“The coming into existence of what is nonexistent is the passage of what is potential into actuality” cannot mean that the nonexistent thing itself contained a potentiality that was the principle of its existence, for what is nonexistent is not in anything, nor is anything in it.

Rather, one may say that the thing from which the nonexistent came into existence contained the potential for its existence, just as a drop of semen has the potential to become a clot of blood 0, a grain has the potential to become an ear of grain, and a date stone has the potential to become a date palm. Thus, that which contains the potentiality is not the nonexistent thing. As for motion and that which moves, the moving thing itself contains a potentiality that is the principle of motion. The counterpart of the moving thing is therefore the substratum in which previously nonexistent accidents come into existence: colour arises in coloured things, taste in things that have taste, and life in living things; likewise, motion arises in moving things. The substratum of these attributes and motions was receptive to them and possessed the capacity and disposition to receive them. As for the very things that were nonexistent and then came into existence, they contained no potentiality or anything else.

Thus, drawing an analogy between the nonexistent coming into existence from itself and motion arising from that which moves is utterly invalid. A cause may be active, and it may be receptive. If someone were to say, “An existent, a body, something subsisting in itself, or anything similar can receive attributes and accidents, such as motions and the like, and has the capacity for this; therefore, what is nonexistent must likewise be receptive to attributes and motions inhering in it,” his statement would be utterly