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From our discussion of the various senses of 'prior', it is clear
that actuality is prior to potency. |
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(1) Clearly it is prior in formula; |
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(2) In time it is prior in this sense: |
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This is why it is thought impossible to be a builder if one has built
nothing or a harper if one has never played the harp; |
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But (3) it is also prior in substantiality; |
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And while in some cases the exercise is the ultimate thing (e.g.
in sight the ultimate thing is seeing, and no other product besides
this results from sight), but from some things a product follows (e.g.
from the art of building there results a house as well as the act
of building), yet none the less the act is in the former case the
end and in the latter more of an end than the potency is. |
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Where, then, the result is something apart from the exercise, the
actuality is in the thing that is being made, e.g. the act of building
is in the thing that is being built and that of weaving in the thing
that is being woven, and similarly in all other cases, and in general
the movement is in the thing that is being moved; |
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Obviously, therefore, the substance or form is actuality. |
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But (b) actuality is prior in a stricter sense also; |
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Imperishable things are imitated by those that are involved in change,
e.g. earth and fire. |
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If, then, there are any entities or substances such as the dialecticians
say the Ideas are, there must be something much more scientific than
science-itself and something more mobile than movement-itself; |
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Obviously, then, actuality is prior both to potency and to every
principle of change. |
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created 1996/11/25 modified 2009/04/26