fashion, just as we use many other words for objects essentially different. For instance the word _Jalal_ is applied both to great and small; and _sarim_ to light and darkness. We have no definition which can embrace both these kinds of knowledge, as some of the Mutakallimun of our times have thought. We have treated this question separately at the request of some of our friends. How can it be supposed that the Peripatetic Philosophers say that God has no knowledge of particulars when they are of opinion that man is sometimes warned of the coming vicissitudes of the future through visions, and that he gets these admonitions in sleep, through a great and powerful Director, who directs everything? These philosophers are not only of opinion that God has no knowledge of details such as we have but they also believe that He is ignorant of universals. For all known universals with us are also the effect of the existence of a thing, while God’s knowledge is quite other than this. From these arguments it is concluded that God’s knowledge is far higher than that it should be called universal or particular. There is therefore no difference of opinion concerning the proposition, that is, whether they are called infidel or not. As to the eternal or transitory nature of the world: I think that in this matter the difference of opinion between the Asharite Mutakallimun and the Ancient Philosophers is for the most part a verbal difference, at least so far as the opinion of some of the Ancients is concerned. For they are agreed on the fact that there are three kinds of creation--the two extremes and a medial one. They again agree on the nomenclature of the two extremes, but they disagree as to the medial one. As to the one extreme, it has come into existence from something other than itself, or from anything else--that is from a generative cause or matter--while time existed before it. All those things whose existence is perceived by the senses, as water, animals, vegetation, etc., are included in this. All Ancient and Asharite philosophers are agreed in denominating this creation _Originated_. The other extreme is that which came into existence from nothing, not out of anything, and time did not precede it. The two parties are agreed in calling this _Eternal_. This extreme can be reached by logic. This is God, the Creator, Inventor, and Preserver of all.