1. To the First Instance

171. To the first of these [n.169] I say that the following five things are disposed in beings by a certain order:

Flux of form, form according to which there is actual flux, and form according to which there can be flux of parts; and fourth a permanent thing, in which a flux of parts is not of a nature to be present, yet has a subsequent form in which flux is of a nature to be; fifth, that in which there cannot be flux, nor in anything that naturally follows on it.

172. The first is essentially measured by time, because permanence (or some part of the thing remaining the same) is against its formal idea, but its idea requires that a part of it succeeds to a part of it; the fifth remains invariably the same while it lasts and is therefore in no way measured by time (neither as to its totality nor as to a part of it nor even per accidens); the fourth is not measured by time per se, nor is there properly rest in it, because it is not of a nature to be moved (it rests however per accidens, because rest accords with some form necessarily following on it); the third and second are the same form but as taken according to diverse dispositions - and according as the form is taken in one way there is actually rest, and according as it is taken in another way there is actually motion.

173. About this form [sc. of the second and third in the list] one can say that although it does not have actually varied being (because then there would not be rest according to it), yet it does have variable being - and therefore it is never measured by aeviternity (even though it is not actually varied), because aeviternity requires in what it measures an invariable being that is repugnant to succession of part after part; but if it be said that ‘non-varied being’ is measured by aeviternity, then one can concede that this form - when there is no motion actually in accord with it - is measured by aeviternity.

174. However this last point seems less probable than the one before it, because when the form is actually existing it seems to have the ‘now’ (instant) of time for measure and not the ‘now’ of aeviternity - which however one should posit when positing that, insofar as it is actually under motion, it is measured by the ‘now’ of time and that, insofar as it is actually in rest, it is measured by the ‘now’ of aeviternity.

175. So when the inference is drawn that ‘everything permanent is measured by the now of aeviternity or by aeviternity’ [n.168], this plainly does not follow (as to one way [sc. the first given in n.173]), but it follows only as to things that are truly permanent, namely invariable while they last.

176. And then the first rejection of the consequent, about rest [n.169], is not valid, because rest is not in accord with any such form but in accord precisely with a form in accord with which there is naturally motion.

177. But if someone wants to concede that heat, insofar as it has ‘non-varied being’ is measured by aeviternity [n.173], one can say that its resting is not measured by aeviternity and yet its permanent being is measured by aeviternity, because rest is only a privation of some succession of part after part, according to what the Philosopher maintains in Physics 5.6.229b24-25, where he treats of the opposition of motion and rest, that ‘rest is privation of motion’ - and elsewhere [Physics 5.2.226b15-16, 8.8.264a27-28]; but this privation presupposes the actual existence of the form in which the privation is, such that the privation is not the first reason for the actual existence. So although this privation is measured in this way by time, yet the inference does not, for this reason, hold, that the existence of such a form is measured by time, but rather that it is so by some prior measure.

178. And if you say ‘how can this privation, as it is distinguished from actual existence, be measured by time?’, I say that just as a vacuum, if it existed, would be measured by the same magnitude as the corresponding plenum would be measured by

(for if this house were a vacuum, there would be a greater distance from me to one wall than to another, just as there would by nature be a greater plenum between me and the one wall than between me and the other wall; for then the vacuum would be said to be as much as the body - were there no vacuum - would be that was cut off by the vacuum, and as much as the plenum would by nature be [n.218]), so in the issue at hand there is as much privation of succession in the parts of the form as there is naturally succession by motion in the same form; for this is the measuring of rest, not positively but privatively, by the motion that could then be present when the privation is present (just as in other things the privation is measured by its non-privation; for blindness is as great an evil in an eye naturally apt for seeing, at a determinate time, as vision is a good). In this way, although Aristotle say that rest is measured per accidens [n.169], it can be said (in this way) that it is measured per se, in the way, that is, in which privation is measured per se -because this belongs to privation per se, because it belongs to it as it is such a nature; but the fact that it is this much or that much belongs to it as it is of this or that much positively.

179. Although, then, it be conceded that heat in its being at rest (or the resting of heat) is measured by time, yet it need not be that ‘the actual existence’ of heat be measured by a time that naturally precedes this idea of rest; for the actual existence does not in itself have a relation to time (as time is time), whether an actual or an aptitudinal relation.

180. If however it be conceded - according to the other way [sc. the first, n.173] -that every such form, while it lasts, has variable existence, and that not only a varied but also a variable existence is measured by time - then one must well posit that some permanence is not measured by aeviternity, namely the permanence according to the forms of things where there can be motion; yet one must well concede that generable and corruptible substances are per se measured by aeviternity, though they are per accidens -that is, according to some natural quality consequent to them - measured by time.