Metaphysics

​And further, what is that into which they are moved? For there must be a movement or generation of this, from this, into this. How then? For there will be no learning of learning, and so no generation of generation. Since, then, there is no movement of substance, nor of relation, nor of acting and being acted upon, it remains that there is movement in respect of quality, quantity, and place (for to each of these there is a contrariety); and by quality I mean not that which is in the substance (for the difference also is a quality), but the passive, in respect of which a thing is said to be acted upon or to be unaffected. And that which is unmoved is either that which is altogether impossible to be moved, or that which is scarcely moved after a long time or begins slowly, or that which is naturally adapted to be moved and able to be moved, but is not moved when, where, and as it is naturally adapted; which alone of unmoved things I call being at rest; for rest is contrary to movement, so that it would be a privation in that which is receptive. Those things are ‘together in place’ which are in one primary place, and ‘apart’ which are in different places. And things ‘touch’ whose limits are together. And ‘between’ is that at which that which changes continuously naturally arrives before it arrives at that into which it changes last according to nature. The ‘contrary in place’ is that which is most distant in a straight line. And ‘next’ is that which, being after the starting-point, determined by position or form or in some other way, has nothing of the same genus between itself and that which it is next to (though nothing prevents something of another genus from being between). For ‘next’ is next to something and is posterior; for one is not next to two, nor is the new moon next to the second day. And ‘contiguous’ is that which, being next, touches. And since all change is between opposites, and these are contraries and contradictories, and there is nothing between contradictories, it is clear that the ‘between’ is in contraries. And the ‘continuous’ is a kind of contiguous. And I call it continuous when the limit of each of the two, at which they touch and are held together, becomes the same and one; so that it is clear that the continuous is among those things from which some one thing is naturally adapted to come into being by their union. And that the ‘next’ is first is clear (for that which is next does not touch, but this is next; and if it is continuous, it touches, but if it touches, it is not yet continuous; and in those things in which there is no contact, there is no organic union); so that a point is not the same as a unit; for contact belongs to points, but to units it does not, but only being next; and of the former there is something between, but of the latter there is not.