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Title: The History of Philosophy in Islam
Author: Boer, T. J. de (Tjitze J.)
Language: English
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ISLAM ***
THE
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY IN ISLAM
BY
Dr. T. J. DE BOER,
UNIVERSITY OF GRONINGEN.
TRANSLATED
(with the sanction of the Author)
BY
EDWARD R. JONES B.D.
LONDON
LUZAC & CO., 46, GREAT RUSSELL STREET,
1903.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFATORY NOTE.
This edition of Dr. de Boer’s recent work is produced in the hope that
it may prove interesting to not a few English readers, and especially
that it may be of service to younger students commencing to study the
subject which is dealt with in the following pages. The translator has
aimed at nothing more than a faithful reproduction of the original. His
best thanks are due to the accomplished author, for his kindness in
revising the proof-sheets of the version, as it passed through the
Press.
E. R. J.
PREFACE.
The following is the first attempt which has been made, since the
appearance of Munk’s excellent sketch [1], to present in connected form
a History of Philosophy in Islam. This work of mine may therefore be
regarded as a fresh initiation,—not a completion of such a task. I
could not know of all that had been done by others, in the way of
preliminary study in this field; and when I did know of the existence
of such material, it was not always accessible to me. As for manuscript
assistance, it was only in exceptional cases that this was at my
disposal.
Conforming to the conditions which I had to meet, I have in the
following account refrained from stating my authorities. But anything
which I may have taken over, nearly word for word or without testing
it, I have marked in foot-references. For the rest, I deeply regret
that I cannot duly indicate at present how much I owe, as regards
appreciation of the sources, to men like Dieterici, de Goeje,
Goldziher, Houtsma, Aug. Müller, Munk, Nöldeke, Renan, Snouck
Hurgronje, van Vloten, and many, many others.
Since the completion of this volume an interesting monograph on Ibn
Sina [2] has appeared, which farther extends its survey over the
earlier history of Philosophy in Islam. It gives rise to no occasion,
however, to alter substantially my conception of the subject.
For all bibliographical details I refer the reader to “die
Orientalische Bibliographie”, Brockelmann’s “Geschichte der Arabischen
Litteratur”, and Ueberweg—Heinze’s “Grundriss der Geschichte der
Philosophie” II3, p. 213 sqq. In the transcription of Arabic names I
have been more heedful of tradition and German pronunciation, than of
consistency. Be it noted only that z is to be pronounced as a soft s,
and th like the corresponding English sound [3]. In the Index of
Personal Names, accents signify length.
As far as possible I have confined myself to Islam. On that ground Ibn
Gebirol and Maimonides have received only a passing notice, while other
Jewish thinkers have been entirely omitted, although, philosophically
considered, they belong to the Muslim school. This, however, entails no
great loss, for much has been written already about the Jewish
philosophers, whereas Muslim thinkers have hitherto been sadly
neglected.
Groningen (Netherlands).
T. J. de Boer.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Introduction.
PAGE
1. The Theatre 1–6
1. Ancient Arabia 1
2. The first Caliphs. Medina. The Shiʻites 2
3. The Omayyads. Damascus, Basra and Kufa 3
4. The Abbasids. Bagdad 3
5. Minor States. Fall of the Caliphate 5
2. Oriental Wisdom 6–11
1. Semitic Speculation 6
2. Persian Religion. Zrwanism 8
3. Indian Wisdom 8
3. Greek Science 11–30
1. The Syrians 11
2. The Christian Churches 11
3. Edessa and Nisibis 12
4. Harran 13
5. Gondeshapur 14
6. Syriac Translations 14
7. Philosophy among the Syrians 16
8. Arabic Translations 17
9. The Philosophy of the Translators 19
10. Range of Tradition 21
11. Continuation of Neo-Platonism 22
12. The “Book of the Apple” 24
13. The “Theology of Aristotle” 25
14. Conception of Aristotle 27
15. Philosophy in Islam 28
CHAPTER II.
Philosophy and Arab Knowledge.
1. Grammatical Science 31–35
1. The several Sciences 31
2. The Arabic Language. The Koran 31
3. The Grammarians of Basra and Kufa 32
4. Grammar influenced by Logic. Metrical Studies 33
5. Grammatical Science and Philosophy 35
2. Ethical Teaching 36–41
1. Tradition and Individual Opinion (Sunna,
Hadith, Raʼy) 36
2. Analogy (Qiyas). Consensus of the Congregation
(Idjma) 37
3. Position and Contents of the Muslim Ethical
System (al-Fiqh) 38
4. Ethics and Politics 40
3. Doctrinal Systems 41–64
1. Christian Dogmatic 41
2. The Kalam 42
3. The Mutazilites and their Opponents 43
4. Human and Divine Action 44
5. The Being of God 46
6. Revelation and Reason 48
7. Abu-l-Hudhail 49
8. Nazzam 51
9. Djahiz 53
10. Muammar and Abu Hashim 54
11. Ashari 55
12. The Atomistic Kalam 57
13. Mysticism or Sufism 62
4. Literature and History 65–71
1. Literature 65
2. Abu-l-Atahia. Mutanabbi. Abu-l-Ala. Hariri 65
3. Annalistic. Historical Tradition 67
4. Masudi and Muqaddasi 69
CHAPTER III.
The Pythagorean Philosophy.
1. Natural Philosophy 72–80
1. The Sources 72
2. Mathematical Studies 73
3. Natural Science 75
4. Medicine 76
5. Razi 77
6. The Dahrites 80
2. The Faithful Brethren of Basra 81–96
1. The Karmatites 81
2. The Brethren and their Encyclopaedia 82
3. Eclecticism 84
4. Knowledge 85
5. Mathematics 87
6. Logic 89
7. God and the World 90
8. The Human Soul 92
9. Philosophy of Religion 93
10. Ethics 94
11. Influence of the Encyclopaedia 95
CHAPTER IV.
The Neo-Platonic Aristotelians of The East.
1. Kindi 97–106
1. His Life 97
2. Relation to Theology 99
3. Mathematics 100
4. God; World; Soul 101
5. Doctrine of the Spirit (ʻaql) 102
6. Kindi as an Aristotelian 104
7. The School of Kindi 105
2. Farabi 106–128
1. The Logicians 106
2. Farabi’s Life 107
3. Relation to Plato and Aristotle 108
4. Farabi’s Conception of Philosophy 110
5. His Logic 111
6. His Metaphysics. Being. God 114
7. The Celestial World 115
8. The Terrestrial World 117
9. The Human Soul 118
10. The Spirit in Man 119
11. Farabi’s Ethics 121
12. His Politics 122
13. The Future Life 123
14. General Survey of Farabi’s System 124
15. Effects of his Philosophy. Sidjistani 126
3. Ibn Maskawaih 128–131
1. His Position 128
2. The Nature of the Soul 128
3. The Principles of his Ethics 129
4. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) 131–148
1. His Life 131
2. His Work 132
3. Branches of Philosophy. Logic 134
4. Metaphysics and Physics 135
5. Anthropology and Psychology 139
6. The Reason 141
7. Allegorical Representation of the Doctrine of
the Reason 143
8. Esoteric Teaching 144
9. Ibn Sina’s Time. Beruni 145
10. Behmenyar 146
11. Survival of Ibn Sina’s Influence 147
5. Ibn al-Haitham (Alhazen) 148–153
1. Scientific Movement turning Westward 148
2. Ibn al-Haitham’s Life and Works 149
3. Perception and Judgment 150
4. Slender effect left by his Teaching 152
CHAPTER V.
The Outcome of Philosophy in The East.
1. Gazali 154–168
1. Dialectic and Mysticism 154
2. Gazali’s Life 155
3. Attitude towards his Time: Hostility to
Aristotelianism 158
4. The World as the Production of God’s Free
Creative Might 159
5. God and Divine Providence 162
6. Doctrine of the Resurrection 163
7. Gazali’s Theology 164
8. Experience and Revelation 166
9. Estimate of Gazali’s Position and Teaching 168
2. The Epitomists 169–171
1. Position of Philosophy in the East, after
Gazali’s Time 169
2. Philosophical Culture 170
CHAPTER VI.
Philosophy in The West.
1. Beginnings 172–175
1. The Age of the Omayyads 172
2. The Eleventh Century 174
2. Ibn Baddja (Avempace) 175–181
1. The Almoravids 175
2. Ibn Baddja’s Life 176
3. The Character of his Works 177
4. His Logic and Metaphysics 177
5. His Opinions regarding Soul and Spirit 178
6. The Individual Man 179
3. Ibn Tofail (Abubacer) 181–187
1. The Almohads 181
2. Ibn Tofail’s Life 182
3. “Hai ibn Yaqzan” 182
4. “Hai” and the Development of Humanity 184
5. “Hai’s” Ethics 185
4. Ibn Roshd (Averroes) 187–199
1. His Life 187
2. Ibn Roshd and Aristotle 188
3. Logic. Attainability of Truth 189
4. The World and God 191
5. Body and Spirit 193
6. Spirit and Spirits 194
7. Estimate of Ibn Roshd as a Thinker 196
8. Summary of his Views on the Relations of
Theology, Religion and Philosophy to one
another. Practical Philosophy 197
CHAPTER VII.
Conclusion.
1. Ibn Khaldun 200–208
1. The Conditions of his Time 200
2. Ibn Khaldun’s Life 201
3. Philosophy and Worldly Experience 202
4. Philosophy of History. Historical Method 204
5. The Subject of History 205
6. Characterization 206
2. The Arabs and Scholasticism 208–213
1. Political Situation. The Jews 208
2. Palermo and Toledo 209
3. Parisian Averroism in the Thirteenth Century 211
I. INTRODUCTION.
1. The Theatre.
1. In olden time the Arabian desert was, as it is at this day, the
roaming-ground of independent Bedouin tribes. With free and healthy
minds they contemplated their monotonous world, whose highest charm was
the raid, and whose intellectual treasure was the tribal tradition.
Neither the achievements of social labour, nor the accomplishments of
elegant leisure were known to them. Only on the borders of the desert,
in regularly constituted communities, which often had to suffer from
the incursions of those Bedouins, a higher degree of civilization had
been attained. This was the case in the South, where the ancient
kingdom of the Queen of Sheba continued its existence in Christian
times under Abyssinian or Persian overlordship. On the West lay Mecca
and Medina (Yathrib), by an old caravan route; and Mecca in particular,
with its market safe-guarded by a temple, was the centre of a brisk
traffic. Lastly on the North, two semi-sovereign States had been formed
under Arab princes: towards Persia, the kingdom of the Lakhmids in
Hira; and towards Byzantium the dominion of the Gassanids in Syria. In
speech and poetry, however, the unity of the Arab nation was set forth
to some extent even before Mohammed’s time. The poets were the ‘men of
knowledge’ for their people. Their incantations held good as oracles,
first of all for their several tribes, but no doubt extending their
influence often beyond their own particular septs.
2. Mohammed and his immediate successors, Abu Bekr, Omar, Othman and
Ali (622–661) succeeded in inspiring the free sons of the desert,
together with the more civilized inhabitants of the coast-lands, with
enthusiasm for a joint enterprise. To this circumstance Islam owes its
world-position: for Allah showed himself great, and the world was quite
small for those who surrendered themselves to him (Muslims). In a short
time the whole of Persia was conquered, and the East-Roman empire lost
its fairest provinces,—Syria and Egypt.
Medina was the seat of the first Caliphs or representatives of the
prophet. Then Mohammed’s brave son-in-law Ali, and Ali’s sons, fell
before Moawiya, the able governor of Syria. From that time dates the
existence of the party of Ali (Shiʻites), which in the course of
diverse vicissitudes,—now reduced to subjection, now in detached places
attaining power,—lives on in history, until it finally incorporates
itself with the Persian kingdom in definite opposition to Sunnite
Islam.
In their struggle against the secular power the Shiʻites availed
themselves of every possible weapon,—even of science. Very early there
appears among them the sect of the Kaisanites, which ascribes to Ali
and his heirs a superhuman secret lore, by the help of which the inner
meaning of the Divine revelation first becomes clear, but which demands
from its devotees not less faith in, and absolute obedience to, the
possessor of such knowledge, than does the letter of the Koran. (Cf.
III, 2 § 1).
3. After the victory of Moawiya, who made Damascus the capital of the
Muslim empire, the importance of Medina lay mainly in the spiritual
province. It had to content itself with fostering, partly under Jewish
and Christian influences, a knowledge of the Law and Tradition. In
Damascus, on the other hand, the Omayyads (661–750) conducted the
secular government. Under their rule the empire spread from the
Atlantic to districts beyond the frontiers of India and Turkestan, and
from the Indian Ocean to the Caucasus and the very walls of
Constantinople. With this development, however, it had reached its
farthest extension.
Arabs now assumed everywhere the leading position. They formed a
military aristocracy; and the most striking proof of their influence is
the fact, that conquered nations with an old and superior civilization
accepted the language of their conquerors. Arabic became the language
of Church and State, of Poetry and Science. But while the higher
offices in the State and the Army were administered by Arabs in
preference, the care of the Arts and Sciences fell, first of all, to
Non-Arabs and men of mixed blood. In Syria school-instruction was
received from Christians. The chief seats of intellectual culture,
however, were Basra and Kufa, in which Arabs and Persians, Muslims,
Christians, Jews and Magians rubbed shoulders together. There, where
trade and industry were thriving, the beginnings of secular science in
Islam must be sought for,—beginnings themselves due to
Hellenistic-Christian and Persian influences.
4. The Omayyads were succeeded by the Abbasids (750–1258). To obtain
the sovereignty, the latter had granted concessions to the Persians,
and had utilized religio-political movements. During the first century
of their rule (i.e. up to about 860), though only during that period,
the greatness of the empire continued to increase, or at least it held
its own. In the year 762, Mansur, the second ruler of this house,
founded Bagdad as the new capital,—a city which soon outshone Damascus
in worldly splendour, and Basra and Kufa in intellectual illumination.
Constantinople alone could be compared to it. Poets and scholars,
particularly from the North-Eastern provinces, met together in Bagdad
at the court of Mansur (754–775), of Harun (786–809), of Mamun
(813–833), and others. Several of the Abbasids had a liking for secular
culture, whether for its own sake or to adorn their court, and although
they may often have failed to recognize the value of artists and
learned men, these at any rate could appreciate the material benefits
conferred upon them by their patrons.
From the time of Harun at least, there existed in Bagdad a library and
a learned institute. Even under Mansur, but especially under Mamun and
his successors, translation of the scientific literature of the Greeks
into the Arabic tongue went forward, largely through the agency of
Syrians; and Abstracts and Commentaries bearing upon these works were
also composed.
Just when this learned activity was at its highest, the glory of the
empire began to decline. The old tribal feuds, which had never been at
rest under the Omayyads, had seemingly given place to a firmly-knit
political unity; but other controversies,—theological and metaphysical
wranglings, such as in like manner accompanied the decay of the
East-Roman empire,—were prosecuted with ever-increasing bitterness. The
service of the State, under an Eastern despotism, did not require men
of brilliant parts. Promising abilities accordingly were often ruined
in luxurious indulgence, or flung away upon sophistry and the show of
learning. On the other hand, for the defence of the empire the Caliphs
enlisted the sound and healthy vigour of nations who had not been so
much softened by over-civilization,—first the Iranian or Iranianized
people of Khorasan, and then the Turks.
5. The decline of the empire became more and more evident. The power of
the Turkish soldiery, uprisings of city mobs and of peasant labourers,
Shiʻite and Ismaelite intrigues on all sides, and in addition the
desire for independence shown by the distant provinces,—were either the
causes or the symptoms of the downfall. Alongside of the Caliphs, who
were reduced to the position of spiritual dignitaries, the Turks ruled
as Mayors of the Palace; and all round, in the outlying regions of the
empire, independent States were gradually formed, until an utterly
astounding body of minor States appeared. The most influential ruling
houses, more or less independent, were the following: in the West, to
say nothing of the Spanish Omayyads (cf. VI, 1), the Aglabids of
North-Africa, the Tulunids and Fatimids of Egypt, and the Hamdanids of
Syria and Mesopotamia; in the East, the Tahirids and Samanids, who were
by slow degrees supplanted by the Turks. It is at the courts of these
petty dynasties that the poets and scholars of the next period (the
10th and 11th centuries) are to be found. For a short time Haleb
(Aleppo), the seat of the Hamdanids, and for a longer time Cairo, built
by the Fatimids in the year 969,—have a better claim to be regarded as
the home of intellectual endeavour than Bagdad itself. For another
brief space lustre is shed on the East by the court of the Turk, Mahmud
of Ghazna, who had become master of Khorasan in the year 999.
The founding of the Muslim Universities also falls within this period
of petty States and Turkish administration. The first one was erected
in Bagdad in the year 1065; and from that date the East has been in
possession of Science, but only in the form of stereotyped
republications. The teacher conveys the teaching which has been handed
down to him by his teachers; and in any new book hardly a sentence will
be found which does not appear in older books. Science was rescued from
danger; but the learned men of Transoxiana, who, upon hearing of the
establishment of the first Madrasah, appointed a solemn memorial
service, as tradition tells, to be held in honour of departed science,
have been shewn to be correct in their estimate. [4]
Then,—in the 13th century,—there came storming over the Eastern regions
of Islam the resounding invasion of the Mongols, who swept away
whatever the Turks had spared. No culture ever flourished there again,
to develope from its own resources a new Art or to stimulate a revival
of Science.
2. Oriental Wisdom.
1. Prior to its contact with Hellenism, the Semitic mind had proceeded
no farther in the path of Philosophy than the propounding of enigmas,
and the utterance of aphoristic wisdom. Detached observations of
Nature, but especially of the life and fate of Man, form the basis of
such thinking; and where comprehension ceases, resignation to the
almighty and inscrutable will of God comes in without difficulty. We
have become familiar with this kind of wisdom from the Old Testament;
and that it was developed in like manner among the Arabs, is shewn to
us by the Bible story of the Queen of Sheba, and by the figure of the
wise Loqman in the Arab tradition.
By the side of this wisdom there was found everywhere the Magic of the
sorcerer,—a knowledge which was authenticated by command over outward
things. But it was only in the priestly circles of ancient
Babylonia,—under what influences and to what extent we do not precisely
know,—that men rose to a more scientific consideration of the world.
Their eyes were turned from the confusion of earthly existence to the
order of the heavens. They were not like the Hebrews, who never got
beyond the wondering stage [5], or who saw merely an emblem of their
own posterity in the countless stars [6]; they resembled rather the
Greeks who came to understand the Many and the Manifold in their
sublunary forms, only after they had discovered the harmony of the All
in the unity and steadiness of the movement of the heavens. The only
drawback was that much mythological by-play and astrological pretence
was interwoven with what was good, as in fact was the case also in
Hellenism. This Chaldaean wisdom, from the time of Alexander the Great,
became pervaded, in Babylonia and Syria, with Hellenistic and later
with Hellenistic-Christian ideas, or else was supplanted by them. In
the Syrian city of Harran only, up to the time of Islam, the old
heathenism held its ground, little affected by Christian influences.
(Cf. I, 3, § 4).
2. Of more importance than any Semitic tradition, was the contribution
made to Islam by Persian and Indian wisdom. We do not need to enter
here upon the question as to whether Oriental wisdom was originally
influenced by Greek philosophy, or Greek philosophy by Oriental wisdom.
What Islam carried away directly from Persians and Indians may be
learned with tolerable certainty from Arabic sources, and to this we
may confine ourselves.
Persia is the land of Dualism, and it is not improbable that its
dualistic religious teaching exercised an influence upon theological
controversy in Islam, either directly or through the Manichaeans and
other Gnostic sects. But much greater, in worldly circles, was the
influence wielded by that system which, according to tradition, came to
be even publicly recognized, under the Sasanid Yezdegerd II
(438/9–457), viz. Zrwanism (Cf. III, 1, § 6). In this system the
dualistic view of the world was superseded by setting up endless Time,
(zrwan, Arab. dahr) as the paramount principle, and identifying it with
Fate, the outermost heavenly sphere or the movement of the heavens.
This doctrine, pleasing to philosophic intellects, has secured, with or
without the guise of Islam, a prominent place for itself in Persian
literature and in the views of the people, up to our own day. By
theologians, however, and no less by philosophers of the Idealistic
schools, it was disavowed as Materialism, Atheism and so forth.
3. India was regarded as the true land of wisdom. In Arab writers we
often come upon the view that there the birthplace of philosophy is to
be found. By peaceful trading, in which the agents between India and
the West were principally Persians, and next as a result of the Muslim
conquest, acquaintance with Indian wisdom spread far and wide. Much of
it was translated under Mansur (754–775) and Harun (786–809), partly by
means of the intervening step of Persian (Pahlawi) versions, and partly
from the Sanskrit direct. Many a deliverance of ethical and political
wisdom, in the dress of proverbs, was taken over from the fables and
tales of India, such as the Tales of the Panchatantra, translated from
the Pahlawi by Ibn al-Moqaffa in Mansur’s time, and others. It was,
however, Indian Mathematics and Astrology,—the latter in combination
with practical Medicine and Magic,—that mainly influenced the
beginnings of secular wisdom in Islam. The Astrology of the Siddhanta
of Brahmagupta, which was translated from the Sanskrit, under Mansur,
by Fazari assisted by Indian scholars, was known even before Ptolemy’s
Almagest. A wide world, past and future, was thereby opened up. The
high figures with which the Indians worked produced a powerful,
perplexing impression upon the sober Muslim annalists, just as, on the
other hand, Arab merchants, who in India and China put the age of our
created world at a few thousand years, exposed themselves to the utmost
ridicule.
Nor did the logical and metaphysical speculations of the Indians remain
unknown to the Muslims. These produced, however, much less effect on
scientific development than did their Mathematics and Astrology. The
investigations of the Indians, associated with their sacred books and
wholly determined by a religious purpose, have certainly had a lasting
influence upon Persian Sufism and Islamic Mysticism. But,—once for
all,—Philosophy is a Greek conception, and we have no right, in
deference to the taste of the day, to allot an undue amount of space in
our description to the childish thoughts of pious Hindoos. What has
been advanced by these meditative penitents about the deceptive show of
everything sensuous, may often possess a poetic charm, just as it
agrees perhaps with those observations on the evanescence of all that
is earthly, which the East had access to in Neo-Pythagorean and
Neo-Platonic sources; but it has contributed just as little of
importance as these did, towards the explanation of phenomena or the
awakening of the scientific spirit. Not the Indian imagination, but the
Greek mind was needed to direct the reflective process to the knowledge
of the Real. The best example of this is furnished by Arabic
Mathematics. In the opinion of those who know the subject best, almost
the only thing Indian in it is the Arithmetic, while the Algebra and
the Geometry are Greek, preponderatingly, if not exclusively. Hardly a
single Indian penetrated to the notion of pure mathematics. Number,
even in its highest form, remained always something concrete; and in
Indian Philosophy knowledge in the main continued to be only a means.
Deliverance from the evil of existence was the aim, and Philosophy a
pathway to the life of blessedness. Hence the monotony of this
wisdom,—concentrated, as it was, upon the essence of all things in its
One-ness,—as contrasted with the many-branched science of the Hellenes,
which strove to comprehend the operations of Nature and Mind on all
sides.
Oriental wisdom, Astrology and Cosmology delivered over to Muslim
thinkers material of many kinds, but the Form,—the formative
principle,—came to them from the Greeks. In every case where it is not
mere enumeration or chance concatenation that is taken in hand, but
where an attempt is made to arrange the Manifold according to positive
or logical points of view, we may conclude with all probability that
Greek influences have been at work.
3. Greek Science.
1. Just as the commercial intercourse between India and China and
Byzantium was conducted principally by the Persians, so in the remote
West, as far even as France, the Syrians came forward as the agents of
civilization. It was Syrians who brought wine, silk &c. to the West.
But it was Syrians also who took Greek culture from Alexandria and
Antioch, spreading it eastward and propagating it in the schools of
Edessa and Nisibis, Harran and Gondeshapur. Syria was the true neutral
ground, where for centuries the two world-powers, the Roman and the
Persian, came in contact with one another, either as friends or as
foes. In such circumstances, the Christian Syrians played a part
similar to the one which in later days fell to the share of the Jews.
2. The Muslim conquerors found the Christian church split up into three
main divisions,—to say nothing of many sects. The Monophysite church,
alongside of the Orthodox State-church, preponderated in Syria proper,
and the Nestorian church in Persia. The difference between the
doctrinal systems of these churches was perhaps not without importance
for the development of Muslim Dogmatics. According to the teaching of
the Monophysites, God and Man were united in one nature in Christ,
whereas the Orthodox, and in a still more pronounced manner the
Nestorians, discriminated between a Divine nature and a human nature in
him. Now nature means, above everything, energy or operative principle.
The question, accordingly, which is at issue, is whether the Divine,
and the human Willing and Acting are one and the same in Christ or
different. The Monophysites, from speculative and religious motives,
gave prominence to the Unity in Christ their God, at the expense of the
human element: The Nestorians, on the other hand, emphasized, in
contrast with the Divine element, all that is specially characteristic
of human Being, Willing and Acting. The latter view, however, favoured
by political circumstances and conditions of culture, offers freer play
to philosophical speculations on the world and on life. In point of
fact the Nestorians did most for the cultivation of Greek Science.
3. Syriac was the language both of the Western and of the Eastern or
Persian Church; but Greek was also taught along with it in the Cloister
schools. Rasain and Kinnesrin must be mentioned as being centres of
culture in the Western or Monophysite Church. Of more importance, at
the outset at least, was the school of Edessa, inasmuch as the dialect
of Edessa had risen to the position of the literary language; but in
the year 489 the school there was closed because of the Nestorian views
held by its teachers. It was then re-opened in Nisibis, and, being
patronized by the Sasanids on political grounds, it disseminated
Nestorian belief and Greek knowledge throughout Persia.
Instruction in these schools had a pre-eminently Biblical and
ecclesiastical character, and was arranged to meet the needs of the
Church. However, physicians or coming students of medicine also took
part in it. The circumstance that they frequently belonged to the
ecclesiastical order does not do away with the distinction between
theological study and the pursuit of secular knowledge. It is true that
according to the Syro-Roman code, Teachers (learned Priests) and
Physicians were entitled in common to exemption from taxation and to
other privileges; but the very fact that priests were regarded as
healers of the soul, while physicians had merely to patch up the body,
seemed to justify the precedence accorded to the former. Medicine
always remained a secular matter; and, by the regulations of the School
of Nisibis (from the year 590), the Holy Scriptures were not to be read
in the same room with books that dealt with worldly callings.
In medical circles the works of Hippocrates, Galen and Aristotle were
highly prized; but in the cloisters Philosophy was understood to be
first of all the contemplative life of the ascetic, and “the one thing
needful” was the only thing cared for.
4. The Mesopotamian city of Harran, in the neighbourhood of Edessa,
takes a place of its own. In this city, especially when it began to
flourish again after the Arab conquest, ancient Semitic paganism comes
into association with mathematical and astronomical studies and
Neo-Pythagorean and Neo-Platonic speculation. The Harranaeans or
Sabaeans, as they were called in the 9th and 10th centuries, traced
their mystic lore back to Hermes Trismegistus, Agathodaemon, Uranius
and others. Numerous pseudepigraphs of the later Hellenism were adopted
by them in good faith, and some perhaps were forged in their own
circle. A few of them became active as translators and learned authors,
and many kept up a brisk scientific intercourse with Persian and Arab
scholars from the 8th to the 10th century.
5. In Persia, at Gondeshapur, we find an Institution for philosophical
and medical studies established by Khosrau Anosharwan (521–579). Its
teachers were principally Nestorian Christians; but Khosrau, who had an
inclination for secular culture, extended his toleration to
Monophysites as well as to Nestorians. At that time, just as was the
case later at the court of the Caliphs, Christian Syrians were held in
special honour as medical men.
Farther, in the year 529, seven philosophers of the Neo-Platonic
school, who had been driven away from Athens, found a place of refuge
at the court of Khosrau. Their experiences there, however, may have
resembled those of the French free-thinkers of the 18th century at the
Russian court. At all events they longed to get home again; and the
king was sufficiently liberal-minded and magnanimous to allow them to
go, and in his treaty of peace with Byzantium of the year 549 to
stipulate in their case for freedom of religious opinion. Their stay in
the Persian kingdom was doubtless not wholly devoid of influence.
6. The period of Syriac translations of profane literature from the
Greek extends perhaps from the 4th to the 8th century. In the 4th
century collections of aphorisms were translated. The first translator,
however, who makes his appearance avowing his name, is Probus, “Priest
and physician in Antioch” (1st half of the 5th century?). Possibly he
was merely an expounder of the logical writings of Aristotle, and of
the Isagoge of Porphyry. Better known is Sergius of Rasain,—who died at
the age of 70 or so, probably in Constantinople, about 536,—a
Mesopotamian monk and physician, whose studies, which were probably
pursued in Alexandria itself, took in the whole range of Alexandrian
science, and whose translations not only embraced Theology, Morals and
Mysticism, but even Physics, Medicine and Philosophy. Even after the
Muslim conquest the learned activity of the Syrians continued. Jacob of
Edessa (circa 640–708) translated Greek theological writings; but he
occupied himself besides with Philosophy, and in answer to a question
relative thereto he pronounced that it was lawful for Christian
ecclesiastics to impart the higher instruction to children of Muslim
parents. There was thus a felt need of culture among the latter.
The translations of the Syrians, particularly of Sergius of Rasain, are
generally faithful; but a more exact correspondence with the original
is shewn in the case of Logic and Natural Science than in Ethical and
Metaphysical works. Much that is obscure in these last has been
misunderstood or simply omitted, and much that is pagan has been
replaced by Christian material. For instance, Peter, Paul and John
would come upon the scene in room of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Destiny and the Gods were obliged to give place to the one God; and
ideas like World, Eternity, Sin and the like were recast in a Christian
mould. The Arabs, however, in subsequent times went to a much greater
length with the process of adaptation to their language, culture and
religion than the Syrians. This may perhaps be partly explained by the
Muslim horror of everything heathen, but partly too by their greater
faculty of adaptation.
7. Apart from a few mathematical, physical and medical writings, the
Syrians interested themselves in two subjects,—the first consisting of
moralizing collections of aphorisms, put together into a kind of
history of Philosophy, and, generally, of mystical Pythagorean-Platonic
wisdom. This is found principally in pseudepigraphs, which bear the
names of Pythagoras, Socrates, Plutarch, Dionysius and others. The
centre of interest is a Platonic doctrine of the Soul, subjected to a
later Pythagorean, Neo-Platonic, or Christian form of treatment. In the
Syrian cloisters Plato is even turned into an oriental monk, who built
a cell for himself in the heart of the wilderness, far away from the
dwellings of men, and after three years’ silent brooding over a verse
of the Bible was led to a recognition of the Tri-Unity of God.
A second subject of interest was added, in Aristotle’s Logic. Among the
Syrians, and for a longer period among the Arabs also, Aristotle was
commonly known almost solely as a logician. This knowledge, just as in
the early scholasticism of the West, extended to the Categories, the
Hermeneutics, and the first Analytics as far as the Categorical
Figures. They stood in need of the Logic in order to comprehend the
writings of Greek ecclesiastical teachers, since these, at least in
form, were influenced thereby. But as they did not possess it complete,
as little did they possess it pure. They had it before them only in a
Neo-Platonic redaction, as may be seen, for example, from the work of
Paulus Persa, which was written in Syriac for Khosrau Anosharwan. In
that work knowledge is placed above faith, and philosophy is defined as
the process by which the soul becomes conscious of its own inner
essence, in which, like a God as it were, it sees all things.
8. What the Arabs owe to the Syrians is expressed by this circumstance
amongst others,—that Arab scholars held Syriac to be the oldest, or the
real (natural) language. The Syrians, it is true, produced nothing
original; but their activity as translators was of advantage to
Arab-Persian science. It was Syrians almost without exception, who,
from the 8th century to the 10th, rendered Greek works into Arabic,
either from the older Syriac versions or from those which had been in
part improved by them, and in part re-arranged. Even the Omayyad
prince, Khalid ibn Yezid (died 704), who occupied himself with Alchemy
under the guidance of a Christian monk, is said to have provided for
translations of works on Alchemy from Greek into Arabic. Proverbs,
maxims, letters, wills, and in short whatever bore on the history of
philosophy, were at a very early time collected and translated. But it
was not till the reign of Mansur that a commencement was made with the
translation into Arabic—partly from Pahlawi versions—of those writings
of the Greeks which deal with Natural Science, Medicine and Logic. Ibn
al-Moqaffa, an adherent of Persian Dualism, took a leading part in this
task, from whom later workers must have marked themselves off by their
terminology. None of his philosophical translations have come down to
us. Other material too, belonging to the 8th century has gone amissing.
