existence prepossesses all things."

_I answer that,_ All created perfections are in God. Hence He is spoken
of as universally perfect, because He lacks not (says the Commentator,
_Metaph._ v) any excellence which may be found in any genus. This may
be seen from two considerations. First, because whatever perfection
exists in an effect must be found in the effective cause: either in the
same formality, if it is a univocal agent--as when man reproduces man;
or in a more eminent degree, if it is an equivocal agent--thus in the
sun is the likeness of whatever is generated by the sun's power. Now it
is plain that the effect pre-exists virtually in the efficient cause:
and although to pre-exist in the potentiality of a material cause is to
pre-exist in a more imperfect way, since matter as such is imperfect,
and an agent as such is perfect; still to pre-exist virtually in the
efficient cause is to pre-exist not in a more imperfect, but in a more
perfect way. Since therefore God is the first effective cause of
things, the perfections of all things must pre-exist in God in a more
eminent way. Dionysius implies the same line of argument by saying of
God (Div. Nom. v): "It is not that He is this and not that, but that He
is all, as the cause of all." Secondly, from what has been already
proved, God is existence itself, of itself subsistent (Q. 3, A. 4).
Consequently, He must contain within Himself the whole perfection of
being. For it is clear that if some hot thing has not the whole
perfection of heat, this is because heat is not participated in its
full perfection; but if this heat were self-subsisting, nothing of the
virtue of heat would be wanting to it. Since therefore God is
subsisting being itself, nothing of the perfection of being can be
wanting to Him. Now all created perfections are included in the
perfection of being; for things are perfect, precisely so far as they
have being after some fashion. It follows therefore that the perfection