is weak, and its weakness has become clear to those with insight. Moreover, it applies in every circumstance and is no more a reason for requiring prior nonexistence in one circumstance than in another. As for the effect’s being possible in itself and necessary through another, this does not contradict its existing perpetually through another, as I have pointed out.

As for supposing that the infinite exists as a whole just as each individual member exists at some time, this is a mistaken notion. A judgment that holds for each individual does not thereby hold for every aggregate. Otherwise, it would be valid to say: “The infinite whole can come into existence, because each individual member can come into existence,” thus predicating possibility of the whole just as it is predicated of each individual.’

They said:

‘The infinitely many states they mention have always been nonexistent, except as they occur one after another. Within the infinite that is nonexistent, there may be greater and lesser quantities; this does not compromise their being infinite in nonexistence.

As for saying that any one of them depends on infinitely many things existing before it, or that any of them requires an infinite series to be traversed before it is reached, this is false.

For when we say, “Such-and-such depended on such-and-such,” we mean that both things were characterized by nonexistence.