The earliest specimen of this work of translation which we possess
dates from the 9th century, the time of Mamun and his successors.
The translators of the 9th century were, for the most part, medical
men; and Hippocrates and Galen were among the first to be translated
after Ptolemy and Euclid. But let us confine ourselves to Philosophy,
in the narrower sense. A translation of the Timäus of Plato is said to
have come from Yuhanna or Yakhya ibn Bitriq (in the beginning of the
9th century), as well as Aristotle’s ‘Meteorology’, the ‘Book of
Animals’, an epitome of the ‘Psychology’, and the tract ‘On the World’.
To Abdalmasikh ibn Abdallah Naima al-Himsi (circa 835) is to be
ascribed a rendering of the ‘Sophistics’ of Aristotle, in addition to
the Commentary of John Philoponus upon the ‘Physics’, as well as the
so-called ‘Theology of Aristotle’,—a paraphrased epitome of the Enneads
of Plotinus. Qosta ibn Luqa al-Balabakki (circa 835) is said to have
translated the Commentaries of Alexander of Aphrodisias and John
Philoponus upon the ‘Physics’ of Aristotle, and in part, Alexander’s
Commentary on the ‘De generatione et corruptione’, as well as the
‘Placita Philosophorum’ of the Pseudo-Plutarch, and other works.
The most productive translators were Abu Zaid Honain ibn Ishaq
(809?-873), his son, Ishaq ibn Honain († 910 or 911), and nephew
Hobaish ibn al-Hasan. Seeing that they worked together, there is a good
deal which is ascribed, now to the one and now to the other. Not a
little material must have been prepared, under their oversight, by
disciples and subordinates. Their activity extended over the whole
range of the science of that day. Existing translations were improved,
and new ones added. The father preferred to work at versions of medical
authors, but the son turned more to the rendering of philosophical
material.
The work of the translators was still proceeding in the 10th century.
Among those who especially distinguished themselves were Abu Bishr
Matta ibn Yunus al-Qannai († 940), Abu Zakarya Yakhya ibn Adi
al-Mantiqi († 974), Abu Ali Isa ibn Ishaq ibn Zura († 1008), and
finally, Abu-l-Khair al-Hasan ibn al-Khammar (born 942), a pupil of
Yakhya ibn Adi’s, of whose writings, besides translations,
commentaries, and so forth, a tract is mentioned, on the Harmony
between Philosophy and Christianity.
From the time of Honain ibn Ishaq the activity of the translators was
almost wholly confined to Aristotelian and Pseudo-Aristotelian
writings, and to epitomes of them, to paraphrases of their contents and
to commentaries upon them.
9. These translators are not to be regarded as specially great
philosophers. Their work was seldom entered upon spontaneously, but
almost always at the command of some Caliph or Vizir or other person of
note. Outside of their own department of study, usually Medicine, they
were chiefly interested in Wisdom,—that is, in pretty stories with a
moral, in anecdotes, and in oracular sayings. The expressions which we
merely bear with in intercourse, in narrative or on the stage, as being
characteristic utterances with certain persons, were admired and
collected by these worthy people for the sake of the wisdom contained
in them, or perhaps even for no more than the rhetorical elegance of
their form. As a rule, those men continued true to the Christian faith
of their fathers. The traditional story of Ibn Djebril gives a good
idea both of their way of thinking and of the liberal-mindedness of the
Caliphs. When Mansur wanted to convert him to Islam, he is said to have
replied: “In the faith of my fathers I will die: where they are, I wish
also to be, whether in heaven or in hell”. Whereupon the Caliph
laughed, and dismissed him with a rich present.
Only a small portion has been saved of the original writings of these
men. A short dissertation by Qosta ibn Luqa on the distinction between
Soul and Spirit (πνεῦμα, ruh), preserved in a Latin translation, has
been frequently mentioned and made use of. According to it, the Spirit
is a subtle material, which from its seat in the left ventricle of the
heart animates the human frame and brings about its movements and
perceptions. The finer and clearer this Spirit is, the more rationally
the man thinks and acts: there is but one opinion upon this point. It
is more difficult, however, to predicate anything sure, and universally
valid, of the Soul. The deliverances of the greatest philosophers
occasionally differ, and occasionally contradict each other. In any
case the Soul is incorporeal, for it adopts qualities, and, in fact,
qualities of the most opposite nature at one and the same time. It is
uncompounded and unchangeable, and it does not, like the Spirit, perish
with the body. The Spirit only acts as an intermediary between the Soul
and the Body, and it is in this way that it becomes a secondary cause
of movement and perception.
The statement which has just been given regarding the Soul is found in
many of the later writers. But by slow degrees, as the Aristotelian
philosophy thrusts Platonic opinions more and more into the background,
another pair of opposites come into full view. Physicians alone
continue to speak of the importance of the ‘ruh’ or Spirit of Life.
Philosophers institute a comparison between Soul and Spirit or Reason
(νοῦς, ʻaql). The Soul is now reduced to the domain of the perishable,
and sometimes, in Gnostic fashion, even to the lower and evil realm of
the desires. The rational Spirit,—as that which is highest, that which
is imperishable in man—is exalted above the Soul.
In this notice, however, we are anticipating history: let us return to
our translators.
10. The most valuable portion of the legacy which the Greek mind
bequeathed to us in art, poetry, and historical composition, was never
accessible to the Orientals. It would even have been difficult for them
to understand it, seeing that they lacked the due acquaintance with
Greek life, and the relish for it. For them the history of Greece began
with Alexander the Great, surrounded with the halo of legend; and the
position which Aristotle held beside the greatest prince of ancient
times must have assuredly conduced to the acceptance of the
Aristotelian philosophy at the Muslim court. Arab historians counted up
the Greek princes, on to Cleopatra, and then the Roman Emperors; but a
Thucydides, for example, was not known to them, even by name. Of Homer
they had not picked up much more than the sentence, that “one only
should be the ruler”. They had not the least idea of the great Greek
dramatists and lyric poets. It was only through its Mathematics,
Natural Science and Philosophy, that Greek antiquity could bring its
influence to bear upon them. They had come to know something of the
development of Greek Philosophy, from Plutarch, Porphyry and others, as
well as from the writings of Aristotle and Galen. A good deal of
legendary matter, however, was mingled with their information; and the
account which passed in the East, of the doctrines of the Pre-Socratic
philosophers can only be referred by us to the pseudepigraphs which
they consulted, or perhaps even to the opinions which had been
developed in the East itself, and which they endeavoured to support
with the authority of old Greek sages. But still, in every case, our
thoughts must turn first of all to some Greek original.
11. It may be affirmed generally that the Syro-Arabs took up the thread
of philosophy, precisely where the last of the Greeks had let it fall,
that is, with the Neo-Platonic explanation of Aristotle, along with
whose philosophy the works of Plato were also read and expounded. Among
the Harranaeans, and for a long time in several Muslim sects, it was
Platonic or Pythagorean-Platonic studies which were prosecuted with
most ardour,—with which much that was Stoic or Neo-Platonic was
associated. Extraordinary interest was taken in the fate of Socrates,
who had suffered a martyr’s death in heathen Athens for his rational
belief. The Platonic teaching regarding the Soul and Nature exercised
great influence. The Pythian utterance: “Know thyself”,—handed down as
the motto of the Socratic wisdom, and interpreted in a Neo-Platonic
sense,—was ascribed by the Muslims to Ali, Mohammed’s son-in-law, or
even put into the mouth of the Prophet himself. “He who knows himself,
knows God his Lord thereby”: this was the text for Mystic speculations
of all kinds.
In medical circles and at the worldly court, the works of Aristotle
came more and more into favour, first of all of course the Logic and a
few things from the Physical writings. The Logic—so they thought—was
the only new thing the Stagyrite had discovered: in all the other
sciences he agreed throughout with Pythagoras, Empedocles, Anaxagoras,
Socrates and Plato. Accordingly Christian and Sabaean translators, and
the circle influenced by them, drew their psychologico-ethical,
political and metaphysical instruction without hesitation from the
Pre-Aristotelian sages.
What bore the names of Empedocles, Pythagoras &c., was, naturally,
spurious. Their wisdom is traced either to Hermes or to other wise men
of the East. Thus Empedocles must have been a disciple of King David’s,
and afterwards of Loqman the Wise: Pythagoras must have sprung from the
school of Solomon,—and so on. Writings which are cited in Arabic works
as Socratic are, in so far as they are genuine, Platonic dialogues in
which Socrates appears. Their quotations from Plato—not to speak of
spurious writings—have a more or less comprehensive range: they are
taken from the Apology, Krito, the Sophistes, Phaedrus, the Republic,
Phaedo, Timäus and the Laws. That does not mean, however, that they
possessed complete translations of all these works.
This much is certain,—that Aristotle did not reign as sole lord from
the very outset. Plato, as they understood him, taught the Creation of
the world, the Substantiality of the Spiritual, and the Immortality of
the Soul. That teaching did no harm to the Faith. But Aristotle, with
his doctrine of the Eternity of the World, and his less spiritualistic
Psychology and Ethics, was regarded as dangerous. Muslim theologians of
the 9th and 10th centuries, from various camps, wrote therefore against
Aristotle. But circumstances altered. Philosophers arose by-and-by who
rejected the Platonic doctrine of the One World-Soul, of which the
souls of men are only transient parts, and sought grounds for their
hope of immortality from Aristotle who attributed so great a
significance to the Individual Substance.
12. The conception which was entertained of Aristotle in the period
most remote, is best shown by the writings which were foisted upon him.
Not only did they get his genuine works with Neo-Platonic
interpretations attached to them,—not only was the treatise: “On the
world” unhesitatingly acknowledged as Aristotelian, but he was also
regarded as the author of many late-Greek productions, in which a
Pythagorising Platonism or Neo-Platonism, or even a barren Syncretism
was quite frankly taught.
Let us take here as our first example “the Book of the Apple” [7],
wherein Aristotle plays the same part as Socrates in the Phaedo of
Plato. As his end draws near, the Philosopher is visited by some of his
disciples who find him in a cheerful frame of mind. This leads them to
request their departing Master to give them some instruction about the
Essence and Immortality of the Soul. Thereupon he discourses somewhat
as follows:—“The Essence of the Soul consists in knowing,—in fact, in
Philosophy, which is the highest form of knowing. A perfect knowledge
of the truth constitutes therefore the blessedness which after death
awaits the soul which is devoted to knowing. And just as knowing is
rewarded with a higher knowledge,—so the punishment for not-knowing
consists in a deeper ignorance. And really, there is nothing in Heaven
or Earth, after all, except knowing and not-knowing, and the recompence
which these two severally bring with them. Farther,—virtue is not
essentially different from knowing; nor does vice differ essentially
from not-knowing. The relation of virtue to knowing, or of vice to
not-knowing, is like that of water to ice: i.e. it is the same thing
in a different form.
In knowing,—which is the divine essence of the Soul,—the Soul finds
naturally its only true joy, and not in eating and drinking and sensual
pleasure. For, sensual pleasure is a flame which merely warms for a
short time; but the thinking Soul,—which longs for its deliverance from
the murky world of the senses,—is a pure light that sheds a radiance
far and wide. The Philosopher therefore is not afraid of death, but
meets it gladly, when the Deity summons him. The enjoyment, which his
limited knowledge affords him here is a guarantee to him of the rapture
which the unveiling of the great world of the Unknown will procure him.
Even already he knows something of this, for it is only through
knowledge of the invisible, that the proper estimate of the sensible,
on which he prides himself, is at all possible. He who comes to know
his own self in this life, possesses in that very knowledge of himself
the assurance of comprehending all things with an eternal knowledge,—i.
e. of being immortal.”
13. In the second place the so-called “Theology of Aristotle” may be
referred to. In it Plato is represented as the Ideal-Man, who gains a
knowledge of all things by means of an intuitive thinking, and thus has
no need of the logical resources of Aristotle. Indeed, the highest
reality—Absolute Being—is not apprehended by thinking, but only in an
ecstatic Vision. “Often was I alone with my soul”, says
Aristotle-Plotinus, on this point. “Divested of the body, I entered as
pure substance into my proper self, turning back from all that is
external to what is within. I was pure knowing there, at once the
knowing and the known. How astonished I was to behold beauty and
splendour in my proper self, and to recognize that I was a part of the
sublime Divine world, endowed even with creative life! In this
assurance of self, I was lifted above the world of the senses, ay, even
above the world of spirits, up to the Divine state, where I beheld a
light so fair that no tongue can tell it, nor ear understand”.
The soul forms the centre of the discussions in the ‘Theology’ also.
All true human science is science of the soul or knowledge of
self,—knowledge of its essence, it is true, coming first, and next in
order, though less complete, knowledge of the operations of that
essence. In such knowledge, to which exceedingly few attain, the
highest wisdom consists, which does not admit of being fully understood
in the form of ideas, and which therefore the philosopher like a
skilful artist and wise lawgiver represents, for us men, in ever
beautiful figures in religious service. In this function precisely, the
wise man comes forward as the potent, self-sufficing magician, whose
knowledge lords it over the multitude, seeing that they remain always
bound in the fetters of outward things, of presentations and desires.
The soul stands in the centre of the All. Above it are God and
Intelligence, beneath it—Matter and Nature. Its coming from God through
Intelligence into Matter, its presence in the body, its return on
high—these are the three stadia in which its life and that of the world
run their course. Matter and Nature, Sense-perception and Presentation
here lose their significance almost entirely. All things exist by
Intelligence (νοῦς, ʻaql). Intelligence constitutes all things, and in
Intelligence all things are One. The Soul too is Intelligence, but, so
long as it stays in the body, it is Intelligence in hope, Intelligence
in the form of longing. It longs for what is above, for the good and
blessed stars, which spend their contemplative existence as sources of
light, exalted above presentation and effort.
That then is the oriental Aristotle, as he was acknowledged by the
earliest Peripatetics in Islam [8].
14. We need not wonder that the Easterns did not succeed in reaching an
unadulterated conception of the Aristotelian philosophy. Our critical
apparatus for discriminating between the genuine and the spurious was
not in their possession. It must have proved even more difficult for
them, to familiarize themselves with the world of Greek civilization,
than for the Christian scholars of the Middle Ages, which had never
entirely lost living touch with antiquity. In the East men remained
dependent on Neo-Platonic redactions and interpretations. A part of the
scientific system, to wit, the Politics of Aristotle, was a-wanting;
and so, as a matter of course, the Laws or the Republic of Plato took
its place. Only a few were aware of the difference between the two.
Another determining motive deserves notice. In their Neo-Platonic
sources even, the Muslims came upon a harmonizing exposition of the
Greek philosophers, and they felt constrained to adopt it. The first
adherents of Aristotle were bound to assume a polemical and apologetic
attitude. In opposition to, or in conformity with, the voice of the
Muslim community, they required a coherent philosophy, in which the One
Truth must be found. The same reverence, which Mohammed in his day had
paid to the sacred writings of the Jews and of the Christians, was
shewn afterwards by Muslim scholars towards the works of Greek
philosophers; but these learned men exhibited greater familiarity with
their models, and less originality. In their eyes the old philosophers
were invested with an authority, to which it was their duty to submit.
The earliest Muslim thinkers were so fully convinced of the superiority
of Greek knowledge that they did not doubt that it had attained to the
highest degree of certainty. The thought of making farther and
independent investigations did not readily occur to an Oriental, who
cannot imagine a man without a teacher as being anything else than a
disciple of Satan. In accordance, therefore, with the precedent set by
Hellenistic philosophers, an attempt had to be made to demonstrate the
existence of the harmony between Plato and Aristotle,—and, in
particular, to shelve tacitly those doctrines which gave offence, or to
exhibit them in a sense which was not too decidedly contrary to Muslim
Dogmatics. In order to humour the opponents of Aristotle or of
Philosophy in general, prominence was given to wise and edifying
sayings out of the philosopher’s works,—both the genuine and the
spurious,—that so the way might be prepared for the reception of his
scientific thoughts. To the initiated, however, the teaching of
Aristotle, like that of other schools and sects, was set forth as a
higher truth, to which the positive faith of the multitude and the more
or less firmly established system of the theologians were merely
preliminary steps.
15. Muslim Philosophy has always continued to be an Eclecticism which
depended on their stock of works translated from the Greek. The course
of its history has been a process of assimilation rather than of
generation. It has not distinguished itself, either by propounding new
problems or by any peculiarity in its endeavours to solve the old ones.
It has therefore no important advances in thought to register. And yet,
from a historical point of view, its significance is far greater than
that of a mere intermediary between classical antiquity and Christian
Scholasticism. To follow up the reception of Greek ideas into the mixed
civilization of the East is a subject of historical interest possessing
a charm entirely its own, especially if one can forget at the same time
that once there were Greeks. But the consideration of this occurrence
becomes important also by its presenting an opportunity for comparison
with other civilizations. Philosophy is a phenomenon so unique—so
thoroughly indigenous and independent a growth of Grecian soil—that one
might regard it as being exempt from the conditions of general
civilized life, and as being explicable only per se. Now the History of
Philosophy in Islam is valuable, just because it sets forth the first
attempt to appropriate the results of Greek thinking, with greater
comprehensiveness and freedom than in the early Christian dogmatics.
Acquaintance with the conditions which made such an attempt possible,
will permit us to reach conclusions, by way of analogical
reasonings—though with precaution, and for the present at least, to a
very limited extent—as to the reception of Graeco-Arab science in the
Christian Middle Ages, and will perhaps teach us a little about the
conditions under which Philosophy arises in general.
We can hardly speak of a Muslim philosophy in the proper sense of the
term. But there were many men in Islam who could not keep from
philosophizing; and even through the folds of the Greek drapery, the
form of their own limbs is indicated. It is easy to look down on these
men, from the high watch-tower of some School-Philosophy, but it will
be better for us to get to know them and to comprehend them in their
historical environment. We must leave to special research the tracing
of each thought up to its origin. Our aim in what follows can be
nothing more than to point out what the Muslims constructed out of the
materials which were before them.
II. PHILOSOPHY AND ARAB KNOWLEDGE.
1. Grammatical Science.
1. By Muslim scholars of the 10th century the sciences were divided
into ‘Arab Sciences’ and ‘Old’- or ‘Non-Arab Sciences’. To the former
belonged Grammar, Ethics and Dogmatics, History and Knowledge of
Literature; to the latter Philosophy, Natural Science and Medicine. In
the main the division is a proper one. The last-named branches are not
only those which were determined the most by foreign influences, but
those too which never became really popular. And yet the so called
‘Arab Sciences’ are not altogether pure native products. They too arose
or were developed in places in the Muslim empire where Arabs and
Non-Arabs met together, and where the need was awakened of reflecting
on those subjects which concern mankind the most,—Speech and Poetry,
Law and Religion,—in so far as differences or inadequacies appeared
therein. In the mode in which this came about, it is easy to trace the
influence of Non-Arabs, particularly of Persians; and the part taken by
Greek Philosophy in the process asserts itself in ever-growing
importance.
2. The Arabic language,—in which the Arabs themselves took particular
delight, for its copious vocabulary, its wealth of forms and its
inherent capability of cultivation,—was peculiarly fitted to take a
leading position in the world. If it is compared, for example, with the
unwieldy Latin, or even with the turgid Persian, it is found to be
specially distinguished by the possession of short Abstract-forms,—a
property of great service in scientific expression. It is capable of
indicating the finest shades of meaning; but just because of its richly
developed stock of synonyms, it offers temptations to deviate from the
Aristotelian rule,—that the use of synonyms is not permissible in exact
science. A language so elegant, expressive, and difficult withal, as
Arabic was, necessarily invited much examination, when it had become
the polite language of the Syrians and the Persians. Above all, the
study of the Koran, and the recital and interpretation of it demanded
profound attention to be devoted to the language. Unbelievers, also,
may have thought that they could point out grammatical errors in the
sacred Book; and therefore examples were gathered out of ancient poems
and out of the living speech of the Bedouins, to support the
expressions of the Koran. To these examples remarks were, no doubt,
added upon grammatical accuracy in general. On the whole, the living
usage formed the standard, but in order to save the authority of the
Koran, it was certainly not applied without artifice. This proceeding
was regarded, all the same, by simple believers, with a measure of
suspicion. Masudi tells us even of some grammarians from Basra, who,
when on a pleasure trip, took to going through a Koran Imperative, and
for that reason(?) were soundly cudgelled by country folk engaged in
date-gathering.
3. The Arabs trace their grammatical science, like so many other
things, to Ali, to whom is ascribed even Aristotle’s tripartite
division of speech. In reality the study began to be cultivated in
Basra and Kufa. Its earliest development is involved in obscurity, for
in the Grammar of Sibawaih († 786) we have a finished system,—a
colossal work—, which, like Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine in after
times, could only be explained by later generations as the production
of many scholars working in collaboration. We are but ill-informed even
on the points of difference between the schools of Basra and Kufa. The
Basra grammarians, like the school of Bagdad in subsequent times, must
have conceded a great influence to Qiyas (Analogy) in the determination
of grammatical phenomena, while those of Kufa allowed many idiomatic
forms which diverged from Qiyas. On this ground, to mark the contrast
between the Basra grammarians and those of Kufa, the former were called
‘the Logic people’. Their terminology differed in detail from that of
the Kufa school. Many, whose heads had been turned by logic, in the
opinion of the genuine Arabs, must have gone decidedly too far in their
captious criticism of the language; but on the other side caprice was
raised to the position of rule.
It was from no mere accident that the school of Basra was the first to
avail itself of logical resources. Generally speaking, it was at Basra
that the influence of philosophic doctrines first appeared, and among
its grammarians were to be found many Shiʻites and Mutazilites, who
readily permitted foreign wisdom to influence their doctrinal teaching.
4. Grammatical science, in so far as it was not confined, to the
collecting of Examples, Synonyms &c., when so determined by the
subjects specially treated, was affected by the Aristotelian Logic.
Even before the Muslim era, Syrians and Persians had studied the
treatise περὶ ἑρμηνείας, with Stoic and Neo-Platonic additions. Ibn
al-Moqaffa, who at first was intimate with the grammarian Khalil (v.
infra), then made accessible to the Arabs all that existed in Pahlawi
of a grammatical or logical nature. In conformity therewith the various
kinds of Sentences were enumerated,—at one time five, at another eight
or nine, as well as the three parts of speech,—Noun, Verb and Particle.
Afterwards some scholars, like Djahiz, included syllogistic figures
among the Rhetorical figures; and in later representations there was
much disputation about Sound and Idea. The question was discussed
whether language is the result of ordinance or a product of nature; but
gradually the philosophic view preponderated, that it came by
ordinance.
Next to Logic the influence of the preparatory or mathematical sciences
falls to be noticed here. Like the prose of ordinary intercourse and
the rhymes of the Koran, the verses of the poets were not only
collected but also arranged according to special principles of
classification,—for example, according to metre. After Grammar Prosody
arose. Khalil († 791), the teacher of Sibawaih, to whom the first
application of Qiyas to grammatical science was attributed, is said
even to have created metrical science. While language came to be
regarded as the national, conventional element in poetry, the notion
was entertained that what was natural, and common to all populations,
would be found in their metre. Thabit ibn Qorra (836–901) therefore
maintained, in his classification of the sciences, that metre was
something essential, and the study of metre a natural science, and
therefore a branch of philosophy.
5. Grammatical science, nevertheless, limited as it was to the Arabic
language, retained its peculiarities, upon which this is not the place
to enter. At all events, it is an imposing production of the
keenly-observing and diligently-collecting Arab intelligence,—a
production of which the Arabs might well be proud. An apologist of the
10th century, who was engaged in combating Greek philosophy, said: “He
who is acquainted with the subtleties and profundities of Arab poetry
and versification, knows well that they surpass all such things as
numbers, lines and points, which are wont to be advanced in proof of
their opinions, by people who idly dream that they are capable of
understanding the essence of things. I cannot see the substantial
advantage of things like numbers, lines and points, if, in spite of the
trifling profit which may attend them, they do harm to the Faith and
are followed by consequences, against which we have to invoke the help
of God.” Men would not have their delight in the minutiae of their
language disturbed by general philosophic speculations. Many a
word-form, originating with the translators of foreign works, was held
in detestation by purist Grammarians. The beautiful art of calligraphy,
more decorative in its nature than constructive, like Arabic art in
general, became developed in noble, delicate forms, and met with a
wider expansion than scientific research into the language. In the very
characters of the Arabic speech, we may still see the subtlety of the
intelligence which formed them, although at the same time we may see a
lack of energy, which is observable in the entire development of Arab
culture.
2. Ethical Teaching.
1. The believing Muslim, in so far as custom did not maintain its
dominion over him, had at first the Word of God and the example of His
Prophet as his rule of conduct and opinion. After the Prophet’s death,
the Sunna of Mohammed was followed, in cases where the Koran gave no
information,—that is to say, men acted and decided, as Mohammed had
decided or acted, according to the Tradition of his Companions. But
from the time of the conquest of countries in possession of an old
civilization, demands which were altogether new were made of Islam.
Instead of the simple conditions of Arab life, usages and institutions
were met with there, in regard to which the Sacred Law gave no precise
direction, and to meet which no tradition or interpretation of
tradition presented itself. Every day added thus to the number of
individual cases which had not been provided for, and yet about which
one had to come to a decision, whether according to custom, or his own
sense of right. In the old-Roman provinces, Syria and Mesopotamia,
Roman law must have long continued to exercise an important influence.
Those jurists who attributed to their own opinion (Raʼy, opinio)
alongside of the Koran and Sunna, a subsidiary authority to determine
the law, were called ‘Adherents of the Raʼy’. One of them, Abu Hanifa
of Kufa († 767), the founder of the Hanifite School, became specially
famous. But even in Medina, before the appearance of the school of
Malik (715–795), as well as in that school, a harmless though
restricted deference was at first paid to the Raʼy. By slow degrees,
however, and in the course of opposing a Raʼy which was becoming a
pretext for much arbitrariness, the view gained ground, that in
everything the Tradition (hadith) respecting the Sunna of the Prophet
was to be followed. Thereupon traditions were collected from all
quarters, and explained—and in large numbers even forged—; and a system
of criteria to determine their genuineness was formed, which, however,
laid more stress upon the external evidence and the appropriateness of
the traditionary material than upon consistency and historic truth. As
a consequence of this development, the ‘people of the Raʼy’, who were
chiefly located in Iraq (Babylonia), were now confronted by the
‘Adherents of the Tradition’, or the Medina school. Even Shafii
(767–820), the founder of the third school of Law, who in general held
to the Sunna, was numbered with the partisans of Tradition, in
contradistinction no doubt to Abu Hanifa.
2. Logic introduced a new element into this controversy,—viz. Qiyas or
Analogy. There had been, of course, stray applications of Qiyas, even
in earlier times; but, to lay down Qiyas as a principle, a foundation
or a source of law,—presupposed the influence of scientific reflection.
Although the terms Raʼy and Qiyas may be used as synonyms, yet there is
in the latter term, less suggestion of the presence and operation of
individual predilection than there is in Raʼy. The more one grew
accustomed to employ Qiyas in grammatical and logical researches, the
more readily could he include this principle in the institutes of
jurisprudence, whether by way of reasoning from one instance to
another, or from the majority of instances to the remainder (i.e.
analogically), or by way of seeking rather for some common ground
governing various cases, from which the conduct proper in a particular
case might be deduced (i.e. syllogistically) [9].
The application of Qiyas appears to have come into use, first and most
extensively, in the Hanifite school, but afterwards also in the school
of Shafii,—though with a more limited range. In connection therewith,
the question—whether language was capable of expressing the Universal,
or could merely denote the Particular—became important for ethical
doctrine.
The logical principle of Qiyas never attained to great repute. Much
more emphasis was laid,—next to the Koran and the Sunna, the historic
foundations of the Law—, upon the Idjma, that is, the Consensus of the
Congregation of the faithful. The Consensus of the Congregation or,
practically, of the most influential learned men in it,—who may be
compared to the fathers and teachers of the Catholic Church,—is the
Dogmatical principle, which, contested only by a few, has proved the
most important instrument in establishing the Muslim Ethical System.
Theory, however, continues to assign a certain subordinate place to
Qiyas, as a fourth source of moral guidance, after Koran, Sunna and
Idjma.
3. The Muslim Ethical System (al-fiqh = ‘the knowledge’) take into
account the entire life of the believer, for whom the Faith itself is
the first of all duties. Like every innovation the system at first
encountered violent opposition:—commandment was now turned into
doctrinal theory, and believing obedience into abstruse pursuit of
knowledge: that called for protestation alike from plain pious people
and from wise statesmen. But gradually the ‘knowing’ men or men learned
in the Law (ulamā, or in the West, faqihs) were recognized as the true
heirs of the prophets. The Ethical system was developed before the
Doctrinal, and it has been able to hold the leading position up to the
present day. Nearly every Muslim knows something of it, seeing it is
part of a good religious upbringing. According to the great
Church-father Gazali, ‘the Fiqh’ is the daily bread of believing souls,
while the Doctrine is only valuable as a Medicine for the sick.
We are not called upon here to enter into the minutiae of the fine-spun
casuistic of the Fiqh. The main subject handled in it is an ideal
righteousness, which can never be illustrated in all its purity in our
imperfect world. We are acquainted now with its principles, and with
the position which it holds in Islam. Let us merely add a brief notice
of the division of moral acts which was formulated by ethical teachers.
According to this classification there are:
1. Acts, the practice of which is an absolute duty and is therefore
rewarded, and the omission of which is punished:
2. Acts which are recommended by the Law, and are the subject of
reward, but the neglect of which does not call for punishment:
3. Acts which are permitted, but which in the eyes of the Law are a
matter of indifference:
4. Acts which the Law disapproves of, but does not hold as
punishable:
5. Acts which are forbidden by the Law and which demand
unconditional punishment [10].
4. Greek philosophic enquiries have had a two-fold influence upon the
Ethics of Islam. With many of the sectaries and mystics, both orthodox
and heretic, an ascetic system of Ethics is found, coloured by
Pythagorean-Platonic views. The same thing appears with philosophers,
whom we shall afterwards meet again. But in orthodox circles the
Aristotelian deliverance,—that virtue consists in the just mean—, found
much acceptance, because something similar stood in the Koran, and
because, generally, the tendency of Islam was a catholic one,—one
conciliatory of opposites.
More attention indeed was given to Politics than to Ethics, in the
Muslim empire, and the struggles of political parties were the first
thing to occasion difference of opinion. Disputes about the Imâmat,
i.e. the headship in the Muslim Church, pervade the entire history of
Islam; but the questions discussed have commonly more of a personal and
practical than a theoretical importance, and therefore a history of
philosophy does not need to consider them very fully. Hardly anything
of philosophic value emerges in them. Even in the course of the first
centuries there was developed a firm body of constitutional law
canonically expressed; but this, like the ideal system of duty, was not
particularly heeded by strong rulers,—who viewed it as mere theological
brooding,—while, on the other hand, by weak princes it could not be
applied at all.
Just as little is it worth our while to examine minutely the numerous
‘mirrors of Princes’, which were such favourites, in Persia especially,
and in whose wise moral saws, and maxims of political sagacity, the
courtly circles found edification.
The weight of philosophic endeavour in Islam lies on the theoretical
and intellectual side. With the actual proceedings of social and
political life they are able to make but a scanty compromise. Even the
Art of the Muslims, although it exhibits more originality than their
Science, does not know how to animate the crude material, but merely
sports with ornamental forms. Their Poetry creates no Drama, and their
Philosophy is unpractical.
3. Doctrinal Systems.
1. In the Koran there had been given to Muslims a religion, but no
system,—precepts but no doctrines. What is contrary to logic
therein,—what we account for by the shifting circumstances of the
Prophet’s life, and his varying moods,—was simply accepted by the first
believers, without asking questions about the How and Why. But in the
conquered countries they were faced by a fully-formed Christian
Dogmatic as well as by Zoroastrian and Brahmanic theories. We have laid
frequent stress already upon the great debt which the Muslims owe to
the Christians; and the doctrinal system has certainly been determined
the most by Christian influences. In Damascus the formation of Muslim
Dogmas was affected by Orthodox and Monophysite teaching, and in Basra
and Bagdad rather perhaps by Nestorian and Gnostic theories. Little of
the literature belonging to the earliest period of this movement has
come down to us, but we cannot be wrong in assigning a considerable
influence to personal intercourse and regular school-instruction. Not
much was learned in the East at that time out of books, any more than
it is to-day: more was learned from the lips of the teacher. The
similarity between the oldest doctrinal teachings in Islam and the
dogmas of Christianity is too great to permit any one to deny that they
are directly connected. In particular, the first question about which
there was much dispute, among Muslim Scholars, was that of the Freedom
of the Will. Now the freedom of the will was almost universally
accepted by Oriental Christians. At no time and in no place perhaps was
the Will-problem—first in the Christology, but afterward in the
Anthropology—so much discussed from every point as in the Christian
circles of the East at the time of the Muslim conquest.
