156 ARISTOTLE
Therefore the first motionless being that causes motion is one both in articulation and in
number; and therefore what is moved always and continuously is also one. Therefore
there is only one heaven.
There has been handed down from people of ancient and earliest times a heritage, in
the form of myth, to those of later times, that these original beings are gods, and that the
divine embraces the whole of nature. The rest of it was presently introduced in mythical
guise for the persuasion of the masses and into the laws for use and benefit; for the myths
say the gods are of human form or like some of the other animals, and other things that
follow along with and approximate these that have been mentioned. If one were to take
only the first of these things, separating it out, that they thought the primary independent
things were gods, one would regard this as having been said by divine inspiration, and,
since it is likely that every kind of art and philosophy has been discovered to the limit of
its potential many times, and passed away in turn, one would consider these opinions of
those people to have been saved like holy relics up to now. So the opinion of our forefa-
thers that comes from the first ages is clear to us but only to this extent.- Now concerning the intellect there are certain impasses, for it seems to be the most
divine of the things that are manifest to us, but the way it is if it is to be of that sort contains
some things that are hard to digest. For if it thinks nothing, what would be solemn about
that? Rather, it would be just like someone sleeping. But if it does think, but something else
has power over it, then, since it is not thinking but potency that is the thinghood of it, it
could not be the best independent thing, for it is on account of its act of thinking that its
place of honor belongs to it. And still, whether the thinghood of it is a power of thinking or
an activity of thinking, what does it think? For this is either itself or something else, and if
it is something else, either always the same one or different ones. And then does it make
any difference, or none, whether its thinking is of what is beautiful or of some random
thing? Isn’t it even absurd for its thinking to be about some things? Surely it is obvious that
it thinks the most divine and honorable things, and does not change, since its change would
be for the worse, and such a thing would already be a motion. First, then, if it is not an
activity of thinking but a potency, it is reasonable to suppose that the continuation of its
thinking would be wearisome; and next, it is clear that something else would then be more
honorable than the intellect, namely what it thinks. For thinking and the activity of thinking
would belong even to something that thinks the worst thing, and if this is to be avoided (for
it can even be more advantageous not to see some things than to see them), then the activ-
ity of thinking would not be the best thing. Therefore what it thinks is itself, if it is the most
excellent thing, and its thinking is a thinking of thinking.
But knowledge and perception and opinion and step-by-step thinking seem
always to be about something else, and about themselves only as something secondary.
What’s more, if the thinking and the being thought are different, then in virtue of which
of them does what is good belong to it? For to be an act of thinking and to be something
thought are not the same. Or is it rather that in some cases the knowledge is the thing it
is concerned with, so that in the case of the kinds of knowing that make something, the
thinghood without material and what it is for something to be, or in the case of the con-
templative kinds of knowing, the articulation, is both the thing the knowledge is con-
cerned with and the activity of thinking it? So since what is thought and what is
thinking are not different with as many things as have no material, they will be the
same, and the act of thinking will be one with what is thought.
But there is still an impasse left as to whether what is thought is composite, for
then the thinking would be changing among the parts of the whole. Or is it the case that
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