 This argument seems open to an immediate objection: why would they have to have anything in common, except that they are both first, in the sense that neither of them has anything prior to it? And being “first” in this sense is a mere negation—indeed merely the negation of a relation to something else—and so firstness would not be a constituent of the thing that is first, and so would not threaten its simplicity. And, while it is not clear that Fârâbî has an adequate reply to this objection, his argument is more sophisticated than this quick summary would suggest, and its extra sophistication may give him more resources to deal with objections, including the objection that Fârâbî has not ruled out the possibility of infinite regresses and that there may be no First, or that there could be a First and also other things independent of the First if the chains of their causes go back ad infinitum without leading to a First.