That for whose sake actions and changes and movements take
place, they assert to be a cause in a way, but not in this way, i.e.
not in the way in which it is its nature to be a cause. For those
who speak of reason or friendship class these causes as goods; they do
not speak, however, as if anything that exists either existed or
came into being for the sake of these, but as if movements started
from these. In the same way those who say the One or the existent is
the good, say that it is the cause of substance, but not that
substance either is or comes to be for the sake of this. Therefore
it turns out that in a sense they both say and do not say the good
is a cause; for they do not call it a cause qua good but only
incidentally.
All these thinkers then, as they cannot pitch on another cause,
seem to testify that we have determined rightly both how many and of
what sort the causes are. Besides this it is plain that when the
causes are being looked for, either all four must be sought thus or
they must be sought in one of these four ways. Let us next discuss the
possible difficulties with regard to the way in which each of these
thinkers has spoken, and with regard to his situation relatively to
the first principles.
8
Those, then, who say the universe is one and posit one kind of
thing as matter, and as corporeal matter which has spatial
magnitude, evidently go astray in many ways. For they posit the
elements of bodies only, not of incorporeal things, though there are
also incorporeal things.
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