Page - 154 - in The Priority of Locomotion in Aristotle’s Physics

changes in the cosmos.28 The fact that locomotion in this sense is responsi- ble for all changes in the universe, as we have seen, is one of the reasons for its ontological priority.29 Neither coming to be nor perishing, nor any of the other kinds of change may be without this primary change in place.30 Accordingly, the generation of perishable things, too, depends on this pri- mary change, that is to say, there exists some causal connection between the primary eternal change that is locomotion and the generation of living beings that necessarily precedes the performance of any of their specific locomotions in time. As I shall show now, this connection of the generation of things to the eternal movements that occur in the heavens will help us to see in which way change in place indeed is prior in time in general, although in some individual living things locomotion in the stated sense needs to be considered as the last of changes. 6.5 The locomotion of the sun as a cause of generation Yet, apart from the fact that the eternal change that is caused directly by the first unmoved mover, i.e. the locomotion of the outermost sphere, is the cause of generation and corruption as well as of every other change in the cosmos, it is unclear what precise role this primary change plays for these changes, that is, in what exact causal relation it stands to the occurrences of the coming to be of individual perishables. For in what way does it make sense to say that, for instance the uniform and unchanging movement of the sphere of the fixed stars is responsible for the coming be of specific liv- ing beings, for example my neighbour or his cat? Again, at the end of Phys. VIII 6 it is pointed out that every change in the universe has its source in the first unmoved mover, since without the pri- mary change that it causes no other change could exist.31 However, Aristo- tle makes clear that this change cannot be directly responsible for genera- tion, corruption or any of the other kinds of change that occur, since it persistently causes one and the same change, a change that is eternal and characterised by absolute uniformity.32 Yet, it is due to its causing the movement of this primum mobile, which may be identified with the outer- most sphere, that all of the other changes in the end occur, for the primum 28 See Phys. VIII 6, 260a1–3. For more on this see the next section. 29 See my discussion in chapter 5; for the claim that all changes depend on the change which is directly caused by the first unmoved mover, see Phys. VIII 6, 260a1–3. 30 See Phys. VIII 6, 260a1–3. 31 See Phys. VIII 6, 260a1–3. 32 See Phys. VIII 6, 260a3–5. 154 Locomotion has temporal priority ISBN Print: 9783525253069 — ISBN E-Book: 9783647253060 © 2014, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen