the higher sphere, such that it could be said (1) that the higher sphere is the originator of all motions. Nor does any event in existence (2) arise from any one particular cause—not from the motion of the sun, the moon, or the celestial spheres (3), nor from the Active Intellect, nor from anything else one might suppose. Rather, whichever part of the world you consider, you will find that it cannot independently bring anything into being. You will also find that, whenever it has an effect upon something—such as the heat produced by the sun, for example—other causes participate with it in affecting that very thing. Take fruit, for example: the sun plays a part in ripening it, then drying it, changing its colors, and the like, but this occurs only through the participation of water, air, soil (4), and other causes. Moreover, the effect of each of these causes cannot be distinguished from that of another; rather, the two are concomitant.

If they say:

“The Active Intellect, in acting (5), bestowed a form upon it once it had become receptive, [and] before the form that receptivity came about through admixture (6)—as, for example, with clay (7), in which (8), through the mixing of water and earth (9), there arises an effect inseparable from that admixture, neither one being able to exist without the other”—then, if what produces the two consists of two agents (10), those agents must be concomitant, because it is impossible for—