according to their claim. Thus, if whiteness ceases to exist, why should it not be possible for no colour to arise after its cessation, if being devoid of colours is possible? This line of reasoning applies consistently to all categories of accidents.”

I say:

The substance of this argument is that he draws an analogy between a thing’s state after acquiring an attribute and its state before acquiring it. His opponents have answered that the distinction between the two is that an opposite ceases to exist only when its opposite arises; hence, the thing cannot be devoid of both.

If this distinction is valid, the analogy fails. Otherwise, the claim made about the original case may be rejected, and one may say: Rather, a thing may be devoid of an attribute after having acquired it, if one opposite can cease without another arising. What he mentions concerning blackness and whiteness is a particular proposition and therefore cannot establish a universal claim. How can it be known that whenever a taste in a body disappears, another taste must replace it, or that whenever an odour disappears, another odour must replace it? The same applies to desire, aversion, and similar attributes. How can it be known that when someone’s desire and love for something cease, aversion and hatred of it must replace them? Why should a living being not be devoid of love and hatred for a particular thing, and of desire and aversion toward it?

He said:

“We also say: The proof that temporally originated events cannot subsist in the essence of