another, when these are contingent things that came to be after not having existed and that subsist in a contingent being which depends on another and is not necessary in itself?”

It is well known that a final cause alone does not suffice to bring motion into being; an efficient cause is also indispensable. It is likewise well known that an act’s dependence on its agent, if not equal to its dependence on its end, is certainly no less. Indeed, reason recognizes that a temporally originated act depends on an agent before recognizing that it depends on an end.

Aristotle and his followers claimed only that it depends on a final cause distinct from itself; they did not mention its need for an efficient cause distinct from itself.

It is well known that whatever necessitates the origination of motion brings it about successively. It must therefore have an originating cause distinct from itself, just as it must have a final cause distinct from itself—indeed, the former is all the more necessary. If someone allows that it can originate its own act without depending on anything distinct from itself, despite being contingent, then let him also allow that it can be its own final cause without depending on anything distinct from itself, despite being contingent. Yet they hold this to be impossible.

Moreover, it is well known that a contingent being possesses nothing from itself; rather, its very essence derives from another. Thus, none of its acts can originate from itself without its depending on another in this respect, just as neither its attributes nor its parts can originate from itself without its depending on another in this respect.

For the same reasoning by which we know that a contingent being—which admits of both existence and nonexistence—cannot exist through itself also establishes that none of the attributes and acts it comes to possess can arise through itself. For how can something that exists not through itself but through another bring something else into existence through itself, without another?