of a rational agent acting by virtue of its own essence are present to it without inhering in it. It therefore apprehends them without their inhering in it.

With this established, I say:

You already know that the First apprehends its own essence, without any distinction in existence between its essence and its apprehension of its essence, except in the considerations of those contemplating them, as explained earlier. You have also judged that its apprehension of its essence is the cause of its apprehension of its first effect.

If, then, you judge the two causes—namely, its essence and its apprehension of its essence—to be one and the same in existence, without distinction, judge likewise that the two effects—namely, the first effect and the First’s apprehension of it—are one and the same in existence, without any distinction requiring one to be separate from the First and the other to reside within it. Just as you have judged the distinction between the two causes to be purely conceptual, judge the distinction between the two effects likewise.

Thus, the existence of the first effect is itself the First’s apprehension of it, without any need for an additional form inhering in the essence of the First—exalted is He above that.

Now, since intellectual substances apprehend things that are not their own effects through forms becoming present within them, and since they apprehend the First, the Necessary Existent, and there is no existent that is not an effect of the First, the Necessary Existent, all the forms of existents, universal and particular, are present within them as those existents actually are.