152 ARISTOTLE
And yet there is an impasse: for it seems that, while everything that is at work is
capable of it, not everything that is capable of it is at work, so that the potency would
take precedence. But surely if this were so, there would be no beings at all, since it is
possible to be capable of being and not yet be. Nevertheless, there is the same impossi-
bility if things are the way those who write about the gods say, who generate all things
out of night, or the way of those who write about nature, who say “all things were
together.” For how will things have been set in motion, if there were not some responsi-
ble thing at work? For material itself, at any rate, will not set itself in motion, but a
craftsman will cause it to, nor will the menstrual fluid or the earth set themselves in
motion, but semen or seeds will cause them to. And this is why some people, such as
Leucippus and Plato, bring in an everlasting activity, for they say that there is always
motion. But why there is this motion, and what it is, they do not say, nor the cause of its
being a certain way or some other way. For nothing moves at random, but always some-
thing must be present to it, just as now something moves in a certain way by nature, but
in some other way by force or by the action of intelligence or something else. And then,
what sort of motion is primary? For this makes so much difference one can hardly
conceive it. But surely it is not even possible for Plato to say what he sometimes thinks
the source of motion is, which itself sets itself in motion; for the soul is derivative, and
on the same level as the heavens, as he says.
Now to suppose that potency takes precedence over being-at-work is in a sense
right but in a sense not right (and in what sense has been said); and Anaxagoras testifies
that being-at-work takes precedence (since intellect is a being-at-work), as does
Empedocles with love and strife, and so do those who say there is always motion, such
as Leucippus; therefore there was not chaos or night for an infinite time, but the same
things have always been so, either in a cycle or in some other way, if being-at-work
takes precedence over potency. So if the same thing is always so in a cycle, it is neces-
sary for something to persist always at work in the same way. But if there is going to be
generation and destruction, there must be something else that is always at work in dif-
ferent ways. Therefore it must necessarily be at work in a certain way in virtue of itself,
and in another way in virtue of something else, in virtue, that is, of either a different
thing or the first one. And it is necessarily in virtue of the first one, since it would in turn
be responsible for both itself and that different one. Accordingly it is better that it be the
first one, for it was responsible for what is always the same way, while another thing
was responsible for what happens in different ways, and obviously both together are
responsible for what happens in different ways always. And without doubt motions are
this way. Why then must one look for other sources?- But since it is possible for it to be this way, and if it is not this way things will
come from night and from “all things together” and from not-being, these questions
could be resolved; and there is a certain ceaseless motion that is always moving, and it
is in a circle (and this is evident not only to reason but in fact), so that the first heaven
would be everlasting. Accordingly, there is also something that moves it. And since
what is in motion and causes motion is something intermediate, there is also something
that causes motion without being in motion, which is everlasting, an independent thing,
and a being-at-work. But what is desired and what is thought cause motion in that way:
not being in motion, they cause motion. But the primary instances of these are the same
things, for what is yearned for is what seems beautiful, while what is wished for pri-
marily is what is beautiful; but we desire something because of the way it seems, rather
than its seeming so because we desire it, for the act of thinking is the beginning. But the
301072 a
102030253551525