This is indeed the first question we have to ask: is generation a fact or not?  Earlier speculation was at variance both with itself and with the views here put forward as to the true answer to this question.  Some removed generation and destruction from the world altogether.  Nothing that is, they said, is generated or destroyed, and our conviction to the contrary is an illusion.  So maintained the school of Melissus and Parmenides.  But however excellent their theories may otherwise be, anyhow they cannot be held to speak as students of nature.  There may be things not subject to generation or any kind of movement, but if so they belong to another and a higher inquiry than the study of nature.  They, however, had no idea of any form of being other than the substance of things perceived; and when they saw, what no one previously had seen, that there could be no knowledge or wisdom without some such unchanging entities, they naturally transferred what was true of them to things perceived.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "This is indeed the first question we have to ask: is generation a fact or not?  Earlier speculation was at variance both with itself and with the views here put forward as to the true answer to this question.  Some removed generation and destruction from the world altogether.  Nothing that is, they said, is generated or destroyed, and our conviction to the contrary is an illusion.  So maintained the school of Melissus and Parmenides.  But however excellent their theories may otherwise be, anyhow they cannot be held to speak as students of nature.  There may be things not subject to generation or any kind of movement, but if so they belong to another and a higher inquiry than the study of nature.  They, however, had no idea of any form of being other than the substance of things perceived; and when they saw, what no one previously had seen, that there could be no knowledge or wisdom without some such unchanging entities, they naturally transferred what was true of them to things perceived." in the context of "Aristotle, Part 1 of On the Heavens Book III (350 B.C.E.), translated by John Leofric Stocks." to mean that wisdom is timeless.