If, then, 'that
which is not' has several senses, and movement can attach neither to
that which implies putting together or separating, nor to that which
implies potency and is opposed to that which is in the full sense
(true, the not-white or not-good can be moved incidentally, for the
not-white might be a man; but that which is not a particular thing
at all can in no wise be moved), that which is not cannot be moved
(and if this is so, generation cannot be movement; for that which is
not is generated; for even if we admit to the full that its generation
is accidental, yet it is true to say that 'not-being' is predicable of
that which is generated absolutely). Similarly rest cannot be long
to that which is not. These consequences, then, turn out to be
awkward, and also this, that everything that is moved is in a place,
but that which is not is not in a place; for then it would be
somewhere. Nor is destruction movement; for the contrary of movement
is rest, but the contrary of destruction is generation. Since every
movement is a change, and the kinds of change are the three named
above, and of these those in the way of generation and destruction are
not movements, and these are the changes from a thing to its
contradictory, it follows that only the change from positive into
positive is movement. And the positives are either contrary or
intermediate (for even privation must be regarded as contrary), and
are expressed by an affirmative term, e.g. 'naked' or 'toothless' or
'black'.
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