Well, then, if God did not make the qualities out of existing qualities, and they have not come from the substances, because they are not substances, we are driven to the conclusion that they were made by God out of nothing. And this is why you seemed to me to urge in vain that we cannot possibly suppose that anything was made by God out of nothing. Let us look at the matter this way. Among ourselves we see men making various things out of nothing; out of nothing I say, though they certainly do seem to be creators in their own departments. Take architects, for example. They do not build cities out of cities, nor, similarly, temples out of temples. If because substances exist which are at their command, you suppose the architects to produce cities and temples out of existing things, you are mistaken, for it is not the substance which makes the city, nor the temples, but the skill in treating the substance. And the skill does not spring from any skill existing in the substances, but from a skill which has no existence in them. You may meet me with the objection that the artist out of the skill which he himself has makes the skill in the substance. It seems to me a fair rejoinder that the man's skill does not arise from any previously existing skill. It cannot be that skill as a self-existent entity gives the skill; for it belongs to the class of accidents, and to those things which receive a real existence when they inhere in substance. You may have the man without the architect's skill, but you cannot have the architect's skill unless the man first exist; and we must therefore maintain that the various forms of human skill have nothing out of which they arise. Now, if we have shown that this |201 is so with men, must we not much rather admit that God can make not only qualities out of nothing, but also substances? For if it is proved that anything arises out of nothing, it is also proved that the same holds good of substances.