upon the contingent, for among its members is the necessary being, which does not depend upon the contingent. Rather, it is the collective configuration—if it is assumed to exist in external reality—that is said to depend upon the contingent.

The difference between the aggregate of contingent beings and the aggregate of existing beings thus becomes clear. The aggregate of contingent beings is the contingent configuration itself: each individual member is contingent, and the aggregate, which depends upon the contingent, is all the more contingent. As for the aggregate of existing beings, not every member is contingent; rather, among them is the necessary being. Thus, the aggregate is not contingent in the sense that every individual member is contingent. The distinction is therefore clear.

He may then be told:

This is invalid on several grounds.

First:

You said, in objecting to the first proof, that the being necessary in itself is the cause of the aggregate of existing beings. Yet here you say that the aggregate depends upon the contingent. If the effect of the necessary being must be independent of contingent beings, your first objection fails and the first proof stands. For in that case, the aggregate is not rendered independent by the necessary being; rather, it needs contingent beings. Thus, the necessary being cannot be the cause of the aggregate unless it necessitates all contingent beings. Then, together with the contingent beings, it is either the aggregate itself or the cause of the aggregate.

Such a situation does not obtain in the aggregate of contingent beings, for no individual member can be the cause of all the others, since it is not the cause of itself, its own cause, or the cause of its cause. And if among contingent beings there is nothing but that which is