each surrounding the next and serving as its place. As for the outer surface of the farthest sphere (1), it has been demonstrated (2) that no body exists beyond it; for were that so (3), there would have to be yet another body beyond that one, and the matter (4) would proceed without end. Hence the surface of the last of the world’s bodies is in no sense a place at all, for no body can exist within it; and whatever truly is a place must be capable of containing a body. If, then, decisive proof establishes the existence of something in that direction, it must necessarily be non-corporeal. What is impossible (5) to exist there is the very opposite of what the deniers suppose: it is the existence of a body, not the existence of a being that is not a body.

Nor may they claim that beyond the cosmos there is a void. Theoretical science has shown the impossibility of a vacuum, for the term “void” signifies nothing more than dimensions—length, breadth, and depth—in which no body is present. If those dimensions (6) were removed, only non-existence would remain; and if the void were posited as something real, this would entail the existence of accidents subsisting in no substance, since dimensions are necessarily quantitative accidents.

Nevertheless, ancient philosophical opinions and bygone revealed laws said that this realm is the abode of the spiritual beings—meaning Allah and the angels—for that realm is neither a place (7) nor is it encompassed by time; and likewise, if everything that is contained by time and place