8. Here the word denotes “atoms.”
107a] The Guide of the Perplexed I • 75 iyj it is a divine thing, the true reality of which cannot be perceived — this applies all the more to those who pay no attention to the nature of any thing.
Hear now what they were compelled to admit as a necessary con¬ sequence of these three premises and what they therefore believed. They said that motion is the passage of an atom belonging to these particles from one atom to another that is contiguous to it. It follows that no movement can be more rapid than another movement. In accordance with this assump¬ tion, they said that when you see that two things in motion traverse two different distances in the same time, the cause of this phenomenon does not lie in the greater rapidity of the motion of the body traversing the longer distance; but the cause of this lies in the motion that we call slower being interrupted by a greater number of units of rest than is the case with regard to the motion we call more rapid, which is interrupted by fewer units of rest. And when the example of an arrow shot from a strong bow was alleged as an objection against them, they said that the motions of the arrow were also interrupted by units of rest. In fact your thinking that a certain object is moving in continuous motion is due to an error of the senses, for many of the objects of the perception of the senses elude the latter, as they lay down in the twelfth premise. In consequence, it was said to them: Have you seen a millstone making [ a complete revolution? Has not the part that is at its circumference traversed the distance represented by the bigger9 circle in the same time in which the part near the center has traversed the distance represented by the smaller10 circle? Accordingly the motion of the circumference is more rapid than the motion of the inner circle. And there is no opportunity for you to assert that the motion of the latter part is interrupted by a greater number of units of rest as the whole body is one and continuous, I mean the body of the millstone. Their answer to this objection is that the various portions of the millstone become separated from one another in the course of its revolution and that the units of rest that interrupt the motion of all the revolving portions that are near the center are more numerous than the units of rest that interrupt the the motion of the parts that are farther off from the center. Thereupon it was said to them: How then do we perceive the millstone as one body that cannot be broken up even by hammers? One must accordingly assume that when it turns round, it splits into pieces; and when it comes to rest, it is welded up and becomes as it was before. How is it that one does not perceive its portions as separated from one another? Thereupon, in order to reply to g. Literally: big. 10. Literally: small.
198 The Guide of the Perplexed 1-73 [ 1076 this, they had recourse to the same twelfth premise, which states that one should not take into account the apprehensions of the senses, but rather the testimony of the intellect.
You should not think that the doctrines I have explained to you are the most abhorrent of the corollaries necessarily following from those three premises, for the doctrine that necessarily follows from the belief in the existence of a vacuum is even stranger and more abhorrent. Furthermore, the doctrine that I have mentioned to you with regard to motion is not more abhorrent than the assertion going with this view that the diagonal of a square is equal to one of its sides, so that some of them say that the square is a nonexistent thing. To sum up: By virtue of the first premise all geometrical demonstrations become invalid, and they belong to either one or the other of two categories. Some of them are absolutely invalid, as for instance those referring to the properties of incommensurability and com- mensurability of lines and planes and the existence | of rational and irrational lines and all that are included in the tenth book of Euclid and those that resemble them. As for the others, the demonstrations proving them are not cogent, as when we say we want to divide a line into two equal halves. For in the case in which the number of its atoms11 is odd, the division of the line into two equal parts is impossible according to their assumption. Know, moreover, that the Banu Shakir have composed the famous “Book of Ingenious Devices,” which includes one hundred odd ingenious devices, all of them demonstrated and carried into effect. But if vacuum had existed, not one of them would have been valid, and many of the contrivances to make water flow would not have existed. In spite of this, the lives [of the Mutakallimun] have been spent in argumentation with a view to establishing the validity of these premises and others resem¬ bling them. I shall now return to the explanation of the meaning of their remaining premises that were mentioned.
