18. Literally: an existence. The meaning is: all that which is existent.
20 j 112 fe] The Guide of the Perplexed I • 73 THE EIGHTH PREMISE It consists in their assertion that there exists nothing except substances and accidents and that the natural forms | are likewise accidents. The explanation of this premise is as follows. According to them, all bodies are composed of atoms resembling one another, as we have made clear when setting out the first of their premises. These atoms differ from one another only with regard to accidents and in nothing else. Thus according to them, animality, humanity, sensation, and rationality are all accidents having the same status as whiteness, blackness, bitterness, and sweetness, so that the difference existing between an individual belonging to one species and an individual belonging to another is like the difference between individuals belonging to the same species. In consequence, the body of heaven, even the body of the angels, or even the body of [God’s] throne, as it is imagined in fantasy, and the body of any insect you like from among the insects of the earth or of any plant you like, are, according to them, of one substance, differing only with regard to accidents and in nothing else. And the sub¬ stances of which the universe is composed are the atoms.
THE NINTH PREMISE It consists in their assertion that accidents do not serve as a substratum for one another. According to them, it may not be said that one accident has as its substratum another, which latter has as its substratum a substance. In their opinion all accidents, in the first place and in the same way, have substance as a substratum.19 They avoid the opposing doctrine because it has as its necessary consequence that an ultimate accident may not subsist in a substance unless a primary accident precedes it in subsisting in it. They do not wish to admit this in the case of certain accidents, desiring to create the possibility that certain accidents may subsist in any substance that they may happen to encounter without any need for another accident previously providing the substance with a proprium. This is in accordance with their view that, all accidents provide a proprium. Furthermore, from | another angle it may be seen that the substratum to which an accident may attach itself20 has to be stable and has to endure for a certain time. However, as an accident, according to them, does not last for two units of time — I mean for two instants — how can it be possible according to this hypothesis that it should serve as a substratum for something other than itself?
ig. Literally: are borne in a primary bearing on substance, 20. Literally: upon which that which is borne is borne.
THE TENTH PREMISE It consists in the affirmation of admissibility that they mention. This is the main proposition of the science of kalam. Listen to its meaning. They are of the opinion that everything that may be imagined is an admissible notion for the intellect. For instance, it is admissible from the point of view of intellect that it should come about that the sphere of the earth should turn into a heaven endowed with circular motion and that the heaven should turn into the sphere of the earth. Or to take another example, it is admissible that the sphere of fire should move toward the center of the earth and that the sphere of the earth should move toward the encompassing heaven. For as they say, according to intellectual admissibility, one place is not more appropriate for one particular body than another place. They also say with regard to all things that are existent and perceptible that supposing anything among them should be bigger than it is or smaller or different from what it is in shape or place — should a human individual, for instance, have the size of a big mountain having many summits overtopping the air, or should there exist an elephant having the size of a flea, or a flea having the size of an elephant — all such differences would be admissible from the point of view of the intellect. The whole world is involved in this method of admissibility as they practice it. For whatever thing of this kind they assume, they are able to say: it is admissible that it should be so, and it is possible that it should be otherwise 5 and it is not more appropriate that one particular thing should be so than that it should be otherwise. And they say this without paying attention to the correspondence or lack of correspon¬ dence of that which exists to their assumptions. For they say of the existent things — provided with | known forms and determinate sizes and necessarily accompanying modes that are unchangeable and immutable — that their being as they are is merely in virtue of the continuance of a habit. In the same way it is the habit of a sultan not to pass through the market places of the city except on horseback, and he has never been seen doing it in a way other than this. However, it is not held impossible by the intellect that he should walk on foot in the city 5 rather is it undoubtedly possible, and it is admissible that this should occur. They say that the fact that earth moves toward the center and fire upwards or the fact that fire burns and water cools is in a similar way due to the continuance of a habit. It is, in con¬ sequence, not impossible from the point of view of the intellect that this habit should undergo a change so that fire should cool and move downwards, while still being fire, and so that similarly water should warm and move upwards, while still being water. The whole edifice21 is founded on this assumption. At the same time they are unanimous in holding that the coming-together of two contraries in the same substratum22 and at the same instant is impossible, cannot be true, and cannot be admitted by the intellect. They further assert that it is impossible and cannot be admitted by the intellect that a substance should exist without there being any accident in it 5 or, as some of them say, it is also impossible and cannot be admitted by the intellect that an