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. And to seek this is to seek the second
cause, as we should say,-that from which comes the beginning of the
movement. Now those who at the very beginning set themselves to this
kind of inquiry, and said the substratum was one, were not at all
dissatisfied with themselves; but some at least of those who
maintain it to be one-as though defeated by this search for the second
cause-say the one and nature as a whole is unchangeable not only in
respect of generation and destruction (for this is a primitive belief,
and all agreed in it), but also of all other change; and this view
is peculiar to them. Of those who said the universe was one, then none
succeeded in discovering a cause of this sort, except perhaps
Parmenides, and he only inasmuch as he supposes that there is not only
one but also in some sense two causes. But for those who make more
elements it is more possible to state the second cause, e.g. for those
who make hot and cold, or fire and earth, the elements; for they treat
fire as having a nature which fits it to move things, and water and
earth and such things they treat in the contrary way.
When these men and the principles of this kind had had their
day, as the latter were found inadequate to generate the nature of
things men were again forced by the truth itself, as we said, to
inquire into the next kind of cause. For it is not likely either
that fire or earth or any such element should be the reason why things
manifest goodness and, beauty both in their being and in their
coming to be, or that those thinkers should have supposed it was;
nor again could it be right to entrust so great a matter to
spontaneity and chance
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