But this is
impossible, whether the process has a limit or proceeds to infinity.
Further, how will perishable things exist, if their principles are
to be annulled? But if the principles are imperishable, why will
things composed of some imperishable principles be perishable, while
those composed of the others are imperishable? This is not probable,
but is either impossible or needs much proof. Further, no one has even
tried to maintain different principles; they maintain the same
principles for all things. But they swallow the difficulty we stated
first as if they took it to be something trifling.
(11) The inquiry that is both the hardest of all and the most
necessary for knowledge of the truth is whether being and unity are
the substances of things, and whether each of them, without being
anything else, is being or unity respectively, or we must inquire what
being and unity are, with the implication that they have some other
underlying nature. For some people think they are of the former,
others think they are of the latter character. Plato and the
Pythagoreans thought being and unity were nothing else, but this was
their nature, their essence being just unity and being. But the
natural philosophers take a different line; e.g. Empedocles-as
though reducing to something more intelligible-says what unity is; for
he would seem to say it is love: at least, this is for all things
the cause of their being one. Others say this unity and being, of
which things consist and have been made, is fire, and others say it is
air.
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