This is why it is thought impossible to be a builder if one has
built nothing or a harper if one has never played the harp; for he who
learns to play the harp learns to play it by playing it, and all other
learners do similarly. And thence arose the sophistical quibble,
that one who does not possess a science will be doing that which is
the object of the science; for he who is learning it does not
possess it. But since, of that which is coming to be, some part must
have come to be, and, of that which, in general, is changing, some
part must have changed (this is shown in the treatise on movement), he
who is learning must, it would seem, possess some part of the science.
But here too, then, it is clear that actuality is in this sense
also, viz. in order of generation and of time, prior to potency.
But (3) it is also prior in substantiality; firstly, (a) because
the things that are posterior in becoming are prior in form and in
substantiality (e.g. man is prior to boy and human being to seed;
for the one already has its form, and the other has not), and
because everything that comes to be moves towards a principle, i.e. an
end (for that for the sake of which a thing is, is its principle,
and the becoming is for the sake of the end), and the actuality is the
end, and it is for the sake of this that the potency is acquired.
For animals do not see in order that they may have sight, but they
have sight that they may see. And similarly men have the art of
building that they may build, and theoretical science that they may
theorize; but they do not theorize that they may have theoretical
science, except those who are learning by practice; and these do not
theorize except in a limited sense, or because they have no need to
theorize.
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