But that the doubt of the Ancients can only be thus solved we shall in the next place show. For the first philosophers in investigating the truth in nature of things wandered, as if led by ignorance, into a certain other path. Hence they say that no being is either generated or corrupted because it is necessary that what is generated should be generated either from being or non being. But both of these are impossible, for neither can being be generated, since it already is. And from nothing, nothing can be generated because it is necessary that something should exist as the subject. And thus increasing that which consequently happened, they said that there were not many things, but that being itself alone had a subsistence. They therefore entertained this opinion for the above mentioned reasons. We however say that for a thing to be generated from being or non-being, or for non-being or being to do or suffer anything, or for this particular individual thing to become anything whatever in one way does not in any respect differ from asserting that a physician does or suffers anything. Or that anything is or is generated from a physician. So that since this is predicated in a two fold respect, it is evident that this will also be the case with the assertion that from being, being will either be an agent or patient. A physician therefore builds, not so far as he is a physician, but so far as he is a builder. And he becomes white, not so far as he is a physician, but so far as he is black. But he heals and becomes deprived of medical skill, so far as he is a physician. Since, however, we say with the greatest propriety that a physician does or suffers anything, or is generated from a physician when he suffers or does these things, so far as he is a physician. It is also evident that to assert a thing is generated from non-being signifies this so far as it is non-being. Which indeed the ancient philosophers, not distinguishing, deviated from the right path. And through this ignorance added so much to their want of knowledge as to fancy that nothing else was generated or had a being. But they supported all generation. We ourselves indeed say that nothing is simply generated from non-being. But that at the same time it may be generated from non-being as it were according to accident. For a thing may be generated from privation, which is non-being per se, since it is not inherent in the thing which is generated. But this is admirable and it seems impossible that anything should be thus generated from non-being. In like manner, we say that neither is anything generated from being, nor is being generated except according to accident. We’d likewise assert that this takes place after the same manner as if animal should be generated from animal and a certain animal from a certain animal. As for instance, a dog from a horse. For the dog would be generated not only from a certain animal, but also from animal, though not so far as it is animal, because it is this already. But if it should come to pass that anything should be generated and animal not from accident, it will not be from animal. And if anything is generated being, it will not be generated from being nor from non-being. For we have observed that the expression “from non-being” signifies so far as it is non-being. We likewise do not subvert the assertion that everything is or is not. This, therefore, is one mode of solving the doubt. Another mode is this: that the same things may be predicated according to capacity and according to energy. This, however, in other treatises we have more accurately discussed. So that, as we have said, the doubts are solved through which the ancients were compelled to subvert some of the above mentioned particulars. For on this account they so much wandered from the way which leads to generation and corruption, and in short, to mutation. Since this nature, if they had perceived it, would have dissolved all this their ignorance.
