19. Whatsoever is at rest, will always be at rest, unless there be some other body besides it, which, by endeavouring to get into its place by motion, suffers it no longer to remain at rest. For suppose that some finite body exist and be at rest, and that all space besides be empty; if now this body begin to be moved, it will certainly be moved some way; seeing therefore there was nothing in that body which did not dispose it to rest, the reason why it is moved this way is in something out of it; and in like manner, if it had been moved any other way, the reason of motion that way had also been in something out of it; but seeing it was supposed that nothing is out of it, the reason of its motion one way would be the same with the reason of its motion every other way, wherefore it would be moved alike all ways at once; which is impossible.
That which is moved will always be moved, unless it be hindered by some external thing.
In like manner, whatsoever is moved, will always be moved, except there be some other body besides it, which causeth it to rest. For if we suppose nothing to be without it, there will be no reason why it should rest now, rather than at another time; wherefore its motion would cease in every particle of time alike; which is not intelligible.
Accidents are generated and destroyed, but bodies not so.
20. When we say a living creature, a tree, or any other specified body is generated or destroyed, it is not to be so understood as if there were made a body of that which is not-body, or not a body of a body, but of a living creature not a living creature, of a tree not a tree, &c. that is, that those accidents for which we call one thing a living creature, another thing a tree, and another by some other name, are generated and destroyed; and that therefore the same names are not to be given to them now, which were given them before. But that magnitude for which we give to any thing the name of body is neither generated nor destroyed. For though we may feign in our mind that a point may swell to a huge bulk, and that this may again contract itself to a point; that is, though we may imagine something to arise where before was nothing, and nothing to be there where before was something, yet we cannot comprehend in our mind how this may possibly be done in nature. And therefore philosophers, who tie themselves to natural reason, suppose that a body can neither be generated nor destroyed, but only that it may appear otherwise than it did to us, that is, under different species, and consequently be called by other and other names; so that that which is now called man, may at another time have the name of not-man; but that which is once called body, can never be called not-body. But it is manifest, that all other accidents besides magnitude or extension may be generated and destroyed; as when a white thing is made black, the whiteness that was in it perisheth, and the blackness that was not in it is now generated; and therefore bodies, and the accidents under which they appear diversely, have this difference, that bodies are things, and not generated; accidents are generated, and not things.
An accident cannot depart from its subject
21. And therefore, when any thing appears otherwise than it did by reason of other and other accidents, it is not to be thought that an accident goes out of one subject into another, (for they are not, as I said above, in their subjects as a part in the whole, or as a contained thing in that which contains it, or as a master of a family in his house,) but that one accident perisheth, and another is generated. For example, when the hand, being moved, moves the pen, motion does not go out of the hand into the pen; for so the writing might be continued though the hand stood still; but a new motion is generated in the pen, and is the pen's motion.
Nor be moved.
22. And therefore also it is improper to say, an accident is moved; as when, instead of saying, figure is an accident of a body carried away, we say, a body carries away its figure.
Essence, form, and matter, what they are.