in itself, but necessary through the succession of individual members. Clearly, both claims are false, though the first is more obviously false than the second. For if all the individual members are contingent, and their combination is a relationship and connection among them—at most, an accident inhering in them—it cannot be necessary in itself. A contingent subject cannot have an attribute whose existence is necessary in itself.

As for the second claim, if the combined configuration is an effect of the contingent individual members, it is all the more contingent, for the effect of something contingent is all the more clearly contingent.

Or, if you wish, you may say: whatever depends on something contingent is all the more clearly contingent. The individual members comprise nothing but contingent things. Thus, neither the combination nor its individual members contain anything other than what is contingent and does not exist through itself. Whatever does not exist through itself cannot bring anything else into existence if it lacks that through which it exists, for its own existence precedes the existence of anything else through it. If it exists only through something that brings it into existence, then, with all the more reason, nothing else can exist through it without that which brings it into existence. None of the contingent things, nor their combination, exists through itself. Hence, none of them can bring another into existence. It is therefore impossible for the existence of some to be determined by others, or for the existence of the aggregate to be determined by its individual members.

In short, both objections entail that the combination depends on