116 THE WORLD-ENERGY 



are realized in that moment. On the other hand, 

 whatever of its potentialities are unrealized at any 

 given moment, such potentialities constitute its non- 

 being. 



But these unrealized phases of potentiality belonging 

 to an object and constituting its non-being are no less 

 constituent factors in the total significance of the object 

 than are the phases which are for the moment realized, 

 and which thus constitute its being. The being of an 

 object may cease as being and come to be as non-being; 

 but it can do so only on condition that some phase or 

 phases of its non-being shall cease as non-being, and thus 

 come into the state of being. Thus his somewhat enig- 

 matical saying that being no more is than non-being is 

 seen to be entirely justified. It is an explicit announce- 

 ment of the condition necessary to any and every change 

 or becoming. Whence his doctrine is called the doctrine 

 of Becoming, emphasizing as it does (in opposition to the 

 changelessness of Being as affirmed by the Eleatics) the 

 evident fact that all things are in a ceaseless process 

 that all things perpetually flow or become. 



It seems probable, too, that we have here the clue to the 

 peculiar form which Aristotle gave to that law, which he 

 regarded as the fundamental law of all true thinking. 

 As has already been stated (in the introductory chapter) 

 the "law of contradiction" as formulated by him declares 

 that "a thing cannot both begin and not begin at the 

 same time and in the same sense." It is as if Aristotle 

 wished to emphasize in his formulation of this central 

 conception of all real science the truth of the doctrine 

 of Becoming, and the necessity of its recognition in all 

 rational inquiry. 



