This assumption implies that bodies essentially have the...

This assumption implies that bodies essentially have the capacity for the attribution of this quantity which results from motion, although prior to the occurrence of motion bodies do not have this attribution actually. Before it takes the form of a ball or cube, wax has such a capability, for it possesses extension and volume.

However, the ancient philosophers did not see any way for the influence of flux and motion in the essences of bodies, so how could they accept the attribution to such existents of an attribute which is flux and instability itself? This is just like the case in which we want to relate line, surface and volume, even if by means of a cause, to an abstract existent which lacks extension, in a way that these qualities will really be attributed to it!

Another question is what kind of relation is that between motion and time? Is motion the cause for the appearance of time, as so many of the philosophers seem to hold, or is it merely that which serves as the subject of the accidental attribution of time? In any case, in what category should motion itself be included? How is its attribution to time to be determined?

It was previously indicated that some of the philosophers, such as Shaykh al-Ishrāq, considered motion to be an independent category of accidents. Others considered motion to be two-sided: they considered the side related to its agent [i.e., the mover] to be in the category of that which acts, and they considered the side related to its object, the moved, to be in the category of that which is acted upon. Other philosophers have given no clear explanation.

In any case, the answer to this part of the question requires greater precision. However, the application of cause and effect to motion and time may be considered a kind of development of the terminology of causality, similar to what was indicated in Lesson Thirty-Seven.

Another question which can be raised is that if the standard for relating time to motion is its essential instability, this is found in all motions; so why do the philosophers relate time to the rotation of the Sphere of Atlas [the highest of the celestial spheres of traditional cosmology]? And if there were no Sphere of Atlas or it had no motion, would the other phenomena of the cosmos not posses temporal priority or posteriority? And basically, how can an accident which Previous…