Книга только для ознакомления
.g. 10 is many (if there is no number which is
greater than 10), or 10,000. How then, in view of this, can number
consist of few and many? Either both ought to be predicated of it,
or neither; but in fact only the one or the other is predicated.
2
We must inquire generally, whether eternal things can consist of
elements. If they do, they will have matter; for everything that
consists of elements is composite. Since, then, even if a thing exists
for ever, out of that of which it consists it would necessarily
also, if it had come into being, have come into being, and since
everything comes to be what it comes to be out of that which is it
potentially (for it could not have come to be out of that which had
not this capacity, nor could it consist of such elements), and since
the potential can be either actual or not,-this being so, however
everlasting number or anything else that has matter is, it must be
capable of not existing, just as that which is any number of years old
is as capable of not existing as that which is a day old; if this is
capable of not existing, so is that which has lasted for a time so
long that it has no limit. They cannot, then, be eternal, since that
which is capable of not existing is not eternal, as we had occasion to
show in another context. If that which we are now saying is true
universally-that no substance is eternal unless it is actuality-and if
the elements are matter that underlies substance, no eternal substance
can have elements present in it, of which it consists
|
