the aggregate depends upon is external to the aggregate, then this is precisely what is sought. This formulation entails that some of the parts are an efficient cause of the aggregate, and an efficient cause is sufficient for the aggregate.

As for his statement: “If by ‘the totality of what the aggregate depends upon’ you mean all the things of which it can individually be said that the aggregate depends upon them, why do you say that this cannot be the aggregate itself?”

[The response to al-Abharī from several perspectives]

He may be answered as follows:

Because if the aggregate is nothing over and above those things, each of which is an effect, then there is no aggregate here distinct from the effects. If these effects—none of which exists of itself, but each of which must have an existing being that brings it into existence—contain no such existing being, their aggregate cannot come into existence through itself. And if the aggregate is itself an effect of them, it is all the more dependent. This is self-evident; any objection to it is an objection to self-evident truths and is therefore not to be entertained.

[The third perspective]

The answer to his counterargument, namely his statement: “The totality of the things upon which the necessary and the contingent depend is neither internal to the aggregate, since it depends upon every one of its parts, nor external to it. It is therefore the aggregate itself.”

The gist of this statement is that the aggregate of all existing things does not depend upon some of its parts, since it depends upon them all; nor does it depend upon anything external to the aggregate. Thus, the aggregate depends upon the aggregate.