Further, some make existing
things out of the nonexistent; and others to avoid the necessity of
this make all things one.
Further, why should there always be becoming, and what is the
cause of becoming?-this no one tells us. And those who suppose two
principles must suppose another, a superior principle, and so must
those who believe in the Forms; for why did things come to
participate, or why do they participate, in the Forms? And all other
thinkers are confronted by the necessary consequence that there is
something contrary to Wisdom, i.e. to the highest knowledge; but we
are not. For there is nothing contrary to that which is primary; for
all contraries have matter, and things that have matter exist only
potentially; and the ignorance which is contrary to any knowledge
leads to an object contrary to the object of the knowledge; but what
is primary has no contrary.
Again, if besides sensible things no others exist, there will be
no first principle, no order, no becoming, no heavenly bodies, but
each principle will have a principle before it, as in the accounts
of the theologians and all the natural philosophers. But if the
Forms or the numbers are to exist, they will be causes of nothing;
or if not that, at least not of movement. Further, how is extension,
i.e. a continuum, to be produced out of unextended parts? For number
will not, either as mover or as form, produce a continuum. But again
there cannot be any contrary that is also essentially a productive
or moving principle; for it would be possible for it not to be.
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