Besides these considerations which are partly of an a priori character,
there are also detached notices which indicate that some of the
earliest Muslims, who taught the Freedom of the Will, had Christian
teachers.
A number of purely philosophic elements from the Gnostic systems, and
afterwards from the translation-literature, associated themselves with
the Hellenistic-Christian influences.
2. An assertion, expressed in logical or dialectic fashion, whether
verbal or written, was called by the Arabs,—generally, but more
particularly in religious teaching—a Kalam (λόγος), and those who
advanced such assertions were called Mutakallimun. The name was
transferred from the individual assertion to the entire system, and it
covered also the introductory, elementary observations on Method,—and
so on. Our best designation for the science of the Kalam is
‘Theological Dialectics’ or simply ‘Dialectics’; and in what follows we
may translate Mutakallimun by ‘Dialecticians’.
The name Mutakallimun, which was at first common to all the
Dialecticians, was in later times applied specially to the
Antimutazilite and Orthodox theologians. In the latter case it might be
well, following the sense, to render the term by Dogmatists or
Schoolmen. In fact while the first dialecticians had the Dogma still to
form, those who came later had only to expound and establish it.
The introduction of Dialectics into Islam was a violent innovation, and
it was vehemently denounced by the party of the Tradition. Whatever
went beyond the regular ethical teaching was heresy to them, for faith
should be obedience, and not,—as was maintained by the Murdjites and
Mutazilites—, knowledge. By the latter it was laid down without reserve
that speculation was one of the duties of believers. Even to this
demand the times became reconciled, for according to tradition the
Prophet had said already: ‘The first thing which God created was
Knowledge or Reason’.
3. Very numerous are the various opinions which found utterance in the
days even of the Omayyads, but especially in those of the early
Abbasids. The farther they diverged from one another, the more
difficult it was for the men of the Tradition to come to an
understanding with them; but gradually certain compact doctrinal
collections stood out distinctly, of which the rationalist system of
the Mutazilites, the successors of the Qadarites, was most widely
extended, particularly among Shiʻites. From Caliph Mamun’s time down to
Mutawakkil’s, it even received State recognition; and the Mutazilites,
who had been in earlier days oppressed and persecuted by the temporal
power, now became Inquisitors of the Faith themselves, with whom the
sword supplied the place of argument. About the same time, however,
their opponents the Traditionalists commenced to build up a system of
belief. Upon the whole there was no lack of intermediary forms between
the naive Faith of the multitude and the Gnosis of the dialecticians.
In contrast to the spiritualistic stamp of Mutazilitism these
intermediary forms took an anthropomorphic character with regard to the
doctrine of the Deity, and a materialistic character with regard to the
theory of man and the universe (Anthropology and Cosmology). The soul,
for example, was conceived of by them as corporeal, or as an accident
of the body, and the Divine Essence was imagined as a human body. The
religious teaching and art of the Muslims were greatly averse to the
symbolical God-Father of the Christians, but there was an abundance of
absurd speculations about the form of Allah. Some went so far as to
ascribe to him all the bodily members together, with the exception of
the beard and other privileges of oriental manhood.
It is impossible to discuss in detail all the Dialectic sects, which
often made their first appearance in the form of political parties.
From the standpoint of the history of Philosophy it is enough to give
here the chief doctrines of the Mutazilites, in so far as they can lay
claim to general interest.
4. The first question, then, concerned man’s conduct and destiny. The
forerunners of the Mutazilites, who were called Qadarites, taught the
Freedom of the human Will; and the Mutazilites, even in later times,
when their speculations were directed more to theologico-metaphysical
problems, were first and foremost pointed to as the supporters of the
doctrine of Divine Righteousness,—which gives rise to no evil, and
rewards or punishes man according to his deserts—, and, in the second
place, as the confessors, or avowed supporters of the Unity of God,
i.e. the absence of properties from his Essence considered per se [or
the predicateless character of the essential nature of God]. The
systematic statement of their doctrines must have been influenced by
the Logicians (v. IV, 2 § 1); for even in the first half of the 10th
century, the Mutazilite system began with the confession of the Unity
of God, while the doctrine of God’s Righteousness, announced as it is
in all his works, is relegated to the second place.
The responsibility of man, as well as the holiness of God, who is
incapable of directly causing man’s sinful actions, had to be saved by
asserting the freedom of the Will. Man must therefore be lord of his
actions; but he is lord of these only, for few entertained any doubt
that the energy which confers ability to act at all, and the power of
doing either a good or a bad action come to man from God. Hence the
numerous subtle discussions,—amalgamated with a criticism of the
philosophic conception of Time—on the question whether the power, which
God creates in man, is bestowed previous to the action, or
coincidentally and simultaneously therewith: For, did the power precede
the act, then it would either have to last up to the time of the act,
which would belie its accidental character (cf. II, 3 § 12), or have
ceased to exist before the act,—in which case it might have been
dispensed with altogether.
From human conduct speculation passed on to consider the operations of
nature. Instead of God and man, the antithesis in this case is God and
nature. The productive and generative powers of nature were recognized
as means or proximate causes; and some endeavoured to investigate them.
In their opinion, however, nature herself, like all the world, was a
work of God, a creature of his wisdom: And just as the omnipotence of
God was limited in the moral kingdom by his holiness or
righteousness,—so in the natural world it was limited by his wisdom.
Even the presence of evil and mischief in the world was accounted for
by the wisdom of God, who sends everything for the best. A production
or object of Divine activity, evil is not. “God may be able,
indeed,”—so an earlier generation had maintained—“to act wickedly and
unreasonably, but he would not do it.” The later Mutazilites taught, on
the other hand, that God has no power at all to do anything which is in
this way repugnant to his nature. Their opponents, who regarded God’s
unlimited might and unfathomable will as directly operative in all
doing and effecting were indignant at this teaching, and compared its
propounders to the dualistic Magians. Consistent Monism was on the side
of these opponents, who did not care to turn man and nature into
creators—next to and under God—of their acts or operations.
5. The Mutazilites, it is clear from the foregoing, had a different
idea of God from that which was entertained by the multitude and by the
Traditionalists. This became specially evident, as speculation
advanced, in the doctrine of the Divine attributes. From the very
beginning the Unity of God was strongly emphasized in Islam; but that
did not prevent men from bestowing upon him many beautiful names
following human analogy, and ascribing to him several attributes. Of
these the following came gradually into greatest prominence, under the
influence assuredly of Christian dogmatics:—viz.: Wisdom, Power, Life,
Will, Speech or Word, Sight and Hearing. The last two of these—Sight
and Hearing—were the first to be explained in a spiritual sense, or
entirely set aside. But the absolute Unity of the Godhead did not
appear to be compatible with any plurality of co-eternal attributes.
Would not that be the Trinity of the Christians, who before now had
explained the three Persons of the One Divine Being as attributes? In
order to avoid this inconvenience they sought sometimes to derive
several attributes out of others by a process of abstraction, and to
refer them to a single one—for instance to Knowledge or Power—and
sometimes to apprehend them each and all as being states of the Divine
essence, or to identify them with the essence itself, in which case of
course their significance nearly disappeared. Occasionally an attempt
was made through refinements of phraseology to save something of that
significance. While, for example, a philosopher, denying the
attributes, maintained that God is by his essence a Being who knows, a
Mutazilite dialectian expressed it thus: God is a Being who knows, but
by means of a knowledge, which He himself is.
In the opinion of the Traditionalists the conception of God was in this
way being robbed of all its contents. The Mutazilites hardly got beyond
negative determinations,—that God is not like the things of this
world,—that he is exalted above Space, Time, Movement, and so on; but
they held fast to the doctrine that he is the Creator of the world.
Although little could be asserted regarding the Being of God, it was
thought he could be known from his works.
For the Mutazilites as well as for their opponents, the Creation was an
absolute act of God, and the existence of the world an existence in
time. They energetically combated the doctrine of the eternity of the
world,—a doctrine supported by the Aristotelian philosophy, and which
had been widely spread throughout the East.
6. We have already found ‘Speech’ or ‘the Word’, given as one of the
eternal attributes of God; and, probably by way of conformity with the
Christian doctrine of the Logos, there was taught in particular the
eternity of the Koran which had been revealed to the Prophet. This
belief in an eternal Koran by the side of Allah, was downright
idolatry, according to the Mutazilites; and in opposition thereto the
Mutazilite Caliphs proclaimed it as a doctrine accepted by the
State,—that the Koran had been created: Whoever denied this doctrine
was publicly punished. Now although the Mutazilites in maintaining this
dogma were more in harmony with the original Islam than their
opponents, yet history has justified the latter, for pious needs proved
stronger than logical conclusions. Many of the Mutazilites, in the
opinion of their brethren in the faith, were far too ready to make
light of the Koran, the Word of God. If it did not agree with their
theories, it received ever new interpretations. In actual fact reason
had more weight with many than the revealed Book. By comparing not only
the three revealed religions together, but these also with Persian and
Indian religious teaching and with philosophic speculation, they
reached a natural religion, which reconciled opposites. This was built
up on the basis of an inborn knowledge, universally necessary,—that
there is one God, who, as a wise Creator, has produced the world, and
also endowed Man with reason that he may know his Creator and
distinguish between Good and Evil. Contrasted with this Natural or
Rational Religion, acquaintance with the teaching of revelation is then
something adventitious,—an acquired knowledge.
By this contention the most consistent of the Mutazilites had broken
away from the consensus of the Muslim religious community, and had thus
actually put themselves outside the general faith. At first they still
appealed to that consensus,—which they were able to do as long as the
secular power was favourably disposed to them. That condition, however,
did not last long, and they soon learned by experience what has often
been taught since,—that the communities of men are more ready to accept
a religion sent down to them from on high, than an enlightened
explanation of it.
7. Following up this survey let us take a closer view of one or two of
the most considerable of the Mutazilites, that the general picture may
not be wanting in individual features.
Let us first glance at Abu-l-Hudhail al-Allaf, who died about the
middle of the 9th century. He was a famous dialectician, and one of the
first who allowed philosophy to exercise an influence on their
theological doctrines.
That an attribute should be capable of inhering in a Being in any way
is not conceivable, in the opinion of Abu-l-Hudhail: It must either be
identical with the Being or different from it. But yet he looks about
for some way of adjustment. God is, according to him, knowing, mighty,
living, through knowledge, might and life, which are his very essence;
and just as men had done even before this, on the Christian side, he
terms these three predicates the Modi (wudjuh) of the Divine Being. He
agrees also that hearing, seeing and other attributes are eternal in
God, but only with regard to the world which was afterwards to be
created. Besides, it would be easy enough for him and for others, who
were affected by the philosophy of the day, to interpret these and
similar expressions—such as God’s ‘beholding’ on the last day, [11]—in
a spiritual sense, since generally they regarded seeing and hearing as
spiritual acts. For example, Abu-l-Hudhail maintained that motion was
visible, but not palpable, because it was not a body.
The Will of God, however, is not to be regarded as eternal. On the
contrary, Abu-l-Hudhail assumes absolute declarations of Will as being
different both from the Being who wills and the object which is willed.
Thus the absolute Word of Creation takes an intermediate position
between the eternal Creator and the transient created world. These
declarations of God’s Will form a kind of intermediate essence, to be
compared with the Platonic Ideas or the Sphere-spirits, but perhaps
regarded rather as immaterial powers than as personal spirits.
Abu-l-Hudhail distinguishes between the absolute Word of Creation and
the accidental Word of Revelation, which is announced to men in the
form of command and prohibition, appearing as matter and in space, and
which is thus significant only for this transient world. The
possibility of living in accordance with the Divine word of revelation,
or of resisting it, exists therefore in this life alone. Binding
injunction and prohibition presuppose Freedom of Will and capability of
acting in accordance therewith. On the other hand in the future life
there are no obligations in the form of laws, and, accordingly, no
longer any freedom: everything there depends on the absolute
determination of God. Nor will there be any motion in the world beyond,
for as motion has once had a beginning, it must, at the end of the
world, come to a close in everlasting rest. Abu-l-Hudhail, therefore,
could not have believed in a resurrection of the body.
Human actions he divides into Natural and Moral, or Actions of the
members, and Actions of the heart. An action is moral, only when we
perform it without constraint. The moral act is Man’s own property,
acquired by his own exertions, but his knowledge comes to him from God,
partly through Revelation, and partly through the light of Nature.
Anterior even to any revelation man is instructed in duty by Nature,
and thus is fully enabled to know God, to discern Good from Evil, and
to live a virtuous, honest and upright life.
8. Noteworthy as a man and a thinker is a younger contemporary of
Abu-l-Hudhail’s, and apparently a disciple of his, commonly called
Al-Nazzam, who died in the year 845. A fanciful, restless, ambitious
man, not a consistent thinker, but yet a bold and honest one,—such is
the representation of him given us by Djahiz, one of his pupils. The
people considered him a madman or a heretic. A good deal in his
teaching is in touch with what passed among the Orientals as the
Philosophy of Empedocles and Anaxagoras (Cf. also Abu-l-Hudhail).
In the opinion of Nazzam God can do absolutely no evil thing; in fact
he can only do that which he knows to be the best thing for his
servants. His omnipotence reaches no farther than what he actually
does. Who could hinder him from giving effect to the splendid
exuberance of his Being? A Will, in the proper sense of the term,—which
invariably implies a need,—is by no means to be attributed to God. The
Will of God, on the contrary, is only a designation of the Divine
agency itself, or of the commands which have been conveyed to men.
Creation is an act performed once for all, in which all things were
made at one and the same time, so that one thing is contained in
another, and so that in process of time the various specimens of
minerals, plants and animals, as well as the numerous children of Adam,
gradually emerge from their latent condition and come to the light.
Nazzam, like the philosophers, rejects the theory of atoms (v. II, 3 §
12), but then he can only account for the traversing of a definite
distance, by reason of the infinite divisibility of space, by
postulating leaps. He holds bodily substances to be composed of
‘accidents’ instead of atoms. And just as Abu-l-Hudhail could not
conceive of the inherence of attributes in an essence, so Nazzam can
only imagine the accident as the substance itself or as a part of the
substance. Thus ‘Fire’ or ‘the Warm’, for instance, exists in a latent
condition in wood, but it becomes free when, by means of friction, its
antagonist ‘the Cold’ disappears. In the process there occurs a motion
or transposition, but no qualitative change. Sensible qualities, such
as colours, savours and odours, are, in Nazzam’s view, bodies.
Even the soul or the intellect of Man he conceives to be a finer kind
of body. The soul, of course, is the most excellent part of man: it
completely pervades the body, which is its organ, and it must be termed
the real and true Man. Thoughts and aspirations are defined as
Movements of the Soul.
In matters of Faith and in questions of Law Nazzam rejects both the
consensus of the congregation and the analogical interpretation of the
Law, and appeals in Shiʻite fashion to the infallible Imam. He thinks
it possible for the whole body of Muslims to concur in admitting an
erroneous doctrine, as, for instance, the doctrine that Mohammed has a
mission for all mankind in contradistinction to other prophets. Whereas
God sends every prophet to all mankind.
Nazzam, besides, shares the view of Abu-l-Hudhail as to the knowledge
of God and of moral duties by means of the reason. He is not
particularly convinced of the inimitable excellence of the Koran. The
abiding marvel of the Koran is made to consist only in the fact that
Mohammed’s contemporaries were kept from producing something like to
the Koran.
He has certainly not retained much of the Muslim Eschatology. At least
the torments of hell are in his view resolved into a process of
consuming by fire.
9. Many syncretistic doctrines, but all devoid of originality, have
come down to us from the school of Nazzam. The most famous man, whom it
produced was the elegant writer and Natural-Philosopher Djahiz († 869),
who demanded of the genuine scholar that he should combine the study of
Theology with that of Natural Science. He traces in all things the
operations of Nature, but also a reference in these operations to the
Creator of the world. Man’s reason is capable of knowing the Creator,
and in like manner of comprehending the need of a prophetic revelation.
Man’s only merit is in his will, for on the one hand all his actions
are interwoven with the events of Nature, and on the other his entire
knowledge is necessarily determined from above. And yet no great
significance appears to accrue to the Will, which is derived from
‘knowing’. At least Will in the Divine Being is quite negatively
conceived of, that is, God never operates unconsciously, or with
dislike to his work.
In all this there is little that is original. His ethical ideal is ‘the
mean’, and the style of his genius is also mediocre. It is only in
compiling his numerous writings that Djahiz has shown any excess.
10. With the earlier Mutazilites reflections on Ethics and Natural
Philosophy predominate; with those who come later Logico-metaphysical
meditations prevail. In particular Neo-Platonic influences are to be
traced here.
Muammar, whose date cannot be accurately determined, although it may be
set down as about the year 900, has much in common with those who have
just been named. But he is far more emphatic in his denial of the
existence of Divine attributes, which he regards as being contradictory
of the absolute unity of the Divine essence. God is high above every
form of plurality. He knows neither himself nor any other being, for
‘knowing’ would presuppose a plurality in him. He is even to be called
Hyper-eternal. Nevertheless he is to be recognized as Creator of the
world. He has only created bodies, it is true; and these of themselves
create their Accidents, whether through operation of Nature or by Will.
The number of these accidents is infinite, for in their essence they
are nothing more than the intellectual relations of thought. Muammar is
a Conceptualist. Motion and Rest, Likeness and Unlikeness, and so on,
are nothing in themselves, and have merely an intellectual or ideal
existence. The soul, which is held to be the true essence of Man, is
conceived of as an Idea or an immaterial substance, though it is not
clearly stated how it is related to the body or to the Divine essence.
The account handed down is confused.
Man’s will is free, and,—properly speaking,—Willing is his only act,
for the outward action belongs to the body (Cf. Djahiz).
The school of Bagdad, to which Muammar seems to belong, was
conceptualist. With the exception of the most general predicates,—those
of Being and Becoming, it made Universals subsist only as notions or
concepts. Abu Hashim of Basra († 933) stood nearer to Realism. The
attributes of God, as well as Accidents and Genus-notions in general,
were regarded by him as something in a middle position between Being
and Not-Being: he called them Conditions or Modes. He designated Doubt
as a requisite in all knowing. A simple Realist he was not.
Mutazilite thinkers indulged in dialectic quibbling even about
‘Not-Being’. They argued that Not-Being, as well as Being, must come to
possess a kind of reality, seeing that it may become the subject of
thought: at least man tries to think of ‘Nothing’ rather than not think
at all.
11. In the 9th century several dialectic systems had been formed in the
contest against the Mutazilites, one of which, viz. the Karramite
system, held its ground till long after the 10th century. There arose,
however, from the ranks of the Mutazilites a man whose mission it was
to reconcile antagonistic views, and who set up that doctrinal system
which was acknowledged as orthodox first in the East, and, later,
throughout the whole of Islam. This was Al-Ashari (873–935), who
understood how to render to God the things that are God’s, and to man
the things that are man’s. He rejected the rude anthropomorphism of the
Antimutazilite dialecticians, and set God high above all that is bodily
and human, while he left to the Deity his omnipotence, and his
universal agency. With him Nature lost all her efficaciousness; but for
man a certain distinction was reserved, consisting in his being able to
give assent to the works which were accomplished in him by God, and to
claim these as his own. Nor was Man’s sensuous-spiritual being
interfered with: He was permitted to hope for the resurrection of the
body and the beholding of God. As regards the Koranic revelation,
Ashari distinguished between an eternal Word in God, and the Book as we
possess it, which latter was revealed in Time.
In the detailed statement of his doctrines Ashari showed no originality
in any way, but merely arranged and condensed the material given him,—a
proceeding which could not be carried out without discrepancies. The
main thing, however, was that his Cosmology, Anthropology and
Eschatology did not depart too far from the text of the Tradition for
the edification of pious souls, and that his theology, in consequence
of a somewhat spiritualized conception of God was not altogether
unsatisfactory even to men of higher culture.
Ashari relies upon the revelation contained in the Koran. He does not
recognize any rational knowledge with regard to Divine things that is
independent of the Koran. The senses are not in general likely to
deceive us, but on the other hand our judgment may easily do so. We
know God, it is true, by our reason, but only from Revelation, which is
the one source of such knowledge.
According to Ashari, then, God is first of all the omnipotent Creator.
Farther he is omniscient: he knows what men do and what they wish to
do: he knows also what happens, and how that which does not happen
would have happened, if it had happened. Moreover all predicates which
express any perfection are applicable to God, with the proviso that
they apply to him in another and higher sense than to his creatures. In
creating and sustaining the world God is the sole cause: all worldly
events proceed continually and directly from him. Man, however, is
quite conscious of the difference between his involuntary movements,
such as shivering and shaking, and those which are carried out in the
exercise of his will and choice.
12. The most characteristic theory which the dialectic of the Muslims
has fashioned, is their doctrine of Atoms. The development of this
doctrine is still wrapped in great obscurity. It was advocated by the
Mutazilites but particularly by their opponents before the time of
Ashari. Our sketch shows how it was held in the Asharite school, where
partly perhaps it was first developed.
The Atomic doctrine of the Muslim dialecticians had its source, of
course, in Greek Natural Philosophy; but its reception and farther
development were determined by the requirements of theological Polemic
and Apologetic. The like phenomenon may be observed in the case of
individual Jews and among believing Catholics. It is impossible to
suppose that Atomism was taken up in Islam, merely because Aristotle
had fought against it. Here we have to register a desperate struggle
for a religious advantage, and one in which weapons are not chosen at
will: It is the end that decides. Nature has to be explained, not from
herself but from some divine creative act; and this world must be
regarded not as an eternal and divine order of things, but as a
creature of transient existence. God must be thought of and spoken of
as a freely-working and almighty Creator, not as an impersonal cause or
inactive primeval source. Accordingly, from the earliest times the
doctrine of the creation is placed at the apex of Muslim dogmatics, as
a testimony against the pagan-philosophical view of the eternity of the
world and the efficient operations of Nature. What we perceive of the
sensible world,—say these Atomists,—is made up of passing ‘accidents’
which every moment come and go. The substratum of this ‘change’ is
constituted by the (bodily) substances; and because of changes
occurring in or on these substances, they cannot be thought of as
themselves unchangeable. If then they are changeable, they cannot be
permanent, for that which is eternal does not change. Consequently
everything in the world, since everything changes, has come into being,
or has been created by God.
That is the starting-point. The changeableness of all that exists
argues an eternal, unchangeable Creator. But later writers, under the
influence of Muslim philosophers, infer from the possible or contingent
character of everything finite, the necessary existence of God.
But let us come back to the world. It consists of Accidents and their
substrata,—Substances. Substance and Accident or Quality are the two
categories by means of which reality is conceived. The remaining
categories either come under the category of Quality, or else are
resolved into relations, and modifications of thought, to which,
objectively, nothing corresponds. Matter, as possibility, exists only
in thought: Time is nothing other than the coexistence of different
objects, or simultaneity in presentation; and Space and Size may be
attributed to bodies indeed, but not to the individual parts (Atoms),
of which bodies are composed.
But, generally speaking, it is Accidents which form the proper
predicates of substances. Their number in every individual substance is
very great, or even infinite as some maintain, since of any pair
whatever of opposite determinations,—and these include negatives
also,—the one or the other is attributable to every substance. The
negative ‘accident’ is just as real as the positive. God creates also
Privation and Annihilation, though certainly it is not easy to discover
a substratum for these. And seeing that no Accident can ever have its
place elsewhere than in some substance, and cannot have it in another
Accident, there is really nothing general or common in any number of
substances. Universals in no wise exist in individual things: They are
Concepts.
Thus there is no connection between substances: they stand apart, in
their capacity of atoms equal to one another. In fact they have a
greater resemblance to the Homoeomeries of Anaxagoras than to the
extremely small particles of matter of the Atomists. In themselves they
are non-spatial (without makan), but they have their position (hayyiz),
and by means of this position of theirs they fill space. It is thus
unities not possessing extension, but conceived of as points,—out of
which the spatial world of body is constructed. Between these unities
there must be a void, for were it otherwise any motion would be
impossible, since the atoms do not press upon one another. All change,
however, is referred to Union and Separation, Movement and Rest.
Farther operative relations between the Atom-substances, there are
none. The Atoms exist then, and enjoy their existence, but have nothing
at all to do with one another. The world is a discontinuous mass,
without any living reciprocal action between its parts.
The ancients had prepared the way for this conception by their theory,
amongst other things, of the discontinuous character of Number. Was not
Time defined as the tale or numbering of Motion? Why should we not
apply that doctrine to Space, Time and Motion? The Dialecticians did
this; and the ‘skepsis’ of the older philosophy may have contributed
its influence in the process. Like the substantial, corporeal
world,—Space, Time and Motion were decomposed into atoms devoid of
extension, and into moments without duration. Time becomes a succession
of many individual ‘Nows’, and between every two moments of time there
is a void. The same is the case with Motion: between every two
movements there is a Rest. A quick motion and a slow motion possess the
same speed, but the latter has more points of Rest. Then, in order to
get over the difficulty of the empty space, the unoccupied moment of
time, and the pause for rest between two movements, the theory of a
Leap is made use of. Motion is to be regarded as a leaping onward from
one point in space to another, and Time as an advance effected in the
same manner from one moment to another.
In reality they had no use at all for this fantastic theory of a Leap:
it was a mere reply to unsophisticated questioning. With perfect
consistency they had cut up the entire material world, as it moves in
space and time, into Atoms with their Accidents. Some no doubt
maintained, that although accidents every moment disappear, yet
substances endure, but others made no difference in this respect. They
taught that substances, which are in fact points in space, exist only
for a point of time, just like Accidents. Every moment God creates the
world anew, so that its condition at the present moment has no
essential connection with that which has immediately preceded it or
that which follows next. In this way there is a series of worlds
following one another, which merely present the appearance of one
world. That for us there is anything like connection or Causality in
phenomena proceeds from the fact that Allah in his inscrutable will
does not choose either to-day or to-morrow to interrupt the usual
course of events by a miracle,—which however he is able at any moment
to do. The disappearance of all causal connection according to the
Atomistic Kalam is vividly illustrated by the classical instance of
‘the writing man.’ God creates in him,—and that too by an act of
creation which is every moment renewed—first the will, then the faculty
of writing, next the movement of the hand, and lastly the motion of the
pen. Here one thing is completely independent of the other.
Now if against this view the objection is urged, that along with
Causality or the regular succession of worldly events, the possibility
of any knowledge is taken away, the believing thinker replies, that
Allah verily foreknows everything, and creates not only the things of
the world and what they appear to effect, but also the knowledge about
them in the human soul, and we do not need to be wiser than He. He
knows best.
Allah and the World, God and Man,—beyond these antitheses Muslim
dialectic could not reach. Besides God, there is room only for
corporeal substances and their accidents. The existence of human souls
as incorporeal substances, as well as generally the existence of pure
Spirits,—both of which doctrines were maintained by philosophers, and,
though less definitely, by several Mutazilites,—would not harmonize
properly with the Muslim doctrine of the transcendent nature of God,
who has no associate. The soul belongs to the world of body. Life,
Sensation, Rational endowment, are accidents, just as much as Colour,
Taste, Smell, Motion and Rest. Some assume only one soul-atom:
According to others several finer soul-atoms are mingled with the
bodily atoms. At all events thinking is attached to one single Atom.
13. It was not every good Muslim that could find mental repose in
dialectic. The pious servant of God might yet, in another way, draw
somewhat nearer to his Lord. This need,—existing in Islam at the very
outset, strengthened too by Christian and Indo-Persian influences, and
intensified under more highly developed conditions of
civilization,—evoked in Islam a series of phenomena, which are usually
designated as Mysticism or Sufism. [12] In this development of a Muslim
order of Holy men, or of a Muslim Monkish system, the history of
Christian monks and cloisters in Syria and Egypt, as well as that of
Indian devotees, is repeated. In this matter then we have at bottom to
deal with religious or spiritual practice; but practice always mirrors
itself in thought, and receives its theory. In order to bring about a
more intimate relationship with the Godhead, many symbolical acts and
mediating persons were required. Such persons then endeavoured to
discover the mysteries of the symbols for themselves and to disclose
them to the initiated, and to establish, besides, their own mediatory
position in the scale of universal being. In particular, Neo-Platonic
doctrines,—partly drawn from the turbid source of the Pseudo-Dionysius
the Areopagite and the holy Hierotheos (Stephen bar Sudaili?)—had to
lend their aid in this work. The Indian Yoga too, at least in Persia,
seems to have exercised considerable influence. For the most part
Mysticism kept within the pale of Orthodoxy, which was always sensible
enough to allow a certain latitude to poets and enthusiasts. As regards
the doctrine that God works all in all, Dialecticians and Mystics were
agreed; but extreme Mysticism propounded the farther doctrine that God
is all in all. From this a heterodox Pantheism was developed, which
made the world an empty show, and deified the human Ego. Thus the Unity
of God becomes Universal Unity; his universal activity Universal
Existence. Besides God, there exist at the most only the attributes and
conditions of the Sufi souls that are tending towards him. A psychology
of feeling is developed by the Sufi teachers. In their view, while our
conceptions come to the soul from without, and our exertions amount to
the externalizing of what is within, the true essence of our soul
consists in certain states or feelings of inclination and
disinclination. The most essential of all these is Love. It is neither
fear nor hope, but Love that lifts us up to God. Blessedness is not a
matter of ‘knowing’ or of ‘willing’: it is Union with the loved one.
These Mystics did away with the world (as ultimately they did with the
human soul) in a far more thorough-going fashion than the Dialecticians
had done. By the latter the world was sacrificed to the arbitrary
character of God in Creation; by the former to the illuminating, loving
nature of the Divine Being. The confusing multiplicity of things, as
that appears to sense and conception, is removed in a yearning after
the One and Beloved being. Everything, both in Being and Thinking, is
brought to one central point. Contrast with this the genuine Greek
spirit. In it a wish was cherished for a still greater number of
senses, to enable men to get a somewhat better acquaintance with this
fair world. But these Mystics blame the senses for being too many,
because their number brings disorder into their felicity.
Human nature, however, always asserts herself. Those men who renounce
the world and the senses, frequently run riot in the most sensual
fantasies, till far advanced in life. We need not wonder after all,
that many troubled themselves very little indeed about religious
doctrine, or that the ascetic morality of the Sufis often went to the
other extreme.
The task of following out in detail the development of Sufism, however,
belongs to the history of Religion rather than to the history of
Philosophy. Besides, we find the philosophical elements which it took
up, in the Muslim philosophers whom we shall meet with farther on.
4. Literature and History.
1. Arabic Poetry and Annalistic were developed independently of the
learning of the schools. But as time went on, Literature and Historical
Composition could not remain untouched by foreign influences. A few
notices, confirmatory of this statement, must suffice us here.
The introduction of Islam involved no break with the poetical tradition
of the Arab race, such as had been occasioned by Christianity in the
Teutonic world. The secular literature of the times even of the
Omayyads handed down many wise sayings, partly taken from ancient
Arabic poetry, which rivalled the preachings of the Koran. Abbasid
Caliphs, like Mansur, Harun and Mamun, had more literary culture than
Charlemagne. The education of their sons was not confined to the
reading of the Koran: it embraced acquaintance also with the ancient
poets and with the history of the nation. Poets and literary men were
drawn to the courts and rewarded in princely fashion. In these
circumstances, Literature underwent the influence of scholarly culture
and philosophical speculation, although, in most cases, in a very
superficial manner. The result is specially exhibited in sceptical
utterances, frivolous mockery of what is most sacred, and glorification
of sensual pleasure. At the same time, however, wise sayings, serious
reflections and mystic speculations made their way into the originally
sober and realistic poetry of the Arabs. The place of the first natural
freshness of representation was now taken by a wearisome play on
thoughts and sentiments, and even on mere words, metres and rhymes.
2. The unpleasant Abu-l-Atahia (748–828), in his effeminate poetry, is
nearly always talking about unhappy love and a longing for death. He
gives expression to his wisdom in the following couplet:
“The mind guide thou with cautious hesitation:
’Gainst sin use the best shield, Renunciation”.
