And
the case of the essence is similar. For in the case of
intermediates, which have a last term and a term prior to them, the
prior must be the cause of the later terms. For if we had to say which
of the three is the cause, we should say the first; surely not the
last, for the final term is the cause of none; nor even the
intermediate, for it is the cause only of one. (It makes no difference
whether there is one intermediate or more, nor whether they are
infinite or finite in number.) But of series which are infinite in
this way, and of the infinite in general, all the parts down to that
now present are alike intermediates; so that if there is no first
there is no cause at all.
Nor can there be an infinite process downwards, with a beginning
in the upward direction, so that water should proceed from fire, earth
from water, and so always some other kind should be produced. For
one thing comes from another in two ways-not in the sense in which
'from' means 'after' (as we say 'from the Isthmian games come the
Olympian'), but either (i) as the man comes from the boy, by the boy's
changing, or (ii) as air comes from water. By 'as the man comes from
the boy' we mean 'as that which has come to be from that which is
coming to be' or 'as that which is finished from that which is being
achieved' (for as becoming is between being and not being, so that
which is becoming is always between that which is and that which is
not; for the learner is a man of science in the making, and this is
what is meant when we say that from a learner a man of science is
being made); on the other hand, coming from another thing as water
comes from air implies the destruction of the other thing.
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