by this is that what elapses and comes to an end is what has a beginning. As for what has no beginning, it has no end, and neither elapses nor comes to an end.

For this reason he said:

“However, what their opponents posit concerning the revolutions is not of this kind. For there was no motion that must necessarily have been the first, such that no motion could possibly have preceded it. Thus, it does not follow that there is here a totality that has entered into existence, or any part of it that was the first part to enter into existence.

“What has entered into existence is only a single instance, or finitely many instances in the case of things of which more than one instance can exist.”

He continues, up to his statement:

“How, then, I wonder, does it follow—if what enters into existence is only one instance preceded by another—that an infinite totality has entered into existence all at once?”

He said:

“The underlying principle in all this is that nothing enters into existence unless its existence comes to an end; and nothing has come, or can come, to an end unless its existence began.”

He continues, up to his statement:

“For the finite is that to which something can be added. Whatever totality we suppose to be finite, another totality can precede it. This is the definition of the infinite whose existence is possible.”