Physics

For it is necessary that everything ordered comes from the disordered and the disordered from the ordered, and that the ordered perishes into disorder, and this not just any disorder, but the one opposed to it. It makes no difference whether one speaks of harmony, order, or composition; for it is clear that the same principle applies. Furthermore, a house and a statue and anything else come to be in the same way; for the house comes to be from not being put together but being arranged in such a way, and the statue and anything that has a shape come from lack of shape. Each of these is, in some cases, order, and in others, a certain composition. If this is true, then everything that comes to be and everything that perishes must do so from opposites or into opposites and their intermediates. Intermediates are from the opposites, for example, colors from white and black. Thus, all things that come to be by nature are either opposites or from opposites. Up to this point, most others have followed along, as we said before; for all, even if they posit elements and what they call principles without argument, nevertheless speak of opposites, as if compelled by the truth itself. They differ from one another in that some take prior principles and others later, and some take them as more knowable by reason and others by sense. For some posit hot and cold, others moist and dry, others odd and even, and others strife and love as causes of generation. These differ from each other in the manner mentioned. So they say the same things in one way and different things in another: different, as most think, but the same in that they are analogous; for they take them from the same sequence. Some exceed, and others are exceeded by, the opposites. In this way, they speak both similarly and differently, and worse and better, and some take them as more knowable by reason, as has been said before, while others take them by sense.