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[1066a] [1] For everything may sometimes be actual, and sometimes not; e.g. the "buildable" qua "buildable"; and the actualization of the "buildable" qua "buildable" is the act of building.For the actualization is either this—the act of building—or a house. But when the house exists, it will no longer be buildable; the buildable is that which is being built. Hence the actualization must be the act of building, and the act of building is a kind of motion. The same argument applies to the other kinds of motion.

That this account is correct is clear from what the other authorities say about motion, and from the fact that it is not easy to define it otherwise. For one thing, it could not be placed in any other class; this is clear from the fact that some people1 identify it with otherness and inequality and not-being, none of which is necessarily moved;moreover change is no more into these or out of them than into or out of their opposites.2 The reason for placing motion in this class is that it is considered to be indeterminate, and the principles in one of the columns of contraries are indeterminate, being privative; for none of them is a determinate thing or quality or any of the other categories.The reason for considering motion to be indeterminate is that it cannot be associated either with the potentiality or with the actuality of things; for neither that which is potentially [20] nor that which is actually of a certain size is necessarily moved.And motion is considered to be a kind of actualization, but incomplete3; the reason of this is that the potential, of which it is the actualization, is incomplete.

Thus it is difficult to comprehend what motion is; for we must associate it either with privation or with potentiality or with absolute actuality; and apparently none of these is possible.There remains, then, the account which we have given; that it is an actuality, and an actuality of the kind which we have described, which is hard to visualize but capable of existing.

That motion is in the movable is evident; for it is the complete realization of the movable by that which is capable of causing motion, and the actualization of that which is capable of causing motion is identical with that of the movable.For it must be a complete realization of them both; since a thing is capable of moving because it has the potentiality, but it moves only when it is active; but it is upon the movable that it is capable of acting. Thus the actuality of both alike is one; just as there is the same interval from one to two as from two to one, and the hill up and the hill down are one, although their being is not one; the case of the mover and the thing moved is similar.

4The infinite is either (a) that which cannot be traversed because it is not its nature to be traversed (just as sound is by nature invisible); or (b) that which admits of an endless traverse; or (c) scarcely admits of traverse; or (d) which, though it would naturally admit of traverse or limit, does not do so.

1 Pythagoreans and Platonists. Cf. Aristot. Met. 1.5.6, Plat. Soph. 256d.

2 The criticism implied is: If motion is identified with otherness, inequality, etc., then these concepts must be either (a) subjects of motion, which is absurd, or (b) termini of motion, in which case the same must be true of their contraries, since motion is between contraries.

3 Cf. note on sect. 2 (end) above, and Aristot. Met. 9.6.7-10.

4 This chapter consists of extracts from Aristot. Physics 3.4, 5, 7.

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