something that brings another into existence. This is even more impossible than supposing acts without an agent or events without an originator. In those cases, the supposition is that they came into existence of themselves; here, the supposition is that they neither came into existence of themselves nor have anything existing in itself to bring them into existence. Nor is there anything nonexistent that brings them into existence. All that is supposed is dependent effects. An effect, insofar as it is an effect, and a dependent thing, insofar as it is dependent, contain nothing that entails their existence. If neither they nor that which would entail their existence exists, it follows that they must all be nonexistent. To suppose this while also supposing that they exist is to affirm two contradictories together.

This is a rigorous argument, drawing attention to the fact that merely supposing contingent effects which neither exist in themselves nor include among them a cause existing in itself does not entail their existence in external reality. Not everything conceived in the mind can exist in reality, especially when existence is denied to these effects both in themselves and through something that brings them into existence. If a contingent effect is supposed to have a contingent cause, that cause likewise has no existence of itself, just as the effect has no existence of itself. Thus, nothing existent at all has been included in the supposition. Where, then, could their existence come from?