He said: “As for whether something composite can exist of itself according to the philosophers’ principles—even if they allow eternal accidents—this is impossible. Composition is a condition of its existence, and its parts cannot themselves bring about that composition, since composition is a condition of their existence. Likewise, when the parts of any natural composite are separated, the name by which they are understood applies to them only equivocally—as with the term ‘hand,’ applied both to the hand that forms part of a living human being and to a severed hand. Indeed, according to Aristotle, every composite comes into being and passes away ن, much less can it be without a cause.

As for whether the approach Ibn Sīnā adopted concerning the necessarily existent rules out an eternal composite, it does not. For if we suppose that what is contingent ultimately depends on a necessary cause; that this necessary cause either has a cause or has none; and that, if it has a cause, the chain ultimately reaches something necessary that has no cause, then this argument, on the basis of the impossibility of an infinite regress, establishes only the existence of