The Summary of Physics Restored

14Aristotle was more cautious. Although he believed the world eternal, he indicated a certain first and universal matter, avoiding its windings and discussing it soberly and ambiguously. He says it is better to posit one and the same inseparable matter of all things, though distinguished in thought, from which the first bodies and the other things perceived by sense consist. It is their first principle and inseparable from them, yet always joined with opposition, underlying contraries and giving rise to the elements.