for it. For instead of saying, ‘Some substances precede others,’ we say that some become arranged in layers before others, some become dispersed before others, and some come together before others. Those arranged in layers cannot be so by virtue of themselves, nor can those dispersed be so by virtue of themselves, since it has been demonstrated that they are alike, and that whatever properties are entailed by the essences of some are entailed by the essences of all the others.

The knowledge that some are assembled and arranged in layers, while others are dispersed and separated, proves that their essences are not what necessitates these states. If that cause was produced by an agent, so that through its existence they acquired the states of combination and separation we have described, then it is established that acts depend upon the agent. And if that cause depends upon the agent insofar as it is an act brought into being, the same must hold for a body, since it too is an act: it shares with what depends upon the agent the feature on which its own dependence upon him would rest. This is an acknowledgment that acts depend upon the agent.”

He said:

“It is impossible for any of them that comes earlier to do so neither by virtue of itself nor because of a cause. For then, at the time when it comes earlier, there would necessarily be no greater reason for it to come earlier than later, or later than earlier. Nor would there be any greater reason for it to come earlier, neither by virtue of itself nor because of a cause, than for something like it to come earlier at its time, neither by virtue of itself nor because of a cause. The knowledge that what comes earlier has a greater claim to precedence than to coming later, and that what comes later