accident should exist without being in a substratum. Similarly they say that it cannot be true that a substance should be trans¬ formed into an accident or an accident into a substance or that a body should compenetrate another body; they acknowledge that these are impossibilities from the point of view of the intellect. Now it is a true assertion that none of the things that they consider as impossible can be mentally represented to oneself in any way whatever, whereas the things they call possible can be. Yet the philosophers say that when you call a thing “impossible,” it is because it cannot be imagined, and when you call a thing “possible,” it is because it can be imagined. Thus what is possible according to you is possible only from the point of view of the imagination and not from that of the intellect. Accordingly in this premise you consider that which is necessary, admissible, or impossible, sometimes | with the imagination and not with the intellect and sometimes with the first suggestions of common opinion — just as Abu Nasr23 has noted when speaking of the notion to which the Mutakallimun apply the term “intellect.” Thus it has already been made clear that that which can be imagined is, according to them, something possible, whether something existent corresponds to it or not. On the other hand, everything that cannot be imagined is impossible. Now this premise cannot be true except in virtue of the nine premises previously mentioned. Undoubtedly it was because of it that they had recourse to expounding these nine premises before it. The explanation of this is in accordance with what I shall set forth to you while I reveal to you the secrets of these matters in the form of a dispute taking place between a Mutakallim and a philosopher.
The Mutakallim said to the philosopher: Why is it that we find this body, which is iron, is endowed with extreme hardness and strength, while 21. Literally: matter. 22. Or: in the same place.
23. Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabl (d. 950) is meant. This philosopher’s principal treatises and his influence on Maimonides are referred to in the Translator’s Introduction. The passage alluded to in the text occurs in al-Farabi’s Risala fi'l-cAql (Epistle on the Intellect), ed. M. Bouyges (Beirut, 1938), pp. 11—12.
208 The Guide of the Perplexed 1-73 [ 114a being black; whereas that other body, which is cream, is endowed with extreme softness and looseness, while being white?
The philosopher replied to him: Every natural body has two species of accidents: those that are attached to it in respect to its matter, such as those making man healthy and ill; and those that are attached to it in respect to its form, such as man’s feeling of wonder and his laughing. Now the various kinds of matter found in bodies that are in the stage of ultimate composition differ greatly because of the forms, which particularize these various kinds of matter, so that the substance of iron becomes different from that of cream and so that each of these substances has attached to it the differing accidents that you see. Thus strength subsisting in the one substance and softness subsisting in the other are accidents that follow from the difference of their forms, and blackness and whiteness are accidents that follow from the difference of their ultimate matter.
Thereupon the Mutakallim controverted this entire reply by means of the premises of his doctrine as I shall set forth to you. In effect he said: There does not exist at all, contrary to what you think, any form consti¬ tuting a substance so that a variety of substances is thereby brought about. | On the contrary, everything that you consider as a form is an accident — as we have made clear from their assertion in the eighth premise. Then he said: There is no difference between the substance of iron and the substance of cream, the whole being composed of atoms similar to one another — as we have made clear from their opinions set forth in the first premise, from which, as we have explained, the second and the third follow necessarily. Similarly the twelfth premise is required for establishing the existence of atoms. Furthermore, it is not true, in the opinion of a Mutakallim, that there are certain accidents that particularize a substance so that because of them it is disposed and prepared to receive other secondary accidents. For in his opinion, one accident cannot serve as a substratum for another — as we have made clear in the ninth premise — and moreover, an accident has no continued existence — as we have made clear in the sixth premise. Then when, according to the Mutakallim, everything he wishes with regard to his premises is established as true, the resultant conclusion is that the substances of the iron and the cream are the same substances,24 substances similar to one another in every respect. Each of these substances has the same relation with any accident,25 one particular substance not being more appropriate for one particular accident than another. And just as one atom 24. Literally: one substance. 25. Literally: with every accident.
ii4&] The Guide of the Perplexed I ■ 75 209 is not more fitted to move than to be at rest, so one particular atom is not more appropriate for the reception of the accident of life, the accident of the intellect, the accident of sense, than any other atom. The greater or smaller number of the atoms does not in this point constitute a significant addition to the final result, as an accident subsists in every atom — as we have made clear on the basis of their assertion in the fifth premise. Accord- ingly it follows necessarily from all these premises that man is not more fitted to cognize intellectually than a beetle. And thus the admissibility of which [the Mutakallimun] speak in the present premise follows necessarily. In fact jt was with a view to this premise | that the whole endeavor was made, because this premise is more firm than any other thing for establish¬ ing everything that there is a wish to establish, as shall be made clear.
