, minted or fashioned into any shape, or broken into separate pieces. This differs from the ruling that applied when it was still earth in the mine, before becoming gold or silver.

Likewise, date stones differ from the date palm both in their ruling and in their essential nature. Trees and their fruit are further removed still from all these cases, for we do not observe the same transformation and change of the tree’s parts as we observe in these other transformations. Rather, we observe fruit with a particular taste, colour, and fragrance emerging from wood utterly unlike it, even though that wood may itself increase and grow as the fruit emerges from it. Although this involves a transformation of its constituent material, derived from water, air, and earth, the creation of animals, plants, and minerals from the elements is not of the same kind as the transformation of these generated substances into one another, especially when the latter is brought about by our actions. Rather, the less its creation depends on our actions, the more wondrous it is, and the greater the origination of entities involved.

The closer something is to what we ourselves produce, the further it is from the origination of entities—indeed, even from the transformation of essential natures—and the nearer it is to a change of properties, until one reaches mere motion, which involves no change in the substance itself. Examples include our movements in walking, standing, and sitting, and the movement of the heavenly bodies. Motion as such is what human beings can bring about directly, and among properties and states it is the furthest removed from changes in entities and their essential natures. Hence, in ordinary language, this is not called change at all. Without qualification, no one describes heavenly bodies travelling along their courses, or a person walking, as “changing,” unless some contextual indication clarifies the intended meaning. This is unlike the case when something’s colour changes to red or