what is at rest move without any newly occurring cause at all, for he can give preference to either of two possible alternatives without—bringing into being bodies that can be at rest or in motion is a greater act than bringing their movements themselves into being. If he can bring those bodies into being without a newly occurring cause, then bringing their movements into being is all the more possible.”

They may also be asked:

“If the Creator, Most High, created a body at rest and then willed to move it without a newly occurring cause, would that be possible or impossible?”

If you say, “That is impossible,” your position and your proof are invalidated. If you say, “That is possible,” you may be told: the same reasoning applies to the cessation of that rest as to the cessation of any other rest.

For it may be said: rest is an existent reality, and that existent rest must have a cause.

The question then arises of how one contrary ceases to exist: is it through bringing another contrary into being, through bringing about its nonexistence, through creating annihilation, or do accidents themselves not persist? What is said in that case may likewise be said in this one.

Anyone who says, “Rest, as an existent reality, does not persist for two successive instants, but passes away little by little,” may be told:

“Likewise, if rest is assumed to be beginningless, it does not persist for two successive instants, but comes into being little by little. Thus, no individual part of that rest is itself beginningless, just as you said of each individual part of motion that it is not itself beginningless.”

Thus, if those who hold that rest is an existent reality say that it is renewed little by little, just as they say of motion,