THE FOURTH PREMISE This is their saying that the accidents exist, and that they are some¬ thing superadded to the something that is the substance, and that no body is exempt from one of them. If this premise did not mean more than this, it would be a correct, clear, evident premise, and give rise to no doubt and no difficulty. However, they say that in every substance in which there does not subsist the accident of life, there necessarily subsists the accident of 11. It is to be borne in mind throughout this chapter that the same Arabic term is being translated variously as “atom(s)” or “substance(s).”
io8£] The Guide of the Perplexed 1-73 /£><?
death, for the recipient cannot but receive one of two contraries. They say: similarly it has a color, a taste, motion or rest, aggregation or separation. And if the accident of life subsists in it, there cannot but subsist in it other genera of accidents such as knowledge or ignorance, or will or its contrary, | or power or powerlessness, or apprehension or one of its contraries. To sum up: there must necessarily subsist in it all the accidents that may subsist in a living being or one of their contraries.
THE FIFTH PREMISE This is their saying that these accidents subsist in the atom and that it cannot be exempt from them. The explanation and the meaning of this premise are as follows. They say that every atom of the atoms that God creates is provided with accidents from which it cannot be exempt; such accidents, for example, as color, smell, motion or rest, but not quantity — since these atoms do not possess quantity. For in accordance with their opinion, they do not call quantity an accident and do not understand that quantity includes the notion of accidentality. In virtue of this premise, they hold with regard to all accidents subsisting in a body that it should not be said that one of them is a proprium of that body as a whole; for the accident in question subsists, according to them, in every atom of the atoms of which that body is composed. For instance, in the case of this piece of snow, the whiteness does not subsist only in the entire whole; rather every single atom of the atoms of the snow is white, and it is because of this that white¬ ness subsists in their aggregate. In a similar way they say of a body in motion that every atom of its atoms is in motion and that because of this it is in motion as a whole. Similarly life subsists, according to them, in every single part of the living body, and also the senses; every atom is a whole endowed with sensation, being according to them endowed with sensation. | For life, the senses, intellect, and knowledge are, according to them, accidents just as blackness and whiteness are, as we shall make clear on the basis of their doctrines. As regards the soul, they disagree; the opinion of most of them12 is that it is an accident subsisting in one atom that belongs to the whole consisting of the atoms of which man, for example, is com¬ posed. This whole is designated as being endowed with a soul because of the fact that that atom subsists in it. Some of them, however, affirm that the soul is a body composed of subtle atoms and that these atoms are doubtless provided with a certain accident, which is their proprium and in virtue of which they become a soul. They affirm that these atoms are mixed with the 12. Literally: most of their assertions.
200 The Guide of the Perplexed 1-73 [ 109a atoms of the organic body. Accordingly they are not exempt from the belief that the thing that is the soul is an accident. As for the intellect, I consider that they are unanimous in thinking that it is an accident subsisting in an atom belonging to an intellectually cognizing whole. As regards knowledge, there is perplexity among them over whether it is an accident subsisting in every atom belonging to the whole endowed with knowledge, or an accident subsisting in one atom only. Both affirmations entail abhorrent conclusions. It has been objected against them that we find that most minerals and stones have a very intense color, but when they are pulverized this color disappears. Thus when we pulverize the intensely green emerald, it turns into white dust — which is proof that the accident in question resides in the whole and not in every particle included in that whole. It is even more manifest that parts cut off from a living being are not alive — which is proof that this entity13 is constituted by the whole and not by each of the parts included in that whole. In answer to this, they say that the accident in question has no continued existence, but is always created anew, as I shall explain on the basis of their opinion as formulated in the next premise. | THE SIXTH PREMISE It consists in their assertion that an accident does not last during two units of time. The meaning of this premise is as follows. They think that God, may He be glorified and magnified, creates an atom and creates together with it, at one and the same time, any accident He wills as an accident subsisting in the atom. For it may not be predicated of Him, may He be exalted, that He has the power to create an atom without an accident, for this is impossible. Now the true reality of an accident and its notion consist in its not enduring or lasting during two units of time, by which they mean: two instants. While this accident is being created, it disappears, having no continued existence. Whereupon God creates another accident of the same species, which accident disappears in its turn; whereupon He creates a third one belonging to the same species, and so on always in the same way in the period during which God wishes the species of that accident to last. If, however, He, may He be exalted, wishes to create in the atom another species of accident, He does so. If, however, He refrains from the act of creation and does not create an accident, the atom in question becomes nonexistent. This is the opinion of some of them — namely, of those who are the majority — this being the creation of accidents, which 13. Namely, life.
