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Full Idea
If some one of the things 'which are' is constantly disappearing, why has not the whole of 'what is' been used up long ago and vanished away - assuming of course that the material of all the several comings-to-be was infinite?
Gist of Idea
If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago?
Source
Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 318a17)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'The Basic Works of Aristotle', ed/tr. McKeon,Richard [Modern Library Classics 2001], p.480
A Reaction
This thought is the basis of Aquinas's Third Way for proving the existence of God (as the force which prevents the vicissitudes of nature from sliding into oblivion).
Related Ideas
Idea 14029 If disappearing things went to nothingness, nothing could return, and it would all be gone by now [Epicurus]
| 8154 | Originally there must have been just Existence, which could not come from non-existence [Anon (Upan)] |
| 1746 | The parts of all things are susceptible to change, but the whole is unchangeable [Anaximander, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 420 | The cosmos is eternal not created, and is an ever-living and changing fire [Heraclitus] |
| 456 | Nothing could come out of nothing [Melissus] |
| 16595 | If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle] |
| 5083 | Do things come to be from what is, or from what is not? Both seem problematical. [Aristotle] |
| 20827 | The cosmos is regularly consumed and reorganised by the primary fire [Stoic school, by Aristocles] |
| 5694 | Nothing can be created by divine power out of nothing [Lucretius] |