[894a]
in everything to bring about generation? Obviously whenever a starting-principle receiving increase comes to the second change, and from this to the next, and on coming to the third admits of perception by percipients.1 Everything comes into being by this process of change and alteration; and a thing is really existent whenever it remains fixed, but when it changes into another constitution it is utterly destroyed.” Have we now, my friends, mentioned all the forms of motion, capable of numerical classification,2
1 This account of the derivation of the sense-world from the “starting-principle” (ἀρχή) is obscure. It is generally interpreted as a “geometrical allegory,” the stages of development being from point to line, from line to surface, from surface to solid,—this last only being perceptible by the senses (cp. Aristot. Soul 404 b 18 ff.).
2 The 8 kinds of motion here indicated are—(1) circular motion round a fixed center; (2) locomotion (gliding or rolling); (3) combination; (4) separation; (5) increase; (6) decrease; (7) becoming; (8) perishing. The remaining two kinds (as described below) are—(9) other-affecting motion (or secondary causation); and (10) self-and-other-affecting motion (or primary causation).
Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vols. 10 & 11 translated by R.G. Bury. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967 & 1968.
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