Kitap 9
9
Every motion is incomplete—the processes of thinning, learning, walking, building—these are motions, and incomplete at that. For it is not the same thing which at the same time is walking and has walked, or is building and has built, or is becoming and has become, or is being moved and has been moved, but two different things; and that which is causing motion is different from that which has caused motion.
10
But the same thing at the same time is seeing and has seen, is thinking and has thought. The latter kind of process, then, is what I mean by actualization, and the former what I mean by motion.
10
What the actual is, then, and what it is like, may be regarded as demonstrated from these and similar considerations.
1
We must, however, distinguish when a particular thing exists potentially, and when it does not; for it does not so exist at any and every time. E.g., is earth potentially a man? No, but rather when it has already become semen,This is inconsistent with Aristotle’s doctrine that the semen is the formal element in reproduction. Cf. Aristot. Met. 8.4.5, Aristot. Met. 6.9.5. and perhaps not even then; just as not everything can be healed by medicine, or even by chance, but there is some definite kind of thing which is capable of it, and this is that which is potentially healthy.
2
The definition of that which as a result of thought comes, from existing potentially, to exist actually, is that, when it has been willed, if no external influence hinders it, it comes to pass; and the condition in the case of the patient, i.e. in the person who is being healed, is that nothing in him should hinder the process. Similarly a house exists potentially if there is nothing in X, the matter, to prevent it from becoming a house, i.e., if there is nothing which must be added or removed or changed; then X is potentially a house;
