Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

himself through trying to be in an infinite number of places, he would be
declared mad. ‘ And this is the meaning of the Divine Words: ‘Verily thou
canst not cleave the earth, and thou shalt not reach the mountains in
height. ‘2
And his assertion that, since heaven cannot complete the individual
numerical positions or join them, it has to complete them specifically, is a
faulty, incomprehensible expression, unless he means that its movement
has to last in its totality since it cannot be lasting in its parts. For there are
movements which are lasting neither in their parts nor in their totality,
namely the movements of the transitory; and there are movements which
are lasting in their totality, transitory in their parts, but notwithstanding this
such a movement is said to be one in ways which are distinguished in
many passages of the books of the philosophers. And his assertion that,
since heaven cannot complete them numerically, it completes them
specifically, is erroneous, since the movement of heaven is numerically
one, and one can only apply such an expression to the transitory
movements in the sublunary world; for these movements, since they
cannot be numerically one, are specifically one and lasting through the
movement which is numerically one.
Ghazali says:
The second is to say: What you assert of the aim can be
realized through the movement from west to east. Why,
then, is the first movement from east to west, and why are
not all the movements of the universe in the same direction?
And if there is an intention in their diversity, why are they not
different in an opposite way, so that the movement from the
east should become the movement from the west, and the
reverse? Everything you have mentioned of the occurrence
of events like trine and sextile and others through the
diversity of movements would happen just the same through
the reverse. Also, what you have mentioned of the
completion of the positions and places would happen just the
same if the movement were in the opposite direction. Why
then, since the reverse movement is possible for them, do
they not move sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
another, to complete all their possibilities, if it is in the
387