monides' method of reasoning. He does not build up a new
system of philosophy, he adopts an existing system. Beginning with Bible
exegesis, he leads us, step by step, up to the lofty goal at which
philosophy and faith are linked in perfect harmony.

The arguments for the existence, unity, and incorporeity of God divide
the Arabic philosophers into two schools. Maimonides naturally espoused
the view permitting the most exalted conception of God, that is, the
conception of God free from human attributes. He recognizes none but
negative attributes; in other words, he defines God by means of
negations only. For instance, asserting that the Supreme Being is
omniscient or omnipotent, is not investing Him with a positive
attribute, it is simply denying imperfection. The student knows that in
the history of the doctrine of attributes, the recognition of negative
attributes marks a great advance in philosophic reasoning. Maimonides
holds that the conception of the Deity as a pure abstraction is the only
one truly philosophic. His evidences for the existence, the
immateriality, and the unity of God, are conceived in the same spirit.
In offering them he follows Aristotle's reasoning closely, adding only
one other proof, the cosmological, which he took from his teacher, the
Arab Avicenna. He logically reaches this proof by more explicitly
defining the God-idea, and, at the same time, taking into consideration
the nature of the world of things and their relation to one another.
Acquainted with Ptolemy's "Almagest" and with the investigations of the
Arabs, he naturally surpasses his Greek master in astronomical
knowledge. In physical science, however, he gives undivided allegiance
to the Aristotelian theory of a sublunary and a celestial world of
spheres, the former composed of the sublunary elements in constantly
shifting, perishable combinations, and the latter, of the stable,
unchanging fifth substance (quintessence). But the question, how God
moves these spheres, separates Maimonides from his master. His own
answer has a Neoplatonic ring. He holds, with Aristotle, that there are
as many separate Intelligences as spheres. Each sphere is supposed to
aspire to the Intelligence which is the principle of its motion. The
Arabic thinkers assumed ten such independent Intelligences, one
animating each of the nine permanent spheres, and the tenth, called the
"Active Intellect," influencing the sublunary world of matter. The
existence of th