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Aristotle - index for METAPHYSICA Book 2 Part 2

First and final causes

  
Paragraph 1 But evidently there is a first principle, and the causes of things are neither an infinite series nor infinitely various in kind.
Paragraph 2 Nor can there be an infinite process downwards, with a beginning in the upward direction, so that water should proceed from fire, earth from water, and so always some other kind should be produced.
Paragraph 3 At the same time it is impossible that the first cause, being eternal, should be destroyed;
Paragraph 4 Further, the final cause is an end, and that sort of end which is not for the sake of something else, but for whose sake everything else is;
Paragraph 5 But the essence, also, cannot be reduced to another definition which is fuller in expression.
Paragraph 6 But if the kinds of causes had been infinite in number, then also knowledge would have been impossible;


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