 The final cause for error has to do with human free will: as we have seen above, our intellect and choice “have the power to move us contrary to that which is determined by the heavenly bodies” (Wars, II.2, p. 34). Although he admits that on occasion human choice is able to contravene the celestial bodies, nevertheless this intervention is rare, and true contingency is a rare state of affairs indeed in Gersonides’ ontology. Gersonides presents an argument to show that human choice guided by reason can subvert the celestial bodies despite their general ordering of our lives. The heavenly bodies can order human affairs either by virtue of their difference of position in the heavens, or from the difference of the bodies among themselves. Astral bodies, however, will affect different individuals in different ways; they can also affect an individual differently at different times; and finally, two or more bodies can affect a single individual, resulting in multiple influences that can have contrary effects, echoing the scholastic phrase, “sapiens dominabitur astris [the wise man will be ruled by the stars]”. Gersonides notes that humans can contravene these effects: God has provided humans with “the intellectual capacity (sekhel ba’al takhlit) that enables us both to act contrary to what has been ordered by the heavenly bodies and to correct, as far as possible, the [astrally ordained] misfortunes that befall us” (Wars, II.2, p. 35). Nevertheless, he assures us that whatever happens by chance is “determined and ordered according to this type of determinateness and order” (Wars, II.2, p. 34). Outdoing even Plato’s hierarchical structuring in Republic IV, Gersonides argues that the ultimate perfection and ordering of society is due to astrological influence.