 The treatise On the Substance of the Universe is not extant in Arabic, but the Latin and the Hebrew translations are, as A. Hyman explains (Hyman 1986, 13–15). Averroes reminds that “modern thinkers”, i.e., Muslim theologians, have been insisting that coming-to-be does take place out of nothing because of the ‘custom’ of saying it again and again, and bad ‘custom’ has destructive effects. These theologians contend that one who first learns philosophy is then not capable of learning the religious law and that the other sciences are hidden to one who has learned the Sharīʻa (LC 36F TC60). Since Averroes’ colleagues hesitate, he wants to clear up their doubts and wants to comment on Aristotle’s arguments. Phys. 190b5–10 describes the various ways of generation and concludes that all need a substratum, an underlying matter. Averroes who explains that the logical procedure followed here by Aristotle is induction—reasoning from the particular to the general—concludes: “It is clear that coming-to-be necessarily requires a subject not only in natural but also in artificial things” (LC 37L TC63). This subject is numerically one and does not have any substantial characteristic (dispositio) but can receive all kinds of substantial characteristics: