Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 1

I call every successive change "motion," as it is defined in the context of time. For even if the heavens stood still, the voluntary motions of angels and glorified bodies In medieval theology, "glorified bodies" are the physical bodies of the saved after resurrection, believed to possess supernatural qualities like extreme speed or the ability to pass through matter. could still occur. Certainly, a stone would fall if it were placed high up, even if the motion of the heavens did not exist. The motion of the heavens is directed only toward the changes of things according to generation, decay, alteration, growth, and shrinking. It is not directed toward other local motions, nor to the many things that can be done by the spirit or by glorified bodies. Thus the world never ceased producing animals and plants, as Aristotle says. He means that at no time did motion or generation cease after the time measuring the motion of the heavens began. For it is a common conception of the mind, which anyone understands upon hearing it, that everything in the past is finite. Even old women cannot be ignorant of this once they understand the terms. Therefore, Aristotle, the greatest of philosophers, could not have been ignorant of this concept. From this, it follows directly that motion had a beginning, and time likewise. Thus, at the end of On Generation and Corruption original: "De Generacione", he shows that motions were not infinite in the past, because it is impossible to pass through an infinite number of things.

40 b 2.

No person of sound mind could say that Aristotle would contradict himself. He knew that the duration of a created thing is finite. It cannot be equal to the duration of the Creator, since the Creator exceeds every creature infinitely. However, the obscurity of Aristotle's text, the difficulty of his opinions, and bad translation original: "mala translacio"; Bacon frequently complained that the Latin translations of Greek and Arabic philosophy available in his time were inaccurate and misleading. hide the intended truth from many people. Aristotle also knew well that the whole is greater than its part, because this is a basic concept. But if time and motion had been infinite, it would follow that the part would be equal to the whole, and even greater than the whole, as is clearly evident. Suppose infinite time is marked at instant c, and a and b are designated parts. They would be equal, and each would extend infinitely in one direction. If, therefore, in part a at a point one hundred thousand years before c, an instant d is marked, to which a part f (a section of a) is continued, and another part G is larger than b, then f will be larger than b. Thus, it would be larger than a, which is its own whole. This is clearly seen in the example of an infinite line, as will be mentioned later regarding the infinity of the world. Therefore, they posited that the world was made by God from nothing original: "ex nichilo", just as the philosopher Ethicus Bacon uses "Ethicus" to refer to the supposed author of the book De Vetula, which he believed contained ancient wisdom on morality and science. records in the previously mentioned book, saying: