METAPHYSICS(BOOKXII) 153
power of thinking is set in motion by the action of the thing thought, and what is
thought in its own right belongs to an array of affirmative objects of which thinghood
is primary, and of this the primary kind is that which is simple and at work. (But what is
one and what is simple are not the same, for oneness indicates a measure, but what is
simple is itself a certain way.) But surely the beautiful and what is chosen in virtue of
itself are also in that same array, and what is primary is always best, or analogous to it.
And that-for-the-sake-of-which is possible among motionless things, as the [following]
distinction makes evident; for that-for-the-sake-of-which is either forsomething or
belonging tosomething, of which the former is and the latter is not present among
motionless things. And it causes motion in the manner of something loved, and by
means of what is moved moves other things.
Now if something is moved, it admits of being otherwise than it is; and so, even if
the primary kind of change of place is a being-at-work, insofar as something is moved,
it is in that respect at least capable of being otherwise, with respect to place even if not
with respect to thinghood. But since there is something that causes motion while being
itself motionless, this does not admit of being otherwise than it is in any respect at all.
For among changes, the primary one is change of place, and of this the primary kind is
in a circle, but this is what this mover causes. Therefore it is something that has being
necessarily, and inasmuch as it is by necessity it is beautiful and in that way a source.
For the necessary has this many senses: what is by force because it is contrary to a
thing’s impulse, that without which something will not be in a good condition, and that
which does not admit of being any way other than in a simple condition. On such a
source, therefore, the cosmos and nature depend.
And the course of its life is of such a kind as the best we have for a short time.
This is because it is always the same way (which for us is impossible), and because its
being-at-work is also pleasure (which is what makes being awake, perceiving, and
thinking the most pleasant things, while hopes and memories are pleasant on account of
these). And the thinking that is just thinking by itself is a thinking of what is best just as
itself, and especially so with what is so most of all. But by partaking in what it thinks,
the intellect thinks itself, for it becomes what it thinks by touching and contemplating it,
so that the intellect and what it thinks are the same thing. For what is receptive of the
intelligible and of thinghood is the intellect, and it is at work when it has them; therefore
it is the being-at-work rather than the receptivity the intellect has that seems godlike,
and its contemplation is pleasantest and best. So if the divine being is always in this
good condition that we are sometimes in, that is to be wondered at; and if it is in it to a
greater degree than we are, that is to be wondered at still more. And that is the way it is.
But life belongs to it too, for the being-at-work of intellect is life, and that being is
being-at-work, and its being-at-work is in itself the best life and is everlasting. And we
say that it is a god who everlastingly lives the best life, so that life and continuous and
everlasting duration belong to a god; for this being is god.
And those who assume, as do the Pythagoreans and Speusippus, that what is most
beautiful and best is not present in the source of anything, since, while the sources of
plants and or animals are responsible for them, what is beautiful and complete is in the
effects that come from them, do not think rightly. For the seed comes from other, earlier,
complete beings, and what is first is not the seed but the complete being, just as one
would say that a human being precedes the germinal fluid, not the one who comes into
being from it, but another one from whom the germinal fluid came.
That, then, there is an independent thing that is everlasting, motionless, and sepa-
rate from perceptible things, is clear from what has been said. And it has also been
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