201 1096] The Guide of the Perplexed I • 73 they affirm. However, some of them belonging to the Muctazila assert that some accidents last for a certain time, whereas others do not last during two units of time. As to this, they have no rule to which to refer so as to be able to say: this particular species of accidents lasts and that other does not. What led them to this opinion is that it is not to be said that there is a nature in any respect whatever and that the nature of one particular body may require that this and that accident be attached to that body. Quite the contrary, they wish to say that God, may He be exalted, created the acci¬ dents in question now, without the intermediary of nature — without any other thing. But if this is asserted, it follows according to them necessarily that | that accident in question does not last; for if you should say that it lasts for some time and then becomes nonexistent, it becomes necessary to inquire what thing has caused it to become nonexistent. If you should say thereupon that God, if He wills, causes it to become nonexistent, this answer would not be valid according to their opinion. For an agent does not act to bring about nonexistence, since nonexistence does not require an agent. On. the contrary, the nonexistence of an act comes about when the agent refrains from acting. This is valid in a certain respect. For this reason, accordingly, their assertions led them — as they wished that there be no nature necessitating the existence or the nonexistence of a thing — to the point of affirming the creation of successive accidents. According to some of them, when God wishes to cause the nonexistence of a substance, He does not create an accident in it, in consequence whereof the substance becomes nonexistent. Others affirm that if God should wish the world to be anni¬ hilated, He would create in it the accident of passing-away — an accident that would be without a substratum. Thereupon this accident of passing- away would be opposed to the existence of the world. In accordance with this premise, they assert that when we, as we think, dye a garment red, it is not we who are by any means the dyers 5 God rather creates the color in question in the garment when the latter is in juxtaposition with the red dye, which we consider to have gone over to the garment. They say that this is not the case, but that God has instituted a habit according to which, for example, black color does not appear except when a garment is juxta¬ posed with indigo. However, this blackness, which God creates when an object about to turn black is juxtaposed with blackness, does not last, but disappears instantly, and another blackness is created. God has also instituted the habit of not creating, after the disappearance of blackness, redness or yellowness, but a blackness similar to the one before. In conformity with this assumption, they have drawn the corollary that the things we know 202 The Guide of the Perplexed I ■ 75 [ noa now | are not identical with the contents of the knowledge known by us yesterday 5 for that knowledge has become nonexistent, and another knowl¬ edge similar to it has been created. They maintain that this is so, because knowledge is an accident. Similarly it necessarily behooves those who believe that the soul is an accident to consider that, to take an example, one hundred thousand souls are created every minute for the requirements of every being endowed with a soul. For as you know, time, according to them, is composed of indivisible instants. In conformity with this premise, they assert that when a man moves a pen, it is not the man who moves it; for the motion occurring in the pen is an accident created by God in the pen. Similarly the motion of the hand, which we think of as moving the pen, is an accident created by God in the moving hand. Only, God has instituted the habit that the motion of the hand is concomitant 14 with the motion of the pen, without the hand exercising in any respect an influence on, or being causative in regard to, the motion of the pen. For they maintain that an accident does not go beyond its substratum. There is unanimity among them with regard to their belief that a white garment that has been put into a vat full of indigo and has become dyed, has not been blackened by the indigo, blackness being an accident that is inherent in the body that is the indigo and that does not go beyond it so as to affect something else. According to them, there is no body at all endowed with the power of action. On the other hand, the ultimate agent is God; and it is He who, in view of the fact that He has instituted such a habit, has created the blackness in the body that is the garment when the latter was juxtaposed with indigo.
To sum up: it should not be said in any respect that this is the cause of that. This is the opinion of the multitude [of the Mutakallimun]. One15 of them, however, maintained the doctrine of causality and in consequence was regarded as abhorrent by them. As for the actions of man, they are in disa¬ greement about them. The doctrine of the majority and in particular that of the multitude of the Ashcariyya is that when the pen is put into motion, God creates four accidents, no one of which is a cause of any other — all of them being concomitant | in regard to their existence, not otherwise. The first accident is my will to put the pen into motion; the second accident, my power to put it into motion; the third accident, human motion itself— I mean the motion of the hand; the fourth accident, the motion of the pen.
