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. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always
most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any
cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being
of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so
is it in respect of truth.
2
But evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of things
are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind. For
neither can one thing proceed from another, as from matter, ad
infinitum (e.g. flesh from earth, earth from air, air from fire, and
so on without stopping), nor can the sources of movement form an
endless series (man for instance being acted on by air, air by the
sun, the sun by Strife, and so on without limit). Similarly the
final causes cannot go on ad infinitum,-walking being for the sake
of health, this for the sake of happiness, happiness for the sake of
something else, and so one thing always for the sake of another. And
the case of the essence is similar. For in the case of
intermediates, which have a last term and a term prior to them, the
prior must be the cause of the later terms. For if we had to say which
of the three is the cause, we should say the first; surely not the
last, for the final term is the cause of none; nor even the
intermediate, for it is the cause only of one. (It makes no difference
whether there is one intermediate or more, nor whether they are
infinite or finite in number
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