3. _The Aristotelian View._ Time and motion are eternal. The heavens and the spheres are not subject to genesis and decay, hence they were always as they are now. And the processes of change in the lower world existed from eternity as they exist now. Matter is not subject to genesis and decay; it simply takes on forms one after the other, and this has been going on from eternity. It results also from his statements, though he does not say it in so many words, that it is impossible there should be a change in God's will. He is the cause of the universe, which he brought into being by his will, and as his will does not change, the universe has existed this way from eternity. The arguments of Aristotle and his followers by which they defend their view of the eternity of the world are based partly upon the nature of the world, and partly upon the nature of God. Some of these arguments are as follows: Motion is not subject to beginning and end. For everything that comes into being after a state of non-existence requires motion to precede it, namely, the actualization from non-being. Hence if motion came into being, there was motion before motion, which is a contradiction. As motion and time go together, time also is eternal. Again, the prime matter common to the four elements is not subject to genesis and decay. For all genesis is the combination of a pre-existing matter with a new form, namely, the form of the generated thing. If therefore the prime matter itself came into being, there must be a previous matter from which it came, and the thing that resulted must be endowed with form. But this is impossible, since the prime matter has no matter before it and is not endowed with form. Among the proofs derived from the nature of God are the following: If God brought forth the world from non-existence, then before he created it he was a creator potentially and then became a creator actually. There is then potentiality in the creator, and there must be a cause which changed him from a potential to an actual creator. Again, an agent acts at a particular time and not at another because of reasons and circumstances preventing or inducing action. In God there are no accidents or hindrances. Hence he acts always. Again, how is it possible that God was idle an eternity and only yesterday made the world? For thousands of years and thousands of worlds before this one are after all as yesterday in comparison with God's eternity.