A CALL UPON THE READER’S ATTENTION Know, thou who studiest this Treatise: if you are of those who know the soul and its powers and have acquired true knowledge of everything as it really is, you already know that imagination exists in most living beings. As for the perfect animal, I mean the one endowed with a heart, the existence of imagination in it is clear. Accordingly, man is not distinguished by having imagination; and the act of imagination is not the act of the intellect but rather its contrary. For the intellect divides the composite things and differentiates their parts and makes abstractions of them, represents them to itself in their true reality and with their causes, and apprehends from one thing very many notions, which differ for the intellect just as two human individuals differ in regard to their existence for the imagination. It is by means of the intellect that the universal is differentiated from the individual, and no demonstration is true except by means of universals. It is also through the intellect that essential predicates are discerned from accidental ones. None of these acts belongs to the imagina¬ tion. For the imagination apprehends only that which is individual and composite as a whole, as it is apprehended by the senses; or compounds things that in their existence are separate, combining one with another; the whole26 being a body or a force of the body. Thus someone using his imagination imagines a human individual having a horse’s head and wings and so on. This is what is called a thing invented and false, for nothing existent corresponds to it at all. In its apprehension, imagination is in no way able to hold itself aloof from matter, even if it turns a form into the 26. Resulting from this activity.
extreme of abstraction. For this reason there can be no critical examination in the imagination.
Hear what | the mathematical sciences have taught us and how capital are the premises we have obtained from them. Know that there are things that a man, if he considers them with his imagination, is unable to represent to himself in any respect, but finds that it is as impossible to imagine them as it is impossible for two contraries to agree; and that afterwards the existence of the thing that is impossible to imagine is established by demonstration as true, and existence manifests it as real. Thus if you imagine a big sphere of any size you like, even if it be the size of the encompassing heaven; imagine further a diameter passing through the center of the sphere; and thereupon imagine the two human individuals standing upon the two extremities of the diameter so that their feet are put in a straight line with respect to the diameter, so that their feet and the diameter form one and the same straight line — then one of two possibilities must be true: either the diameter is parallel to the horizon or it is not. Now if it is parallel, both individuals should fall. If it is not parallel, one of them — namely the lower one — should fall, while the other is firmly placed. It is in that way that imagination would apprehend the matter.
Now it has been demonstrated that the earth is spherical in form and that portions of the inhabited part of it lie at both extremities of its diameter. Thus the head of every individual from among the inhabitants of the two extremities is near heaven while his feet are near the feet of another individual who is opposite him. It is thus impossible in every way that either of them would fall. This cannot even be represented to oneself; for one of them is not placed above and the other below, but each of them is both above and below in relation to the other. Similarly it has been made clear in the second book of the “Conic Sections”27 that two lines, between which there is a certain distance at the outset, may go forth in such a way that the farther they go, this distance diminishes and they come nearer to one another, but without it ever being possible for them to meet even if they are drawn forth to infinity and even though they come nearer to one another the farther they go. This cannot be | imagined and can in no way enter within the net of the imagination. Of these two lines, one is straight and the other curved, as has been made clear there in the above-mentioned work.
Accordingly it has been demonstrated that something that the imagina¬ tion cannot imagine or apprehend and that is impossible from its point of 27. Maimonides refers to the Conic Sections of the Greek mathematician Apollonius; Book II, theorem xiii.
21 1 11 6a] The Guide of the Perplexed I • 75 view, can exist. It has similarly been demonstrated that something the imagination considers as necessary is impossible — namely, that God, may He be exalted, should be a body or a force in a body. For according to the imagination, there are no existents28 except bodies28 or things28 in bodies.28 Accordingly it is clear that there is something else by means of which that which is necessary, that which is admissible, and that which is im¬ possible, can be discerned, something that is not the imagination. How excellent is this speculation and how great its utility for him who wishes to awaken from this dormancy, I mean the state of following the imagination! Do not think that the Mutakallimun are not aware of anything concerning this point. On the contrary, they are aware of it to a certain extent 5 they know it and call that which may be imagined while being at the same time impossible — as for instance God’s being a body — a fantasy and a vain imagining. And often do they clearly state that fantasies are false. For this reason they have recourse to the nine premises we have mentioned, so as to be able to establish with their help the truth of this tenth premise — which asserts the admissibility of those imaginings that they wanted to be declared admissible — in order to maintain the similarity of the atoms to one another and the equality of the accidents with respect to “accidentality,” as we have made clear.
