Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

286 THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF CHANGE: GODWe may note that the reference to Plato’s view that there is an ousia‘besides the forms’ (para ta eidē) is a reference to Plato’s form of the good,which, according to Republic 509b, ‘transcends’ the forms.So he establishes that the ultimate cause of change must be active byappealing to the basic function of the ultimate cause of change, which is tobe the ultimate cause and explanation of activity and motion. But thismost basic requirement, he complains, is overlooked by Plato and thePlatonists when they postulate the forms, or even something besides theforms, i.e. the form of the good; for Plato’s forms, and even the form ofthe good, do not contain activity, hence they cannot cause or explainactivity and motion. Plato, it is true, compares the form of the good to thesun, without whose constant emission of light nothing will move and live(Republic 506f.). But <strong>Aristotle</strong> objects that, unlike the sun, Plato’s form ofthe good, like all his forms, contains no activity, hence it is useless topostulate it as the source of rational, intelligible motion and change in theuniverse.But why must the ultimate cause of change be active in order to causeactivity and motion in the cosmos ? The obvious answer, we may think, isthat the ultimate cause of change must be active in order to act on andinteract with the cosmos; and without interaction it cannot cause activityor motion in the cosmos. We may also note that the simile of the sunsuggests this answer, since the sun appears to interact with the things thatit activates and enlivens through the light that it emits. But this is not<strong>Aristotle</strong>’s answer; for we saw that the ultimate cause of change does not inany way act on or interact with the cosmos, rather it is supposed to causemotion by being a final cause and a non-interactive efficient cause. So<strong>Aristotle</strong> does not think that the activity of the ultimate cause of changeconsists of interaction with the cosmos, and this makes it all the morestriking that he requires that the ultimate cause of change should be active.Evidently, the activity of the ultimate cause of change is not a relationalactivity, i.e. an activity between it and the cosmos; for then it would beinteractive. So the activity of the ultimate cause of change must be, notrelational to something else, but wholly internal to it; it is more like theactivity of a computer with the screen turned off and less like the activityof the sun.This is difficult enough to imagine, but it is especially difficult tounderstand how an activity that is wholly internal to the cause can benecessary for causing motion in the effect. To understand this, we mustrecall that the ultimate cause of change moves the cosmos in virtue of thecosmos recognizing and desiring the perfection of the ultimate cause ofchange. But if this perfection did not include perfect activity, then the