Metaphysics

​It is clear that there are principles and causes that are generable and destructible without undergoing the process of generation and destruction. For if this is not so, all things will be of necessity, if there must be some cause, which is not accidental, of that which comes to be and is destroyed. For will this exist or not? Yes, if this comes to be; but if not, no. And this, if something else. And thus it is clear that by always subtracting time from a finite time, one will arrive at the present, so that this man will die by violence, if indeed he goes out; and this, if he gets thirsty; and this, if something else; and thus one will arrive at what is now present, or at some of the things that have already happened. For example, if he gets thirsty; and this, if he eats spicy food; and this either is present or not; so that he will of necessity die or not die. And similarly, if one jumps over to the things that have already happened, the same argument holds; for this already exists in something—I mean, the past event. Therefore, all things that are to be will be of necessity, for example, that the living person will die; for something has already happened, for instance, the contraries in the same body. But whether by disease or by violence is not yet determined, but only if “this” happens. It is clear, then, that the process goes back to a certain principle, and this no longer goes back to anything else. This, then, will be the principle of the ‘as it chances’, and there is no other cause of its generation. But to what kind of principle and what kind of cause such a reduction leads, whether as to matter, or as to that for the sake of which, or as to that which moves, must be especially considered.

​Now, let us leave aside being by accident (for it has been sufficiently defined); but as for being as truth, and non-being as falsity, since they depend on combination and separation, and the whole matter is about the division of a contradiction (for the true has affirmation in the case of what is combined, and negation in the case of what is separated, while the false has the contradiction of this division; but how it happens that we think things together or apart is another question—I mean “together” and “apart” not as a succession but so that they become some one thing); for falsity and truth are not in things—for example, the good being true and the bad immediately false—but in thought, and not even in thought concerning simple things and what a thing is;—what we must contemplate concerning being and non-being in this sense must be examined later. But since the combination and the separation are in thought and not in things, and being in this sense is different from being in the strict sense (for thought either connects or subtracts “what a thing is,” or that it is of a certain quality, or of a certain quantity, or something else), we must leave aside both being by accident and being as truth—for the cause of the former is indefinite, and of the latter is some affection of thought, and both are about the remaining genus of being, and do not indicate any nature of being existing outside—therefore, let these be left aside, and we must consider the causes and principles of being itself, qua being.