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

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PHYSICS 425
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being of some sort, and is resolved into being again. 1
It is only a particular object, as such, that begins and
ends its existence Its beginning is the end, and
its end the beginning, of something else. 2 Consequently,
in so far as generation and destruction are
different from change, this difference only affects the
individual object.
The individual changes when it survives
as a whole, although its qualities alter, but it is
generated or destroyed when it, as a whole, begins or
ceases to exist. 3 If on the contrary we regard the
universe and not the individual,
then generation and
destruction coincide partly with composition and division,
partly with the transmutation of materials. 4
Now
both of these processes are occasioned by movement in
space. 5 Everything that comes into being has its
cause ;
all ' becoming ' implies a ' being ' by which it is
mean actual annihilation (318, a,
in the irdflr;. birth and destruction
13). by change in the iiroKeipevov,
viii. 7, 261, a, 3 whether in respect of its form
5iJ|«f y' av ri yeveo-is elvai rrpdrri (\6yos) or its matter ; c. 4, 319,
ruv Ktvfi(rea>vb'iaTOVTO,o'Tiy€v4(r8ai b, 10: aWoiaxris fi4v iffTtv, Hrav
5e? to irpa.yp.a irpurov. rb 5 1 4ATav apxri Trite- dent of these conceptions, and
vwtris leal fidvaxrts . . TvKvaicris 5e none of them are applicable to the
/col fidvcocrts criyKpicns /col Stdnpurts, heavens (260, b, 19 sqq. Gen. et
Ha8' as yevecris Kal a dvdyKi) Kara -rivov these conceptions which has to do
pcrqS&Aeu'.
with the eternal, and is of infinite
1
Phys. ibid. 261, a, 1 sqq. duration (260, b, 29, 261, a, 27
Gen. et Corr. ii. 10 init. sqq.). Aristotle also argues that
2
Phys. ibid, b, 7. It is here because it is the last in time in refurther
pointed out in proof of the spect to individual existences, it
priority of movement ' in space,' must be the first in nature (260,
that, while it is presupposed by b,30,261,a, 13);andheholdsthat
the others, it does not presup- it causes the least change in the
pose them. Without the move- nature of the thing moved, and is
ment of the heavens, neither the motion which the self-moving
generation nor destruction, nei- produces in preference to every
ther growth normaterial change, other (261, a, 20).
could take place. Movement it-
3 Ibid. 260, b, 16 sqq.
self, on the other hand, is indepen- 4
Seep. 304,n.3,andp.306,n.5.
'A\\ola>o-is is produced by change
5
Cf . Phys. viii. 7, 260, b, 8 :