14. The Arabic term q dr ana is used; it also occurs in an earlier passage in this chapter adducing the example of the dyeing of a garment. In that passage the term is translated by the verb “juxtapose” or its derivatives.
15. The word may also denote several individuals.
For they think that when a man wills a thing and, as he thinks, does it, his will is created for him, his power to do that which he wills is created for him, and his act is created for him. For he does not act in virtue of the power created in him, and the power has no influence on the action. On the other hand, the Muctazila maintain that man acts in virtue of the power created in him; and one of the Ashcariyya says that this created power has a certain influence on, and connection with, the act. But they regard this as abhorrent. As all of them think, the created will and the created power and — in the opinion of some of them — also the created act, are accidents that do not last, God constantly creating in that way motion after motion in the pen in question as long as the pen is in motion. Thereafter, when it comes to rest, it does so only after He has created in it a unit of rest. And He does not cease to create in it one unit of rest after another as long as the pen is at rest. Accordingly God creates at every one of the instants — I mean the separate units of time — an accident in every individual among the beings, whether that individual be an angel, a heavenly sphere, or some¬ thing else. This He does constantly at every moment of time. They main¬ tain that this is the true faith in God’s activity; and in their opinion, he who does not believe that God acts in this way denies the fact that God acts. With regard to beliefs of this kind, it has been said in my opinion and in that of everybody endowed with an intellect: Or as one mocketh j a man, do ye so mock himi6 — this being in truth the very essence of mockery.
THE SEVENTH PREMISE It consists in their belief that privations of habitus are things that exist in a body, being superadded to its substance, and are accordingly also existent accidents. In consequence they are always being created, and whenever one of them disappears, another is created. The explanation is as follows. They do not hold that rest is the privation of motion, that death is the privation of life, and that blindness is the privation of sight; in fact they do not believe this with regard to any privations of habitus similar to those mentioned. For according to them, the status17 of motion and rest is the same as that of heat and cold. For just as heat and cold are accidents existing in the hot and cold substrata, motion is an accident created in the moving body, and rest an accident which God creates in the body that is at rest, which accident likewise does not last for two units of time, as has been set forth before in the preceding premise. According to them, God has created 16. Job 13:9. 17. Literally: judgment.
204 The Guide of the Perplexed 1-75 [ mb a unit of rest in every particle of the body that is at rest and, as long as it is at rest, creates another unit of rest every time a unit of it becomes non¬ existent. The position is completely analogous, according to them, with regard to knowledge and ignorance. According to them, the latter exists and is an accident. In consequence, a unit of ignorance continually disap¬ pears and another is created as long as a particular ignorant individual continues to be ignorant in anything. The position is also completely analogous with regard to life and death. For both of these are, according to them, accidents, and they clearly assert that a unit of life disappears and another is created as long as a particular living being is alive. Then, when God wills its death, He creates in it the accident of death following upon the disappearance of the accident of life, which | does not last two units of time. All this they assert clearly. Now according to this assumption, it clearly follows that the accident of death, which God creates, likewise becomes nonexistent after a moment of time, so that God creates another unit of death. But for that, death would not last. However, as one unit of life is created after another, one unit of death is created after another. Would that I knew till when God creates the accident of death in a dead individual; does He do so as long as that individual’s external form endures, or as long as one of that individual’s atoms endures? For, according to what they wish, God creates the accident of death in every single atom of the atoms of the individual in question. Now we find molars of dead individuals that are thousands of years old. Accordingly this is a proof that God has not annihi¬ lated that substance. In consequence, He should be creating in it the accident of death all through these thousands of years, creating a unit of death as soon as another unit of it disappears. This is the doctrine of the multitude of them. However one Muctazilite says that certain privations of habitus are not existent things. He does not, however, say this consistently with regard to every privation. Thus he does not say that darkness is the privation of light, that rest is the privation of motion. In fact he regards some of the privations as existent and some others as being merely a priva¬ tion of habitus, just as it suits him with respect to his belief. They did a similar thing with regard to the continued existence of accidents. For according to them, some of the accidents last for some time, whereas others do not last for two units of time. For the purpose of all of them is to suppose an existent universe,18 the nature of which fits in with our opinions and teachings.