things, it does entail a deficiency in them. Thus, if its producing everything in existence entails no deficiency in it, how could its knowledge of those things do so? And if its producing them does not entail its needing them or deriving perfection from them, how could its knowledge of them entail that?

We know that, for an agent, refraining from doing certain things is more perfect than doing them. As for its not knowing them, this cannot be conceived as a deficiency, except where knowledge is accompanied by something blameworthy—not that knowledge itself is blameworthy. If its producing some existing things is not more perfect than its producing them all, and refraining from producing them is not more perfect than producing them, how could not seeing them be better than seeing them?

If it is said:
“It produces some of them through the mediation of others,”

the reply is:
“However you conceive of action existing without constituting a deficiency, it is still more fitting and appropriate to conceive of knowledge existing without constituting a deficiency.”

If you say:
“Its producing the first effect follows necessarily from its essence, and so on, without constituting a deficiency,”

the reply is:
“If it is supposed that there is a first effect that necessarily follows from it, then, if its knowledge of itself entails its knowledge of the first effect and everything that necessarily follows from that effect, this is all the more clearly no deficiency.”

If it is said:
“Acts of understanding involve fatigue,”

the reply is:
“One who is not wearied by action is all the more deserving of not being wearied by knowledge. How, then, can one conceive of an agent that acts continually without being wearied by action? It is all the more fitting that it should not be wearied by knowledge.

How, then, can one conceive of an agent that acts continually without being wearied by action, yet grows weary