Whoever possesses any faculty for appreciating life and the poetry of
Nature will find little to enjoy in his world-renouncing songs; and
just as little satisfaction will be afforded him in the verses of
Mutanabbi (905–965), frightfully tedious in their contents, although
epigrammatic in their form. And yet Mutanabbi has been praised as the
greatest Arabic poet.
In like manner people have unduly extolled Abu-l-Ala al-Maarri
(973–1058) as a philosophic poet. His occasionally quite respectable
sentiments and sensible views are not philosophy, nor does the affected
though often hackneyed expression of these amount to poetry. Under more
favourable conditions,—for he was blind and not surpassingly rich,—this
man might perhaps have rendered some service in the subordinate walks
of criticism as a philologist or a historical writer. But, in place of
an enthusiastic acceptance of life’s duties, he is led to preach the
joyless abandonment of them, and to grumble generally at political
conditions, the opinions of the orthodox multitude, and the scientific
assertions of the learned, without being able himself to advance
anything positive. He is almost entirely wanting in the gift of
combination. He can analyse, but he does not hit upon any synthesis,
and his learning bears no fruit. The tree of his knowledge has its
roots in the air, as he himself confesses in one of his letters, though
in a different sense. He leads a life of strict celibacy and
vegetarianism, as becomes a pessimist. As he puts it in his poems “all
is but an idle toy: Fate is blind; and Time spares neither the king who
partakes of the joys of life, nor the devout man who spends his nights
in watching and prayer. Nor does irrational belief solve for us the
enigma of existence. Whatever is behind those moving heavens remains
hidden from us for ever: Religions, which open up a prospect there,
have been fabricated from motives of self-interest. Sects and factions
of all kinds are utilized by the powerful to make their dominion
secure, though the truth about these matters can only be whispered. The
wisest thing then is to keep aloof from the world, and to do good
disinterestedly, and because it is virtuous and noble to do so, without
any outlook for reward”.
Other literary men had a more practical philosophy, and could make
their weight more felt in the world. They subscribed to the wise
doctrine of the Theatre-Manager in Goethe’s Faust: “He who brings much,
will something bring to many”. The most perfect type of this species is
Hariri (1054–1122), whose hero, the beggar and stroller, Abu Zaid of
Serug, teaches as the highest wisdom:
“Hunt, instead of being hunted;
All the world’s a wood for hunting.
If the falcon should escape you,
Take, content, the humble bunting:
If you finger not the dinars,
Coppers still are worth the counting” [13].
3. The Annalistic of the ancient Arabs, like their Poetry, was
distinguished by a clear perception of particulars, but was incapable
of taking a general grasp of events. With the vast extension of the
empire their view was necessarily widened. First a great mass of
material was gathered together. Their historical and geographical
knowledge was advanced by means of journeys undertaken to collect
traditions, or for purposes of administration and trade, or simply to
satisfy curiosity, more than it could have been by mere religious
pilgrimages. Characteristic methods of research, brought to bear upon
the value of tradition as a source of our knowledge, were elaborated.
With the same subtlety which they displayed in Grammar, they portioned
out, in endless division and subdivision, the extended field of their
observation, in a fashion more truly ‘arabesque’ than lucid; and in
this way they formed a logic of history which must have appeared to an
oriental eye much finer than the Aristotelian Organon with its austere
structure. Their tradition,—in authenticating which they were, as a
rule, less particular in practice than in theory,—was by many made
equal in value to the evidence of the senses, and preferred to the
judgment of the reason, which so easily admitted fallacious inferences.
There were always people, however, who impartially handed down
contradictory reports, alongside of one another. Others, although
exhibiting consideration for the feelings and requirements of the
present, did not withhold their more or less well-founded judgment on
the past, for it is often easier to be discerning in matters of history
than in the affairs of the living world.
New subjects of enquiry came up, together with new modes of treatment.
Geography included somewhat of Natural Philosophy, for example in the
geography of climate; while historical composition brought within the
range of its description intellectual life, belief, morals, literature
and science. Acquaintance also with other lands and nations invited
comparison on many points; and thus an international, humanistic or
cosmopolitan element was introduced.
4. A representative of the humanistic attitude of mind is met with in
Masudi, who died about the year 956. He appreciates, and is interested
in, everything that concerns humanity. Everywhere he is learning
something from the men he meets with: and in consequence the reading of
books, which occupies his privacy, is not without fruit. But it is
neither the narrow, everyday practices of life and religion, nor the
airy speculations of Philosophy, that specially appeal to him. He knows
where his strength lies; and up to the last, when he is spending his
old age in Egypt, far from his native home, he finds his
consolation,—the medicine of his soul,—in the study of History. History
for him is the all-embracing science: it is his philosophy; and its
task is to set forth the truth of that which was and is. Even the
wisdom of the world, together with its development, becomes the subject
of History; and without it all knowledge would long since have
disappeared. For learned men come and go; but History records their
intellectual achievements, and thereby restores the connection between
the past and the present. It gives us unprejudiced information about
events and about the views of men. Of course Masudi leaves it often to
the intelligent reader to find out for himself the due synthesis of the
facts and the individual opinion of the author.
A successor of his, the geographer Maqdasi, or Muqaddasi, who wrote in
the year 985, deserves to be mentioned with high commendation. He
journeyed through many countries, and exercised the most varied
callings, in order to acquaint himself with the life of his time. He is
a true Abu Zaid of Serug (cf. II, 4 § 2), but one with an object before
him.
He sets to work in critical fashion, and holds to the knowledge which
is gained by research and enquiry, not by faith in tradition or by mere
deductions of the reason. The geographical statements in the Koran he
explains by the limited intellectual horizon of the ancient Arabs, to
which Allah must have seen fit to adapt himself.
He describes then, sine ira et studio, the countries and races he has
seen with own eyes. His plan is to set down, in the first place,
results gathered from his own experience and observation; next, what he
has heard from trustworthy people; and last of all what he has met with
in books. The following sentences are extracted from his
characterization of himself.
“I have given instruction in the common subjects of education and
morals: I have come forward as a preacher, and I have made the minaret
of the mosque resound with the call to prayer. I have been present at
the meetings of the learned and the devotions of the pious. I have
partaken of broth with Sufis, gruel with monks, and ship’s-fare with
sailors. Many a time I have been seclusion itself, and then again I
have eaten forbidden fruit against my better judgment. I associated
with the hermits of Lebanon, and in turn I lived at the court of the
Prince. In wars I have participated: I have been detained as a captive
and thrown into prison as a spy. Powerful princes and ministers have
lent me their ear, and anon I have joined a band of robbers, or sat as
a retail-dealer in the bazaar. I have enjoyed much honour and
consideration, but I have likewise been fated to listen to many curses
and to be reduced to the ordeal of the oath, when I was suspected of
heresy or evil deeds”.
We are accustomed at the present day to picture to ourselves the
Oriental as a being who, in contemplative repose, is completely bound
to his ancestral faith and usages. This representation is not quite
correct, but still it agrees better with the situation which now exists
than it does with the disposition of Islam in the first four centuries,
for during that period it was inclined to take into its possession not
only the outward advantages of the world, but also the intellectual
acquisitions of Mankind.
III. THE PYTHAGOREAN PHILOSOPHY.
1. Natural Philosophy.
1. Euclid and Ptolemy, Hippocrates and Galen, some portion of
Aristotle, and, in addition, an abundant Neo-Platonic
Literature,—indicate the elements of Arabic Natural Philosophy. It is a
popular philosophy, which, chiefly through the instrumentality of the
Sabaeans of Harran, found acceptance with the Shiʻites and other sects,
and which in due course impressed not only court circles, but also a
large body of educated and half-educated people. Stray portions of it
were taken from the writings of the “Logician”,—Aristotle,—e.g. from
the “Meteorology”, from the work “On the Universe”, which has been
attributed to him, from the “Book of Animals”, from the “Psychology”,
and so on; but its general character was determined by
Pythagorean-Platonic teaching, by the Stoics, and by subsequent
astrologers and alchemists. Human curiosity and piety were fain to read
the secrets of the Deity in the book of his Creation, and they
proceeded in this search far beyond practical requirements, which
merely called for a little arithmetic to serve in the division of
inheritances and in trade, and a little astronomy besides, to determine
the proper times for celebrating the functions of religion. Men
hastened to gather wisdom from every quarter, and in so doing they
manifested a conviction, which Masudi accurately expressed, when he
said: “Whatever is good should be recognized, whether it is found in
friend or foe”. Indeed Ali, the prince of believers, is reported to
have said: “The wisdom of the world is the believer’s strayed sheep:
take it back, even though it come from the unbelieving”.
2. Pythagoras is the presiding genius of Mathematical study in Islam.
Greek and Indian elements are mingled in it, it is true, but everything
is regarded from a Neo-Pythagorean point of view. Without studying such
branches of Mathematics, as Arithmetic and Geometry, Astronomy and
Music, no one, they said, becomes a philosopher or an educated
physician. The Theory of Numbers,—prized more highly than Mensuration,
because it appeals less to the outward vision, and should bring the
mind nearer the essence of things,—gave occasion to the most
extravagant puerilities. God is, of course, the great Unity, from whom
everything proceeds, who himself is no number, but who is the First
Cause of Number. But above all, the number Four,—the number of the
elements and so on,—was held in high favour by the philosophers; and
by-and-by nothing in heaven or earth was spoken of or written about,
except in sentences of four clauses and in discourses under four heads.
The transition from Mathematics to Astronomy and Astrology was rapid
and easy. The old Eastern methods, which came into their hands,
continued to be applied even by the court-astrologers of the Omayyads,
but with still greater thoroughness at the Abbasid court. In this way
they arrived at speculations which ran counter to the revealed Faith,
and which therefore could never be approved of by the guardians of
religion. The only antithesis which existed for the Believer was—God
and the World, or this life and the next; but for the Astrologer there
were two worlds, one of the Heavens and another of the Earth, while God
and the life beyond were in the far distance. According to the
different conceptions entertained of the relation which subsisted
between the heavenly bodies and sublunary things, either a rational
Astronomy was developed, or a fantastic Astrology. Only a few kept
entirely free from Astrological delusions. As long, in fact, as the
science was dominated by the Ptolemaic system, it was easier for the
completely uneducated man to jeer at what was absurd in it than it was
for the learned investigator to disprove the same. For the latter
indeed this earth with its forms of life was a product of the forces of
the heavens, a reflection of celestial light, an echo of the eternal
harmony of the Spheres. Those then who ascribed conception and will to
the Spirits of the stars and spheres, held them as the representatives
of Divine providence, and thus traced to their agency both what is good
and what is evil, seeking also to foretell future events from the
situation of their orbs, by means of which they bring their influence
to bear upon earthly things in accordance with steadfast laws. Others,
it is true, had their doubts about this secondary providence, on
grounds of experience and reason, or from the Peripatetic belief that
the blessed existences of the heavens are Spirits of pure intellect,
exalted above conception and will, and in consequence above all
particularity that appeals to the senses, so that their providential
influence is directed only to the good of the whole, but never can have
reference to any individual occurrence.
3. In the domain of Natural Science Muslim learned men collected a rich
body of material; but hardly in any case did they succeed in really
treating it scientifically. In the separate Natural sciences, the
development of which we cannot follow up in this place, they clung to
traditional systems. To establish the wisdom of God and the operations
of Nature,—which was regarded as a power or emanation of the
World-Soul,—alchemistic experiments were instituted, the magical
virtues of talismans tested, the effects of Music upon the emotions of
men and animals investigated, and observations made on physiognomy,
while attempts were also set on foot to explain the wonders of the life
of sleep and of dreams, as well as those of soothsaying and prophecy,
&c. As might be expected, the centre of interest was Man, as the
Microcosm which must combine in itself all the elements and powers of
the world together. The essential part of Man’s being was held to be
the Soul; and its relation to the World-Soul, and its future lot were
made subjects of enquiry. There was also a good deal of speculation
about the faculties of the soul and their localization in the heart and
the brain. One or two adhered to Galen, but others went farther than he
did, and made out five inner senses corresponding to the five outer
ones,—a theory which, along with similar natural mysteries, was traced
to Apollonius of Tyana.
Obviously the most diverse attitudes towards religious doctrine were
possible in the study of Mathematical and Physical Science. But the
propaedeutic sciences, as soon as they came forward on their own
account, were always dangerous to the Faith. The assumption of the
eternity of the world, and of an uncreated matter in motion from all
eternity,—was readily combined with Astronomy. And if the movement of
the Heavens is eternal, so too are, no doubt, the changes which take
place on earth. All the kingdoms of Nature then, according to many
teachers, being eternal, the race of man is eternal also, wheeling
round and round in an orbit of its own. There is therefore nothing new
in the world: the views and ideas of men repeat themselves like
everything else. All that can possibly be done, maintained or known,
has already been and will again be.
Admirable discourse and lamentation were expended upon this theme,
without much advancing thereby the interests of Science.
4. The science of Medicine, which on obvious grounds was favoured by
the ruling powers, appears to have proved somewhat more useful. Its
interests furnished one of the reasons, and not the least considerable,
which induced the Caliphs to commission so many men to translate Greek
authors. It is therefore not to be wondered at that the teachings of
Mathematics and Natural Science, together with Logic, also affected
Medicine intimately. The old-fashioned doctor was disposed to be
satisfied with time-honoured magical formulae, and other empirical
expedients; but modern society in the ninth century required
philosophical knowledge in the physician. He had to know the “natures”
of foods, stimulants or luxuries, and medicaments, the humours of the
body, and in every case the influence of the stars. The physician was
brother to the astrologer, whose knowledge commanded his respect,
because it had a more exalted object than medical practice. He had to
attend the lectures of the alchemist, and to practise his art in
accordance with the methods of Mathematics and Logic. It was not enough
for the fanatics of education in the ninth century that a man had to
speak, believe and behave in accordance with Qiyas,—that is to say,
with logical correctness: he must, over and above, submit to be treated
medically in accordance with Qiyas. The principles of Medicine were
discussed in learned assemblies at the court of Wathik (842–847) like
the foundations of Doctrine and Morals. The question, in fact, was
asked, prompted by a work of Galen’s, whether Medicine relies upon
tradition, experience or rational knowledge, or whether on the other
hand it derives its support from the principles of Mathematics and
Natural Science by means of logical deduction (Qiyas).
5. The Natural Philosophy, which has just been rapidly sketched,
actually stood for Philosophy with the most of the scholars of the
ninth century, as contrasted with theological dialectic, and was styled
Pythagorean. It lasted even into the tenth century, when its most
important representative was the famous physician Razi († 923 or 932).
Born in Rai he received a mathematical education and studied Medicine
and Natural Philosophy with great diligence. He was averse to dialectic
and was only acquainted with Logic as far as the categorical figures of
the First Analytics. After having practised as director of the hospital
in his native city and in Bagdad, he entered upon his travels and
resided at various princely courts, amongst others at the court of the
Samanid Mansur ibn Ishaq, to whom he dedicated a work on Medicine.
Razi has a high opinion of the medical profession and of the study
which it demands. The wisdom of a thousand years, contained in books,
he prizes more than the experiences of the individual man gained in one
short life, but he prefers even these to deductions of the “Logicians”
which have not been tested by experience.
He thinks that the relation between the body and the soul is determined
by the soul. And seeing that in this way the circumstances and
sufferings of the soul admit of being discerned by means of the
physiognomy, the medical man has to be at the same time a physician of
the soul. Therefore he drew up a system of spiritual medicine,—a kind
of Dietetic of the Soul. The precepts of Muslim law, like the
prohibition of wine, and so on, gave him no concern, but his
freethinking seems to have led him into pessimism. In fact he found
more evil than good in the world, and described inclination as the
absence of disinclination.
High though the value was which Razi put upon Aristotle and Galen, he
did not give himself any special trouble to gain a more profound
comprehension of their works. He was a devoted student of Alchemy,
which in his view was a true art, based on the existence of a primeval
matter,—an art indispensable to philosophers, and which, he believed,
had been practised by Pythagoras, Democritus, Plato, Aristotle and
Galen. In opposition to Peripatetic teaching he assumed that the body
contained in itself the principle of movement, a thought which might
certainly have proved a fruitful one in Natural Science, if it had been
recognized and farther developed.
Razi’s Metaphysic starts from old doctrines, which his contemporaries
ascribed to Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Mani and others. At the apex of his
system stand five co-eternal principles,—the Creator, the Universal
Soul, the First or Primeval matter, Absolute Space, and Absolute Time
or Eternal Duration. In these the necessary conditions of the actually
existing world are given. The individual sense-perceptions, generally,
presuppose an existing Matter, just as the grouping of different
perceived objects postulates Space. Perceptions of change farther
constrain us to assume the condition of Time. The existence of living
beings leads us to recognize a Soul; and the fact that some of these
living beings are endowed with Reason, i.e.—have the faculty of
bringing the Arts to the highest perfection,—necessitates our belief in
a wise Creator, whose Reason has ordered everything for the best.
Notwithstanding the eternity of his five principles, Razi thus speaks
of a Creator and even gives a story of Creation. First then a simple,
pure, spiritual Light was created, the material of Souls, which are
simple, spiritual substances, of the nature of Light. That
Light-material or Upper-world, from which souls descended, is also
called Reason, or Light of the Light of God. The Light is followed by
the Shadow, from which the Animal Soul is created, for the service of
the Rational Soul. But simultaneously with the simple, spiritual light,
there existed from the first a composite form, which is Body, from the
shadow of which now issue the four “natures”, Warmth and Cold, Dryness
and Moistness. From these four natures at last are formed all heavenly
and earthly bodies. The whole process, however, is in operation from
all eternity, without beginning in time, for God was never inactive.
That Razi was an astrologer is plain from his own utterances. The
heavenly bodies consist indeed, according to him, of the same elements
as earthly things, and the latter are continually exposed to the
influences of the former.
6. Razi had to maintain a polemical attitude in two directions. On the
one side he impugned the Muslim Unity of God, which could not bear to
be associated with any eternal soul, matter, space or time; and on the
other side he attacked the Dahrite system, which does not acknowledge
any Creator of the world. This system, which is frequently mentioned by
Muslim authors, with due aversion of course, appears to have found
numerous representatives, though none of any importance. The adherents
of the ‘Dahr’ (v. I, 2, § 2) are represented to us as Materialists,
Sensualists, Atheists, Believers in the transmigration of souls, and so
on; but we learn nothing more definite about their doctrines. In any
case the Dahrites had no need to trace all that exists to a principle
which was of spiritual essence and creative efficiency. Muslim
Philosophy, on the other hand, did stand in need of such a principle,
if it should only conform in some degree to the teaching of the faith.
Natural Philosophy was not suited for the furtherance of this object,
as it showed more interest in the manifold and often contrary
operations of Nature than in the One Cause of all. Such aim was better
attained by Neo-Platonic Aristotelianism, whose logico-metaphysical
speculations endeavoured to trace all existence to one highest
existence, or to derive all things from one supreme operative
principle. But before we attend to this direction of thought, which
commenced to appear even in the ninth century, we have still to give
some account of an attempt to blend Natural Philosophy and the
teachings of the Faith into a Philosophy of Religion.
2. The Faithful Brethren of Basra.
1. In the East, where every religion formed a State within the State, a
political party invariably made its appearance in the additional
character of a religious sect, just to gain adherents in some way or
other. As a matter of principle indeed, Islam knew no distinction
between men,—no caste or social standing. But property and education
have the same influence everywhere; and in their train degrees of piety
and stages of knowledge began to be set up, according as a community or
party permitted of adjustment. Thus there arose secret societies having
different grades, of which the highest and perhaps the next highest
possessed an esoteric doctrine, which borrowed a good deal from the
Natural Philosophy of the Neo-Pythagoreans. In furtherance of their
object, which was to conquer political power, every expedient was
regarded as lawful. For the initiated the Koran was explained
allegorically. They traced their mystic lore, it is true, back to
prophets with Biblical and Koranic names, but heathen philosophers were
at the bottom of it all. Philosophy was completely transformed into a
mythology of politics. The high intelligences and souls, which
theoretic thinkers had recognized in the stars and planets, embodied
themselves in human beings for the work of actual Politics; and it was
declared to be a religious duty to assist these embodied intelligences
in the establishment of an earthly kingdom of righteousness. The
associations which acted in this way may best be compared to societies,
which up to the days of Saint-Simonism and kindred phenomena in last
century were wont to appear in countries where freedom of thought was
restricted.
In the second half of the ninth century Abdallah ibn Maimun, head of
the Karmatite party, was the originator of a movement of this kind. He
was a Persian oculist, trained in the school of the Natural
Philosophers. He proved able to associate both believers and
freethinkers in a confederacy to endeavour to compass the overthrow of
the Abbasid government. To the one set he was a conjurer, to the other
a pious ascetic or learned philosopher. His colours were white, because
his religion was that of the pure light, to which the soul was to
ascend after its earthly wanderings. The duties inculcated were
contempt for the body, disregard of the Material, community of goods
for all the confederate brethren, as well as self-surrender to the
confederacy, and fidelity and obedience to their chiefs, even to
death,—for the society had its grades. In accordance with the sequence
of existence, viz., God, Reason, Soul, Space and Time, they conceived
the revelation of God to be made in history and in the constitution of
their own brotherhood.
2. The chief homes of Karmatite activity were Basra and Kufa. Now we
find in Basra in the second half of the tenth century a small
association of men, whose confederacy aims at having four grades. We do
not know, to be sure, how far the brethren succeeded in realizing the
ideal organization of their confederacy. To the first grade belong
young men of from 15 to 30 years of age, whose souls are being formed
in the natural way: these must be completely submissive to their
teachers. The second grade,—from 30 to 40 years of age—are introduced
to secular wisdom, and receive an analogical knowledge of things. In
the third grade,—from 40 to 50 years of age—the Divine law of the world
becomes known in more adequate form: that constitutes the stage of the
prophets. Finally, in the highest grade, when one is over 50 years old,
he comes to see the true reality of things, just like the blessed
angels: he is exalted then above Nature, Doctrine and Law.
From this brotherhood there has come down to us a
progressively-advancing Encyclopaedia of the Sciences of that day. It
consists of 51 (originally perhaps 50) treatises, the contents of which
are of such varied nature and origin that the redactors or compilers
have not succeeded in establishing a complete harmony among them. In
general, however, there is found in this Encyclopaedia an eclectic
Gnosticism built on a foundation of Natural Science, and provided with
a political background. The scheme sets out with mathematical
considerations, continually playing with numbers and letters, and
proceeds through Logic and Physics,—referring everything, however, to
the Soul and its powers,—in order to approach at last, in a mystical
and magical fashion, the knowledge of the Godhead. The whole
representation is that of the doctrine of a persecuted sect, with the
political features peeping out here and there. We see also something of
suffering and struggle,—something of the oppressions to which the men
of this Encyclopaedia or their predecessors were exposed, and something
of the hope they cherished and the patience they preached. They seek in
this spiritualistic philosophy, consolation or redemption: It is their
religion. ‘Faithful to death,’—so runs the expression—shall the
brethren be, for to meet death for a friend’s welfare, is the true Holy
war. In life’s pilgrimage through this world,—thus the obligatory
journey to Mecca is allegorized—, one must aid the other by all the
means in his power. The rich must communicate to others a share of
their material goods, and the wise a share of their intellectual
possessions. But yet knowledge, as we have it in the Encyclopaedia, was
probably reserved for initiated members of the highest grade.
It must be allowed, however, that this confraternity of the Faithful
Brethren of Basra seems to have led a quiet existence, as perhaps was
the case also with a branch-settlement of theirs in Bagdad. The
relation of the Brethren to the Karmatites may have resembled that of
the more peaceful Baptists to the revolutionary Anabaptists of the
‘King of Sion’. [14]
The names of the following have been given to us by later writers, as
having been members of the Brotherhood and collaborators of the
Encyclopaedia, viz.: Abu Sulaiman Mohammed ibn Mushir al-Busti, called
al-Muqaddasi; Abu-l-Hasan Ali ibn Harun al-Zandjani; Mohammed ibn
Akhmed al-Nahradjuri; Al-Aufi and Zaid ibn Rifaa. In the time of their
activity the Caliphate had already been forced to make an entire
surrender of its secular power into the hands of the Shiʻite dynasty of
the Buyids. Probably this circumstance was favourable to the appearance
of an Encyclopaedia, in which Shiʻite and Mutazilite doctrines together
with the results of Philosophy were comprehended in one popular system.
3. The Brethren themselves avow their eclecticism. They wish to collect
the wisdom of all nations and religions. Noah and Abraham, Socrates and
Plato, Zoroaster and Jesus, Mohammed and Ali are all prophets of
theirs. Socrates, and Jesus and his apostles, no less than the children
of Ali, are honoured as holy martyrs of their rational faith. The
religious law in its literal sense is pronounced good for the ordinary
man,—a medicine for weak and ailing souls: the deeper philosophic
insight is for strong intelligences. Though the body is devoted to
death, dying means rising again to the pure life of the Spirit, for
those who during their earthly existence have been awakened by means of
philosophic considerations out of careless slumber and foolish sleep.
This is impressed with endless repetition, by means of legends and
myths of later-Greek, Judaeo-Christian, Persian or Indian origin. Every
transitory thing is here turned into an emblem. On the ruins of
positive religion and unsophisticated opinion a spiritualistic
philosophy is built up, embracing all the knowledge and endeavour of
human kind, so far as these came within the Brethren’s field of view.
The aim of their philosophizing is given as ‘the assimilation of the
soul to God, in the degree possible for man’.
In this scheme, the negative tendencies of the Brethren, are kept
somewhat in the background, for reasons which are quite intelligible.
But their criticism of human society and of positive religions is
exhibited with least reserve in the ‘Book of the Animal and the Man’,
in which the figurative dress makes it possible for them to represent
animals as saying what might he questionable if heard from a human
mouth.
4. The eclectic character of the scheme, and the far from systematic
method adopted in its subdivisions render it difficult to give a
coherent exposition of the philosophy of the Brethren. But still the
most important tenets, though sometimes loosely connected, must here be
set forth with a measure of order.
The mental activity of Man falls to be divided, according to the
Encyclopaedia, into Art and Science. Now Science or Knowledge is the
form assumed within the knowing soul by that which is known, or a
higher, finer, more intellectual mode of existence of whatever is
realized in outward substance. Art on the other hand consists in
projecting the form from the artist-soul into matter. Knowledge is
potentially present in the soul of the disciple, but it becomes actual
only through the teaching activity of a master, who carries knowledge
as a reality within his own mind. But whence did it come to the first
master? The Brethren answer, that according to the philosophers he
gained it by his own reflection, while, according to the theologians,
he received it through prophetic illumination; “but in our view there
are various ways or instrumentalities by which knowledge may be
attained. From the intermediate position of the soul, between the
worlds of body and of mind it results that there are open to it three
ways or sources of knowledge. Thus by means of the senses the soul is
made acquainted with what is beneath it, and through logical inference
with what is above it, and finally with itself by rational
consideration or direct intuition. Of these kinds of knowledge the
surest and the most deserving of preference is knowledge of one’s self.
When human knowledge attempts to go farther than this, it proves itself
to be limited in many ways. Therefore one must not philosophize
straight away about questions like the origin or the eternity of the
world, but make his first essays with what is simpler. And only through
renunciation of the world, and righteous conduct, does the soul lift
itself gradually up to the pure knowledge of the Highest.”
5. After secular instruction in Grammar, Poetry and History, and after
religious education and doctrine, philosophic study should begin with
the mathematical branches. Here everything is set forth in
Neo-Pythagorean and Indian fashion. Not only numbers but even the
letters of the alphabet are employed in childish trifling. It was
particularly convenient for the Brethren that the number of letters in
the Arabic alphabet is 28, or 4 multiplied by 7. Instead of proceeding
according to practical and real points of view, they give the rein to
fancy in all the sciences, in accordance with grammatical analogies and
relations of numbers. Their Arithmetic does not investigate Number as
such, but rather its significance. No search is made for any more
suitable mode of expressing number in the case of phenomena; but things
are themselves explained in accordance with the system of numbers. The
Theory of number is Divine wisdom, and is above Things, for things are
only formed after the pattern of numbers. The absolute principle of all
existence and thought is the number One. The science of number,
therefore, is found at the beginning, middle, and end of all
philosophy. Geometry, with its figures addressing the eye, serves
merely to make it more easily understood by beginners, but Arithmetic
alone is true and pure science. And yet Geometry too is divided into a
sensible form of it which deals with lines, surfaces and solids, and a
pure or spiritual form which treats of the dimensions or properties of
things, such as length, breadth and depth. The object both of
Arithmetic and Geometry is to conduct the soul from the sensible to the
spiritual.
First of all then they lead us to consider the stars. Now the
Encyclopaedia offers us, in its Astrology,—and nothing else could be
expected—teaching which is exceedingly fantastic and sometimes
self-contradictory. The whole of it is pervaded by the conviction that
the stars not merely foretell the future, but directly influence or
bring about every thing that happens beneath the moon. Fortune and
misfortune come equally from them. Jupiter, Venus and the Sun bring
fortune; misfortune is brought, on the other hand, by Saturn, Mars and
the Moon; while the effects produced by the planet Mercury have in them
both bad and good. Mercury is the lord of education and science: we owe
to him our knowledge, which comprises bad and good. In the same way too
the other planets have all their several spheres of influence; and man
in the course of life, if he is not prematurely snatched away,
experiences successively the influences of the whole of the heavenly
bodies. The Moon causes his body to grow and Mercury forms his mind.
Then he comes under the sway of Venus. The Sun gives him family, riches
or dominion; Mars, bravery and noble-mindedness. Thereupon, under the
guidance of Jupiter, he prepares, by means of religious exercises, for
the journey to the world beyond, and he attains rest under the
influence of Saturn. Many men, however, do not live long enough, or are
not enabled by circumstances, to develope their natural capacities in
unbroken sequence. God therefore graciously sends them his prophets, by
whose teaching they may, even in a short time and under unfavourable
circumstances, form their natures completely.
6. According to the Encyclopaedia, Logic is related to Mathematics. In
fact just as Mathematics conducts from the sensible to the
intellectual, so Logic takes an intermediate position between Physics
and Metaphysics. In Physics we have to do with bodies; in Metaphysics,
with pure Spirits; but Logic treats of the ideas of the latter as well
as of the representations of the former in our soul. Yet in range and
importance Logic is inferior to Mathematics. For the subject of
Mathematics is regarded not merely as an intermediary, but also as the
essence of the All, while on the other hand Logic remains completely
restricted to psychic forms as an intermediary between body and mind.
Things are regulated by numbers, but our presentations and ideas by
things.
The logical observations of the Brethren start from Porphyry’s
Introduction, and the Categories, the Hermeneutics and the Analytics of
Aristotle. They present nothing original, or very little.
To the five terms of Porphyry, a sixth,—the ‘Individual’—is added, no
doubt for the sake of symmetry. Three of these,—Genus, Species,
Individual,—are then called Objective Qualifications and
three,—Difference, Property, Accident—Abstract or Conceptional
Qualifications. The Categories are Genus-conceptions, of which the
first is Substance, the other nine denoting its Accidents. The whole
system of Concepts is farther developed by a division into species. But
besides Division, there are three additional logical methods in use:
Analysis, Definition and Deduction. Analysis is the method for
beginners, because it permits a knowledge of what is individual. More
subtle, however, as disclosing to us what is spiritual,—are Definition
and Deduction, the former investigating the essential nature of
Species, and the latter that of Genera. The Senses apprise us of the
existence of things; but acquaintance with the essence of things is
gained by reflection. The information which is conveyed to us by the
senses is small, as it were the letters of the alphabet. Of greater
importance considerably are the principles of rational knowledge, just
as words have more significance than letters; but the most important
knowledge of all, lies in the propositions which have been derived from
those principles, and which the human mind gains for itself or
appropriates, in contradistinction to that knowledge which Nature or
the Divine revelation has imparted to it.
7. From God, the highest Being, who is exalted above all distinctions
and oppositions both of the Material and the Spiritual, the whole world
is derived by the path of Emanation. If now and again a Creation is
spoken of, that is only to be understood as a form of adaptation to
theological language. The gradation then of the Emanations is exhibited
as follows: 1. The Creative Spirit (νοῦς, ʻaql); 2. The Passive Spirit,
or the All-Soul or World-Soul; 3. The First Material; 4. The Operative
Nature, a power of the World-Soul; 5. The Absolute Body, called also,
the Second Material; 6. The World of the Spheres; 7. The Elements of
the Sublunary World; 8. The Minerals, Plants and Animals composed of
these elements. These then are the eight Essences which,—together with
God, the Absolute One, who is in everything and with
everything—complete the series of Original Essences corresponding to
the nine Cardinal Numbers.
