Book 12
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Those who suppose, as do the Pythagoreans and Speusippus,The view is referred to again in Aristot. Met. 12.10.6, Aristot. Met. 14.4.2, 3, Aristot. Met. 14.5.1. that perfect beauty and goodness do
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not exist in the beginning (on the ground that whereas the first beginnings of plants and animals are causes, it is in the products of these that beauty and perfection are found) are mistaken in their views.
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For seed comes from prior creatures which are perfect, and that which is first is not the seed but the perfect creature. E.g., one might say that prior to the seed is the man—not he who is produced from the seed, but another man from whom the seed comes.Cf. Aristot. Met. 9.8.4, 5.
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Thus it is evident from the foregoing account that there is some substance which is eternal and immovable and separate from sensible things; and it has also been shown that this substance can have no magnitude, but is impartible and indivisible (for it causes motion for infinite time, and nothing finite has an infinite potentialityCf.Aristot. Physics 266a24-b6.; and therefore since every magnitude is either finite or infinite, it cannot have finite magnitude,
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and it cannot have infinite magnitude because there is no such thing at all); and moreover that it is impassive and unalterable; for all the other kinds of motion are posterior to spatial motion. Thus it is clear why this substance has these attributes.
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We must not disregard the question whether we should hold that there is one substance of this kind or more than one, and if more than one, how many; we must review the pronouncements of other thinkers and show that with regard to the number of the substances they have said nothing that can be clearly stated.
