ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

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METAPHYSICS 387
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Indeed, this appears to him so necessary that he asserts
even of what is absolutely incorporeal that it acts only
through contact : even thought apprehends its object by xlt^CL^TJ
touching it '—the latter, however, is related to the
thinking subject as Form to Matter 2 —and in like
manner God, as the first cause of motion, is said, as we
shall shortly see, to be in contact with the world. 3 But
in what sense such expressions can be used of immaterial
things, Aristotle has not further explained.
It follows from this that Motion is as eternal as Jh
Form and Matter, whose essential correlation it represents,
4 and that it has neither beginning nor end. 5
For if it had a beginning, the tnovens and the motum
must either have existed before this beginning or not.
If they did not exist, they must have come into being,
and so a movement would have taken place before the
first motion.
If they did exist, we cannot suppose that
they were at rest, since it was of their very nature
to move. But if it be granted that they did move,
some active force must have operated to endow them
not proved even that they are which touches is not touched by
moved by anything else at all. anything which touches it again]
1
Cf. p. 203, n. 3. ... Sore fl ri Ktvet axlvriTov or,
''
Metaph. xii. 9, 1074, b, 19, eVeii/o fiev an Sltttoito tow kimjtou,
29 : Be An. iii. 4, 429, b, 22, ixelvou Se obSev • yap iviore
29 sqq. top Xvwovvra cMrreo*0ai v/jlwv, a\\'
3
Gen. et Corr. i. 6, 322, b, 21 oxik airol e/celvov. That this,
nothing can affect another with- however, is no more than a play
out being in contact with it, and upon words is obvious.
in the case of things which at ' See p. 341, n. 2, 345, n. 1.
the same time move and are 5
With what follows, cf. Sibmoved,
this contact must be BECK, Die ZeJure d.Ar. v. d. Ewig^
mutual (323. a, 20 sqq.); eori 5' keit d. Welt (Untersueh z. Phil.
ms iviore (pa/iev Tti k vobv awrecrOat d. Griechetl Halle, 1873, pp
fj.6vov tov Ktvoufiivou, to 5' awrSut- 137 18'J).
vov /i^ anTeo"0ai airro/Aeifou [that
CC 2
388 ARISTOTLE
with the property of motion, and thus we should in thii
case also arrive at a movement before motion. It ii
equally impossible to conceive of motion as destructible
The cessation of a movement is
always conditioned bj
another movement which puts an end to the first.
in the former argument we were forced to admit t
process of change antecedent to the first, so here w(
cannot escape one subsequent to the last. 1 Motion is
therefore without beginning or end; the world was
never created and it will never perish. 2
Yet, although Motion from this point of view is infinite,
there is
another aspect in which it has its limitation.
Ai
Since every motion presupposes a motive principle
it follows that the idea of motion in general involves
the assumption of a first motive force which is nol
moved by anything else. Without this assumption we
should be involved in an infinite series of moving causes,
which could never produce actual motion, because
they would never bring us to a first cause—and without
1
The above account contains on avdyKi) ehai ical k\vt\o~iv, €?irep t
the essence of the discussion in xP^vm t&Bos tl Kiviio-eais. With
Phys. viii. 1. That motion must reference apparently to this pasbe
eternal is also asserted in Me- sage, Metaph. xii. 6 proceeds: oiSi
taph. xii. 6, 1071, b, 6: aK\' xp6i'ov ou yap oT6v re rh itpi-npov
ab'&vaTOV KivT\