the complete order of sublunar things, of which the several movers have only a part. He knows it as one, and knows it eternally without change. His joy and gladness are beyond conception, for our joy also is very great in understanding. His is also the perfect Life, for understanding is life. He is the most real Substance and Existent, and he is One. God is also the most real Agent, as making the other movers do their work, and producing a complete and perfect whole out of their parts. He is also properly called Bestower, Beneficent, Gracious, Strong, Mighty, Upright, Just, Eternal, Permanent. All these attributes, however, do not denote multiplicity.351
From God we now pass again to his creation, and take up the problem which caused Maimonides so much trouble, namely, the question of the origin of the world. It will be remembered that dissatisfied with the proofs for the existence of God advanced by the Mutakallimun, Maimonides, in order to have a firm foundation for the central idea of religion, tentatively adopted the Aristotelian notion of the eternity of motion and the world. But no sooner does Maimonides establish his proof of the existence, unity and incorporeality of God than he returns to the attack of the Aristotelian view and points out that the problem is insoluble in a strictly scientific manner; that Aristotle himself never intended his arguments in favor of eternity to be regarded as philosophically demonstrated, and that they all labor under the fatal fallacy that because certain laws hold of the world's phenomena once it is in existence, these same laws must have governed the establishment of the world itself in its origin. Besides, the assumption of the world's eternity with its corollary of the necessity and immutability of its phenomena saps the foundation of all religion, makes miracles impossible, and reduces the world to a machine. Gersonides is on the whole agreed with Maimonides. He admits that Aristotle's arguments are the best yet advanced in the problem, but that they are not convincing. He also agrees with Maimonides in his general stricture on Aristotle's method, only modifying and restricting its generality and sweeping nature. With all this, however, he finds it necessary to take up the entire question anew and treats it in his characteristic manner, with detail and rigor, and finally comes to a conclusion different from that of Maimonides, namely, that the world had an origin in time, to be sure, but that it
