criticism of a number of principles and methods identified with the schools of Jewish Kalam and Islamic Kalam, including the argument for creation ex nihilo and the unity and incorporeality of God. While he accepts the conclusions of the Kalam school (because of their consistency with Judaism), he disagrees with their methods and points out many perceived flaws in their arguments: “Maimonides exposes the weakness of these propositions, which he regards as founded not on a basis of positive facts, but on mere fiction ... Maimonides criticizes especially the tenth proposition of the Mutakallimīn, according to which everything that is conceivable by imagination is admissible: e.g., that the terrestrial globe should become the all-encompassing sphere, or that this sphere should become the terrestrial globe.” Book Two The book begins with 26 propositions from Aristotle's metaphysics, of which Maimonides accepts 25 as having been conclusively demonstrated, rejecting only the proposition that holds the universe to be eternal. The exposition of the physical structure of the universe, as seen by Maimonides. The world-view asserted in the work is essentially Aristotelian, with a spherical earth in the centre, surrounded by concentric Heavenly Spheres. While Aristotle's view with respect to the eternity of the universe is rejected, Maimonides extensively borrows his proofs of the existence of God and his concepts such as the Prime Mover: “But as Maimonides recognizes the authority of Aristotle in all matters concerning the sublunary world, he proceeds to show that the Biblical account of the creation of the nether world is in perfect accord with Aristotelian views. Explaining its language as allegorical and the terms employed as homonyms, he summarizes the first chapter of Genesis thus: God created the universe by producing on the first day the reshit (Intelligence) from which the spheres derived their existence and motion and thus became the source of the existence of the entire universe.” A novel point is that Maimonides connects natural forces and heavenly spheres with the concept of an angel: these are seen as the same thing. The Spheres are essentially pure Intelligences who receive power from the Prime Mover. This energy overflows from each one to the next and finally reaches earth and the physical domain. This concept of intelligent spheres of existence also appears in Gnostic Christianity as Aeons, having been conceived at least eight hundred years before Maimonides. Maimonides’ immediate source was probably Avicenna, who may in turn