CHAPTER LXXIII
THERE are twelve propositions common to all Mutakallemim, however different their individual opinions and methods may be; the Mutakallemim require them in order to establish their views on the four principles. I shall first enumerate these propositions, and then discuss each separately, together with the inferences which may be drawn from it.
PROPOSITION I. All things are composed of atoms.
PROPOSITION II. There is a vacuum.
PROPOSITION III. Time is composed of time-atoms.
PROPOSITION IV. Substance cannot exist without numerous accidents.
PROPOSITION V. Each atom is completely furnished with the accidents (which I will describe), and cannot exist without them.
PROPOSITION VI. Accidents do not continue in existence during two time-atoms.
PROPOSITION VII. Both positive and negative properties have a real existence, and are accidents which owe their existence to some causa efficiens.
PROPOSITION VIII. All existing things, i.e., all creatures, consist of substance and of accidents, and the physical form of a thing is likewise an accident.
PROPOSITION IX. No accident can form the substratum for another accident.
PROPOSITION X. The test for the possibility of an imagined object does not consist in its conformity with the existing laws of nature.
PROPOSITION XI. The idea of the infinite is equally inadmissible, whether the infinite be actual, potential, or accidental, i.e., there is no difference whether the infinite be formed by a number of co-existing things, or by a series of things, of which one part comes into existence when another has ceased to exist, in which case it is called accidental infinite: in both cases the infinite is rejected by the Mutakallemim as fallacious.
PROPOSITION XII. The senses mislead, and are in many cases inefficient; their perceptions, therefore, cannot form the basis of any law, or yield data for any proof.
FIRST PROPOSITION.
"The Universe, that is, everything contained in it, is composed of very small parts [atoms] which are indivisible on account of their smallness; such an atom has no magnitude; but when several atoms combine, the sum has a magnitude, and thus forms a body." If, therefore, two atoms were joined together, each atom would become a body, and they would thus form two bodies, a theory which in fact has been proposed by some Mutakallemim. All these atoms are perfectly alike; they do not differ from each other in any point. The Mutakallemim further assert, that it is impossible to find a body that is not composed of such equal atoms which are placed side by side. According to this view genesis and composition are identical; destruction is the same as decomposition. They do not use the term "destruction," for they hold that "genesis" implies composition and decomposition, motion and rest. These atoms, they believe, are not, as was supposed by Epicurus and other Atomists numerically
