Problems Concerning First Principles

they wish all things to be. For infinite things would not be "all things" original: "ἀπαρτῆ"; therefore nothing appears outside of all things. For totality is a kind of boundary, and already a comprehension, in which the principle is the upper limit; and that which is furthest from the principle is the lower limit. Therefore, all things are with their limits. Furthermore, the principle is connected to the things that come from the principle, for it is called—and is—the principle of those things, just as a cause is to its effects, and the first is to the things after the first. And we call all those things that are held together in a single synthesis "all things"; so the principle is also in all things, and generally we call "all things" simply whatever we conceive of in any way at all. And we also conceive of the principle. And so, we are accustomed to speaking of an entire city, the ruler and the ruled, and every genus, the generator and the begotten. But if all things are with the principle, the principle of all things would not be some original: "τὶ" thing, comprehended within all things and the principle itself. Therefore, the one synthesis of all things, which we call "all things," is without a principle and without a cause, lest we ascend to infinity. Yet indeed, everything must either be a principle or be from a principle; and therefore all things are either a principle or from a principle.