Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF CHANGE: GOD 261ta aitia] of primary beings. For if the universe is [considered] as awhole, primary being will be its first part; and if [it is considered] asa series of things, in this way too primary being will be first, followedby quality, quantity [etc., i.e. by the non-primary beings]…. Further,none of the other things [i.e. the non-primary beings] is separate[chōriston].[1069 a 25–3o] Even the ancient thinkers bear witness to this throughtheir deeds. For they were searching for the principles, elements, andexplanations of primary being. The present-day thinkers hold thatthe universals are more properly primary beings…. But the pastthinkers hold that the particulars are more properly primary beings,such as fire and earth, but not what is common to both, i.e. body.[1069 a 30–33] But there are three [kinds of] of primary beings: oneis sense-perceptible—part of it being everlasting, another part beingperishable (this latter, i.e. things such as plants and animals, isacknowledged by everyone)—…; but another is changeless.The last lines (1069 a 30–33) anticipate what <strong>Aristotle</strong> will argue later (inXII. 6–10). For the distinction between, on the one hand, senseperceptibleand in general changing things and, on the other hand,changeless things anticipates the distinction between, on the one hand,nature, i.e. the totality of changing things, and, on the other hand, anultimate explanation of nature as a whole, which will be provided bysomething that is itself changeless.Here it is also worth noting straight away that <strong>Aristotle</strong> also distinguishesthe sense-perceptible and changing things themselves into two kinds: thosethat are everlasting and those that are not everlasting but, on the contrary,perishable. By those changing things that are perishable he has in mindespecially things such as plants and animals, and in general the things withwhich we are directly familiar from sense perception and experience. Bythose changing things that are everlasting he has in mind, it will emerge,the planets and stars, and in particular the outermost heaven (ho prōtosouranos), which, he will argue, bounds and delimits nature as a whole.But in general he wants here (in XII. 1) to characterize the overallproject in book XII, which is to search for the ultimate explanations of allthings, and of nature and the universe as a whole. <strong>Aristotle</strong>’scharacterization of this project, we should note, is strikingly similar to, andreminiscent of, the characterization of metaphysics both at the opening ofthe Metaphysics (I. 1–2; see Chapter 2§1) and at the opening of the central