SCOT TRANSLATES AVERROES 129 



between them, 1 so that the Agent, thus conceived, 

 has the function of a mere motive power. As to 

 those who hold the hypothesis of creation, they say 

 that the Agent produces being without having any 

 recourse to pre-existent matter. This is the view 

 taken by our Motecallemin, and by the followers of 

 the Christian religion : for example, by Johannes 

 Christianus (Philopon), who asserts that the possi- 

 bility of creation lies in the Agent alone.' 



' The intermediate views may be reduced to two 

 only, though the first of these admits several 

 subdivisions which show considerable differences. 

 These opinions agree in affirming that generation is 

 only a change of substance ; that all generation 

 implies a subject ; and that everything begets in its 

 own likeness. The first opinion asserts, however, 

 that the part of the Agent is to create form, and to 

 impress it upon already existent matter. Some of 

 those who hold this view, as Ibn Sina, 2 make an 

 entire separation between matter in generation and 

 the Agent, calling the latter the source of form, 

 while others, among whom we may notice Themistius 

 and perhaps Alfarabi, maintain that the Agent is 

 in some cases conjoined with matter, as when fire 

 produces fire, or man begets man ; and in others 

 separate from it, as in the generation of creeping 

 things and plants, i.e. those not produced from 

 seed, 3 which all owe their being to causes that are 

 unlike themselves/ 



' The third theory is that of Aristotle, who 

 holds that the Agent produces at once both form 



1 See Metaphysica, xii. 334. 



2 Avicenna. See Destruction of Destruction, iii. 350. 



3 The doctrine of spontaneous generation, common among the 

 Arabian Philosophers, and specially taught by Ibn Tofail. 



I 