Spirit, Soul, Original Matter, and Nature are simple; but with Body we
enter the realm of the Composite. Here all is composed of Matter and
Form, or,—to adopt another principle of division,—of Substance and
Accident. The first Substances are Matter and Form; the first Accidents
or Properties, Space, Motion and Time, to which in the opinion of the
Brethren may perhaps be added Tone and Light. Matter is one; all
plurality and diversity come from the Forms. Substance is designated
also as the constitutive, material Form, while Accident is the
completing, spiritual Form. The Encyclopaedia does not express itself
clearly on these points. But in any case Substantiality is looked for
rather in the Universal than in the Particular, and Form is put before
Matter. The Substantial Form, like a spectre, frightens off every
attempt of the philosopher to investigate thoroughly the domain of the
Material. The Forms wander at their own sweet will like lords through
the lower world of Matter. No trace is discoverable of any inner
relation between Matter and Form. Not only in thought, but also in
reality they keep themselves separate.
From the account which has been given an idea may now be formed of the
story of Nature as the Brethren viewed it. They have been represented
as the Darwinists of the tenth century, but nothing could more
inappropriate. The various realms of Nature, it is true, yield
according to the Encyclopaedia an ascending and connected series; but
the relation is determined not by bodily structure, but by the inner
Form or Soul-Substance. The Form wanders in mystic fashion from the
lower to the higher and vice versa, not in accordance with inner laws
of formation, or modified to suit external conditions, but in
accordance with the influences of the stars, and, in the case of Man at
least, in accordance with practical and theoretical behaviour. To give
a history of Evolution in the modern sense of the term was very far
from the thought of the Brethren. For example they expressly insist
that the horse and the elephant resemble Man more than the ape does,
although the bodily likeness is greater in the last-named. In fact in
their system the body is a matter of quite secondary consideration: the
death of the body is called the birth of the soul. The soul alone is an
efficient existence, which procures the body for itself.
8. The teaching of the Brethren concerning Nature is therefore merged
almost completely in Psychology. Let us confine ourselves here to the
human soul. It stands in the centre of the All; and just as the World
is a huge man, Man is a little world.
The human soul has emanated from the World-soul; and the souls of all
individuals taken together constitute a substance which might be
denominated the Absolute Man or the Spirit of Humanity. Every
individual soul, however, is involved in Matter, and must gradually be
formed into spirit. To that end it possesses many faculties or powers,
and of these the speculative faculties are the choicest, for knowledge
is the very life of the soul.
The soul of the child is at first like a white sheet of paper. What the
five senses convey to it is first presented, then judged, and lastly
stored up, in the front, middle, and hinder parts of the brain
respectively. Through the faculty of speech and the art of writing,
which make up the number of the internal senses to five, corresponding
to the number of the External, the contents of Presentation are then
realized.
Among the external senses, Hearing takes precedence of Sight; for
Sight, a mere slave of the moment, is occupied with what is actually
present to the sense, whereas Hearing apprehends also what is past, and
is conscious of the harmony of the tuneful spheres. Hearing and Sight
constitute the group of the intellectual senses, whose effect must
continue time without end.
While Man then possesses the external senses in common with the lower
animals, the specific nature of human reason is notified in Judgment,
Speech and Action. Reason judges of good and bad, and in conformity
with that judgment the will is determined. But in particular the
significance which Language has for the soul’s life of cognition is to
be emphasised. A concept which cannot be denoted by some expression in
some language is not thinkable at all. The word is the body of the
thought, which cannot exist absolutely per se.
But it is difficult to see how this understanding of the relation
between concept and expression is to square with other opinions of the
Brethren.
9. At its highest stage the teaching of the Brethren becomes a
Philosophy of Religion. Its purpose is a reconciliation between Science
and Life, Philosophy and Faith. Now in these matters men differ
greatly. The ordinary man requires a sensuous worship of God; but just
as the souls of animals and plants are beneath the soul of the ordinary
man, so above it are the souls of the philosopher and the prophet with
whom the pure angel is associated. In the higher stages the soul is
raised also above the lower popular religion with its sensuous
conceptions and usages.
No doubt Christianity and the Zoroastrian faith appeared to the
Brethren to be more perfect religious revelations. ‘Our Prophet,
Mohammed’, they said, ‘was sent to an uncivilized people, composed of
dwellers in the desert, who neither possessed a proper conception of
the beauty of this world, nor of the spiritual character of the world
beyond. The crude expressions of the Koran, which are adapted to the
understanding of that people, must be understood in a spiritual sense
by those who are more cultured’.
But the truth is not presented in its purity even in the other national
religions. There is a rational faith above them all for which the
Brethren moreover tried to find a metaphysical derivation. Between God
and his first creature, the Creative Spirit, there is interposed by way
of hypostasis the Divine World-Law (nâmûs). That World-Law extends over
everything, and is the wise arrangement of a merciful Creator, who
intends evil to no one. Belief in a God of Anger, in the punishment of
Hell and the like, the Brethren declare to be irrational. Such a faith
does harm to the soul. The ignorant sinful soul finds its hell even in
this life and in its own body. On the other hand, Resurrection is the
separation of the soul from its body, and the great Resurrection at the
last day is the separation of the Universal soul from the world, and
its return to God. This turning to God indeed is the aim in all
religions.
10. The ethical system of the Brethren has an ascetic, spiritualistic
character, although here too their eclecticism is shewn. According to
it man is acting rightly, when he follows his proper nature;
‘praiseworthy is the free act of the soul; admirable are the actions
which have proceeded from rational consideration; and lastly, obedience
to the Divine World-Law is worthy of the reward of being raised to the
celestial world of spheres. But this requires longing for what is
above; and therefore the highest virtue is Love, which strives after
union with God, the first loved one, and which is evinced even in this
life in the form of religious patience and forbearance with all created
beings. Such love gains in this life serenity of soul, freedom of heart
and peace with the whole world, and in the life to come ascension to
Eternal Light.’
After all this we need not wonder that the body was depreciated a good
deal. ‘Our true essence is the soul, and the highest aim of our
existence should be to live, with Socrates, devoted to the Intellect,
and with Christ, to the Law of Love. Nevertheless the body must be
properly treated and looked after in order that the soul may have time
to attain its full development.’ In this view the Brethren set up an
ideal type of human culture, whereof the features were borrowed from
the characteristics of various nations. ‘The ideal, and morally perfect
man, should be of East-Persian derivation, Arabic in faith, of Irak,
i.e. Babylonian, education, a Hebrew in astuteness, a disciple of
Christ in conduct, as pious as a Syrian Monk, a Greek in the individual
sciences, an Indian in the interpretation of all mysteries, but lastly
and especially, a Sufi in his whole spiritual life.’
11. The attempt to establish in this way a reconciliation between
knowledge and faith satisfied neither side. Theological dialecticians
looked down upon the interpretation of the Koran given by the Brethren,
just as the divines of our day look down upon the N. T. exegesis of
Count Tolstoi. And the more rigid Aristotelians regarded the
Pythagorean-Platonic tendency of the Encyclopaedia much as a modern
professor of philosophy is wont to look upon Spiritism, Occultism, and
phenomena of that nature. But the writings, or at any rate the
opinions, of the Faithful Brethren of Basra have exercised an important
influence on the great body of the educated or half-educated world,—an
influence to which eloquent attestation is borne by the very fact that
so many manuscripts, mostly of recent date, are to be met with, of this
extensive Encyclopaedia. Among many sects within the world of Islam,
such as the Batinites, the Ismaelites, the Assassins, the Druses, or
whatever may be their names, we find again the same doctrines in the
main. In this form Greek wisdom has best succeeded in making itself at
home in the East, while the Aristotelian School-Philosophy would only
thrive, with few exceptions, in the hothouse-cultivation bestowed upon
it at the courts of princely patrons. The great religious father,
Gazali, is ready enough to toss aside the wisdom of the Brethren as
mere popular philosophy, but he does not hesitate to take over what was
good in them. He owes more to their body of ideas than he would perhaps
have cared to avow. And their treatises have been turned to profit by
others besides, particularly in Encyclopaediac works. The influence of
the Encyclopaedia continues even yet in the Muslim East. In vain was it
burned in Bagdad in the year 1150, along with the writings of Ibn Sina.
IV. THE NEO-PLATONIC ARISTOTELIANS OF THE EAST.
1. Kindi. [15]
1. Kindi is related in various ways to the Mutazilite Dialecticians and
the Neo-Pythagorean Natural-Philosophers of his time, and we might
therefore have dealt with him among the latter, even before Razi (v.
III, 1, § 5). But yet tradition with one accord represents him as the
first Peripatetic in Islam. What justification exists for this
traditionary view will be seen in what follows, so far as an inference
can be drawn from the few and imperfectly-preserved writings of this
philosopher which have come down to us.
Abu Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (i.e. of the tribe of Kinda) was of
Arabian origin, and therefore was called the “Arabian” philosopher, to
distinguish him from the numerous non-Arab associates of his, who had
taken to the study of secular wisdom. He traced his genealogy to the
old Kinda princes, although whether he was entitled to do so we need
not seek to decide. The South-Arabian tribe of Kinda was in any case
farther advanced in outward civilization than other tribes. Many
Kindite families too had for long been settlers in Iraq (Babylonia);
and there, in the town of Kufa, of which his father was governor, our
philosopher was born, probably in the beginning of the ninth century.
He received his education, it would appear, partly in Basra, and
thereafter in Bagdad, and therefore in the headquarters of the culture
of his time. Here he came to put a higher value upon Persian
civilization and Greek wisdom than upon old Arab virtue and the Muslim
faith. He maintained even,—no doubt, following others—, that Kakhtan,
the ancestor of the South-Arabians was a brother of Yaunan’s, from whom
the Greeks were descended. It was possible to make an observation of
that kind in Bagdad at the Abbasid court, for there they knew of no
nationality, and regarded the ancient Greeks with admiration.
It is not known how long Kindi remained at court, or what position he
held there. He is mentioned as a translator of Greek works into Arabic,
and is said to have revised and improved translations made by others,
for example, in the case of the so-called “Theology of Aristotle”.
Numerous servants and disciples, whose names have been handed down to
us, were probably set to this work under his supervision. Farther, he
may have rendered services to the court in the capacity of astrologer
or physician, and perhaps even in the administration of the revenues.
But in later years he was dismissed, when he with others was made to
suffer from the restoration of orthodoxy under Mutawakkil (847–861);
and his library was for a long time confiscated. As regards personal
character, tradition reproaches him with having been niggardly,—a
stigma, however, which appears to have rested upon many other literary
men and lovers of books.
The year of Kindi’s death is as little known as that of his birth. He
appears thus to have been out of court-favour when he died, or at least
to have been in a subordinate position. It is strange that Masudi (v.
II, 4 § 4), who had a great regard for him, is utterly silent on this
point; but it seems in the highest degree probable from one of his
astrological treatises that he was still alive subsequent to the year
870. The expiry of some petty astronomical cycle was imminent at that
date, and this was being utilized by the Karmatites for the overthrow
of the reigning family. In this matter, however, Kindi was loyal enough
to make out the prolongation, for about 450 years, of the State’s
existence, menaced though it was by a planetary conjunction. His
princely patron might well be satisfied; and history conformed to the
time predicted, to within half-a-century. [16]
2. Kindi was a man of extraordinary erudition, a Polyhistor: he had
absorbed the whole learning and culture of his time. But although he
may have set down and communicated observations of his own as a
geographer, a historian of civilization and a physician, he was in no
respect a creative genius. His theological views bear a Mutazilite
stamp. He wrote specially on Man’s power of action, and the time of its
appearance, i.e. whether it was before the act or whether it was
synchronous with the act. The righteousness and the unity of God he
expressly emphasized. In opposition to the theory,—known at that time
as Indian or Brahmanic,—that Reason is the sole and sufficient source
of knowledge, he defended prophecy, while yet he sought to bring it
into harmony with reason. His acquaintance with various systems of
religion impelled him to compare them together, and he found as a
common element in them all the belief that the world was the work of a
First Cause, One and Eternal, for whom our knowledge furnishes us with
no more precise designation. It is however the duty of the discerning
to recognize this First Cause as divine; and God himself has shewn them
the way thereto, and has sent them ambassadors to bear witness for him,
who are instructed to promise everlasting bliss to the obedient, and to
threaten corresponding punishment to those who do not obey.
3. Kindi’s actual philosophy, like that of his contemporaries,
consists, first and especially, of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy,
in which Neo-Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism merge into one another.
According to him no one can be a philosopher without studying
Mathematics. Fanciful play upon letters and numbers is frequently met
with in his writings. Mathematics he also applied to Medicine in his
theory of the compound remedies. In fact he based the efficacy of these
remedies, like the effect of music, upon geometrical proportion. It is
here a matter of the proportionality of the sensible qualities, warm,
cold, dry and moist. If a remedy has to be warm in the first degree, it
must possess double the warmth of the equable mixture,—in the second
degree, four times as much, and so on. Kindi seems to have entrusted
the decision of this point to Sense, particularly to the sense of
Taste, so that in him we might have a hint of the proportional relation
existing between stimulus and sensation. Yet that view, though quite
original, was with him a mere piece of mathematical play. However,
Cardan, a philosopher of the Renaissance, on the ground of this
doctrine, reckoned him among the twelve most subtle-minded thinkers.
4. In Kindi’s opinion, as has already been said, the world is a work of
God, but His influence in its descent is transmitted through many
intermediate agencies. All higher existence affects the lower, but that
which is caused has no influence upon its cause, standing as this does
above it in the scale of Being. In all the events of the world there is
a pervading causality, which makes it possible for us, from our
knowledge of the cause, to foretell the future,—for example, of the
positions of the heavenly bodies. Farther, in any single existing
thing, if it is thoroughly known, we possess a mirror, in which we may
behold the entire scheme of things.
It is to the Spirit or Mind that the higher reality and all activity
belong, and matter has to dispose itself in conformity with the desire
of the Spirit. Midway between the Spirit of God and the material and
bodily world stands the Soul, and it is the Soul which first called
into being the world of the Spheres. From this Soul of the world the
Human Soul is an emanation. In its nature, that is, in its operations,
it is bound to the body with which it is united, but in its spiritual
essence it is independent of the body; and thus the influences of the
stars, which are limited to physical occurrences, do not affect it.
Kindi goes on to say that our Soul is an uncompounded, imperishable
substance, descended from the world of reason into that of the senses,
but endowed with a recollection of its earlier condition. It does not
feel at home here, for it has many needs, the satisfaction of which is
denied to it, and which consequently are attended with painful
emotions. Verily there is nothing constant in this world of coming and
going, in which we may be deprived at any moment of what we love. Only
in the world of reason is stability to be found. If then we desire to
see our wishes fulfilled, and would not be deprived of what is dear to
us, we must turn to the eternal blessings of reason, to the fear of
God, to science, and to good works. But if we follow merely after
material possessions in the belief that we can retain them, we are
pursuing an object which does not really exist.
5. Kindi’s theory of knowing corresponds to the ethical and
metaphysical duality of the sensible and the spiritual. According to it
our knowledge is either knowledge conveyed by the senses, or knowledge
acquired by the reason: that which lies between,—the Fancy or
Imagination,—is called a mediating faculty. The senses, then, apprehend
the Particular, or the material Form, but the reason conceives the
Universal,—species and genera, or the spiritual Form. And just as that
which is perceived is one with Sense-Perception, so too that which is
conceived by the reason is one with Reason itself.
Here then emerges for the first time the doctrine of the Reason or of
the Spirit or Mind, (νοῦς, ʻaql) in a form in which, merely modified
somewhat, it occupies a large space with the later Muslim philosophers.
It continued to be a characteristic feature of philosophy in Islam
throughout its whole course. And just as in the controversy regarding
Universals in the Christian Middle Ages an objective and scientific
interest is made evident also, so in the philosophical discussions of
the Muslims concerning the thinking Spirit, the subjective requirement
of intellectual culture is brought conspicuously to the front.
Kindi has a fourfold division of the Spirit [17]: first the Spirit
which is ever real,—the Cause and the Essence of all that is spiritual
in the world,—thus without doubt God or the First Spirit produced;
second, Spirit as the Reasoning capacity or Potentiality of the human
soul; third, as the Habit or actual possession of the soul, which it
can make use of at any moment, just as, for example, the writer can
make use of his art; fourth and last, as Activity, by which a reality
within the soul may be carried over to the reality that is without. The
Activity last named appears, according to Kindi, to be the act of man
himself, while to the First Cause,—to the ever-existing Spirit,—he
ascribes the carrying of Potentiality into Habit, or the realisation of
the Possible. The real Spirit or Mind we have thus received from above,
and the third ʻaql is therefore called ʻaql mustafad, (Lat. intellectus
adeptus sive adquisitus). The fundamental view of antiquity—that all
our knowledge about things must come from a source outside of us—,
runs, in the form of this doctrine of the ʻaql mustafad or Spirit which
we receive from above, through the whole of Arabian Philosophy, and
thence passes into Christian Philosophy. Unfortunately the theory is
nearly correct, as far as this philosophy is itself concerned, for the
‘Active Spirit’, which has created it, is in reality the Neo-Platonic
Aristotle.
Man has always attributed to his God or Gods the highest of his own
possessions. Muslim theologians directly attribute to the divine agency
the moral actions of men. But in the opinion of the philosophers,
Knowing is of more importance than Doing. The latter, having more to do
with the lower world of the senses, may possibly be Man’s own; but his
highest knowledge, the pure Reason, comes from above,—from the Divine
Essence.
It is clear that the doctrine of the Spirit, as it stands in Kindi,
goes back to the ‘Nous’-doctrine of Alexander of Aphrodisias in his
second book “On the Soul”. But Alexander expressly maintained that
according to Aristotle there is a threefold ‘Nous’. Kindi says on the
contrary that he is representing the opinion of Plato and Aristotle. In
this the Neo-Pythagorean and the Neo-Platonic views unite: for in
everything the number ‘Four’ must be pointed out, and Plato and
Aristotle brought into agreement.
6. Let us now sum up: Kindi is a Mutazilite theologian and Neo-Platonic
philosopher with Neo-Pythagorean additions. Socrates, the martyr of
Athenian heathenism, is his ideal: on him, his fate and his teaching he
has composed several works; and he seeks to combine Plato and Aristotle
in Neo-Platonic fashion.
Tradition nevertheless calls him the first who followed Aristotle in
his writings; and assuredly this representation is not altogether
unfounded. In the long list of his works Aristotle takes a prominent
place. He was not satisfied with merely translating him, but he studied
his translated works and endeavoured to improve and explain them. At
all events the Aristotelian Physics, with the commentary of Alexander
of Aphrodisias, had an important influence upon him. Such assertions as
that the world is only potentially unending and not actually so, and
that motion is continuous, and the like, point rather in that
direction. The Natural-Philosophers of that day, as well as the
Faithful Brethren, said for instance, that motion had as little
continuity as number. But farther, Kindi resolutely turned away from
the marvel-mongering philosophy of the time, by declaring Alchemy an
imposture. That which nature alone could produce, he held to be beyond
the power of man. Whoever then gives himself up to alchemistic
experiments, is in his opinion deceiving either himself or others. The
famous physician, Razi, attempted to controvert this view of Kindi’s.
7. The influence of Kindi as a teacher and an author has operated
mainly through his Mathematics, Astrology, Geography and Medicine. His
most faithful and certainly his most notable disciple was Akhmed ibn
Mohammed al-Tayyib al-Sarakhsi († 899), a government-official and
friend of the Caliph Mutadid, to whose negligence or caprice he fell a
victim. He worked at Alchemy and Astrology, strove to gain a knowledge
of the wisdom and might of the Creator from the wonders of creation,
and prosecuted the study of Geography and History. Another disciple of
Kindi’s has become better known,—Abu Mashar († 885), who, however, owes
all his reputation to Astrology. He is said to have become, when 47
years of age, an admirer of Kindi’s,—though up till then he had been a
fanatical opponent of philosophy,—having been attracted to the pursuit
of Astrology, by a superficial study of Mathematics. Whether this be
truth or fiction, such a course of education is at all events
characteristic of that inquisitive grasping at half-understood
knowledge, which peculiarly belongs to the first centuries of Arab
Science.
The school of Kindi went in no way beyond the master. Of its literary
activity hardly any sample has been preserved to us beyond a stray
quotation or two. It is of course possible that in the treatises of the
Faithful Brethren, something of it may have been saved, but this cannot
be determined, in the present state of our knowledge.
2. Farabi.
1. In the tenth century the Logicians or Metaphysicians are
distinguished from the Natural-Philosophers. The former follow a more
rigorous method than the Dialecticians, and treat of other subjects
than those which are dealt with by the Physical school. They have
repudiated Pythagoras, to entrust themselves to the guidance of
Aristotle, of course in Neo-Platonic guise.
We have here to do with two directions of scientific interest. The
Natural-Philosophers are more or less concerned with the plenitude of
the concrete phenomena of Nature, as in Geography and Ethnology. They
investigate in all directions the effects of things, and think the
essential nature of these is only to be discerned in such effect or
working. When they do ascend beyond Nature, Soul and Spirit, to the
Divine Essence, then the definition of it to which they confine
themselves, or which they adopt by preference, is—‘the First Cause’,
or,—‘the wise Creator’, whose goodness and wisdom appear from his
works.
The Logicians proceed in a very different way. The occurrence of the
Particular has only a subordinate value in their eyes,—the value,
merely, of an illustration of its deducibility from the Universal.
While the Physicists start from effects or operations, the Logicians
seek to comprehend things from principles. Everywhere they enquire
after the Idea or Essence of things, up to the highest. For them,—to
make the contrast more intelligible by an example—, God is not, first
of all, ‘the wise Creator’, but first of all ‘the necessarily existing
Being’.
In the order of time the Logicians come after the Physical school, just
as the Mutazilite Dialectic on its part (v. II, 3 §§ 4 and 5) brought
within the scope of its consideration first God’s Working, and then his
Being.
We have already come to recognize Razi as the most important
representative of the philosophical direction taken by the Physicists;
and as for the Logical and Metaphysical efforts,—for which Kindi and
others had prepared the way,—they culminate with Razi’s younger
contemporary Abu Nasr ibn Mohammed ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzlag al-Farabi.
2. We cannot say much with certainty about the course of Farabi’s
outward life and training. He was a quiet man, devoted to a life of
philosophy and contemplation, sheltered by the powerful, and assuming
at last the dress of a Sufi. His father is said to have been a Persian
general, and he himself was born at Wasidj, a small fortified place in
the district of Farab in Turkish Transoxiana. It was in Bagdad, and
partly at the hands of a Christian preceptor Yohanna ibn Hailan, that
he received his education. This embraced both literary and mathematical
subjects, forming the equivalent of the ‘Trivium’ and ‘Quadrivium’ of
mediæval Christendom. One or two of his writings, particularly on
Music, give evidence still of his mathematical training. Legend credits
him with ability to speak in all the languages of the world, seventy in
number. That he understood Turkish and Persian,—an a priori
probability,—is manifest from his works. Arabic he writes clearly, and
with a certain grace, although now and then his fondness for synonyms
and parallel clauses interferes with the precision of philosophical
expression.
The philosophy in which Farabi was initiated sprung from the school of
Merv; and perhaps its members had given greater attention to
metaphysical questions than the men of Harran and Basra with their
marked leaning to Natural Philosophy.
From Bagdad, where he had long lived and worked, he went to Haleb
(Aleppo), in consequence doubtless of political disturbances, and there
he settled at the brilliant court of Saif-addaula; but he must have
spent his closing years not at court but in retirement. He died at
Damascus, while on a journey, in December, 950; and it is reported that
his prince, attired as a Sufi, pronounced over him his funeral oration.
We are told that he was eighty years of age, and it is otherwise
probable that he was a very old man. His contemporary, and partner in
study, Abu Bishr Matta died ten years before him, and his pupil Abu
Zakariya Yakhya ibn Adi in the year 971, at the age of eighty-one.
3. The chronological order of the works of Farabi has not been
determined. Shorter treatises in which he comes into touch with the
Dialecticians and Natural-Philosophers, if these are at all genuine in
the form handed down to us, may have been popular or juvenile
productions of his; but his mature powers were applied to the study of
Aristotle’s writings, for which reason the name given him by the East
was ‘the Second Teacher’, that is, ‘the Second Aristotle’.
Since his day the number and order of the works composed by Aristotle
or at least attributed to him, which have been paraphrased and
commented on after Farabi’s example, remain upon the whole fixed. First
come the eight Logical treatises, viz., the Categories; the
Hermeneutics; the First Analytics; the Second Analytics; the Topics;
the Sophistics; Rhetoric; and the Poetics: It is to these that the
Isagoge of Porphyry is the introduction. Then follow the eight
treatises which deal with Physical subjects, viz., Auscultatio Physica;
De Coelo et Mundo; De Generatione et Corruptione; the Meteorology; the
Psychology; De Sensu et Sensato; the Book of Plants; and the Book of
Animals. Lastly come the Metaphysics, the Ethics, the Politics and so
on.
The so-called “Theology of Aristotle” was still considered by Farabi to
be a genuine work. In Neo-Platonic fashion, and with some attempt at
adaptation to the Muslim faith, he seeks to demonstrate that Plato and
Aristotle harmonize with one another. The need which he experiences is
not for a discriminating criticism, but for a conclusive and
comprehensive view of the world; and the satisfaction of this
need,—which is rather a religious than a scientific one,—induces him to
overlook philosophic differences. Plato and Aristotle must differ from
each other only in method, in phraseology, and in relation to practical
life: their doctrine of wisdom is the same. They are the ‘Imāms’ or
‘highest authorities’ in philosophy; and seeing that they were two,
independent, original minds, the authority which is constituted by
their agreement has more validity in the eyes of Farabi than the faith
of the whole Muslim community, who with blind confidence follow the
guidance of one.
4. Farabi is counted among the physicians, but he seems not to have
been in actual practice. He was entirely devoted to the spiritual
healing art. Purity of Soul he denominated the condition and fruit of
all philosophizing, and he demanded love of truth even though it should
oppose Aristotle. Then the judgment has to be trained by means of
Geometry and Logic for the study of physical and mental science.
Farabi, however, pays but little heed to the separate branches of
study: his powers are concentrated on Logic, Metaphysics, and the
principles of Physics. Philosophy for him is the science of all Being
as such, in the acquisition of which science we come to resemble the
Godhead. It is the one, all-embracing science, which pictures the world
to us as a Universe. Farabi’s charge against the Dialecticians is, that
they employ as a basis for their demonstrations the deliverances of
ordinary consciousness without testing them; and the
Natural-Philosophers he blames for continually occupying themselves
merely with the effect of things, and thus never getting beyond the
contrasts of worldly phenomena by attaining to a unified conception of
the All. He would confront the former by setting Thought on a proper
foundation; and in opposition to the latter he would thoroughly
investigate the subject of the One First Cause of all that exists.
Consequently we shall be taking the best way to do justice to his
historical and dogmatic position, if we endeavour to give some account,
first of his Logic, next of his Metaphysics, and finally of his Physics
and Practical Philosophy.
5. The Logic of Farabi is not a mere analysis of scientific thinking:
it contains in addition many remarks on grammar, and discussions on the
theory of knowledge. While grammar is limited to the language of one
people, Logic, on the other hand, has to regulate the expression in
language of the aggregate intelligence of mankind. From the simplest
elements of speech it must advance to the most complex forms,—from the
word to the sentence, and on to discourse.
Logic falls into two divisions, according as its subjects stand related
to actuality; the first of these comprising the doctrine of Ideas and
Definitions (tasawwur), and the second, the doctrine of Judgments,
Inferences, and Proofs (tasdiq). Ideas,—with which are classed
Definitions, though in a mere loose, outward juxtaposition,—have in
themselves no relation to actuality, that is to say, they are neither
true nor false. Among ‘Ideas’ Farabi recognizes here the simplest
psychological forms, that is, both the representations of individual
objects arising from Sense-Perception, and those ideas which have been
stamped upon the mind from the first, such as the Necessary, the
Actual, the Possible. Such representations and ideas are immediately
certain. A man’s mind may be directed to these, and his soul made
observant of them, but they cannot be demonstrated to him, nor can they
be explained by deriving them from what is known, seeing that they are
already clear in themselves, and that too with the highest degree of
certitude.
By combining representations or ideas, judgments result, and these may
be either true or false. To obtain a foundation for these judgments we
have to go back through the processes of Inference and of Proof to
certain propositions originally conveyed to the understanding,
immediately obvious, and admitting of no farther confirmation. Such
propositions,—the fundamental propositions or Axioms of all
Science,—there must be for Mathematics, Metaphysics, and Ethics.
The doctrine of Proof, by which, starting from what is known and
well-established, we arrive at a knowledge of something formerly
unknown, is, according to Farabi, Logic properly so called.
Acquaintance with the leading Concepts (the Categories), and with their
synthesis in Judgment (Hermeneutics) and in Inference (First Analytics)
furnishes only the introduction thereto. And in the Proof-doctrine the
chief point is to ascertain the Norms or principles of a universally
valid and necessary Science, which Philosophy has to be. Here the Law
of Contradiction is looked upon as the highest of these principles, by
which law the truth or necessity of a proposition, and at the same time
the untruth or impossibility of the contrary, become known in one
single cognitive act. From this point of view the Platonic Dichotomy is
to be preferred, as a scientific method, to the Aristotelian Polytomy.
And Farabi is not content with the formal side of the doctrine of
proof. That doctrine has to be more than a methodology which points out
the right way to the truth: it must itself point out the truth; it must
generate science. It not only deals with judgments as material for the
syllogism, but it enquires also into the truth which they contain, with
reference to the particular sciences concerned. It is not a mere
implement; it is rather a constituent part of philosophy.
As we have seen, the theory of proof terminates in necessary knowledge,
corresponding to necessary existence. But besides this there is the
great province of the Possible, from which we can gain only a probable
knowledge. The different degrees then of probability, or the modes in
which we attain to a knowledge of the Possible, are discussed in the
Topics, and with them are associated Sophistic, Rhetoric and Poetics.
In other connections these last three subjects are mainly concerned
with practical aims, but in Farabi’s hands they are combined with the
Topics into a Dialectic of the Seeming. He proceeds to say that true
science can be built up only on the necessary propositions of the
Second Analytics, but that Probability shades off into the mere phantom
of truth, from the topical or dialectic judgments down to the poetical.
Thus Poetry stands at the very bottom of the scale, being in Farabi’s
opinion a lying and immoral absurdity.
In the addendum to the Isagoge of Porphyry, our philosopher has also
given expression to his views on the question of ‘Universals’. He finds
the Particular not only in things and in sense-perception but also in
thought. In like manner the Universal exists not merely as an
‘accident’ in individual things, but also as a ‘substance’ in mind. The
mind of man abstracts the Universal from things, but it had an
existence of its own before these. Virtually therefore the triple
distinction of the ‘ante rem’, ‘in re’ and ‘post rem’ already occurs in
Farabi.
Does mere ‘being’ also belong to the Universals? Is existence, in
effect, a predicate? This question which caused so much mischief in
philosophy was fully and correctly answered by Farabi. According to
him, existence is a grammatical or logical relation, but not a category
of actuality which makes any assertion about things. The existence of a
thing is nothing but the thing itself.
6. The trend of thought found in the Logic asserts itself also in the
Metaphysics. Instead of the Changeable and the Everlasting, there
emerge the ideas of the Possible and the Necessary.
Everything in fact that exists, is, in Farabi’s view, either a
necessary or a possible thing; there is no third kind of Being. Now
since all which is possible presupposes for its realisation a Cause,
while yet the chain of causes cannot be traced back without end, we see
ourselves compelled to assume that there is a Being, existing of
necessity, uncaused, possessing the highest degree of perfection and an
eternal plenitude of reality, self-sufficing, without any change, who
as absolute Mind and pure goodness and thinking,—being the thinking and
the thought in one nature,—loves the all-transcending goodness and
beauty of that nature, which is his own. This Being cannot be proved to
exist, because he himself is the proof and first cause of all things,
in whom truth and reality coincide. And it is involved in the very idea
of such a Being, that he should be one, and one only, for if there were
two first and absolute Beings, they would have to be partly alike and
partly different,—in which case, however, the simplicity of each would
be destroyed. A Being who is the most perfect of all, must be one
alone.
