are to be either destroyed or reduced to permanent incapacity, there must be something capable of destroying or immobiliz- ing them (φθαρτικόν). * And likewise that which is capable of destroying them will have to perish after they are de- stroyed, and what is capable of destroying zt will have to erish in turn still later; for perishing is a kind of change’ (and this change, or series of changes, will follow the last eae κυ πος a or it is as good as saying there was a time when time PHYSICS, VIII. 1.
And if all this is impossible, it is evident that move- ment is eternal, and is not something which now was and now was not. Indeed to assert the opposite is very like a contradiction in terms.
Nor does it help matters to say that that is how things were made and that we must take that as a principle, as Empedocles® seems to imply that the alternating power of attraction and repulsion effec- tively to move things was always there of necessity and the periods of rest between. And one may take it that those who believe in one active principle only, such as Anaxagoras, would take the same line.° Well, but nothing natural or accordant with nature is without order; for nature is the universal deter- minant of order. And the unlimited bears no pro- portion to the unlimited, whereas all orderly suc- cession implies proportion. Thus for there to be an unlimited period of rest, and then at a certain point for motion to supervene,? there being no principle of distinction to determine its ‘ now ἡ from any previous point, so that all orderly succession is excluded— this, 1 say, by the mere statement is excluded from the works of nature. For what is natural is either absolute, not now thuswise and now otherwise (just as fire always tends upwards, not sometimes so and sometimes not) or, if not absolute, is determined by some intelligible principle. Thus Empedocles (or others who may adopt his theories) has the advantage was not. For the exact meaning of πλάσμα cf. De caelo ὃ [Empedocles, frag. 17. 29 ἐν δὲ μέρει κρατέουσι περι- πλομένοιο χρόνοιο. Cf. frag. 96. 1.—C.]
Paes that that’s how things were and there’s an end.
¢ [The view attributed to Anaxagoras above, 250 Ὁ 24.—C.]
ARISTOTLE 3528 μέρει τὸ πᾶν ἠρεμεῖν καὶ κινεῖσθαι πάλιν: τάξιν yap ἤδη τιν᾽ ἔχει τὸ τοιοῦτον. ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῦτο εἶ τὸν λέγοντα μὴ φάναι μόνον, ἀλλὰ Kal τὴν aitiav αὐτοῦ λέγειν, καὶ μὴ τίθεσθαι μηδὲν py 25 ἀξιοῦν ἀξίωμ᾽ ἄλογον, ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ἐπαγωγὴν ἢ ἀπό- δειξιν φέρειν. αὐτὰ μὲν γὰρ οὐκ αἴτια τὰ dro- τεθέντα, οὐδὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἦν τὸ Φιλότητι ἢ Νείκει εἶναι, ἀλλὰ τῆς μὲν τὸ συνάγειν τοῦ δὲ τὸ διακρίνειν" εἰ δὲ προσοριεῖται τὸ ἐν μέρει, λεκτέον ἐφ᾽ ὧν 4 οὕτως, ὥσπερ ὅτι ἔστι TL ὃ συνάγει τοὺς ἀνθρώ- 80 ποὺς, ἡ φιλία, Kal φεύγουσιν οἱ ἐχθροὶ ἀλλήλους" τοῦτο γὰρ ὑποτίθεται καὶ ἐν τῷ ὅλῳ εἶναι" φαίνεται γὰρ ἐπί τινων οὕτω. τὸ δὲ καὶ δι᾽ ἴσων χρόνων etrat λόγου τινός. ὅλως δὲ τὸ νομίζειν ἀρχὴν “A εἶναι ταύτην ἱκανήν, ὅτι ἀεὶ ἢ ἔστιν οὕτως ἢ γίγνεται, οὐκ ὀρθῶς ἔχει ὑπολαβεῖν. ἐφ᾽ ὃ Δημό- 8δ Κριτος ἀνάγει τὰς περὶ φύσεως αἰτίας, ὡς οὕτω 252b καὶ TO πρότερον ἐγίγνετο" τοῦ ὃε GEL οὐκ ἀξιοῖ ἀρχὴν ζητεῖν, λέγων ἐπί τινων ὀρθῶς, ὅτι δ᾽ ἐπὶ α αἰτίαν, the word usually translated ‘ cause.’ ὃ [And both these forces might operate simultaneously in a perpetual ‘harmony of opposite tensions,’ as in the system of Heracleitus. Cf. Plato, Soph. 242 x.—C.] ° [Empedocles, frag. 17.21, does assert that the power of ‘Love’ at work among the physical elements is the same that is recognized as causing sexual union in living creatures.
4 (Cf. Plut. Strom. 7 (Diels, Dow. 581) Δημόκριτος. «. μηδεμίαν ἀρχὴν ἔχειν ras αἰτίας τῶν νῦν γιγνομένων, ἄνωθεν δ᾽ ὅλως ἐξ ἀπείρου χρόνου προκατέχεσθαι τῇ ἀνάγκῃ πάνθ᾽ ἁπλῶς τὰ γεγονότα καὶ ἐόντα καὶ ἐσόμενα.---(.} PHYSICS, VIII. 1.