If this is so, then the statement, “A thing’s essence or some of its attributes may be a cause of another attribute, but its essence cannot be a cause of the attribute that is existence, for a cause precedes existence and cannot be prior in existence to existence itself,” rests on unsound premises.

The first is that the existent established in external reality is an attribute of an essence established in external reality. This is mistaken. Rather, what is in external reality is the existent itself, which is its essence. If “existence” is understood in its verbal-noun sense, it subsists in the individual; if it means the existent, then it is the existent itself. Thus, there is no existence in the existent over and above its existing reality.

The second is his statement that an essence or one of its attributes can be a cause of another attribute, as a differentia is of a distinctive property.

If by essence he means what is in the mind, there is neither an effect nor a cause there; rather, the mind conceives them all. If he means what is in external reality, then the particular agent brings its necessary attributes into being, while its incidental attributes may depend on another condition. One of the two necessary attributes is not a cause of the other, although it may be a condition for it.

The third is that, if “cause” means the agent, an attribute does not produce another attribute, nor does an essence produce its necessary attributes—especially according to their position, since they say that one and the same thing cannot be both an agent and a recipient. If, however, it means that on which the effect depends