ABSTRACT
One cannot correctly uphold the view that there is an opposition (mukhtalaf) between these different directions, nor that they are either in the void ( khalā’) or in the body, for in the void one place is identical with any other place, and in the body the nature of any limit is like that of any other limit. It follows that there cannot be a difference in the nature of directions such that one direction is downward and the other upward, unless the difference were due to an external cause (bīrūn). One may imagine (wahm), for example, that in respect to the void this direction is downward and that direction is upward. Under such circumstances, things other than directions either in the void or in the body would be attached to the upward and downward direction, and this is absurd (tabāh).
