 Should we look at the processes of coming-to-be and passing-away we meet with similar interpretation. The elements change one into another; water exists for a while and then turns into air, for instance. In particular, individual living beings have a limited life span; thus a linear dimension extends to them while the whole undergoes a continuous cycle of coming-to-be and passing-away, and its dimension is circular. Time measures the limited duration of sublunary beings, and the eternal motion of the spheres makes cycles eternal. To link both dimensions, Averroes introduces the motion of the sun along the ecliptic, the inclined circle that marks the sun’s  path.[8]