Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/aristotle_god.asp?pg=5

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Three Millennia of Greek Literature
 

Aristotle Bilingual Anthology : GOD

from Aristotle's Metaphysics, * 1072a21-1073a12, translated by W. D. Ross, Greek Fonts


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Page 5

Those who suppose, as the Pythagoreans and Speusippus do, that supreme beauty and goodness are not present in the beginning, because the beginnings both of plants and of animals are causes, but beauty and completeness are in the effects of these, are wrong in their opinion. For the seed comes from other individuals which are prior and complete, and the first thing is not seed but the complete being; e.g. we must say that before the seed there is a man,-not the man produced from the seed, but another from whom the seed comes.

ὅσοι δὲ ὑπολαμβάνουσιν͵ ὥσπερ οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι καὶ Σπεύσιππος τὸ κάλλιστον καὶ ἄριστον μὴ ἐν ἀρχῇ εἶναι͵ διὰ τὸ καὶ τῶν φυτῶν καὶ τῶν ζῴων τὰς ἀρχὰς αἴτια μὲν εἶναι τὸ δὲ καλὸν καὶ τέλειον ἐν τοῖς ἐκ τούτων͵ οὐκ ὀρθῶς οἴονται. τὸ γὰρ σπέρμα ἐξ ἑτέρων ἐστὶ προτέρων τελείων͵ καὶ τὸ πρῶτον οὐ σπέρμα ἐστὶν ἀλλὰ τὸ τέλειον· οἷον πρότερον ἄνθρωπον ἂν φαίη τις εἶναι τοῦ σπέρματος͵ οὐ τὸν ἐκ τούτου γενόμενον ἀλλ΄ ἕτερον ἐξ οὗ τὸ σπέρμα.

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/aristotle_god.asp?pg=5