different configurations are not effects of the motion of the ninth sphere. Rather, its motion is part of the cause, just as the motion of each sphere is part of the cause. The celestial configuration arises from the combined effect of two motions or several different motions. If we suppose that the nine spheres come into conjunction, they have seven motions—or, according to them, even more, depending on the additional spheres whose existence is inferred from the different motions, such as the badrī spheres and others that account for the direct and retrograde motions of the heavenly bodies and their other movements. Accordingly, anyone who makes the motion of the ninth sphere the cause of all events contradicts what is known to these philosophers and astrologers, and to every rational person.

Even supposing that it causes the motion of all the spheres, it does not independently bring about clouds, thunder, lightning, rain, vegetation, or the conditions of animals and minerals. For the motions of these bodies do not all derive from the motions of the spheres. Rather, they possess powers and causes that produce other motions in them, just as every sphere that initiates motion has a motion that does not derive from another sphere.

All motions are either “natural,” “voluntary,” or “forced.” Forced motion depends on the agent imposing it. Natural motion is motion of which the moving body has no awareness, such as the downward movement of earth. Voluntary motion is motion of which the moving being is aware, such as the movement of an animal. Thus, whatever among these bodies moves by an inherent nature or will has the source of its motion within itself. As for whatever is moved by force, the created agent imposing that force does so only because the body possesses a capacity to receive it; and this is a property that does not derive