and these cause the successive motions.” What, then, necessitates the occurrence of these temporal events, when nothing at all has arisen to necessitate them?

If someone were to say, “New perceptions, volitions, and motions continually arise in a human being without any newly arising cause, and without any agent bringing them about at all,” would that not be impossible?

If it is said:

“Bringing the first into existence helped him bring the second into existence,”

the reply is:

“What, then, necessitates his bringing the first into existence? If he is assumed to be beginningless, he has always been bringing things into existence: there was no first; rather, he has always been bringing things into existence.”

If it is said that these temporal occurrences in a human being proceeded from the Active Intellect without any newly arising cause, the reply is:

“According to them, the Active Intellect emanates perpetually. Why, then, did it single out one time rather than another for these perceptions, volitions, and motions?”

They say:

“Because the recipients were not ready. Once a human being is ready to receive the emanation, the Giver of Forms bestows it upon him.”

When they are asked:

“What, then, necessitates the arising of this readiness?”

they say:

“The celestial motions and mixtures of the elements that occur.”

Thus, they do not make the Active Intellect the cause necessitating the readiness that arises. Rather, they attribute this to motions external to it and to its emanation.

If they say the same of the First, it follows that something other than Him brings about the conditions for emanation. They thus liken Him to the Active Intellect in that only some things, rather than all things, emanate from Him. But the Active Intellect