taken together constitute the whole and the aggregate. This aggregate has no reality apart from its individual members, some of which are necessary and others contingent.

This is made clear by his subsequent statement:

“The totality of the things on which the necessary and the contingent depend is neither within the aggregate, since it depends on every part of it, nor outside it; thus it is the aggregate itself.”

If he says:

“Rather, the aggregate is the configuration resulting from the combination of the necessary and the contingent, and this configuration is contingent because it depends on something other than itself,”

the reply is:

That relation consists neither of independently subsisting entities nor of positive attributes inhering in entities. Rather, it is a relational matter. Whether the relation is privative or positive, there is no difficulty in saying, “It is contingent.” For the necessary being, which is one member of the aggregate, necessitates all the contingent things, and that relation is itself among the contingent things.

A part of the aggregate does not necessitate the aggregate in the sense that it necessitates every individual member, for this would entail its necessitating itself, which is impossible. Rather, it does so in the sense that it necessitates everything other than itself, together with the configuration resulting from their combination. This is correct.