Section

Those who built the foundation of their religion upon the argument from accidents, using them to infer that bodies came into existence, have fallen into considerable inconsistency, as has been explained at length elsewhere.

Besides opposing the law revealed from heaven, each of them inevitably also contradicts clear reason and obstinately denies the obvious, becoming one of those who neither listen nor reason. A proposition has necessary consequences; if it is false, it may entail other falsehoods whose falsity is evident. Its proponent seeks to establish those consequences, thereby revealing his opposition to sensory experience and reason.

Such are those who affirmed indivisible atoms and maintained that motions do not intrinsically differ as fast or slow, since, in their view, motion is divided just as the moving body is, and likewise time and its parts. For them, a motion and a moving body are each a single indivisible unit. Thus, if two moving bodies are equal, yet one moves faster than the other, they say: “That is only because periods of rest intervene.”

They maintained that when a millstone, a wheel, or any circular object rotates, its circumference and a smaller ring within it move for the same length of time, although the circumference has more parts. The movements of those parts must therefore be more numerous, and hence take more time; yet they do not;