ABSTRACT
The nature of that object which has a higher (superior) position, being near the primordial bodies, is not like the nature of that object which has a position near the boundary of those of a lower (inferior) position. These bodies must undoubtedly be different. Since the latter are receptive to generation and corruption, their substratum-matter is without a doubt common (mushtarak) to all instances of such bodies. On the basis of the reasoning that a body cannot be the cause of another body, it is not possible that the cause of the corruptible bodies can be attributed to the primary bodies (jism-hā-yi pīshīn) alone. And since these have a common substratum-matter, divided entities cannot be the cause of their substratum-matter. Furthermore, since their forms are diverse, their cause cannot be only one thing whose form alone would be the cause of the existence of their substratum-matter. Were this not the cause, then, with the disappearance (bāṭil shudan) of each form which is the only cause of the existence of substratum-matter (mādda), that substratum would no longer exist as soon as the form disappeared. Moreover, the form cannot be active (fi‘l) and divided (babra) when a substratum-matter is actualized, for otherwise substratum-matter could stand without form. Thus, the existence of substratum-matter has associated (anbāzī) factors.
