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and is a means to an end, for
instance the process of building a house; and it is perfect when it has effected its end.
Hence a motion is perfect either when viewed over the whole time of its duration, or at
the moment when its end has been achieved. The several motions occupying portions of the
time of the whole are imperfect, and different in kind from the whole and from each other.
For instance, in building a temple the fitting together of the stones is a different
process from the fluting of a column, and both are different from the construction of the
temple as a whole; and whereas the building of the temple is a perfect process, for
nothing more is required to achieve the end proposed, laying the foundation and
constructing the triglyphs are imperfect processes, since each produces only a part of the
design; they are therefore specifically different from the construction of the whole, and
it is not possible to lay one's finger on a motion specifically perfect at any moment of
the process of building, but only, if at all, in the whole of its duration.
[3]
And the same is true of walking and the other forms of locomotion. For if locomotion is
motion from one point in space to another, and if this is of different kinds, flying,
walking, leaping and the like, and not only so, but if there are also differences in
walking itself (for the terminal points of a race course are not the same as
those of a portion of the course, nor are those of one portion the same as those of
another; nor is traversing this line the same as traversing that one,1
1 The lecturer appears to draw a line representing a racecourse, and divide it into two parts, representing two sections of the course (not two lines across the course). The motion of traversing one section is not the same as that of traversing the others, if only because they are in different places.