the world—that is, that things come into being one after another.

Thus, when the later theologians recognized the weakness of this premise, they sought to shore it up and strengthen it by demonstrating—as they claimed—that infinitely many accidents cannot occur successively in a single substrate.

They claimed that, on this assumption, no particular, identifiable accident could exist in the substrate unless infinitely many accidents had existed before it. This would make the existence of that accident—the one being indicated—impossible, since it could exist only after an infinite succession had come to an end. Since an infinite succession cannot come to an end, the accident being indicated—that is, the one assumed to exist—could not exist.

For example, if the motion occurring today in the celestial body had been preceded by infinitely many motions, it would follow that this motion could not exist.

They illustrated this with the example of a man saying to another:

“I will not give you this dinar until I have first given you infinitely many dinars.”

They said:

“He could never give him that particular dinar.”

He said:

“This analogy is unsound, for it assumes