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

thing willed, i. e. must know it, be it an individual or a
universal. And if the sphere has a representation and a
comprehension of the particular movements, it must of
necessity also comprehend what follows from them through
the diversity of their relations to the earth, because some of
the individuals of the sphere are rising, some setting, some
in the middle of the sky for some people and under the earth
for others.
And likewise it must know the consequences of the
diversity of those relations which always arise anew through
the movement, like trine and sextile, opposition and
conjunction, to other such heavenly occurrences; and all
earthly occurrences depend on heavenly occurrences either
directly, or through one intermediary, or through many; and
in short every event has a cause, occurring in a
concatenation which terminates in the eternal heavenly
movement, some parts of which are the causes of others.
Thus the causes and effects ascend in their
concatenation to the particular heavenly movements, and
the sphere representing the movements represents their
consequences and the consequences of their
consequences, so as to reach the end of the series. And
therefore the sphere observes everything that occurs and
everything that will occur, and its occurrence is necessary
through its cause, and whenever the cause is realized, the
effect is realized. We only do not know the future events
because all their causes are not known to us; for if we knew
all the causes, we should know all the effects, for when we
know, for instance, that fire will come into contact with cotton
at a certain moment, we know that the cotton will burn, and
when we know that a man will eat, we know that his appetite
will be satisfied, and when we know that a man will walk over
a certain spot lightly covered where a treasure is buried, and
his feet will accidentally touch the treasure and he will
perceive it, ‘ we know that he will be rich because of this
treasure. Only as a matter of fact we do not know these
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