This first Existence, one alone, and of a verity real, we call God; and
since in him all things are one, without even difference in kind, no
definition of his Being can be supplied. Yet man bestows upon him the
noblest names, expressive of all that is most honoured and esteemed in
life, because in the mystic impulse thereto, words lose their usual
significance, transcending all discrepancy. Some names refer to his
essential nature, others to his relation to the world, without
prejudicing, however, the unity of his essence; but they are all to be
understood metaphorically, and we can interpret them only according to
feeble analogy. Of God, as the most perfect Being, we ought properly to
have also the most complete idea. At least our mathematical notions are
more perfect than our notions of physics, because the former refer to
the more perfect objects. But with the most perfect object of all we
fare as with the most brilliant light: by reason of the weakness of our
eyes we cannot bear it. Thus the imperfections inherent in Matter cling
to our understanding.
7. We are able to see God better in the regular gradation of Beings
which proceed from him than in himself. From him, the One alone, comes
the All, for his knowledge is the highest power: In his cognizance of
himself the world comes into being: The cause of all things is not the
will of an almighty Creator, but the knowledge of the Necessary. From
eternity the Forms or Types of things are in God, and from him
eternally proceeds also his own image, termed ‘the Second All’ or ‘the
first created Spirit’, which moves the outermost celestial Sphere. In
succession to this Spirit, come, one out of the other, the eight
Spirits of the Spheres, all of which are unique in their several kinds
and perfect, and these are the creators of the celestial bodies. These
nine Spirits, called ‘Celestial Angels’, together form the second grade
of Being. In the third grade stands the Reason, active in Humanity,
which is also termed the Holy Spirit and which unites heaven and earth.
The Soul is in the fourth grade. These two, the Reason and the Soul, do
not remain by themselves in their strict original One-ness, but
multiply in accordance with the great number of human beings. Lastly
appear Form and Matter, as Beings of the fifth and sixth orders; and
with them the series of Spiritual existences is closed. The first three
grades, God, the Spirits of the Spheres, and the Active Reason, remain
Spirit per se; but the three which follow,—Soul, Form and Matter,
although incorporeal, yet enter into relation with Body.
The Corporeal, which is held to originate in the imagination of the
Spirit, has also its six grades: Celestial Bodies, Human Bodies, Bodies
of Lower Animals, Bodies of Plants, Minerals, and Elementary Bodies.
The influence of Farabi’s Christian preceptor is probably still to be
seen in these speculations, following as they do the number Three. That
number had the same significance in them that the number Four had with
the Natural-Philosophers. The terminology also bears out this idea.
That, however, is merely external: It is Neo-Platonism that contributes
the contents. Here the Creation, or Emanation of the world, appears as
an eternal, intellectual process. By the first created Spirit thinking
of its Author, the second Sphere-spirit comes into being; while, by the
same Spirit thinking of itself and thus realizing itself, there
proceeds from it the first Body, or the uppermost celestial Sphere. And
so the process goes on in necessary succession, down to the lowest
Sphere, that of the Moon, in entire accordance with the Ptolemaic
Sphere-system,—as it is known to every well-educated person at least
from Dante’s “Commedia”,—and in the Neo-Platonic manner of derivation.
The Spheres together form an unbroken order, for all that exists is a
Unity. The creation and preservation of the world are one and the same.
And not only is the unity of the Divine Being portrayed in the world,
but the Divine righteousness is also expressed in the beautiful order
which there prevails. The logical order of the world is at the same
time a moral order.
8. The sublunary world of this earth is, of course, wholly dependent on
the world of the celestial spheres. Yet the influence from above bears
in the first place, as we know a priori, upon the necessary order of
the whole, although in the second place the individual thing also is
made to happen, but only according to natural reciprocal action, and
therefore by rules which experience teaches us. Astrology, which
attributes everything that is contingent or extraordinary to the stars
and their conjunctions, is combated by Farabi. There is no certain
knowledge of the Contingent; and,—as Aristotle also has taught,—much of
what happens on this earth possesses in a high degree the character of
the Contingent or the Possible. The celestial world, on the other hand,
has another and a more perfect nature, which operates according to
necessary laws. It can bestow upon this earthly world only that which
is good; and therefore it is a complete mistake to maintain that some
stars bring good luck, and others ill luck. The nature of the heavens
is one, and it is uniformly good. The conclusion then at which Farabi
arrives, by these reflections is this: Knowledge, capable of
demonstration, and perfectly certain, is afforded by Mathematical
Astronomy alone; the physical study of the heavens yields a probable
knowledge; but the tenets and vaticinations of Astrology merit an
exceedingly hesitating belief.
Overagainst the simplicity of the celestial world we have the sublunary
kingdom of the four natures,—the kingdom of contrasts and of change.
Even in this realm, in the midst of its plurality, we meet with the
unity of an ascending series, from the Elements up to Man. Farabi is
unable to advance much that is original on this subject. True to his
logical standpoint, he gives himself very little concern about the
Natural Sciences, among which, in reliance upon the original unity of
matter, he seems without any hesitation to have counted Alchemy. We
turn at once to his Doctrine of Man or of the Human Soul, which
presents a measure of interest.
9. The powers or divisions of the Human Soul are, in Farabi’s opinion,
not of co-ordinate rank, but constitute an ascending series. The lower
faculty is Material for the higher; and this again is the Form for the
first, while the highest power of all, viz. Thinking, is non-material,
and is Form for all the Forms which precede. The life of the Soul is
raised from things of sense to thought, by means of the power of
Representation; but in all the faculties there is involved Effort or
Will. Every theory has its obverse side in practice; and Inclination
and Disinclination are inseparable from the perceptions furnished by
the senses. To the representations of these the soul takes up an
attitude of assent or dissent, by affirming or denying. Finally,
Thought passes judgment on Good and Bad, gives to the Will its motives,
and constructs Art and Science. All Perception, Representation or
Thought is attended with a certain effort to reach the necessary
consequence, just as warmth radiates from the substance of fire.
The Soul is that which gives completeness (Entelechia) to the existence
of the body; but that which gives completeness to the existence of the
Soul is the Mind, or the Spirit (ʻaql). The Spirit only is the real
Man.
10. Accordingly the discussion turns mainly on the Mind or Spirit. In
the human Spirit everything earthly is raised to a higher mode of
existence, which is lifted out of the categories of the Corporeal. Now
as a capability or potentiality, Mind or Spirit is present in the Soul
of the Child; and it becomes actual Spirit in the course of its
apprehension of bodily forms in experience by means of the Senses and
the representative faculty. But this transition from possibility to
actuality,—the realisation thus of experience,—is not Man’s own act,
but is brought about by the Superhuman Spirit, which has sprung from
the last Sphere-Spirit, that of the Moon. In this way Man’s knowledge
is represented as being a contribution from above, and not a knowledge
which has been acquired in mental struggle. In the light of the Spirit
which stands above us, our understanding descries the Forms of the
Corporeal; and thereby experience is amplified into rational knowledge.
Experience, in fact, takes in only the Forms which have been abstracted
from the world of Matter. But there are in existence also,—before and
above material things,—Forms and general entities, in the pure Spirits
of the Spheres. Man now receives information from these ‘detached
Forms’: it is only by means of their influence that his actual
experience becomes explicable to him. From God down to the Spirit of
Mankind, the higher Form affects only that which immediately succeeds
it. Every intermediate Form stands in a relation of ‘receptive’
activity to what is above it, and of ‘conferring’ activity to what is
below it. In its relation to the Human Spirit, which is influenced from
above (ʻaql mustafad), the Superhuman Spirit, produced from the last
Sphere-Spirit, is to be called ‘active’ or ‘creative’ (ʻaql faʻʻâl).
Yet it is not continually active, because its effectiveness is
restrained by its material. But God is the completely-real,
eternally-active Spirit.
The Spirit in Man is threefold: according as it is (1) Possible, (2)
Actual, and (3) Influenced from above. Now in the sense of Farabi, this
means—that (1) the spiritual potentiality in Man is, by means of (2)
realizing the knowledge which is gained by experience, (3) led to the
knowledge of the Supersensible, which precedes all experience, and
itself induces the experience.
The grades of Spirit and its knowledge correspond to the grades of
existence. The lower strives wistfully to reach the higher, and the
higher lifts the lower up to its own level. The Spirit which stands
above us, and which has lent to all earthly things their Forms, seeks
to bring these scattered Forms together that they may become one in
love. First of all he collects them in Man. And indeed the possibility
and truth of human knowledge depend on the fact that the same Spirit
who bestowed upon the Corporeal its figure, also gives Idea to Man. The
scattered Forms of the earthly are found again in the Human Spirit, and
thereby it comes to resemble the last of the Celestial Spirits. Unity
with that Celestial Spirit,—and in this an approach to God,—is the aim
and the blessedness of the Spirit of Man.
Now the question whether such a union is possible before Man’s death
is, in Farabi’s opinion, either a doubtful one, or one which should be
answered in the direct negative. The highest thing that can be attained
in this life, is rational knowledge. But separation from the body gives
to the rational soul the complete freedom which belongs to spirit. But
does it then continue to exist as an individual soul? Or is it merely a
Moment of the higher World-Intelligence? On this point Farabi expresses
himself ambiguously, and with a lack of consistency, in his various
writings. Men,—so the expression runs,—disappear in death; one
generation follows another; and like is joined to like, each in its own
class. And forasmuch as rational souls are not bound to space, they
multiply without end, just as thought is added to thought, and power to
power. Every soul reflects on itself and all others that are like to
it; and the more it so reflects, the more intense is its joy (Cf.
infra, § 13).
11. We come now to Farabi’s practical philosophy. In his Ethics and
Politics we are brought into a somewhat closer relation to the life and
belief of the Muslims. One or two general points of view may be brought
forward.
Just as Logic has to give an account of the principles of knowledge, so
Ethics have to deal with the fundamental rules of conduct, although, in
the latter, somewhat more value is attached to practice and experience
than in the theory of knowledge. In the treatment of this subject
Farabi agrees sometimes with Plato, and sometimes with Aristotle; but
occasionally, in a mystic and ascetic fashion, he goes farther than
either of them. In opposition to the Theologians, who recognize, no
doubt, a knowledge gained by Reason, but not rules of conduct taught by
Reason, Farabi frequently affirms with emphasis that Reason decides
whether a thing is good or evil. Why should not that Reason, which has
been imparted to us from above, decide upon conduct, seeing that the
highest virtue certainly consists in knowing? In vigorously accentuated
terms Farabi declares that if one man knew everything that stands in
the writings of Aristotle, but did not act in accordance with his
knowledge, while another man shaped his conduct in accordance with
Aristotle’s teaching, without being acquainted with it, the preference
would have to be assigned to the former. Knowledge takes a higher
position than the moral act; otherwise it could not decide upon the
act.
By its very nature the Soul desires. In so far as it perceives and
represents, it has a will, just like the lower animals. But man alone
possesses freedom of choice, seeing that this rests upon rational
consideration. Pure thought is the sphere of freedom. Thus it is a
freedom which depends upon motives furnished by thinking,—a freedom
which is at the same time necessity, inasmuch as in the last resort it
is determined by the rational nature of God. In this sense Farabi is a
Determinist.
On account of the opposition offered by matter, the freedom of man, as
thus conceived, can only imperfectly vindicate its lordship over the
Sensible. It does not become perfect till the rational soul has been
enfranchised from the bonds of matter and the wrappings of error,—in
the life of the Spirit. But that is the highest blessedness which is
striven after for its own sake, and consequently it is plainly the
Good. Such good the Human Soul is seeking, when it turns to the Spirit
above it, just as the Spirits of the heavens do, when they draw near to
the Highest.
12. Even in the Ethics little regard is had to actual moral conditions;
but in his Politics Farabi withdraws still farther from real life. In
his oriental way of looking at things, the ideal Republic of Plato
merges into ‘the Philosopher as Ruler’. Men, having been brought
together by a natural want, submit themselves to the will of a single
person, in whom the State, be it good or bad, is, so to speak,
embodied. A State therefore is bad, if the head of it is, as regards
the principles of the Good, either ignorant or in error, or quite
depraved. On the other hand the good or excellent State has only one
type, that namely in which the philosopher is ruler. And Farabi endows
his ‘Prince’ with all the virtues of humanity and philosophy: he is
Plato in the mantle of the Prophet Mohammed.
In the description of rulers representative of the ideal Prince,—for
there may be more than one existing together, and Prince and minister
may divide governing-virtue and wisdom between them,—we come nearer the
Muslim political theory of that day. But the expressions are wrapped in
obscurity: the lineage, for example, which is proper for a Prince, and
his duty of taking the lead in the holy war,—are not clearly signified.
All indeed is left floating in philosophic mist.
13. Morality reaches perfection only in a State which at the same time
forms a religious community. Not only does the condition of the State
determine the temporal lot of its citizens, but also their future
destiny. The souls of citizens in an “ignorant” State are devoid of
reason, and return to the elements as sensible Forms, in order to be
united anew with other beings,—men or lower animals. In States which
are “in error”, and in those which are “depraved”, the leader alone is
responsible, and punishment awaits him in the world beyond; but the
souls which have been led into error share the fate of the ignorant. On
the other hand, if the good and ‘knowing’ souls only maintain their
ground, they enter the world of pure Spirit; and the higher the stage
of knowledge to which they have attained in this life, the higher will
their position be after death, in the order of the All, and the more
intense their blessed delight.
In all likelihood expressions of this kind are only the outer wrapping
of a mystico-philosophical belief in the absorption of the Human Spirit
into the World-Spirit and finally into God. For,—as Farabi
teaches,—although the world, deductively considered (i.e. logically
and metaphysically), is something different from God, yet inductively
the present world is regarded by the soul as being identical with the
next, because in everything, even in his Unity, God is himself the All.
14. If we now take a general survey of Farabi’s system, it exhibits
itself as a fairly consistent Spiritualism,—or,—to be more
precise,—Intellectualism. The Corporeal,—that which appeals to the
Senses,—as it originates in the imagination of the Spirit, might be
designated “a confused presentation”. The only true existence is
Spirit, although it assumes various degrees. God alone is entirely
unmixed and pure Spirit, while those Spirits, which eternally proceed
from him, already have in them the element of plurality. The number of
primary Spirits has been determined by the Ptolemaic cosmology, and
corresponds to the celestial hierarchy. The farther any one of them is
removed from the first, so much the less part has it in the Being of
the pure Spirit. From the last World-Spirit Man receives his essential
nature, that is—Reason. There is no gap in all the system; the Universe
is a beautiful and well-ordered whole. The Evil and the Bad are the
necessary consequence of finiteness in individual things; but the Good
which characterizes the Universe is set thereby in bolder relief.
Can this fair order of the Universe, from all eternity emanating from
God, ever be destroyed, or can it even flow back to God? A sustained
streaming-back to the Godhead, there doubtless is. The longing of the
Soul is directed to what is above and advancing knowledge purifies it
and leads it upwards. But how far? Neither philosophers nor prophets
have been able to return a clear answer to this question. And the
wisdom of both of these,—both philosophy and prophecy,—Farabi derives
from the creative World-Spirit above us. Now and again he speaks of
prophecy as if it represented the highest stage of human knowledge and
action. But that cannot be his real view;—at least it is not the
logical consequence of his theoretical philosophy. According to it
everything prophetic,—in dream, vision, revelation and so on,—belongs
to the sphere of the Imagination or Representation, and thus takes an
intermediate position between Sense-Perception and pure Rational
Knowledge. Although, in his Ethics and Politics, he attaches a high
educational importance to religion, it is always regarded as inferior
in absolute worth to knowledge acquired through pure reason.
Farabi lived perpetually in the world of the Intellect. A king in the
mental realm, a beggar in worldly possessions, he felt happy with his
books, and with the birds and flowers of his garden. To his people,—the
Muslim community,—he could be only very little. In his political and
ethical teaching there was no proper place for worldly matters or for
the ‘holy war’. His philosophy did not satisfy any need appertaining to
the senses, while it spoke against the life of imagination belonging
both to the senses and the intellect, as that life gives special
expression to itself in the creations of Art and in religious fancies.
He was lost in the abstractions of pure Spirit. As a pious, holy man,
he was an object of wonder to his contemporaries, and by a few
disciples he was honoured as the personification of wisdom; but by the
genuine scholars of Islam he was always decried as a heretic. There
was, of course, ground enough for this: just as Natural Philosophy
easily led to Naturalism and Atheism, the Monotheism of the Logicians
imperceptibly conducted to Pantheism.
15. Farabi had no great following of disciples: Abu Zakariya Yakhya ibn
Adi, a Jacobite Christian, became known as a translator of Aristotelian
works; but a pupil of Zakariya’s came to be more spoken of, called Abu
Sulaiman Mohammed ibn Tahir ibn Bahram al-Sidjistani, who gathered
about him in Bagdad, in the second half of the tenth century, the
learned men of his time. The conversational discussions which they
conducted, and the philosophical instructions which were imparted by
the master, have been to some extent preserved, and we can clearly see
the outcome of the school. Just as Natural Philosophy drifted into a
secret lore, and the school of Kindi abandoned Philosophy for the
separate branches of Mathematical and Physical Science, so the logical
tendency of Farabi passed into a philosophy of words. Distinctions and
definitions form the subject of these conferences. Individual points in
the history of philosophy and in the several sciences are discussed
also, without any systematic connection; but almost never does any
positive interest in these subjects appear. The Human Soul occupies the
foreground entirely, just as in the case of the Faithful Brethren,
except that these last dealt rather with the marvellous operations of
the Soul, while the Logicians pondered over its rational essence and
its elevation to the Supra-rational. The Sidjistani Society trifled
with words and concepts, instead of with numbers and letters after the
fashion of the Brethren; but the end in both cases was—a mystical
Sufism.
It is therefore no matter of astonishment that in the learned meetings
of Abu Sulaiman, as reported by his pupil Tauhidi († 1009),
Empedocles, Socrates, Plato and others are oftener mentioned than
Aristotle. A very miscellaneous society came together in those
meetings. No question was asked as to the country from which any one
came, or the religion to which he adhered. They lived in the
conviction,—derived from Plato, that every opinion contained a measure
of truth, just as all things shared in a common existence, and all
sciences in an actual knowledge which was one and the same. On that
assumption alone could they have conceived that every one might start
with maintaining that his own opinion was the true one, and that the
science which he cultivated was the science most to be preferred. And
for that very reason there is no conflict between Religion and
Philosophy, however vehement the assertions may be on these two sides.
On the contrary Philosophy confirms the doctrines of Religion, just as
the latter brings the results of Philosophy to perfection. If
Philosophical Knowledge is the essence and end of the Soul of man,
Religious Belief is its life, or the way to that end; and as Reason is
God’s vicegerent on earth, it is impossible for Reason and Revelation
to contradict each other.
It is not worth while to accentuate particular points in these
conversational discussions, the tenor of which we have given. The
appearance of Sidjistani and his circle is important in the history of
culture; but it has no significance as regards the development of
Philosophy in Islam. What was to Farabi the very life of his Spirit,
becomes in this Society a subject merely of clever conversation.
3. Ibn Maskawaih.
1. We have arrived at the point of time when the tenth century is
passing into the eleventh. Farabi’s school has apparently died out; and
Ibn Sina,—destined to awaken into fresh life the philosophy of his
predecessor,—is still a youth. Here however we have to make mention of
a man, more allied, it is true, to Kindi than to Farabi, but who yet
agrees with the latter in essential points, by reason of employing the
same sources with him. He affords an instance also of the fact that the
most sagacious minds of his time were not disposed to follow Farabi
into the region of Logico-Metaphysical speculation.
This man is Abu Ali ibn Maskawaih, physician, philologist and
historian, who was the treasurer and friend of the Sultan Adudaddaula,
and who died full of years in 1030. Amongst other things he has left us
a philosophical system of Ethics which up to this day is valued in the
East. It is a combination of material taken from Plato, Aristotle,
Galen and the Muslim Religious Law, although Aristotle predominates in
it. It commences with a treatise on the Essential Nature of the Soul.
2. The Soul of Man, as Ibn Maskawaih explains, is a simple, incorporeal
substance, conscious of its own existence, knowledge and working. That
it must be of a spiritual nature—follows from the very fact that it
appropriates at one and the same time Forms the most opposed to each
other, for example, the notions of white and black, while a body can
only take up one of the two forms at a time. Farther, it apprehends
both the forms of the Sensible and those of the Spiritual in the same
spiritual manner, for Length is not ‘long’ in the soul, nor does it
become ‘longer’ in the memory. Accordingly the knowledge and endeavour
of the soul extend far beyond its own body: even the entire world of
sense cannot satisfy it. Moreover it possesses an inborn rational
knowledge, which cannot have been bestowed by the Senses, for it is by
means of this knowledge that it determines the True and the False, in
the course of comparing and distinguishing between the objects
presented to it in Sense-Perception,—thus supervising and regulating
the Senses. Finally, it is in Self-Consciousness, or knowing of its own
knowing, that the spiritual unity of the soul is most clearly shewn,—a
unity, in which thinking, that which thinks, and that which is
thought—all coincide.
The human soul is distinguished from the souls of the lower animals
particularly by rational reflection as the principle of its conduct,
directed towards the Good.
3. That by which a Being, possessed of will, attains the end or the
perfection of his nature is, in general terms, ‘good’. A certain
capability, therefore, or disposition, directed to an end is requisite,
in order to be good. But as regards their capability men differ very
essentially. Only a few,—Maskawaih thinks,—are by nature good, and
never become bad, since what is by nature, does not change; while on
the other hand, many are by nature bad, and never become good. Others,
however, who at first are neither good nor bad, are definitely turned
either in the one direction or the other, through upbringing and social
intercourse.
Now the Good is either a general good or a particular good. There is an
absolute Good, which is identical with the highest Being and the
highest knowledge; and all the good together strive to attain to it.
But for every individual person a particular Good presents itself
subjectively under the aspect of Happiness or Pleasure; and this
consists in the full and active manifestation of his own essential
nature,—in the complete realisation of his inmost being.
Speaking generally,—Man is good and happy, if he acts as Man: Virtue is
human excellence. But since humanity is presented as occupying
different levels in different individuals, Happiness or the Good is not
the same for all. And because an individual man, if he were left to his
own resources could not realize all the good things that might
otherwise be obtained, it is necessary that many should live together.
As a consequence of this condition, the first of duties, or the
foundation of all the virtues, is a general love for humankind, without
which no society is possible. It is only along with, and among other
human beings that the individual man attains perfection;—so that Ethics
must be Social Ethics. Friendship therefore is not, as Aristotle would
have it, an expansion of Self-love, but a limitation of it, or a kind
of love of one’s neighbour. And this, like virtue in general, can find
a field of exercise only in society, or in citizenship, and not in the
pious monk’s renunciation of the world. The hermit, who thinks he is
living temperately and righteously, is deceived as to the character of
his actions: they may be religious, but moral they certainly are not;
and therefore the consideration of them does not belong to Ethics.
Besides, in Ibn Maskawaih’s opinion, the Religious Law when rightly
apprehended, pre-eminently accords with an Ethics of Benevolence.
Religion is a moral training for the people. Its prescriptions, with
regard to the worship of God in common and the pilgrimage to Mecca for
instance, have plainly in view the cultivation of the love of one’s
neighbour in the widest acceptation.
In certain special points Ibn Maskawaih has not been successful in
combining harmoniously the ethical doctrines of the Greeks,—which he
incorporates in his Scheme,—either with one another or with the Law of
Islam. That however we pass over; and in any case we ought not only to
praise in general terms his attempt to give a system of Ethics which
should be free from the casuistry of the Moralists and the asceticism
of the Sufis, but also to recognize in the execution of his design the
good sense of a man of wide culture.
4. Ibn Sina.
1. Abu Ali al-Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (Avicenna) was born at
Efshene in the neighbourhood of Bokhara, in the year 980, of a family
connected with the public service. He received his secular and
religious education at home, where Persian and anti-Muslim traditions
were still full of life and vigour. Then the youth, precocious alike in
body and in mind, studied philosophy and medicine in Bokhara. He was
seventeen years old when he had the good fortune to cure the prince,
Nukh ibn Mansur, and to obtain the privilege of access to his library.
From that time forward he was his own teacher, in scientific research
and in practice, and proved able to turn to account the life and
culture of his time. He kept continually venturing his fortunes in the
political working of the smaller States: Probably he could never have
submitted to a great prince, any more than to a teacher in Science. He
wandered on from court to court, at one time employed in
State-Administration, at another as a teacher and author, until he
became vizir of Shems Addaula in Hamadan. After the death of this
prince he was consigned to prison by his son, for some months. He then
proceeded farther afield, to the court of Ala Addaula in Ispahan. And
at last, having returned to Hamadan, which Ala Addaula had conquered,
he died there in 1037, at the age of 57; and there his grave is pointed
out to this day.
2. The notion that Ibn Sina pushed on beyond Farabi and reached a purer
Aristotelianism, is perhaps the greatest error which has found a
footing in the history of Muslim Philosophy. What did this our man of
the world in reality care for Aristotle? It was not his concern to
commit himself wholly to the spirit of any system. He took what was to
his liking, wherever he found it, but he had a preference for the
shallow paraphrases of Themistius. Thus he became the great philosopher
of accommodation in the East, and the true forerunner of
compendium-writers for the whole world. He knew how to group with skill
his material, collected as it was from every quarter, and to present it
in an intelligible form, although not without sophistry. Every moment
of his life was fully employed. In the daytime he attended to State
affairs or gave instruction to his pupils: the evening was devoted to
the social enjoyments of friendship and love; and many a night found
him engaged in composition, pen in hand, and goblet within reach lest
he should fall asleep. Time and circumstances determined the direction
of this activity. If at the prince’s court he had the requisite
leisure, and a library at hand, he wrote his Canon of Medicine or the
great Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. While travelling, he composed
epitomes and smaller works. In prison he wrote poems and pious
meditations, but always in a pleasing form; in fact his smaller
mystical writings have a poetic charm about them. When commissioned to
do so, he put even Science, Logic and Medicine into verse,—a practice
which came more and more into vogue from the tenth century onwards. Add
to this that he wrote Persian and Arabic at will, and you get the
picture of a most accomplished man. His life was superabundantly rich
both in work and in enjoyment. In geniality, of course he was inferior
to his older compatriot, the poet Firdausi (940–1020), and in
scientific talent to his contemporary Beruni (v. infra § 9), men still
of importance in our eyes. Ibn Sina, however, was the true expression
of his time; and upon this fact have been founded his great influence
and historic position. He did not, like Farabi, withdraw from common
life to become immersed in the commentators of Aristotle, but he
blended in himself Greek science and Oriental wisdom. Enough
commentaries, he thought, had already been written on the ancient
authors: it was now time for men to construct a philosophy of their
own,—in other words, to give a modern form to the ancient doctrines.
3. In Medicine Ibn Sina gives diligent endeavour to produce a
systematic account of that science, but here he proves by no means an
exact logician. He assigns a large place, at least theoretically, to
Experience, and describes in detail the conditions under which alone,
for example, the efficacy of remedies can be ascertained. But the
philosophical principles which are involved in Medicine, must be taken
over in the form of lemmas from Philosophy itself.
Philosophy proper is divided into Logic, Physics and Metaphysics. In
its entirety it embraces the science of all Existence as such, and of
the principles of all the separate sciences, whereby, as far as is
humanly possible, the Soul which is devoted to philosophy, attains the
highest perfection. Now Existence is either spiritual, when it is the
subject of Metaphysics, or corporeal, when it is discussed in Physics,
or intellectual, when it forms the theme of Logic. The subjects of
Physics can neither exist, nor be thought of as existing, without
Matter. The Metaphysical, however is quite devoid of Matter; while the
Logical is an abstraction from the Material. The Logical has a certain
likeness to the Mathematical, in so far as the subjects of Mathematics
may also be abstractions from matter. But yet the Mathematical always
remains capable of being represented and constructed, while on the
other hand the Logical, as such, has its existence only in the
intellect, as, for instance, Identity, Unity and Plurality,
Universality and Particularity, Essentiality and Contingency, and so
on. Consequently Logic is the Science of the Determinate Forms of
Thought.
In the more detailed treatment of his subject Ibn Sina conforms
entirely to Farabi’s Logic. This agreement would perhaps be more
apparent to us, if the logical works of his predecessor were extant in
a more complete form. He frequently lays stress on the defectiveness of
the intellectual constitution in man, which is urgently in need of a
logical rule. Just as the physiognomist infers from the external
features the character of the nature within, so the logician is called
upon to derive from known premises that which is unknown. How easy it
is for the errors of appearance and desire to insinuate themselves into
a process of that kind! A struggle with Sense is required in order that
the life of representation may be elevated to the pure truth of the
Reason, through which any knowledge of a necessary kind is gained. The
divinely-inspired man, but he alone, can dispense with Logic, precisely
as the Bedouin is independent of an Arabic Grammar.
The question of Universals is also treated in a manner similar to that
which is adopted by Farabi. Prior to any plurality, every thing has an
existence in the Mind of God and of the Angels (the Sphere-Spirits);
then as material form it enters upon plurality, to be raised finally in
the intellect of man to the universality of the Idea. Now just as
Aristotle has distinguished between First Substance (Individual) and
Second Substance (cogitable as a Universal), so Ibn Sina similarly
makes a distinction between First and Second Notion or Intention
(Maʻnâ, intentio). The First is referred to the things themselves, the
Second to the disposition of our own thought.
4. In Metaphysics and Physics Ibn Sina is differentiated from Farabi
chiefly through the fact that, by not deriving Matter from God, he
places the Spiritual at a higher elevation above all that is Material,
and in consequence heightens the importance of the Soul as an
intermediary between the Spiritual and the Corporeal.
From the conception of the Possible and the Necessary, the existence of
a Necessary Being plainly follows. According to Ibn Sina we should not
seek to demonstrate the existence of a Creator from his works, but
rather should deduce, from the possible character of all that is, and
all that is thinkable in the world, the existence of a First and
Necessary Being, whose essence and existence are one.
Not only is every sublunary thing of a ‘possible’ nature, but even the
heavens are, in themselves, merely ‘possible’. Their existence becomes
‘necessary’ through another existence which transcends all
‘possibility’ and therefore all plurality and mutability. The
‘absolutely Necessary’ is an unbending Unity, from which nothing
multiplex can proceed. This first One is the God of Ibn Sina, of whom
many attributes may of course be predicated, such as thought &c., but
only in the sense of negation or relation, and in such a way that they
do not affect the Unity of his essence.
Out of the first One accordingly,—One only can proceed, viz.,—the first
World-Spirit. It is in this latter Spirit that Plurality has its
origin. In fact by thinking of its own Cause, it generates a third
Spirit, the governor of the outermost Sphere; when again, it thinks of
itself, a Soul is produced, by means of which the Sphere-Spirit
exercises its influence; and, in the third place, inasmuch as it is in
itself a ‘possible’ existence, there emerges from it a Body, viz., the
outermost Sphere. And so the process goes on: Every Spirit, thus
generated, except of course the last of the series, liberates from
itself a trinity,—Spirit, Soul and Body; for, since the Spirit cannot
move the Body directly, it needs the Soul to bring its effectiveness
into operation. Finally comes the Active Spirit (ʻaql faʻʻâl), closing
the series, and generating no farther pure (separate) Spirit, but
producing and directing the material of what is earthly, as well as
corporeal forms and human souls.
The whole of this process,—which is not to be represented as occurring
in time, takes place in a substratum,—that of Matter. Matter is the
eternal and pure possibility of all that exists, and at the same time
the limitation of the operation of the Spirit. It is the principle of
all individuality.
Now this teaching must certainly have presented a dreadful appearance
to believing Muslims. Mutazilite dialecticians had doubtless asserted
that God can do nothing evil, and nothing irrational; but now
Philosophy was maintaining that, God instead of being able to do all
that is possible is only in a position to effect that which is in its
own nature possible, and that only the first World-Spirit proceeds from
him directly.
As for the rest Ibn Sina makes every endeavour to conform to the
popular belief. Everything exists, he says, through God’s appointment,
both the Good and the Evil, but it is only the former that meets with
his glad approval. Evil is either a non-existent thing, or,—in so far
as it proceeds from God,—an accidental thing. Suppose that He, to avoid
the evils which of necessity cling to the world, had kept it from
coming into being,—that would have been the greatest evil of all. The
world could not be better or more beautiful than it actually is. The
Divine Providence, administered as it is by the Souls of the Heavens,
is found in the world’s fair order. God and the pure Spirits know the
Universal only, and therefore are unable to attend to the Particular;
but the Souls of the celestial Spheres, to whose charge falls the
representation of what is individual, and through whom Spirit acts upon
Body, render it possible to admit a providential care for the
individual thing and the individual person, and to account for
revelation, and so on. Farther, the sudden rise and disappearance of
substances (Creation and Annihilation), in contrast to the constant
movement,—that is, the gradual passing of the Possible into the
Actual,—seem to Ibn Sina to indicate nothing impossible. In general,
there is a predominant want of clearness in his views regarding the
relation of the forms of Existence,—Spirit and Body, Form and Matter,
Substance and Accident. A place at all events is left for Miracle. In
passionate forms of excitement in the Soul, which often generate in
ourselves great heat or cold, we have, according to Ibn Sina, phenomena
analogous to miraculous effects produced by the World-Soul, although it
usually follows the course of Nature. Our philosopher himself, however,
makes a very moderate use of any of these possibilities. Astrology and
Alchemy he combated on quite rational grounds; and yet soon after his
death astrological poems were attributed to him; and in Turkish
Romance-Literature he appears as a magician, of course to represent an
ancient Mystic.
