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CONCERNING BEING AND ESSENCE 25
to it through some extrinsic principle, as for instance light in
air from the influence of the sun. But it cannot be that existence
itself should be caused by the form or quiddity of the thing,
caused, I say, as by means of an efficient cause, because thus
something would be the cause of itself and would bring its
very self into existence, which is impossible. Therefore it fol-
lows that everything such that its existence is other than its
nature has existence from another (ab alia). And because every-
thing which exists by virtue of another is reduced to that
which exists in virtue of itself (per se) y as to its first cause,
it follows that there must be something which is the cause of
the existence {causa essendi) of all things, because it is very
existence alone; otherwise the causes would proceed to infinity,
since everything which is not existence alone would have a cause
of its existence, as has been said. It is clear, therefore, that an intel-
ligence is form and existence, and that it has its existence from the
first being which is existence alone, and this is the first cause
which is God. But everything which receives something from
something (all quid ab all quo) is in potency in respect to that, and
what is received in it is its act. Therefore it follows that the very
quiddity or form which is the intelligence is in potency in
respect to the existence which it receives from God, and that
existence is received according to the mode of act. And thus
potency and act are found in intelligences, yet not form and
matter, except equivocally. Whence, too, to suffer, to receive,
to be a subject and all things of this kind which are seen to
belong to things by reason of matter, belong equivocally to in-
tellectual substances and to corporeal substances, as the Com-
mentator says in the third book of the De Animal And be-
cause, as has been said, the quiddity of an intelligence is the
intelligence itself, therefore its quiddity or essence is the same
thing as itself, and its existence, received from God, is that by
26 Avcrroes, In DC An., Ill, com. 14, f, 123.