Consider, thou who art engaged in speculation, and perceive that a method of profound speculation has arisen. For with regard to particular mental representations, one individual claims that they are intellectual representations, whereas another affirms that they are imaginative repre¬ sentations. We wish consequently to find something that would enable us to distinguish the things cognized intellectually from those imagined. For if the philosopher says, as he does: That which exists 29 is my witness and by means of it we discern the necessary, the possible, and the impossible $ the adherent of the Law says to him: The dispute between us is with regard to this point. For we claim30 that that which exists | was made31 in virtue of will and was not a necessary consequence. Now if it was made in this fashion, it is admissible that it should be made in a different way, unless intellectual representation decides, as you think it decides, that something different from what exists at present is not admissible. This is the chapter of admissibility. And about that I have something to say, which you will 28. In the singular in the Arabic text. 29. Or: existence.
30. The text suggests that a literal translation may be: we claim, as far as I am concerned.
31. The verb used generally means “done” or “acted.”
learn32 in various passages of this Treatise. It is not something one hastens to reject in its entirety with nonchalance.
THE ELEVENTH PREMISE This is their saying that the existence of that which is infinite in any mode whatever is impossible. The explanation of this is as follows. The impossibility of the existence of an infinite magnitude has already been demonstrated, or the existence of magnitudes infinite in number — even if each of them is of finite magnitude — provided that those magnitudes infinite in number are supposed to coexist in time. Similarly the existence of an infinite number of causes is impossible — I mean to say that a thing should be the cause of something, that this thing should have a cause33 in its turn, that that cause should again have a cause, and so forth to infinity, so that an infinite number of numerable 3+ things should exist in actu; and it is indifferent whether these be bodies or things separate from matter, provided only that some of them are the causes of others. It is this natural and essential orderly arrangement with regard to which it has been demonstrated that the infinite is impossible in it. But as for what is infinite in potentia or accidentally, the existence of such an infinite has, in some cases, been demonstrated: thus it has been demonstrated that the division of magnitudes to infinity is possible in potentia, and likewise the division of time to infinity. Another case is an object of speculation: namely, the existence of what is infinite by way of succession. This is what is called the infinite by accident. And it consists in a thing coming to exist after the passing-away | of another thing, the latter’s coming to exist after the passing-away of a third thing, and so forth to infinity. About this there is an extremely profound speculation. Thus he who claims to have demonstra¬ ted the eternity of the world says that time is not finite, and nothing absurd follows necessarily for him therefrom. For as soon as a portion of time is actualized, another portion passes away. Similarly the succession of accidents, which attach themselves to matter, goes on, in his opinion, to infinity, without an absurdity necessarily following for him from this assertion. For the accidents do not all exist simultaneously, but in succession; and the impossibility of this has not been demonstrated. As for the Mutakallimun, there is no difference, in their opinion, between saying that a certain infinite magnitude exists and saying that bodies and time are liable to be divided to infinity. There likewise is no difference, in their opinion, between asserting the simultaneous existence of things infinite in number, arranged, 32. Literally: hear. 33. Literally: another cause. 34. Or: numbered.
[at the same time] in orderly fashion — your saying this, for instance, as it were, about the human individuals existing at present — or your asserting that things infinite in number came into existence, but passed away one after the other. It is as if you said: Zayd is the son of Umar, Umar is the son of Khalid, Khalid is the son of Bakr, and so forth to infinity. This position is likewise absurd according to them, just as the first was. Thus these four divisions of the infinite are equivalent according to them. Some of them wish, in a way that I shall explain to you in the present Treatise, to establish the correctness of the last of these divisions — I mean to say, they wish to make clear its impossibility. Others say that this impossibility is self-evident for the intellect through the spontaneous perception of the mind and that it does not require demonstration. Now if it is a clear absurdity that things infinite in number should exist successively, even though those of them that exist at present are finite in number, the eternity of the world can be considered | through the spontaneous perception of the mind as absurd. And there is no need in any respect for any other premise. However, this is not the place for the investigation of this subject.