 Regardless of whether one is considering physical or metaphysical causes, any motion or change (whether of some specific existence itself or just of some new accident), Avicenna explains, requires three things: (1) the form that comes to be as a result of the change, (2) the matter in which that form comes to be and (3) the matter’s initial privation of that form (Avicenna, [Ph], 1.2 [12–13]). These three—the form, matter and privation—are frequently referred to, following Aristotle, as “principles of nature” (cf. Aristotle, Physics, 1.7). While Avicenna happily agrees that these three factors are present in every instance of something’s coming to be after not having been, he is not as happy as to whether all three of these features are equally “principles” (sing. mabdaʾ). His concern is that, strictly speaking, causes and principles exist simultaneous with their effects, whereas privation is only ever prior to the change and passes away with the change (Avicenna, [Ph], 1.3 [14]; McGinnis 2012, Lammer 2018, §3.3). More properly speaking, Avicenna contends, privation is a precondition for change rather than a principle. Still, he concedes that if one is lax in one’s use of “principle” so as to understand a principle as “whatever must exist, however it might exist, in order that something else exists, but not conversely” (ibid) privation would count as a principle of change. Avicenna reasons thusly: The elimination of the privation from something as changeable renders that thing no longer changeable, whereas the elimination of that changeable thing itself does not eliminate the privation. In other words, insofar as something is changeable, it depends on or requires that there be some privation. Conversely, privation does not depend on and does not require that there be anything changeable. For example, for Avicenna, the celestial Intellects—think Angelic host—are not subject to change; nonetheless, they all possess some privation of existence and perfection, which is found in God. Thus privation has a certain ontological priority to the changeable. There can be privation without the changeable, but there cannot be the changeable without privation. 