As for the philosophers, they have ruled that anything with a spatial ordering, such as dimensions and extensions, or a natural ordering whose individual members exist simultaneously, such as causes and effects, cannot be infinite. For anything else, however, infinity is not impossible, whether its individual members exist simultaneously, like souls after their separation from bodies, or arise successively and continually, like periods of time and cyclical motions. Yet the argument they have advanced—even if it holds for what they judge to be finite—necessarily applies also to what they judge to be infinite.

One of the two must therefore be false: either the proof, if their belief in infinity is true, or their belief in infinity, if the proof is true, since the two cannot both be maintained.”

He said:

“The distinction the philosopher draws between causes and effects, on the one hand, and periods of time and motions, on the other, does not invalidate treating them alike. His statement is:

‘That which has no spatial ordering and whose individual members do not exist simultaneously—even if its ordering is