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

of the fact that motion inheres necessarily in a substratum. If movement
were possible before the existence of the world, the things which are
subject to movement would be necessarily in time, for movement is only
possible in what is subject to rest,’ not in absolute non-existence, for in
absolute non-existence there is no possibility whatever, or one would have
to admit that absolute non-existence could be converted into existence.
Therefore, the non-existence or privation which necessarily precedes the
occurrence of a thing has to be connected with a substratum, and will be
disconnected from it when the substratum actually receives this
occurrence, as happens with all contraries. For instance, when a warm
thing becomes cold, the essence of warmth does not change into
coldness; it is only the receptacle and the substratum of warmth that
exchange their warmth for coldness.
The second part of this objection-and it is the most important of these
objections-is sophistical and malicious. It amounts to saying that to
imagine something before the beginning of this first movement (which is
not preceded by any moving body) is like the illusion that the end of the
world, for example, its highest part, ends necessarily either in another
body or in empty space, for extension is a necessary attribute of body, as
time is a necessary attribute of movement. And if it is impossible that there
should be an infinite body, it is impossible that there should be an infinite
extension, and, if it is impossible that there should be infinite extension, it
is impossible that every body should end in another body or in something
which has the potentiality of extension, i.e. for instance, emptiness, and
that this should continue without end. And the same applies to movement
which has time as a necessary attribute, for if it is impossible that there
should be infinite past movements and there exists therefore a first
movement with a finite initial term, it is impossible that there should exist a
‘before’ before it, for, if so, there would be another movement before the
first.
This objection is, as we said, malicious, and belongs to the class of
sophistical substitutions-you will recognize what I mean if you have read
the book On sophistic refutations. In other words, Ghazali treats the
quantity which has no position and does not form a totality, i.e. time and
motion, as the quantity which possesses position and totality, i.e. body. He
makes the impossibility of endlessness in the latter a proof of its
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