This objection can also be raised against his statement: “Every existent, when considered in terms of its essence without regard to anything else, is either necessary or contingent.”

It may be said: If the essence is existence itself as realized in external reality, then, if that thing is said to have no reality apart from existence itself, and it is considered in isolation from anything else in an attempt to ascertain its reality, while being pure negation, it has no reality whatsoever to which the mind can turn.

If, however, it is said to have an essence distinct from existence, then either that essence is supposed capable of being realized without existence—as maintained by those who say, “The nonexistent is a thing”—or it is supposed incapable of being realized without existence. On either supposition, when that essence is considered without regard to anything else, it is not existent but nonexistent. Yet you have supposed it to be existent: this combines two contradictories.

Moreover, when considered without regard to anything else, its existence is impossible, not possible. Thus, something capable of existing, when considered without regard to that which necessitates its existence, is impossible to exist ن, whether the absence of that which brings it into existence is supposed, or neither its existence nor its absence is supposed. It exists only together with that which brings it into existence; when considered apart from that which brings it into existence, its existence is impossible.

If someone says, “There is a difference between considering it on condition of absence and considering it without