Page - 438 - in The Complete Aristotle

of separation, not only for each thing, but for all. Each thing that comes to be comes from a similar body, and there is a coming to be of all things, though not, it is true, at the same time. Hence there must also be an origin of coming to be. One such source there is which he calls Mind, and Mind begins its work of thinking from some starting-point. So necessarily all things must have been together at a certain time, and must have begun to be moved at a certain time. Democritus, for his part, asserts the contrary, namely that no element arises from another element. Nevertheless for him the common body is a source of all things, differing from part to part in size and in shape. It is clear then from these considerations that the inquiry concerns the physicist. Nor is it without reason that they all make it a principle or source. We cannot say that the infinite has no effect, and the only effectiveness which we can ascribe to it is that of a principle. Everything is either a source or derived from a source. But there cannot be a source of the infinite or limitless, for that would be a limit of it. Further, as it is a beginning, it is both uncreatable and indestructible. For there must be a point at which what has come to be reaches completion, and also a termination of all passing away. That is why, as we say, there is no principle of this, but it is this which is held to be the principle of other things, and to encompass all and to steer all, as those assert who do not recognize, alongside the infinite, other causes, such as Mind or Friendship. Further they identify it with the Divine, for it is ‘deathless and imperishable’ as Anaximander says, with the majority of the physicists. Belief in the existence of the infinite comes mainly from five considerations: (1) From the nature of time-for it is infinite. (2) From the division of magnitudes-for the mathematicians also use the notion of the infinite. (3) If coming to be and passing away do not give out, it is only because that from which things come to be is infinite. (4) Because the limited always finds its limit in something, so that there must be no limit, if everything is always limited by something different from itself. (5) Most of all, a reason which is peculiarly appropriate and presents the difficulty that is felt by everybody-not only number but also mathematical magnitudes and what is outside the heaven are supposed to be infinite because they never give out in our thought. The last fact (that what is outside is infinite) leads people to suppose that 438