Ibn Sina’s theory of Physics rests entirely on the assumption that a
body can cause nothing. That which causes,—is in every case a Power, a
Form, or a Soul, the Spirit operating through such instrumentality. In
the realm of the Physical there are accordingly countless Powers, the
chief grades of which, from the lower to the higher, are—the Forces of
Nature, the Energies of Plants and Animals, Human Souls and
World-Souls.
5. Farabi was above all things interested in pure Reason: he loved
Thinking for its own sake, Ibn Sina, on the other hand, is concerned
throughout with the Soul. In his Medicine it is man’s Body which he
looks to; and similarly, in his Philosophy his eyes are fixed on man’s
Soul. The very name of his great Philosophical Encyclopaedia is—‘The
Healing’ (that is—of the Soul). His system centres in Psychology.
His theory of human nature is dualistic. Body and Soul have no
essential connection with one another. All bodies are produced, under
the influence of the stars, from the mingling of the Elements; and in
this way the human body also is produced, but from a combination in
which the finest proportion is observed. A spontaneous generation of
the body, just like the extinction and restoration of the human race,
is therefore possible. The Soul, however, is not to be explained from
such mixture of the Elements. It is not the inseparable Form of the
body, but is accidental to it. From the Giver of Forms, that is—from
the Active Spirit over us, every Body receives its own Soul, which is
adapted to it and to it alone. From its very beginning each Soul is an
individual substance, and it developes increasing individuality
throughout its life in the body. It must be admitted that this does not
agree with the contention that Matter is the principle of
individuality. But the Soul is the “infant prodigy” of our philosopher.
He is not a credulous man, and he often cautions us against too ready
an acceptance of mysteries in the life of the Soul; but still he has
the art himself of relating many things about the numerous wonderful
powers and possible influences of the Soul, as it wanders along the
highly intricate pathways of life, and crosses the abysses of Being and
Not-Being.
The speculative faculties are the choicest of all the powers of the
Soul. Acquaintance with the world is conveyed to the rational soul by
the External and Internal Senses. In particular a full account is given
by Ibn Sina of his theory of the Internal Senses, or the
sensuous-spiritual faculties of representation, which have their seat
in the brain.
Medical Philosophers commonly assumed three Internal Senses or stages
of the representative process: 1. Gathering the several
sense-perceptions into one collective image in the fore part of the
brain; 2. Transforming or remodelling this representation of the
general Sense, with the help of representations already existing, thus
constituting apperception proper, in the middle region; 3. Storing up
the ‘apperceived’ representation in the Memory, which was held to
reside in the hinder part of the brain. Ibn Sina, however, carries the
analysis somewhat farther. He distinguishes in the anterior portion of
the brain the Memory of the Sensible,—or the treasure-house of the
collective images,—from the General or Co-ordinating Sense. Farther, he
makes out Apperception,—the function of the middle region of the
brain,—to be in part brought about unconsciously, under the influence
of the sensible and appetent life, as is the case also with the lower
animals, and, on the other hand, to take place in part consciously,
with the co-operation of the Reason. In the first case the
representation preserves its reference to the individual thing,—thus
the sheep knows the hostility of the wolf,—but in the second case, the
representation is extended to the Universal. Then, in the hinder part
of the brain, the Representative Memory, or store-house of the
representations formed by combined Sensuous Impression and Rational
Reflection, follows as a fifth power. In this way five Internal Senses
[18] correspond to the five External Senses, although with quite
another reference than the five Internal Senses of the Faithful
Brethren. The question which is raised—as to whether one should farther
separate Recollection, as a special faculty, from Memory,—remains
unanswered.
6. At the apex of the intellectual powers of the Soul stands the
Reason. There is indeed a Practical Reason also, but in its action we
have been only multiplying ourselves mediately: On the other hand, in
Self-Consciousness, or the pure recognition of our essential nature,
the unity of our Reason is directly exhibited. But instead of keeping
down the lower powers of the Soul, the Reason lifts them up, refining
Sense-Perception, and generalizing Presentation. Reason, which at first
is a mere capacity for Thought, becomes elaborated gradually,—in that
Material which is conveyed to it by the external and internal
senses,—into a finished readiness in Thought. Through exercise the
capability becomes reality. This comes about through the
instrumentality of experience, but under guidance and enlightenment
from above,—from the ‘Giver of the Forms’, who as Active Spirit imparts
the Ideas to the Reason. The Soul of man, however, does not possess any
memory for the pure ideas of Reason, for memory always presupposes a
corporeal substratum. As often then as the Rational Soul comes to know
anything, that knowledge flows to it on each occasion from above; and
thinking Souls do not differ in the range and contents of their
knowledge, but in the readiness with which they put themselves in
communication with the Spirit over us, in order to receive their
knowledge.
The Rational Soul, which rules over that which is under it, and comes
to know the higher by means of the enlightenment given by the
World-Spirit, is then the real Man,—brought into existence, but as
unmixed essence, as individual substance, indestructible, immortal. On
this point the clearness of Ibn Sina’s teaching marks it off from that
of Farabi; and, since his time, the assumption of the individual
immortality of the human Souls, which have come into being, is regarded
in the East as Aristotelian, and the opposite doctrine as Platonic.
Thus a better understanding prevails between his philosophy and the
accepted religion. The human body and the whole world of sense furnish
the Soul with a school for its training. But after the death of the
body, which puts an end to this body for ever, the Soul continues to
exist in a more or less close connection with the World-Spirit. In this
union with the Spirit over us,—which is not to be conceived as a
complete unification,—the blessedness of the good, ‘knowing’ souls
consists. The lot of the others is eternal misery; for just as bodily
defects lead to disease, so punishment is the necessary consequence of
an evil condition of Soul. In the same way too, the rewards of Heaven
are apportioned according to the degree of soundness or rationality
which the Soul has attained in its life on earth. The pure Soul is
comforted amidst the sufferings of Time by its prospect of Eternity.
The highest is of course, reached only by a few; for on the pinnacle of
Truth there is no room for the many; but one presses forward after
another, to reach the source of the knowledge of God, welling forth on
its lonely height.
7. To express his view of the Human Reason, Ibn Sina employs and
explains poetical traditions,—a favourite proceeding in the Persian
literature. First and foremost our interest is awakened by the
allegorical figure of Hai ibn Yaqzan. It represents the ascent of the
Spirit out of the Elements, and through the realms of Nature, of the
Souls, and of the Spirits, up to the throne of the Eternal One. Hai
presents himself to the philosopher in the form of an old man with an
air of youth about him, and offers his services as guide. The wanderer
has been striving to reach a knowledge of Earth and Heaven, by means of
his outer and inner senses. Two ways open out before him, one to the
West, the way of the Material and the Evil, the other to the Rising
Sun, the way of Spiritual and ever-pure Forms; and along that way Hai
now conducts him. Together they reach the well of Divine wisdom, the
fountain of everlasting youth, where beauty is the curtain of beauty,
and light the veil of light,—the Eternal Mystery.
Hai ibn Yaqzan is thus the guide of individual, thinking Souls: he is
the Eternal Spirit who is over mankind, and operates in them.
A similar meaning is found by our philosopher in the frequently
remodelled late-Greek legend of the brothers Salaman and Absal. Salaman
is the World-Man, whose wife (i.e., the World of the Senses) falls in
love with Absal, and contrives by a stratagem to wile him into her
arms. But before the decisive moment, a flash of lightning comes down
from heaven, and reveals to Absal the wantonness of the action which he
had nearly committed, and raises him from the world of sensual
enjoyment to that of pure spiritual contemplation.
In another passage the soul of the philosopher is compared to a bird,
which with great trouble escapes from the snares of the earth,
traversing space in its flight, until the Angel of Death delivers it
from the last of its fetters.
That is Ibn Sina’s Mysticism. His soul has needs, for which his
medicine-chest provides no resource, and which the life of a court
cannot satisfy.
8. The theoretical development of Ethics and Politics may be left to
the teachers of the ‘fiqh’. Our philosopher feels himself on the level
of a inspired person, exalted like a God above all human laws.
Religious or Civil Law is binding only on the Many. Mohammed’s object
was, to civilize the Bedouins; and, in order to aid in accomplishing
that object, he preached, among other doctrines, that of the
Resurrection of the Body. They would never have understood the meaning
of purely spiritual blessedness; and so he had to educate them by
setting before them the prospect of bodily pleasure or pain. As for the
Ascetics,—notwithstanding their willingness to renounce entirely the
world and the senses,—they chime in with this sensuous multitude (whose
worship of God consists in the observance of outward forms), in respect
that they practise their works of piety with an eye to a reward also,
even though it be a heavenly one. Higher than the many or the pious
stand those who truly worship God in spiritual love, entertaining
neither hope nor fear. Their peculiar possession is Freedom of the
Spirit.
But this secret should not be revealed to the multitude; and the
philosopher confides it only to his favourite pupils.
9. In the course of his travels Ibn Sina met with many of the learned
men of his time; but it would appear that these interviews did not give
rise to any enduring intimacies. Just as he feels indebted to Farabi
alone, of all those who preceded him, so the only persons of his own
day, whom he sees fit to thank, are the princes who patronized him. He
criticized unfavourably Ibn Maskawaih (v. IV, 3), whom he met with
still more frequently. With Beruni, his superior in research, he
conducted a correspondence, but it was soon broken off.
Beruni (973–1048) deserves a short notice here, to illustrate the
character of the time, although Kindi and Masudi have a better claim to
be called his masters, than Farabi and the younger Ibn Sina. He was
particularly occupied in the study of Mathematics, Astronomy, Geography
and Ethnology; and he was a keen observer and a good critic. For many a
solution of his difficulties, however, he was indebted to Philosophy;
and he continually bestowed attention upon it, as one of the phenomena
of civilization.
Beruni brings into striking prominence the harmony which exists between
the Pythagorean-Platonic philosophy, Indian wisdom, and many of the
Sufi views. No less striking is his recognition of the superiority of
Greek Science, when compared with the attempts and performances of the
Arabs and the Indians. ‘India’, he says, ‘not to mention Arabia, has
produced no Socrates: there no logical method has expelled phantasy
from science’. But yet he is ready to do justice to individual Indians,
and he quotes with approval the following, as the teaching of the
adherents of Aryabhata: “It is enough for us to know that which is
lighted up by the sun’s rays. Whatever lies beyond, though it should be
of immeasurable extent, we cannot make use of; for what the sunbeam
does not reach, the senses do not perceive, and what the senses do not
perceive, we cannot know”.
From this we may gather what Beruni’s philosophy was: Only
sense-perceptions, knit together by a logical intelligence, yield sure
knowledge; and for the uses of life we need a practical philosophy,
which enables us to distinguish friend from foe. He doubtless did not
himself imagine that he had said all that could be said on the subject.
10. From the school of Ibn Sina, we have had more names handed down,
than we have had writings preserved. Djuzdjani annexes to his
Autobiography an account of the life of the master. And, farther, we
have one or two short metaphysical treatises by Abu-l-Hasan Behmenyar
ibn al-Marzuban, which are nearly in complete agreement with the system
of his teacher. But Matter appears to lose somewhat of its
substantiality: as Possibility of Existence it becomes a relation of
thought.
According to Behmenyar, God is the pure, uncaused Unity of Necessary
Existence,—not the living, all-producing Creator. True enough, He is
the cause of the world, but the effect is given necessarily and
synchronously with the cause; otherwise the cause would not be perfect,
being capable of change. Essentially, though not in point of time, the
existence of God precedes that of the world. Three predicates thus
pertain to the highest existence, viz., that it is (1) essentially
first, (2) self-sufficing, and (3) necessary. In other words God’s
essential nature is the Necessity of his Existence. All that can
possibly be,—owes its existence to this Absolutely Necessary Being.
Now that is quite in harmony with the doctrines of Ibn Sina; and the
same is the case with the disciple’s scheme of the world and his
doctrine of Souls. Whatever has once attained to full reality,—the
various Sphere-Spirits according to their kind, Primeval Matter, and
the individually different Souls of Men,—all lasts for ever. Nothing
that is completely real can pass away, inasmuch as the completely real
has nothing to do with mere possibility.
The characteristic of all that is spiritual is its knowledge of its own
essential nature. Will is nothing else, in Behmenyar’s opinion, than
the knowledge of that which is the necessary outcome of that nature.
Farther, the life and the joy of rational souls consist in
self-knowledge.
11. Ibn Sina achieved a far-reaching influence. His Canon of Medicine
was highly esteemed even in the West, from the 13th century to the
16th, and it is still the authority for medical treatment among the
Persians of the present day. On Christian Scholasticism his influence
was important. Dante placed him between Hippocrates and Galen; and
Scaliger maintained that he was Galen’s equal in Medicine, and much his
superior in Philosophy.
For the East he stood and yet stands as the Prince of Philosophy. In
that region Neo-Platonic Aristotelianism continues to be known under
the form which was given it by Ibn Sina. Manuscripts of his works
abound,—an evidence of his popularity,—while commentaries on his
writings, and epitomes of them, are countless. He was studied by
physicians and statesmen, and even by theologians: It was only a few
who went farther back and consulted his sources.
From the very first, of course, he had many enemies, and they were more
noisy in their demonstrations than his friends. Poets cursed him:
theologians either chimed in with him, or tried to refute him. And in
Bagdad in the year 1150, the Caliph Mustandjid consigned to the flames
Ibn Sina’s writings, as part of a certain judge’s philosophical
library.
5. Ibn al-Haitham.
1. After the days of Ibn Sina and his school, little more attention was
paid to the cultivation of Speculative Philosophy in the Eastern
regions of the Muslim empire. In these lands Arabic was forced more and
more to yield to Persian, both in life and in literature. That the
Persian tongue is not so well adapted for abstract logical and
metaphysical discussion—might be only of quite secondary importance, in
connection with this decline in speculation; but the conditions of
civilization, and with them the subjects which interested men, were
sadly changed. Ethics and Politics came more to the front, although
without assuming an actually new form. But in the later Persian
literature the predominant place was unmistakeably held by Poetry,
partly of a free-thinking tendency, partly, and indeed
preponderatingly, of a mystic kind, which satisfied the need for
wisdom, experienced by people of culture.
From about the middle of the 10th century, the scientific movement
which originated at Bagdad had in part turned westward. We have already
found Farabi in Syria, and Masudi in Egypt: In the latter country Cairo
was becoming a second Bagdad.
2. In Cairo, at the beginning of the 11th century, we come upon one of
the most considerable mathematicians and physicists in all the Middle
Ages, Abu Ali Mohammed ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Haitham (Alhazen). He had
formerly been a government-official in Basra, his native town.
Confiding too much in the practical value of his mathematical
knowledge, he imagined that he could regulate the inundations of the
Nile; but having been summoned on that account by the Caliph al-Hakim,
he became aware, soon after his arrival, of the futility of his
efforts. Thereupon he fell into disgrace as a public official, and went
into hiding till the Caliph’s death, in 1021. From that time he devoted
himself to literary and scientific work, up to his own death, in 1038.
His chief strength is shown in mathematics and its practical
application; but he also devoted great attention to the writings of
Galen and Aristotle, nor did he confine that attention to the physical
treatises. By his own confession he had, in a spirit of doubt about
everything, been engaged, from his youth up, in considering the various
views and doctrines of men, until he came to recognize in all of them
more or less successful attempts to approximate to the truth. Moreover
truth for him was only that which was presented as material for the
faculties of sense-perception, and which received its form from the
understanding, being thus the logically-elaborated perception. To seek
such truth was his aim in the study of philosophy. In his view
philosophy should be the basis of all the sciences. He found it in the
writings of Aristotle, inasmuch as that sage had best understood how to
knit sense-perception into a coherent whole with rational knowledge.
With eagerness therefore he studied and illustrated Aristotle’s works,
for the use and profit of mankind, as well as to exercise his own
intellect and provide a treasure and consolation for his old age. Of
these labours, however, nothing seems to have been preserved for us.
The most important of Ibn al-Haitham’s writings is the “Optics”, which
has come down to us in a Latin translation and redaction. In it he
shows himself to be an acute mathematical thinker, always taking pains
with the analysis of hypotheses and of the actual examples. A Western,
belonging to the 13th century (Vitello), was able to give a more
methodical account of the whole subject; but yet in keenness of
observation on specific points, Ibn al-Haitham may be reckoned his
superior.
3. Ibn al-Haitham’s thinking is expressed in quite a mathematical
style. The Substance of a body consists, according to him, of the sum
of its essential attributes, just as a whole is equal to the sum of its
parts, and a concept to the sum of its marks.
In the “Optics” the psychological remarks on Seeing and on
Sense-Perception in general—are of special interest for us. Here he
exerts himself to separate the individual Moments of the Perception,
and to give prominence to the condition of Time as characterizing the
whole process.
Perception then is a compound process, arising out of (1) sensation,
(2) comparison of several sensations or of the present sensation with
the memory-image which has been gradually formed in the soul as a
result of earlier sensations, and (3) recognition, in such fashion that
we recognize the present percept as equivalent to the memory-image.
Comparison and recognition are not activities of the Senses, which
merely receive impressions passively, but they devolve upon the
Understanding as the faculty of judgment. Ordinarily the whole process
goes forward unconsciously or semi-consciously, and it is only through
reflection that it is brought within our consciousness, and that the
apparently simplex is separated into its component parts.
The process of Perception is gone through very quickly. The more
practice a man has in this respect, and the oftener a perception is
repeated, the more firmly is the memory-image stamped upon the soul,
and the more rapidly is recognition or perception effected. The cause
of this is that the new sensation is supplemented by the image which is
already present in the soul. One might thus be disposed to think that
Perception was an instantaneous act, at least after long practice.
That, however, would be erroneous, for not only is every sensation
attended by a corresponding change localized in the sense-organ, which
demands a certain time, but also, between the stimulation of the organ
and the consciousness of the perception an interval of time must
elapse, corresponding to the transmission of the stimulus for some
distance along the nerves. That it needs time, for example, to perceive
a colour, is proved by the rotating circle of colours, which shows us
merely a mixed colour, because on account of the rapid movement we have
no time to perceive the individual colours.
Comparison and Recognition are, according to Ibn al-Haitham, the
significant Mental Moments of Perception. On the other hand Sensation
tallies with the Material; and the Sense experiencing the sensation
exhibits a passive attitude. Properly all sensation is in itself a kind
of discomfort, which ordinarily does not make itself felt, but which
emerges into consciousness under very strong stimuli, for example,
through too bright a light. A pleasurable character accrues only to the
completed perception, that is to the recognition which lifts the
material given in sensation, up to the mental form.
The comparison and recognition, which are put in operation in
Perception, constitute an unconscious judgment and conclusion. The
child is already drawing a conclusion, when of two apples he chooses
the finer one. As often as we comprehend a connection, we are
concluding. But, since judging and concluding are quickly settled, men
are easily misled in this matter, and frequently they regard as an
original concept that which is merely a judgment derived by a process
of ratiocination. In the case of everything which is announced to us as
an axiom, we should be on our guard and trace it up, to see whether it
cannot be derived from something more simple.
4. This appeal of our philosopher had little effect in the East. It is
true that in Mathematics and Astronomy he created somewhat of a school;
but his Aristotelian philosophy had comparatively few admirers. We know
only one of his scholars who is counted among the Philosophers,
Abu-l-Wafa Mubasshir ibn Fatik al-Qaid, an Egyptian emir, who in the
year 1053 produced a work made up of proverbial wisdom, anecdotes in
illustration of the history of philosophy, and so on. Hardly anything
can be traced in it which is the result of his own thinking. It should
have been pleasant reading. And the inhabitants of Cairo in after times
found edification,—more even than in such a work,—in the tales of the
Thousand and One Nights.
The East set the stigma of heresy upon Ibn al-Haitham and his works,
and now it has almost completely forgotten him. A disciple of
Maimonides, the Jewish philosopher, relates that he was in Bagdad on
business, when the library of a certain philosopher, (who died in 1214)
was burned there. The preacher, who conducted the execution of the
sentence, threw into the flames, with his own hands, an astronomical
work of Ibn al-Haitham, after he had pointed to a delineation therein
given of the sphere of the earth, as an unhappy symbol of impious
Atheism.
V. THE OUTCOME OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE EAST.
1. Gazali.
1. We have already seen that the theological movement in Islam was
strongly influenced by Philosophy. Not only the Mutazilite, but also
the Antimutazilite Dialectic drew its opinions and the arguments with
which it supported its own teaching or disputed that of its opponents,
for the most part out of the writings of the philosophers. Out of these
one took just what he was able to make use of: the rest he left in
peace, or else he endeavoured to refute it. Thus numerous writings came
into existence, directed against some particular philosophical
doctrine, or some individual philosopher. No attempt, however, had been
made before the time of Gazali, to direct an attack from general points
of view and after thorough-going study, against the entire system of
Philosophy which had been built up in the East on a Greek foundation.
Gazali’s undertaking had also a positive side. Along with the Dialectic
which sought to make the doctrines of the Faith intelligible, or even
to provide them with a rational basis, there were movements in Islam of
a mysticism which tended to a conception of dogma, profound and full of
feeling. Its wish was, not to comprehend or demonstrate the contents of
the Faith, but to learn them by experience and live in them through the
Spirit. The highest certitude ought to belong to the Faith. Ought it
then to be in the power of any to transform it into a derived
knowledge? Or must its tenets be principles of the Reason, neither
capable of farther proof, nor requiring it? But the fundamental
principles of the Reason, when once they are known, must be universally
recognized; and universal recognition is lacking in the case of the
tenets of the Faith. From what other source does unbelief arise? Thus
the questioning proceeded; and it seemed to many that the only way out
of these doubts was to base religious doctrine upon an inner,
supra-rational illumination. At first this came about unconsciously,
under a mystic impulse, whereby the contents of moral and religious
teaching were often brought into neglect. Gazali took part in this
movement also. That which had perhaps been typified by the Salimites
and Karramites, Antimutazilite sects, he set forth completely and in a
dignified style; and ever since his time Mysticism both sustains and
crowns the Temple of Learning in Orthodox Islam.
2. The story of this man’s life is a remarkable one; and, in order to
understand the effectiveness of his work, it is absolutely essential to
examine it with a measure of detail. He was born at Tos in Khorasan in
the year 1059, being thus a countryman of the great poet Firdausi. And
just as the latter furnishes a proof of the old glory of the Persian
nation, so Gazali was destined to be a “testimony and ornament” for all
future Islam. Even his early education,—obtained after his father’s
death, in the house of a Sufi friend,—was rather cosmopolitan than
national in its direction. Farther, any limitation was displeasing to
the youth’s restless and fanciful spirit. He did not feel at home in
the hair-splitting casuistry of the teachers of Morals with their
precise formulas: he regarded it as a worldly knowledge, from which he
turned away, to immerse his spirit in the knowledge of Allah. Then he
studied theology in Nishabur with the Imām al-Haramain, who died in
1085; and at the same time he may himself have begun to write and to
teach, and, perhaps even thus early, to entertain doubts of his own
science. Thereafter he was in attendance at the court of Nizam al-Mulk,
the Vizir of the Seldjuk prince, until in 1091 he was appointed a
Professor in Bagdad. It was during this time at all events that he
busied himself most with philosophy. But it was not pure love for the
science, which impelled him to that study, but the longing of his heart
to find a solution of the doubts which assailed his understanding. Not
any explanation of the events of the world, nor any clearing up of his
own thinking, but peace of mind and the experience of a higher reality
constituted the object which he strove to reach. He subjected to a
thorough study the writings of the philosophers, in particular those of
Farabi and Ibn Sina; and, following chiefly the system of the latter,
he composed a Compendium of Philosophy, regarding it objectively, but
still with some appearance of sympathy with its contents. He said,—at
first in a kind of whisper to pacify his own mind, but afterwards
publicly in self-defence,—that he composed that work in order that he
might follow up the statement of the doctrines of philosophy with the
refutation of the same. And that refutation did appear, probably not
long after. It was the famous “Destruction of the Philosophers”,—which
was composed in all likelihood while he was still in Bagdad, or shortly
after he had left it.
But by the end of four years, viz. in 1095, Gazali had discontinued his
work of teaching in Bagdad, attended though it had been with outward
success. His mind, continually in a state of doubt, probably found no
satisfaction in dogmatic prelections. He was alternately attracted and
repelled by his own brilliant position, and he came to think that he
could, and that he should, fight against the world and its wisdom in
some other way, to more purpose. Ambition with him embraced far more
than this world. Profounder still his musings became; and during an
illness of his, the inner call presented itself to his soul. He had
secretly to prepare for the work, by means of Sufi exercises,—perhaps
even to assume the character of a religious and political reformer. At
the very time that the Crusaders were equipping themselves in the West
against Islam, Gazali was preparing himself to be the spiritual
champion of the Muslim faith. His conversion was not of a violent
character, like that of St. Augustine, but was rather to be compared to
the experience of St. Jerome, who was summoned in a dream from his
Ciceronian predilections to practical Christianity.
For ten years Gazali travelled here and there, dividing his time
between pious exercises and literary work. In the first part of that
period it may be conjectured that he wrote his principal
theologico-ethical work, “The Revival of Religious Sciences”: towards
the end he endeavoured to exercise influence as a reformer. His
journeyings led him by way of Damascus and Jerusalem—before it was
taken by the Crusaders,—Alexandria, Mecca and Medina, back to his home.
After his return Gazali once more engaged in teaching for a short time
in Nishabur; and he died in Tos, his native town, on the 19th of
December, 1111. His closing years were chiefly devoted to pious
contemplation and the study of the Traditions, which as a youth he
could never remember. A beautifully complete and rounded life, in which
the end comes back to the beginning!
3. Gazali passes in review the spiritual tendencies of his time. These
are: the Dialectic of the Theologians; Sufi Mysticism; Pythagorean
Popular Philosophy; and Neo-Platonic Aristotelianism. That which
Dialectic desires to establish is also the object of his own faith; but
its arguments appear to him rather weak, and many of its assertions on
that account open to question. He feels most in sympathy with the Sufi
Mysticism: to it he owes his dearest possession, viz., the
establishment of his own faith in Personality,—so that he can postulate
as an inner experience that which the Dialecticians attempt to derive
by a process of reasoning. He thanks also the Popular Philosophy for
the instruction it gives, particularly in Mathematics, which he fully
recognizes as a science, together with its Astronomical deductions. He
concedes the validity of its Physics, where that is not in conflict
with the Faith. But Aristotelianism,—as it has been taught by Farabi
and Ibn Sina, with as much subservience to authority as has been
exhibited by the Theologians,—seems to him to be the enemy of Islam;
and in the name of all the Muslim schools and tendencies of thought
together, he feels bound to do battle with it, as from a catholic
standpoint. And in truth he does this with Aristotle’s own
weapons,—those of Logic; for the axioms of thought which Logic lays
down are, in his eyes, just as firmly established as the propositions
of Mathematics. Fully alive to this, he starts from the Principle of
Contradiction, to which, according to his contention, God himself
submits. Of the Physico-Metaphysical doctrines of Philosophy then, he
attacks three in particular: 1. That the world is eternal; 2. That God
takes cognizance only of the Universal, and that consequently there is
no special providence; 3. That the Soul alone is immortal, and
therefore a Resurrection of the Body is not to be looked for. In the
refutation of these doctrines Gazali is in many respects dependent on
the Christian commentator on Aristotle, Johannes Philoponus, who also
has written against the doctrine of the eternity of the world
maintained by Proclus.
4. (1) The world, according to the philosophers, is a sphere of finite
extent but of infinite duration. From all eternity, it proceeds from
God, even as the effect is in existence at the same time with the
cause. Gazali, on the contrary, is of opinion that it is not admissible
to put such different constructions on the notions of Space and Time
respectively; and he holds that the Divine Causality should be defined
as free Creative Might.
First then as to Space and Time: we are as little able to imagine an
outermost boundary of Space as a beginning or end of Time. He who
believes in an endless Time, must, in consistency with that notion of
his, assume also the existence of an infinite Space. To say that Space
answers to the external sense, and Time on the other hand to the
internal,—does not alter the case, for we do not after all get rid of
the Sensible. Just as Space bears a relation to Body, so does Time to
the movement of Body. Both are merely relations of things, created in
and with the things of the world, or rather relations between our
conceptions, which God creates in us.
Still more important is that which Gazali advances about Causality. The
Philosophers distinguish between an operation of God, of Spiritual
Beings endowed with will, of the Soul, of Nature, of Chance and the
like; but for Gazali, just as for the orthodox Kalam, there is really
only one causality, that of the ‘Willing’ Being. He completely puts
aside the causality of Nature, which is reducible without remainder
into a relation of Time. We see one definite phenomenon (Cause)
regularly succeeded by another definite phenomenon (Effect); but how
the latter results from the former is left an enigma for us. Of
operation in the objects of Nature we know nothing. Farther, any
alteration is in itself inconceivable. That any one thing should become
a different thing is incomprehensible to thought, which may just as
well ask about facts as about causes. A thing either exists, or it does
not exist; but not even Divine Omnipotence can transform one existing
thing into another thing. It creates or else annihilates.
And yet it is a fact of our consciousness that we do effect something.
If we ‘will’ anything, and possess the power to carry it out, we claim
the result as our act. Action, proceeding from a free will, and
conscious of the exertion of power, is the only causality of which we
know; and we argue from this to the Divine Being. But by what right?
The warrant for such a conclusion Gazali thinks that he finds in his
own personal experience of the image of God in his soul; while on the
other hand he declines to credit Nature with the likeness to God which
belongs to his own soul.
For him accordingly, God, in so far as he can be known from the world,
is the Almighty Being, free in will and efficient in operation. No
spatial limit may be set to his causative activity, which yet the
philosophers do, when they grant only his influence in his first
created work. But on the other hand He can limit his own work both in
Space and Time, so that this finite world has only a finite duration.
That God should call the world into existence out of nothing by an
absolute act of creation—seems to the Philosophers to be absurd. They
recognize only an exchange of Accidents or Forms in the one material, a
passing of the actual from possibility to possibility. But does nothing
new ever come then into being? Is not every apprehension of the
senses,—asks Gazali,—and every spiritual perception, something entirely
new, which either exists or else does not exist, but at whose coming
into existence the contrary does not cease, and at whose vanishing from
existence, the opposite does not make its appearance? Consider farther
the numerous individual souls which, according to Ibn Sina’s system,
must be in existence: have not these come into being, absolutely new?
There is no end to the putting of questions. The representative process
wanders about in all directions and far; and thought leads us on ad
infinitum. The chain of causation can nowhere be brought to an end, any
more than Space or Time. In order then that there should be a definite,
final Existence,—and in postulating this, Gazali is at one with the
Philosophers—, we need an Eternal Will as First Cause, different from
everything else.
We may at all events make this acknowledgement to Gazali, that Ibn
Sina’s fantastic doctrine of Forms and Souls makes no stand against his
criticism.
5. (2) We have now come to the idea of God. In the view of the
Philosophers, God is the highest Being, and his essence is Thought.
That which He knows, comes into existence, emanating from his
abundance; but he has not positively ‘willed’ it, for all Willing
presupposes a deficiency,—a need—, and is conditioned by some change in
the Being that wills. Willing is movement in the material: completely
real Spirit wills nothing. Therefore God beholds his creation in a
contemplation which is undisturbed by any wish. He recognizes himself,
or even his first Creature, or, according to Ibn Sina, the Universal,
the eternal Genera and Species of all things.
