be of necessity, since that which is being generated or destroyed must have a cause which is not accidentally its cause. Whether is A to be or not? It will be if B happens; and if not, not. And B will be if C happens. And thus if time is constantly subtracted from a limited extent of time, one will obviously come to the present. This man, then, will die by disease or violence, if he goes out; and he will do this if he is thirsty; and he will be thirsty if something else happens; and thus we shall come to that which is now present, or to some past event. For instance, he will go out if he is thirsty; and he will be thirsty if he is eating something pungent; and this is either the case or not; so that he will of necessity die, or of necessity not die. And similarly if one jumps over to the past, the same account will hold good; for this — I mean the past condition — is already present in something. Everything, therefore, that is to be, will be of necessity, e.g. it is necessary that he who lives shall one day die; for already some link in the series has been forged — e.g. the presence of contraries in the same body. But whether he dies by disease or by violence, is not yet determined, but depends on the happening of something else. Clearly then the process goes back to a certain starting-point, but this no longer points to something further. This then will be the starting-point for the fortuitous, and will have nothing else as cause of its coming to be. But to what sort of starting-point and what sort of cause we thus refer the fortuitous — whether to matter or to the purpose or to the motive power, must be carefully considered.[1]
- ↑ The doctrine of the chapter seems to be as follows. Events in general occur as the necessary result of a series of causes. E.g. death is the necessary result of the presence of contrary elements in every living body. But there are certain events which, while beginning a causal nexus, are not the result of a causal nexus. We can never say of them, 'their conditions are being fulfilled, and they are coming to be.' At one time they are not, and at another time they are. Therefore they come to be. But they never are coming to be. The events A. seems to be thinking of are those which he would ascribe to free will, e.g. a man's eating pungent food. Once this is done, his death in some determinate way is certain; till he does it, only his death is certain.
