 At a first stab: Fârâbî argues that, if something is “first” in the sense that nothing is prior to it, it cannot be dependent on anything for its existence or for its continuation in existence. Therefore it has existed without beginning and will exist without end, and has no potentiality for not existing. It has no efficient cause, but also no material cause: if it had a material cause, its matter would be prior to it, and presumably it would also depend on an efficient cause to turn its matter into it. It is less obvious how Fârâbî wants to infer that it is perfect, with no deficiency or privation, but perhaps the thought is that if it were deprived of F, it would have to be of such a kind that it could be F, and therefore it (or its matter) would be potentially F. And Fârâbî apparently thinks he can conclude, not just that a first being has no potentiality for not existing, but that it has no potentiality for any predicate that it does not have by its  essence:[49]  perhaps his reason is that if it were potentially F, it would depend on something else which is actually F to make it actually F, and this other thing would be prior to it. Fârâbî also says that a first being has no final cause, and while he officially says here only that there is no final cause for its existence, he also thinks that there is no final cause that it aims to achieve through its activities, again because it would be in potentiality to some perfection that it does not have by its essence. It also has no form, because nothing can have a form unless it also has an underlying matter, which has already been excluded. And Fârâbî adds another argument, that