 Avicenna also devotes considerable attention to this objection: “Why is the end considered a prior cause when in fact it is an effect of the other causes?”(Avicenna MH: 220, trans. modified). This objection asserts that it is inappropriate to include the end among the types of causes on the ground that causes are ontologically prior to effects. Avicenna’s reply involves a distinction between (i) the “thingness” (shayʾiyyah) or essence (māhiyyah) of the end and (ii) the existence of the end: while the existence of the end in concrete particulars is posterior to and, thus, an effect of the other causes, the thingness (or essence) of the end exists prior to action and causes the causality of the other causes (Avicenna MH: 228; Wisnovsky 2000, 2003a). He also makes a further point, which is historically significant: the thingness (or essence) of the end “is not a cause unless it occurs as an image in the soul, or as something analogous to that” (Avicenna MH: 228, trans. modified).