9. _Impossibility of the Infinite._ They hold that the infinite is impossible in any sense, whether actual or potential or accidental. That an actual infinite is impossible is a matter of proof. So it can be and has been proved that the potential infinite is possible. For example extension is infinitely divisible, _i. e._, potentially. As to the accidental infinite, _i. e._, an infinity of parts of which each ceases to be as soon as the next appears, this is doubtful. Those who boast of having proved the eternity of the world say that time is infinite, and defend their view against criticism by the claim that the successive parts of time disappear. In the same way these people regard it as possible that an infinite number of accidents have succeeded each other on the universal matter, because here too they are not all present now, the previous having disappeared before the succeeding ones came. The Mutakallimun do not admit of any kind of infinite. They prove it in this way. If past time and the world are infinite, then the number of men who died up to a given point in the past is infinite. The number of men who died up to a point one thousand years before the former is also infinite. But this number is less than the other by the number of men who died during the thousand years between the two starting points. Hence the infinite is larger than the infinite, which is absurd. If the accidental infinite were really impossible the theory of the eternity of the world would be refuted at once. But Alfarabi has shown that the arguments against accidental infinity are invalid. 10. _Distrust of the Senses._ The senses, they say, cannot be regarded as criteria of truth and falsehood; for many things the senses cannot see at all, either because the objects are so fine, or because they are far away. In other cases the senses are deceptive, as when the large appears small at a distance, the small appears great in the water, and the straight appears broken when partly in water and partly without. So a man with the jaundice sees everything yellow, and one with red bile on his tongue tastes everything bitter. There is method in their madness. The motive for this sceptical principle is to evade criticism. If the senses testify in opposition to their theories, they reply that the senses cannot be trusted, as they did in their explanation of motion and in their theory of the succession of created accidents. These are all ancient theories of the Sophists, as is clear from Galen.[265] Having given an outline of the fundamental principles of the Mutakallimun and criticised them, Maimonides next gives their arguments based upon these principles in favor of creation in time and against eternity. It will not be worth our while to reproduce them here as they are not adopted by Maimonides, and we have already met some of them though in a somewhat modified form before (_cf._ above, pp. 29 ff.).[266]