But this also is refuted in the same way; for
the one matter which underlies any pair of contraries is contrary to
nothing. Further, all things, except the one, will, on the view we are
criticizing, partake of evil; for the bad itself is one of the two
elements. But the other school does not treat the good and the bad
even as principles; yet in all things the good is in the highest
degree a principle. The school we first mentioned is right in saying
that it is a principle, but how the good is a principle they do not
say-whether as end or as mover or as form.
Empedocles also has a paradoxical view; for he identifies the good
with love, but this is a principle both as mover (for it brings things
together) and as matter (for it is part of the mixture). Now even if
it happens that the same thing is a principle both as matter and as
mover, still the being, at least, of the two is not the same. In which
respect then is love a principle? It is paradoxical also that strife
should be imperishable; the nature of his 'evil' is just strife.
Anaxagoras makes the good a motive principle; for his 'reason'
moves things. But it moves them for an end, which must be something
other than it, except according to our way of stating the case; for,
on our view, the medical art is in a sense health. It is paradoxical
also not to suppose a contrary to the good, i.e. to reason. But all
who speak of the contraries make no use of the contraries, unless we
bring their views into shape. And why some things are perishable and
others imperishable, no one tells us; for they make all existing
things out of the same principles.
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