  Our interest in this essay will be on the special case of temporal change. So construed, the notion of change is obviously bound up with notions of cause, time and motion. Now a distinction between change and cause can certainly be drawn. It is clear that uncaused change is conceptually possible, and arguably actual in such things as radioactive decay. Conversely, the operation of a sustaining cause results in no change in a thing, if the thing would otherwise be undergoing a change which the sustaining cause prevents. Hence, the operation of a cause on a thing is neither necessary nor sufficient for change in that thing. Accordingly, we put the topic of cause in the background when discussing change.