Metaphysics and Ethics

...if anyone should say that air or something similar is held. Water, however, substituted; not correctly, as it will be said. If it is by generation, rather than by birth; what digestion would not generate, it is generated rather: of these, certainly, it is the opinion of that. Water, indeed, is prior to air: thus, however, is water prior to the elements, since one common [thing] is not durably; thus this should be said.

[column-break]

However, to these who posit this plainly, like Empedocles, that there are four elements: material. And for him, this must be granted: not having a nature that is an accident. For they are generated from one another, which they cannot be [if they are] not, yet with the same body remaining. It has been said, however, concerning these. And concerning those that move, whether one uses one or many: neither correctly nor reasonably. One must think [it is] entirely to be denied. And from the whole, to take away the name [of motion], thus to the disputing ones: there is no hot [that is] cold, nor from the cold is the hot born. That which is moved, when [it is]: and there is no one nature that becomes fire and water, which even Anaxagoras, who accepted the mind, also says [there are] two. Let him accept the matter [as] the reasoning which [is] not from articulation. It follows that it is two times by utility. For from this, that [the] ancient [philosophers] said that all things were in the principle; and what [is] to happen that which itself runs ahead, which is not open to dogs [?], mixing whatever. Furthermore, [concerning] those who, through presumptions, [suppose] anarchy which he [Anaxagoras] separates [as] solvable. By the same [reasoning] is the mutation: that is separation. Just as he says many things: perhaps he will act [concerning] the city [?] or will lead: for when nothing is brought [forth], he is not able to say anything concerning the substance. I say, however, that neither white nor black

[column-break]

is raised or another color. But [it] was not colored: by necessity it must have some color of these. They are, however, even from here: entirely, by this same reasoning. If nothing was [before], it is not possible [that anything] is [now], not in such a way that nothing. Some [is] indeed in the part, which is not [done] by nothing, and this is impossible: to change [in] all things, now all things are. This, however, to be changed [in] all things is to pass over. Thus, he [is] himself [the] sole changer; [the] three-fold. From this, therefore, what happens to him by saying the principle of truth: this is simple, which is [the] unchanged, which otherwise [is] the quality of the first [that is] not donated before it is held, and what [it is] he takes hold of, and [he] says that: he does not wish [to say] correctly or plainly, yet up to this point he lives according to these acting more. These things [are] indeed those which are generated or moved: and corruption is [in] motion: he makes [the] total, for what [is] hot, he seeks [the] cause of the long [?]. All therefore from all [he] makes a [mixture]: he confirms, however, that which is in the plurality: they do not posit those [as] real. For what [is] of both [is] generally clearly made. For the most part, he will change from those which are good or not good [that are] brought to the portion of our held plants. Concerning the chant [of] Pythagoras, that he did not believe the principle was [as the] aphologists were. For he did not accept the cause [as] it was not in the [books?]. For the mathematicians [are] those who allow motion from that [which is] then [related] to astrology. Yet he disputes that [which] turns all [things] by nature. They agree it is from the sky, from which [it] is able to be, and passion [and] properties [are] accepted: [it] is observed from the philosophy [of] the causes [and] the declared ones, that which [the] philosophers hold, which [the] beings are what it [is].