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Aristotle - Metaphysics
Atec Февраль 16 2008 19:57:08
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Anaximenes and Diogenes make air prior to water, and the most
primary of the simple bodies, while Hippasus of Metapontium and
Heraclitus of Ephesus say this of fire, and Empedocles says it of
the four elements (adding a fourth-earth-to those which have been
named); for these, he says, always remain and do not come to be,
except that they come to be more or fewer, being aggregated into one
and segregated out of one.
Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who, though older than Empedocles, was
later in his philosophical activity, says the principles are
infinite in number; for he says almost all the things that are made of
parts like themselves, in the manner of water or fire, are generated
and destroyed in this way, only by aggregation and segregation, and
are not in any other sense generated or destroyed, but remain
eternally.
From these facts one might think that the only cause is the
so-called material cause; but as men thus advanced, the very facts
opened the way for them and joined in forcing them to investigate
the subject. However true it may be that all generation and
destruction proceed from some one or (for that matter) from more
elements, why does this happen and what is the cause? For at least the
substratum itself does not make itself change; e.g. neither the wood
nor the bronze causes the change of either of them, nor does the
wood manufacture a bed and the bronze a statue, but something else
is the cause of the change
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