Of the productions or processes one part is called thinking and
the other making,-that which proceeds from the starting-point and
the form is thinking, and that which proceeds from the final step of
the thinking is making. And each of the other, intermediate, things is
produced in the same way. I mean, for instance, if the subject is to
be healthy his bodily state must be made uniform. What then does being
made uniform imply? This or that. And this depends on his being made
warm. What does this imply? Something else. And this something is
present potentially; and what is present potentially is already in the
physician's power.
The active principle then and the starting point for the process
of becoming healthy is, if it happens by art, the form in the soul,
and if spontaneously, it is that, whatever it is, which starts the
making, for the man who makes by art, as in healing the starting-point
is perhaps the production of warmth (and this the physician produces
by rubbing). Warmth in the body, then, is either a part of health or
is followed (either directly or through several intermediate steps) by
something similar which is a part of health; and this, viz. that which
produces the part of health, is the limiting-point--and so too with
a house (the stones are the limiting-point here) and in all other
cases. Therefore, as the saying goes, it is impossible that anything
should be produced if there were nothing existing before. Obviously
then some part of the result will pre-exist of necessity; for the
matter is a part; for this is present in the process and it is this
that becomes something.
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