Clarification

He further says:

“Every originated thing has a cause that accompanies its very coming-to-be. Such a thing must fall under one of three categories:

1. it is produced only to perish simultaneously, enduring for no span of time at all;
2. its origination alone lapses with no temporal gap, while the thing itself remains; or
3. it persists after its origination.

The first alternative is plainly impossible. The second is likewise impossible, for successive instants cannot occur, and the generation of discrete entities—one after another, numerically distinct, and not in the continuous manner observed in motion—would entail just such a succession of instants, a notion already invalidated in natural philosophy. Moreover, one cannot claim that every existent is of this sort, since among existents are beings that subsist in their very essence.

Let us therefore confine our discussion to those. We say: every originated thing has a cause for its origination and a cause for its persistence. These two causes may be one and the same, as in the case of a mould imparting shape to water, or they may be two distinct factors, as with the form of a statue: the craftsman brings it into being, while its continued existence is secured by the dryness of the underlying material from which it is fashioned.”