remes, however, are
abstractions. Neither of them exists, because matter and form cannot
be separated. Whatever exists comes somewhere between the two, and the
universe thus exhibits a process of continuous gradations. Motion and
change are produced by the effort to pass from the lower to the higher
under the attractive force of the end.

That which comes at the top of the scale, absolute form, is called by
Aristotle, God. And the definitions of God's character follow from
this as a matter of course. First, since form is actuality, God alone
is absolutely actual. He alone is real. All existent things are more
or less unreal. The higher in the scale are the more real, as
possessing more form. The scale of being is thus also a scale of
reality, shading off through infinite gradations {284} from the
absolutely real, God, to the absolutely unreal, formless matter.
Secondly, since the principle of form contains the formal, the final,
and the efficient causes, God is all these. As formal cause, He is the
Idea. He is essentially thought, reason. As final cause, He is the
absolute end. He is that to which all beings strive. Each being has no
doubt its own end in itself. But as absolute end, God includes all
lower ends. And as the end of each thing is the completed perfection
of the thing, so, as absolute end, God is absolute perfection. Lastly,
as efficient cause, God is the ultimate cause of all motion and
becoming. He is the first mover. As such, He is Himself unmoved. That
the first mover should be itself unmoved is a necessary consequence of
Aristotle's conception of it as end and form. For motion is the
transition of a thing towards its end. The absolute end can have no
end beyond it, and therefore cannot be moved. Likewise motion is the
passage of matter into form. Absolute form cannot pass into any higher
form, and is therefore unmoved. But the argument which Aristotle
himself more frequently uses to establish the immovability of the
first mover is that, unless we so conceive it, no cause of motion
appears. The moving object is moved perhaps by another moving object.
The motion of the latter demands a further cause. If this further
cause is itself moving, we must again ask for the cause of its motion.
If this process goes on for ever, then motion is unexplained, and no
real cause of it has been shown. The real and ultimate cause must
therefore be unmoved.

This last argument sounds as if Aristotle is now thinking in te