For come now—since (with God's help, if one may say so) we have reached this point in the discussion—let there be some statue, standing upon a base, a beautiful one; and let those who behold its well-proportioned beauty differ with one another, some attempting to say it is generated, and some that it is even ungenerated.
For I would ask them: For what cause do you say it is ungenerated? Is it on account of the craftsman, that he may in no way be reckoned to have been idle in his craftsmanship, or on account of itself? For if on account of the craftsman, how, being ungenerated, is it crafted by the craftsman? For if it stands in need of the art at all, being wrought in bronze so as to take whatever character the craftsman wills, in what manner will it be ungenerated, being both acted upon and wrought? But if again the statue is said to be perfect and ungenerated through itself, having no need of the art, according to that destructive doctrine, one must confess spontaneous self-origination.
And if perhaps, being unwilling to accept even this argument, they answer more bitterly, saying that the image is not ungenerated, but is generated while never having a beginning of generation, so that the craftsman may be said to rule the artefact without any beginning—then, O these men, we shall say to them: If neither time nor age be found above, when the statue was not perfect, what did the craftsman provide for it, or what did he work upon it? Tell us.
For if it is itself without need and has no beginning of generation, then all the more, according to you, the craftsman, never having crafted, will be found to be crafting; and again the argument seems to have run back to the same point—to confess spontaneous self-origination. For if the craftsman be said to have moved the statue even for the briefest instant, it will fall under a beginning, in accordance with which he began to move and order it, that was formerly disordered and motionless. So then the same world neither was nor will be perpetually the same; for the craftsman must be likened to God, and the statue to the world.
In what way, then, O foolish men, do you suppose that the creation, being coextensive in limit with the Creator, has no need of the Creator? For that which is coextensive in limit, having in no way a beginning of generation, must necessarily also be co-ungenerated and equal in power. But the ungenerated, shown to be self-perfect and unchangeable, will also be without need and incorruptible; and if this is so, the world is no longer mutable according to you.