iv PLATO AND ARISTOTLE 343 



see the perfection decrease, more and more, down to our 

 sublunary world, in which the cycle of birth, growth 

 and decay imitates and mars the original circle for the 

 last time. So understood, the causal relation between 

 God and the world is seen as an attraction when regarded 



o 



from below, as an impulsion or a contact when 

 regarded from above, since the first heaven, with its 

 circular movement, is an imitation of God and all 

 imitation is the reception of a form. Therefore, we 

 perceive God as efficient cause or as final cause, 

 according to the point of view. And yet neither of 

 these two relations is the ultimate causal relation. 

 The true relation is that which is found between the 

 two members of an equation, when the first member is 

 a single term and the second a sum of an endless 

 number of terms. It is, we may say, the relation of 

 the gold-piece to the small change, if we suppose the 

 change to offer itself automatically as soon as the gold- 

 piece is presented. Only thus can we understand why 

 Aristotle has demonstrated the necessity of a first 

 motionless mover, not by founding it on the assertion 

 that the movement of things must have had a beginning, 

 but, on the contrary, by affirming that this movement 

 could not have begun and can never come to an end. 

 If movement exists, or, in other words, if the small 

 change is being counted, the gold-piece is to be found 

 somewhere. And if the counting goes on for ever, 

 having never begun, the single term that is eminently 

 equivalent to it must be eternal. A perpetuity of 

 mobility is possible only if it is backed by an eternity 

 of immutability, which it unwinds in a chain without 

 beginning or end. 



Such is the last word of the Greek philosophy. We 

 have not attempted to reconstruct it a priori. It has 



