what is known, for a knower may know something to be nonexistent, know it to be impossible, and know it before it exists. Action, however, can only produce what actually comes into existence, not what remains nonexistent while the action exists. Thus, its being an agent depends more necessarily on their existence than its being a knower does.

Fourth: If it is said, “Its producing them does not entail its needing them. Rather, they need it in every respect, and its perfection lies in its action, which proceeds from its own essence, not from them,” the reply is:

“Its knowledge of them likewise does not entail its needing them in any respect. Indeed, a knower is less dependent on what it knows than an agent is on what it produces. Within our experience, no agent can be conceived without a need for action—and indeed for what it produces. Yet there are knowers who have no need of the things they know, or even of their knowledge of many of those things, although knowing them is an attribute of perfection, and they are more perfect with that knowledge.”

If it is supposed that some actions are not needed but are instead an attribute of perfection, the reply is:

“Voluntary action necessarily involves will. A person’s need for whatever he wills to exist is, in absolute terms, greater than his need to know whatever he knows. Souls are more attached to the objects of their will than to the objects of their knowledge.”

Thus, some people say, attributing it to ʿAlī:
“The worth of every person lies in what he does well.”
This attribution to ʿAlī is not authentic.

Those possessed of insight say:
“The worth of every person lies in what he seeks.”

The perfection and deficiency of souls therefore depend more on what they will than on what they know. Indeed, knowledge itself, whatever its object, entails no deficiency in them. As for willing certain