第37章

Nor again (ii) will it be possible to say with truth, even in regard to the members of a limited sequence, that it is 'absolutely necessary' for any one of them to come-to-be. We cannot truly say, e.g. that 'it is absolutely necessary for a house to come-to-be when foundations have been laid': for (unless it is always necessary for a house to be coming-to-be) we should be faced with the consequence that, when foundations have been laid, a thing, which need not always be, must always be. No: if its coming-to-be is to be 'necessary', it must be 'always' in its coming-to-be. For what is 'of necessity' coincides with what is 'always', since that which 'must be' cannot possibly 'not-be'. Hence a thing is eternal if its 'being' is necessary: and if it is eternal, its 'being' is necessary. And if, therefore, the 'coming-to-be' of a thing is necessary, its 'coming-to-be' is eternal; and if eternal, necessary.

It follows that the coming-to-be of anything, if it is absolutely necessary, must be cyclical-i.e. must return upon itself. For coming to-be must either be limited or not limited: and if not limited, it must be either rectilinear or cyclical. But the first of these last two alternatives is impossible if coming-to-be is to be eternal, because there could not be any 'originative source' whatever in an infinite rectilinear sequence, whether its members be taken 'downwards' (as future events) or 'upwards' (as past events). Yet coming-to-be must have an 'originative source' (if it is to be necessary and therefore eternal), nor can it be eternal if it is limited. Consequently it must be cyclical. Hence the nexus must be reciprocal. By this I mean that the necessary occurrence of 'this'

involves the necessary occurrence of its antecedent: and conversely that, given the antecedent, it is also necessary for the consequent to come-to-be. And this reciprocal nexus will hold continuously throughout the sequence: for it makes no difference whether the reciprocal nexus, of which we are speaking, is mediated by two, or by many, members.

It is in circular movement, therefore, and in cyclical coming-to-be that the 'absolutely necessary' is to be found. In other words, if the coming-to-be of any things is cyclical, it is 'necessary' that each of them is coming-to-be and has come-to-be:and if the coming-to-be of any things is 'necessary', their coming-to-be is cyclical.

The result we have reached is logically concordant with the eternity of circular motion, i.e. the eternity of the revolution of the heavens (a fact which approved itself on other and independent evidence),'

since precisely those movements which belong to, and depend upon, this eternal revolution 'come-to-be' of necessity, and of necessity 'will be'. For since the revolving body is always setting something else in motion, the movement of the things it moves must also be circular. Thus, from the being of the 'upper revolution' it follows that the sun revolves in this determinate manner; and since the sun revolves thus, the seasons in consequence come-to-be in a cycle, i.e. return upon themselves; and since they come-to-be cyclically, so in their turn do the things whose coming-to-be the seasons initiate.

Then why do some things manifestly come to-be in this cyclical fashion (as, e.g. showers and air, so that it must rain if there is to be a cloud and, conversely, there must be a cloud if it is to rain), while men and animals do not 'return upon themselves' so that the same individual comes-to-be a second time (for though your coming-to-be presupposes your father's, his coming-to-be does not presuppose yours)? Why, on the contrary, does this coming-to-be seem to constitute a rectilinear sequence?

In discussing this new problem, we must begin by inquiring whether all things 'return upon themselves' in a uniform manner; or whether, on the contrary, though in some sequences what recurs is numerically the same, in other sequences it is the same only in species. In consequence of this distinction, it is evident that those things, whose 'substance'-that which is undergoing the process-is imperishable, will be numerically, as well as specifically, the same in their recurrence: for the character of the process is determined by the character of that which undergoes it. Those things, on the other hand, whose 'substance' is perish, able (not imperishable) must 'return upon themselves' in the sense that what recurs, though specifically the same, is not the same numerically. That why, when Water comes-to-be from Air and Air from Water, the Air is the same 'specifically', not 'numerically': and if these too recur numerically the same, at any rate this does not happen with things whose 'substance' comes-to-be-whose 'substance' is such that it is essentially capable of not-being.

-THE END-