Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

THE ULTIMATE CAUSE OF CHANGE: GOD 293are like the rational change of the outermost heaven in that they areeverlasting, uniform and cyclical (even if not circular). For example, theseasons of the year, and the alternations between day and night, repeatthemselves in an infinite sequence of uniform cycles, and plants and animalsrenew themselves and reproduce in an infinite sequence of uniform lifecycles.So, since the ultimate cause of change is the immediate cause ofthese distinctive features of the motion of the outermost heaven, namely,the everlasting nature, uniformity and circularity or cyclicality of itsmotion, it will also be the ultimate cause of any genuinely similar featuresthroughout the universe; and <strong>Aristotle</strong> thinks that the universe is full ofsuch features.So the universe contains such rational order—rational order that iseverlasting, uniform and cyclical, in that it contains things thatexhibit these features. Some things exhibit them as individuals, inparticular the planets and the stars which are, each of them, everlasting. Butother things exhibit them only as a species, in particular animals which,even though the individuals are mortal and finite, as a species renewthemselves without end. In this way, rational order is present in theuniverse, i.e. it is immanent, although its ultimate cause is thetranscendent ultimate cause of change. And the ultimate cause of changemoves in the first instance the outermost heaven, but through doing so itmoves all the other things as well (compare: ‘it [the ultimate cause ofchange] moves the other things through a thing moved [i.e. through theoutermost heaven]’, 1072 b 4).But <strong>Aristotle</strong> argues not only that many things in the universe exhibitsuch rational order; he argues that the universe as a whole does so:And the order is not such that one thing has no relation to another;rather, they do have a relation [to each other], for all things arejointly ordered in relation to one thing [i.e. to the ultimate cause ofchange].(1075 a 17–18)So the things that exhibit rational order do so not only each by itself andindependently of each other, but all in relation to each other; and in this waythe universe as a whole exhibits rational order. But the reason for this, hesays, is that all these immanent things, taken jointly and together, stand inrelation to and depend on a single transcendent thing—the ultimate causeof change. This view fits perfectly his previous analogy of the army, and hedrives home the point by adding the analogy of a well-ordered household,in which every member, from the freemen who rule the household to the