But according to Gazali there must eternally belong to God a Will, as
one of his eternal attributes. In a conventional way he grants, it is
true, that in metaphysical and ethical considerations knowing precedes
willing, but he is convinced that unity of Being does not more reside
in knowing than in willing. Not only the multiplicity of the objects of
knowledge, and their different relations to the knowing Subject, but
even Self-Consciousness, or knowing about the knowing, considered per
se, is an endless process. An act of will is absolutely necessary to
bring it to a conclusion. In directing the attention and in
self-communing an original “Willing” is in operation; and thus even
Divine knowledge comes to a conclusion as a coherent unity, in its
Personality, by means of an original eternal Will. In place of the
assertion of the Philosophers that God wills the world, because he
thinks of it as the best, Gazali substitutes the statement: “God has
cognizance of the world because he wills it and in his willing it”.
Must not then He, who wills and creates all, have cognizance of his
work down to the smallest part of its material? Just as his eternal
will is the cause of all individual things, so his eternal knowledge
embraces at one and the same time every particular thing, without the
unity of his nature being thereby taken away. There is consequently a
Providence.
To the objection that Divine Providence makes every particular event a
necessary event, Gazali, like St. Augustine, replies that this
fore-knowledge is not distinguishable from knowledge in memory,—that is
to say, that God’s knowledge is exalted above every distinction of
time.
It may be questioned whether, in order to save the eternal, almighty,
creative Will, Gazali has not sacrificed to that absolute might both
the temporary character of the world, which he would like to prove, and
the freedom of human action, from which he sets out, and which he would
not altogether surrender. This world of shadows and images, as he calls
it, vanishes for the sake of God.
6. (3) The third question, with regard to which Gazali separates
himself from the Philosophers, has less philosophic interest. It refers
to the Resurrection of the Body. According to the Philosophers it is
only the Soul that is immortal, either in its individuality or as a
part of the World-Soul: The Body on the other hand is perishable.
Against this Dualism, which in theory led to an ascetic Ethics, but
which in practice was easily converted into Libertinism, the religious
and moral feeling of Gazali rose in rebellion. If the flesh is to have
its obligations, it must in turn be invested with its rights. The
possibility of the Resurrection cannot be denied, for the reunion of
the Soul with its (new) bodily frame is not more wonderful than its
first union with the earthly body, which has been assumed even by the
Philosophers. Surely then every soul at the resurrection-time may
obtain a new body suited to it. But in any case Man’s real essence is
the Soul; and it is of little consequence what the material is, out of
which its heavenly body is formed.
7. Even from these last propositions it is clear that Gazali’s theology
did not remain unaffected by philosophical speculation. Like the
Fathers of the Western Church, he had, whether consciously or
unconsciously, appropriated a good deal from philosophy; and for that
reason his theology was long proscribed as a heretical innovation by
the Muslims of the West. In reality his teaching regarding God, the
World, and the human Soul exhibits many elements which are foreign to
the oldest type of Islam, and which may be traced back,—partly through
the intervening agency of Christian and Jewish writers and partly
through that of more recent Muslim authors,—to heathen wisdom.
Allah, Lord of the Worlds, God of Mohammed, is for Gazali a living
personality it is true, but yet far less anthropomorphic than he
appeared to simple Faith or in the Antimutazilite dogma. The surest way
of coming to know him must be to refuse to attribute to him any of the
properties of his creatures. But that does not mean that he possesses
no attributes: the very reverse is the case. The plurality of his
qualities does not prejudice the Unity of his Being. Analogies are
presented in the bodily world: A thing certainly cannot be both black
and white at the same time, but it may well be cold and also dry. Only,
if the qualities of men are attributed to God, they must be understood
in another and higher sense, for he is pure Spirit. Besides omniscience
and omnipotence, pure goodness and omnipresence belong to Him. By means
of this omnipresence this world and the next are brought in a manner
nearer to one another than by the usual representation.
The conception of God is thus spiritualized. But resurrection and the
future life are also regarded as being much more spiritual in character
than the present life. Such a conception is facilitated by the doctrine
of the Gnostic Philosophy, that there are three or four worlds. One
above the other in regular order rise the Earthly and Sensible World of
Men, the World of Celestial Spirits, to which our Soul belongs, the
World of Supra-celestial Angels, and lastly God himself, as the World
of purest Light and most perfect Spirit. The pious and enlightened Soul
ascends from the lower world through the heavens till it is face to
face with God, for it is of spiritual nature and its resurrection-body
is of celestial essence.
In a manner corresponding to the different worlds and grades of Souls,
men themselves differ from one another. The man of sensuous nature must
be content with the Koran and Tradition: he should not venture beyond
the letter of the Law. The study of duty is his bread of life;
philosophy would be a deadly poison to him. He who cannot swim should
not venture into the sea.
However there are always people who go into the water for the purpose
of learning to swim. They want to elevate their faith into knowledge,
but in the process they may easily fall into doubt and unbelief. For
them, in Gazali’s opinion, a useful remedy may be found in the study of
Doctrine and Polemics directed against Philosophy.
Those, however, have reached the highest degree of human perfection,
who, without any laborious cogitation, experience in themselves by
means of an inward and Divine illumination the truth and the reality of
the Spiritual World. Such are the prophets and pious mystics, among
whom Gazali himself may be reckoned. They see God in everything,—Him,
and Him alone—, and in Nature just as in the life of their own Soul;
but they see Him best in the Soul, for although it is not Divine it has
at least a likeness to the Divine. How altered now is every outward
thing! That which seems to be in existence outside of us, becomes a
condition or a property of the Soul, which in the consciousness of its
union with God, advances to the highest bliss. All things then become
one in Love. The true service of God transcends fear of punishment and
hope of reward, attaining to Love of God in the Spirit. The perfect
servant of God is raised above endurance and thanksgiving,—which
constitute the obligation of the pious wanderer upon the earth, so long
as he remains imperfect—, so that even in this world he loves and
praises God with joy of heart.
8. From what has been said it follows that there are three stages of
Belief or Certainty. First, the belief of the multitude, who believe
what some man worthy of belief declares to them, for instance, that
So-and-so is in the house; secondly, the knowledge of the learned,
gained by deduction: they have heard So-and-so speaking, and conclude
that he is in the house; but thirdly we have the immediate certainty of
the ‘knowing’ ones, for they have entered the house and seen the person
with their own eyes.
In contradistinction to the Dialecticians and Philosophers, Gazali
everywhere lays stress upon experience. The former, with their
Universal Ideas, in the first place fail to do justice to the
multiplicity which attaches to this world of sense. The sensible
qualities of things,—even the number of the stars for example,—we come
to know only through experience, and not from pure Ideas. Much less,
however, do such Ideas exhaust the heights and depths of our inner
being. That which the friend of God knows intuitively, remains hidden
for ever from the discursive intellect of the learned. A very small
number attain to this height of knowledge, where they meet with the
Apostles of God and Prophets of all times. It is the duty then of the
Spirits who stand at a lower level to strive to follow them.
But now how are we to recognize the superior Spirit whom we need as our
guide? That is a question, on which every religiously-determined
system, which cannot do without human intermediaries, must founder, if
considered purely in the light of the understanding. Even Gazali’s
answer is indecisive. This much is certain to him, that grounds
furnished by the reason alone cannot decide this question. The Prophet
and Teacher who has been actually inspired by God is recognized by
merging ourselves in his peculiar personality, through the experience
of an inward relationship. The truth of Prophecy is authenticated by
the moral influence which it exercises upon the Soul. Of the
truthfulness of God’s word in the Koran we acquire a moral, not a
theoretical certainty. The detached miracle is not capable of
convincing; but the revelation as a whole, together with the
personality of the Prophet, through whom the revelation has been
conveyed, produce an irresistible impression upon the kindred soul.
Then, wholly carried away by such impression, the soul renounces the
world, to walk in the way of God.
9. Gazali is without doubt the most remarkable figure in all Islam. His
doctrine is the expression of his own personality. He abandoned the
attempt to understand this world. But the religious problem he
comprehended much more profoundly than did the philosophers of his
time. These were intellectual in their methods, like their Greek
predecessors, and consequently regarded the doctrines of Religion as
merely the products of the conception or fancy or even caprice of the
lawgiver. According to them Religion was either blind obedience, or a
kind of knowledge which contained truth of an inferior order.
On the other hand Gazali represents Religion as the experience of his
inner Being. It is for him more than Law and more than Doctrine: it is
the Soul’s experience.
It is not every one who has this experience of Gazali’s. But even those
who cannot follow him in his mystic flight, when he transcends the
conditions of any possible experience, will at least be constrained to
acknowledge that his aberrations in searching for the highest are not
less important for the history of the Human Mind than the apparently
surer paths taken by the philosophers of his time, through a land which
others had discovered before them.
2. The Epitomists.
1. In a history of scholarly Education as conducted in the Muslim
nations, this subject would necessarily have a larger space assigned
it: but here we shall dismiss it in a few words.
That Gazali has annihilated philosophy in the East, for all time to
come, is an assertion frequently repeated but wholly erroneous, and one
which evidences neither historical knowledge nor understanding.
Philosophy in the East has since his day numbered its teachers and
students by hundreds and by thousands. The teachers of the Faith have
no more discontinued their dialectical arguments in support of Doctrine
than the teachers of Morals have abandoned their hair-splitting
casuistry. General culture too has adopted an element of philosophical
learning.
But it is true that Philosophy did not succeed in conquering for itself
a commanding position, or in retaining the consideration which it once
enjoyed. According to an Arab anecdote a Philosopher, who had been
thrown into prison, on being asked what he was fit for, by a man who
wanted to purchase him as a slave, is said to have replied: “For
freedom”. Philosophy needs freedom. And where was this Freedom to be
met with in the East? Freedom from material cares, freedom to exemplify
unprejudiced thinking, tended continually to dwindle away from regions
where no enlightened despots were to be found, able to warrant and
protect it. But that is just a symptom of the general decay of
civilization. And although travellers from the West in the twelfth
century praised highly the culture of the East, it had, in comparison
with earlier times, at least begun to decline. In no department did
they pass the mark which had been reached of old: Minds were now too
weak to accomplish such a feat. Literary production became stagnant,
and the only merit which belongs to the voluminous compilers of the
following centuries is that of elegant selection. Ethical and religious
doctrine had ended in Mysticism; and the same was the case with
Philosophy. After the time of Ibn Sina, the Prince of Philosophy, no
one felt called upon to come forward with independent views. The day
had come for Abridgements, Commentaries, Glosses, and Glosses upon
Glosses. The learned world occupied their time in school with work of
that nature, while the believing multitude placed themselves more and
more under the guidance of the Dervish orders.
2. That which general education borrowed most from philosophical
Propaedeutics was a little Mathematics &c., naturally exceedingly
elementary as a rule. By sectaries and mystics a good deal was taken
over from Pythagorean-Platonic wisdom. In particular these doctrines
had to be drawn upon in order to support the belief in saints and
miracles; and a barren syncretistic Theosophy was tricked out
therewith. The system even enrolled Aristotle among its teachers, of
course the spurious Aristotle, but it turned him into a disciple of
Agathodaemon and Hermes.
The more sober-minded thinkers, on the other hand, kept to
Aristotelianism, so far as it agreed with their own views or with the
orthodox Faith. The system of Ibn Sina was almost universally followed
by them; and it was only a few that went back to Farabi, or that
endeavoured to combine the two. Very little notice was taken of
Physical and Metaphysical doctrines: Ethics and Politics were rather
more attended to. Logic was the only subject universally studied; for
it could be admirably conveyed in scholastic form; and, as pure Formal
Logic, it was an instrument which every one was able to make use of. In
fact with the resources of Logic everything might be proved; and even
if the demonstration should be recognized as faulty, there was this
consolation that the averment might still be true, although its
demonstration had not been properly conducted.
Even in the Encyclopaedia of Abu Abdallah al-Khwarizmi, a production of
the last quarter of the tenth century, a larger space was assigned to
Logic than to Physics and Metaphysics. The very same thing was done in
many later encyclopaedias and compilations. The Dogmatists also
commenced their system with logical and epistemological considerations,
in which a traditional eulogy was pronounced over “knowing”. And from
the twelfth century onwards there arose a whole multitude of separate
arrangements of the Aristotelian Organon. Here may be mentioned
only,—as being much used, commented on, and so forth,—the works of
Abhari († 1264), who gave a short summary of the whole ‘Logic’ under
the title of “Isagudji” (εἰσαγωγή); and the works of Qazwini († 1276).
At the greatest University in the Muslim world, that of Cairo, the
Epitomes of the 13th and 14th centuries are used, up to this day. There
the word still is, as for a long time it was with ourselves: “First of
all a College of Logic”, and, we need scarcely add, with no better
result. They indulge themselves, within the limits of the Law, in the
luxury of studying the rules of thinking discovered by the ancient
philosophers, but all the while they smile at these men and at the
Mutazilite Dialecticians, who “believed in Reason!”
VI. PHILOSOPHY IN THE WEST.
1. Beginnings.
1. Western North-Africa, Spain and Sicily are reckoned as forming the
Muslim West. North-Africa, to begin with, is of subordinate importance:
Sicily is regulated by Spain, and is soon overthrown by the Normans of
Lower Italy. For our purpose Muslim Spain or Andalusia first falls to
be considered.
The drama of culture in the East passes here through a second
representation. Just as Arabs there intermarried with Persians, so in
the West they intermarry with Spaniards. And instead of Turks and
Mongols we have here the Berbers of North-Africa, whose rude force is
flung into the play of more refined civilization with a blighting
influence ever on the increase.
After the fall of the Omayyads in Syria (750), a member of that House,
Abderrakhman ibn Moawiya, betook himself to Spain, where he contrived
to work his way up to the dignity of Emir of Cordova and all Andalusia.
This Omayyad overlordship lasted for more than 250 years, and after a
passing system of petty States, it attained its greatest brilliancy
under Abderrakhman III (912–961), the first who assumed the title of
Caliph, and his son al-Hakam II (961–976). The tenth century was for
Spain, what the ninth was for the East,—the time of highest material
and intellectual civilization. If possible, it was more fresh and
native here than in the East, and, if it be true that all theorizing
betokens either a lack or a stagnation of the power of production, it
was more productive also: The sciences, and Philosophy in particular,
had far fewer representatives in Spain. Speaking generally, we may say
that the relations of intellectual life took a simpler form. There was
a smaller number of strata in the new culture than in the old. No doubt
there were, besides Muslims, Jews and Christians in Spain, who in the
time of Abderrakhman III played their part in this cultivated life, of
the Arabic stamp, in common with the rest. But of adherents of
Zoroaster, atheists and such like, there were none. Even the sects of
Eastern Islam were almost unknown. Only one school of Law, that of
Malik, was admitted. No Mutazilite dialectic troubled the peace of the
Faith. True enough the Andalusian poets glorified the trinity of Wine,
Woman and Song; but flippant free-thinking on the one hand, and gloomy
theosophy and renunciation of the world on the other, rarely found
expression.
On the whole, intellectual culture was dependent upon the East. From
the tenth century onwards many journeys in search of knowledge were
undertaken thither from Spain, by way of Egypt and as far as Eastern
Persia, for the purpose of attending the prelections of scholars of
renown. And farther, educational requirements in Andalusia attracted to
it many a learned Eastern who found no occupation in his own home.
Besides, al-Hakam II caused books to be copied, all over the East, for
his library, which is said to have contained 400,000 volumes.
The West was mainly interested in Mathematics, Natural Science,
Astrology and Medicine, precisely as was the case at first in the East.
Poetry, History and Geography were cultivated with ardour. But the mind
was not yet “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”, for when
Abdallah ibn Masarra of Cordova, under Abderrakhman III, brought home
with him from the East a system of Natural Philosophy, he had to submit
to see his writings consigned to the flames.
2. In the year 1013 Cordova, “the Gem of the World”, was laid waste by
the Berbers, and the kingdom of the Omayyads was split up into a number
of minor States. Its second bloom fills up the eleventh century,—the
Medicean age of Spain, in which Art and Poetry still flourish in
luxuriant growth at the courts of the various cities, upon the ruins of
ancient splendour. Art grows refined; poetry becomes sage, and
scientific thought subtle. Intellectual nutriment continues to be
fetched from the East; and Natural Philosophy, the writings of the
Faithful Brethren, and Logic from the school of Abu Sulaiman
al-Sidjistani find admission one after the other. Towards the close of
the century it is possible to trace the influence even of the writings
of Farabi, and the “Medicine” of Ibn Sina becomes known.
The beginnings of philosophical reflection are found chiefly with the
numerous men of culture among the Jews. Eastern Natural Philosophy
produces a powerful and quite singular impression upon the mind of Ibn
Gebirol, the Avencebrol of Christian authors; and Bakhya ibn Pakuda is
influenced by the Faithful Brethren. Even the religious poetry of the
Jews is affected by the philosophical movement; and what speaks therein
is not the Jewish Congregation seeking after God, but the Soul rising
towards the Supreme Spirit.
Among the Muslims, however, the number of those who addressed
themselves to a thorough study of Philosophy was very limited. No
master gathered about him a numerous band of disciples; and meetings of
the learned, for the discussion of philosophical subjects, were
scarcely ever held. The individual thinker must have felt very lonely
in these circumstances. In the West, just as in the East, Philosophy
was developed subjectively; but here it was more the concern of a few
isolated individuals; and, besides, it stood more apart from the faith
of the mass of the people. In the East there were countless
intermediary agencies between faith and knowledge,—between the
philosophers and the believing community. The problem of the individual
thinker, confronted by political society and the faith of narrow-minded
fanatical multitudes, was accordingly realized more acutely in the
West.
2. Ibn Baddja.
1. Towards the end of the eleventh century, when Abu Bekr Mohammed ibn
Yakhya ibn al-Saig ibn Baddja (Avempace) was born in Saragossa, the
fair kingdom of Andalusia was approaching the time of its disappearance
in a system of petty States. It was threatened from the North by the
less civilized but yet powerful and brave Christian knights. But the
Berber dynasty of the Almoravids came to the rescue, who were not only
firmer in the faith but also wiser in their policy than the voluptuous
ruling race of Spain. Then the time of refined culture and free enquiry
seemed gone for ever. Only traditionalists, of the strictest rite,
ventured to make a public appearance, while philosophers, unless they
kept concealed, were persecuted or put to death.
2. But barbarous lords have their caprices, being fond of
appropriating, at least superficially, the culture of those who have
been subjugated by them. Thus Abu Bekr ibn Ibrahim, brother-in-law of
the Almoravid prince Ali,—who was for some time Governor of Saragossa,
made Ibn Baddja his intimate friend and first minister, thereby giving
great offence to his Faqihs and soldiers. Now this was a man, skilled
both in the theory and practice of the Mathematical Sciences,
particularly Astronomy and Music, as well as an adept in Medicine, and
one who was devoted to speculative studies in Logic, Natural Philosophy
and Metaphysics; and in the opinion of the fanatics he was an utterly
abandoned atheist and immoral person.
We know nothing more of the outward life of Ibn Baddja except that he
was in Seville in the year 1118, after the fall of Saragossa, and that
he composed several of his works there, afterwards betaking himself to
the Almoravid court in Fez, where he died in 1138. According to
tradition he met his death by poison, administered at the instigation
of a jealous physician. His short life, as he himself confesses, had
not been a happy one; and he had often longed for death, as a final
refuge. Material want, and, above all, intellectual isolation, may have
weighed down his spirits. His extant writings abundantly evince that he
was unable to feel at home in that day and that environment.
3. He conforms almost entirely to Farabi, the quiet, solitary Eastern.
Like him he was little given to systematizing. His original treatises
are but few in number; and they consist chiefly of brief expositions of
Aristotelian and other philosophical works. His observations are of a
desultory character: Now he makes a beginning in one place; again, he
starts afresh in another. In continually renewed approaches he
endeavours to get nearer Greek thought, and to penetrate from every
possible side to ancient science. He does not discard philosophy, and
he does not deal conclusively with it. On a first glance, that produces
a puzzling impression; but, in the sombre impulse which is upon him,
the philosopher has become aware of the path he is pursuing. In
searching for truth and righteousness, he is coming upon another
thing,—unity and joy in his own life. In his opinion, Gazali took the
matter much too easily, when he thought he could be happy only in the
full possession of the truth comprehended by means of Divine
illumination. In his love for the truth, which is concealed rather than
revealed by the sensuous images of religious mysticism, the philosopher
must be strong enough to renounce that happiness. Only pure thinking,
undisturbed by any sensuous desire, is privileged to behold the supreme
Godhead.
4. In his logical writings Ibn Baddja hardly departs from Farabi. Even
his physical and metaphysical theories agree generally with the views
of the master. But perhaps the mode, in which he represents the history
of the development of the human spirit and the position of man in
knowledge and in life, may claim a measure of interest. There are two
kinds of existence, according to his view,—one which is moved, and one
which is not moved. That which is moved is corporeal and limited, but
its everlasting movement cannot be explained by finite Body. On the
contrary, in order to explain this endless movement, an unending power
is needed, or an eternal essence, namely Spirit. Now while the
corporeal or the natural is moved from without, and the Spirit, itself
unmoved, confers movement upon the corporeal, the Soul-substance
occupies a middle position, being that which moves itself. The relation
between the natural and the psychical presents as little difficulty to
Ibn Baddja as to his predecessors; but the great problem is this:—‘How
are the Soul and the Spirit related to each other, that is to say in
Man?’
5. Ibn Baddja starts with the assumption that Matter cannot exist
without some Form, while Form may exist by itself, without Matter.
Otherwise, in fact, absolutely no change is thinkable, because that is
rendered possible only by the coming and going of substantial Forms.
These Forms then, from the hylic up to the purely spiritual, constitute
a series, to which the development of the human spirit corresponds, in
so far as it realizes the rational ideal. Man’s task is to comprehend
all the spiritual Forms together; first the intelligible Forms of all
that is corporeal, then the sensible-spiritual presentations of the
Soul, next the human Spirit itself and the Active Spirit over it, and
lastly the pure Spirits of the celestial spheres. By rising through
successive stages from the individual and sensible, the presentation of
which constitutes the material on which the Spirit operates, Man
attains to the superhuman and the Divine. Now his guide in this process
is Philosophy, or the knowledge of the universal, which issues from
knowledge of the particular through study and reflection, aided however
by the enlightening Spirit from above. Contrasted with this knowledge
of the universal or the infinite,—in which Being, and becoming the
object of cognition coincide,—all perception and presentation prove
deceptive. Thus it is by rational knowledge, and not by religious and
mystical dreaming, with the sensuous invariably clinging thereto, that
the human Spirit arrives at perfection. Thinking is the highest bliss,
for its very purpose is to reach all that is intelligible. But since
that is the universal, the continued existence of individual human
Spirits beyond this life cannot be assumed. It may be that the
Soul,—which apprehends the particular in the life of sensuous-spiritual
presentation, and notifies its existence in separate desires and
actions,—has the faculty of continuing that existence after death, and
of receiving reward or punishment; but the Spirit or the rational part
of the Soul is one in all. It is only the Spirit of the entirety of
Mankind, or, in other words, the one Intellect, Mind or Spirit in
Humanity,—and that too in its union with the active Spirit over
it,—which is eternal. This theory, which made its way into the
Christendom of the Middle Ages, under the name of Averroes’ Theory, is
thus found even with Ibn Baddja, if not quite distinctly conceived, at
all events more clearly given than with Farabi.
6. Every man does not rise to such a height of contemplation. The
greater number grope about continually in the dark; they merely see the
adumbrations of things, and like shadows they will pass away. Some see
the Light, it is true, and the coloured world of things, but very few
indeed recognize the essence of what they have seen. It is only the
latter, the blessed ones, who attain to life eternal,—in which state
they themselves become Light.
But now, how does the individual man get to this stage of knowledge and
blessed existence? Through action directed by reason, and the free
cultivation of his intellectual powers. Action directed by reason is
free action, that is, action in which there is a consciousness of
purpose. If one, for instance, breaks a stone to pieces, because he has
stumbled against it, he is behaving without purpose, like a child or a
lower animal; but if he does this in order that others may not stumble
against the stone, his action must be called manlike, and directed by
reason.
In order to be able to live as a man should, and to act in a rational
way, the individual man, must as far as circumstances permit, withdraw
from society. The name borne by the Ethics of Ibn Baddja is “Guidance
to the Solitary”. It demands self-culture. Generally, however, one may
avail himself of the advantages attending social life in man, without
including in the bargain its disadvantages. The wise may associate
themselves in larger or smaller unions; such indeed is their duty, if
they light upon one another; and then they form a State within the
State. Naturally they endeavour to live in such a manner that neither
physician nor judge is necessary among them. They grow up like plants
in the open air, and do not stand in need of the gardener’s skill. They
keep at a distance from the lower enjoyments and sentiments of the
multitude. They are strangers to the movements of worldly society. And
as they are friends among themselves, this life of theirs is wholly
determined by Love. Then too as friends of God, who is the Truth, they
find repose in union with the superhuman Spirit of Knowledge.
3. Ibn Tofail.
1. The sovereignty over Western Islam remained with the Berbers, but
the Almohads speedily took the place of the Almoravids. Mohammed ibn
Tumart, the founder of the new dynasty, had, from the year 1121, come
forward as Mahdi. Under his successors Abu Yaaqub Yusuf (1163–1184) and
Abu Yusuf Yaaqub (1184–1198), their sovereignty, which was centred in
Marocco, reached its culminating point.
The Almohads brought with them a startling novelty in theology: The
system of Ashari and Gazali, which till then had been branded as
heretical, was adopted in the West. That meant an infusion of
intellectualism into the teaching of the Faith,—a proceeding which
could not be altogether satisfactory either to the adherents of the old
Faith or to freethinkers, but which may have incited many to farther
philosophizing. Hitherto an attitude of repudiation had been maintained
towards all reasoning in matters of faith; and, even later, many
politicians and philosophers were of opinion that the faith of the
multitude should not be violently disturbed, nor elevated to knowledge,
but that the provinces of Religion and of Philosophy should be kept
scrupulously separate.
The Almohads were interested in questions of theology, but yet Abu
Yaaqub and his successors manifested, as far as political conditions
permitted, such an appreciation of secular knowledge, that philosophy
was enabled to enjoy a brief period of prosperity at their court.
2. We find Abu Bekr Mohammed ibn Abdalmalik ibn Tofail al-Qaisi
(Abubacer) in the position of Vizir and Body-Physician to Abu Yaaqub,
after holding an appointment as Secretary in Granada. His place of
birth was the small Andalusian town of Guadix, and he died in Marocco,
the seat of Government, in the year 1185. The life that lies between
appears to have been by no means eventful. He was fonder of books than
of men, and in his sovereign’s great library he gathered, by reading,
much information which he required for his art, or which met his ardent
thirst for knowledge. He was the dilettante of the philosophers of the
West, and was more given to contemplative enjoyment than scientific
work. Rarely did he set himself to write. We need not perhaps put
absolute faith in his assertion that he could have fundamentally
improved the Ptolemaic system. Many Arabs made a like assertion,
without carrying it into effect.
Of Ibn Tofail’s poetic ventures, one or two poems have been preserved
to us. But his principal endeavour, like that of Ibn Sina, was to
combine Greek Science and Oriental Wisdom into a modern view of the
world. That was to him a personal concern, just as it was to Ibn
Baddja. He too occupied his mind with the relation of the individual
man to Society and its prejudices. But he went farther: Ibn Baddja, as
a rule made out the individual thinker or a small association of
independent thinkers, as constituting a State within the State,—a copy,
as it were, of the great total, or a model for happier times: Ibn
Tofail on the other hand, turned to consider the original.
3. He states the case clearly, in his work “Hai ibn Yaqzan”. The
scenery is contributed by two islands, on one of which he sets human
society with its conventions, and on the other an individual man, who
is being developed naturally. This society as a whole is governed by
lower impulses, subjected only to some measure of outward restraint by
a grossly sensuous religion. But out of this society two men, called
Salaman and Asal (Absal, cf. IV, 4 § 7), rise to rational knowledge and
control of their desires. Accommodating himself to the popular
religion, the first, who is of a practical turn of mind, contrives to
rule the people; but the second, being of speculative disposition and
mystic leanings, wanders off to the island which lay opposite, and
which he imagines to be uninhabited,—there to devote himself to study
and ascetic discipline.
On that island, however, our Hai ibn Yaqzan,—i.e. ‘the Active one, the
son of the Vigilant’,—had been trained into a perfect philosopher. Cast
upon the island when a child, or else brought into existence there by
spontaneous generation, he had been suckled by a gazelle, and then had
been in the course of time left, like a Robinson Crusoe, and that
entirely, to his own resources. Yet he had secured a material
existence, and farther, by observation and reflection, had acquired a
knowledge of Nature, the heavens, God, and his own inner being, until
after seven times seven years he had attained to that which is highest,
viz., the Sufi vision of God, the state of ecstasy. In this situation
he was found by Asal. After they had come to understand each other,—for
at first Hai was still without speech,—it was found that the philosophy
of the one and the religion of the other were two forms of the same
truth, except that in the first form it was somewhat less veiled. But
when Hai came to know that on the opposite island an entire people
continued in darkness and error, he resolved to proceed thither and
reveal the truth to them. Here, however, he was brought to learn by
experience that the multitude were incapable of a pure apprehension of
the truth, and that Mohammed had acted wisely in giving the people
sensuous forms instead of full light. After this result therefore he
repaired again with his friend Asal to the uninhabited island, to serve
God in spirit and in truth till the hour of death.
4. Ibn Tofail has devoted by far the largest portion of his romance to
the course of Hai’s development; but he cannot certainly have thought
that the individual man, left to himself, is able, with the resources
of Nature alone and without the help of society, to advance so far as
Hai did. And yet his conception is perhaps rather more historical, than
certain views which have been entertained since his day, e.g. by some
of the Rationalists of the 18th century. Many little touches in his
work shew that Hai was intended to represent humanity as it stands
outside of revelation. That which is accomplished in him, is the
development of Indian, Persian and Greek wisdom. One or two hints
pointing in that direction, but which cannot be farther followed out
here, may help to lend probability to this view. Thus it is
significant, to begin with, that Hai lives on the island of Ceylon, the
climate of which was held to be such as to render spontaneous
generation possible, where also, according to the legend, Adam, the
first man, had been created, and where the Indian king came to the Wise
Man. Then Hai’s first religious sentiment of wonder, after he had
struggled up out of the primary, animal stage, through shame and
curiosity, is elicited by fire, which has been discovered by him,—a
circumstance which recalls to us the Persian religion. And his farther
speculations are borrowed from Greco-Arabic Philosophy.
The affinity to Ibn Sina’s Hai, which Ibn Tofail himself indicates, is
clear: Only, the figure of Hai in this case presents a more human
appearance. With Ibn Sina the character of Hai represents the
Superhuman Spirit, but the hero of Ibn Tofail’s romance seems to be the
personification of the natural Spirit of Mankind illuminated from
above; and that Spirit must be in accordance with the Prophet-Soul of
Mohammed when rightly understood, whose utterances are to be
interpreted allegorically.
Ibn Tofail has thus arrived at the same result as his Eastern
predecessors. Religion must still be kept up for the ordinary man,
because he cannot go beyond it. It is only a few who rise to an
understanding of religious symbols; and very rarely indeed does any one
attain to the unrestrained contemplation of the highest reality. This
last truth he accentuates with the greatest emphasis. Even if we do
find in Hai the representative of human nature, we cannot gainsay this
truth; for the representation given sets forth the supreme perfection
of Man as consisting in submerging his own self in the World-Spirit, in
the most lonely quietude, and withdrawn from all that is sensuous.
It is true that this condition is attained only in mature age, in
which, besides, a human friend has been met with; and attention to what
is material, and to the arts and sciences, forms the natural
preliminary stage of spiritual perfection. Thus Ibn Tofail is permitted
to look back without regret or shame upon his life spent at court.
5. We have already met frequently with the philosophical views, which
Hai developed in his seven life-periods. But even his practical
behaviour is specially considered by Ibn Tofail. Sufi exercises, as
they are still observed among the religious orders of the East, and as
they had been recommended even by Plato and the Neo-Platonists, have
taken the place of the observances of religious worship enjoined by the
Muslim Law. And Hai forms for himself in the seventh period of his life
a system of Ethics which has a Pythagorean appearance.
Hai has set before him as the aim of his action,—to seek for the One in
all things and to unite himself to the absolute and the self-existing.
He sees in fact all Nature striving to reach this Highest Being. He is
far above the view that everything on the earth exists for the sake of
Man. Animals and plants likewise live for themselves and for God; and
thus he is not permitted to deal capriciously with them. He now
restricts his bodily wants to what is absolutely necessary. Ripe fruits
are preferred by him, the seeds of which he piously consigns to the
soil, taking anxious precaution that no kind may die out through his
avidity. And only in extreme need does he touch animal food, in which
case he seeks in like manner to spare the species. ‘Enough for life,
not enough for sleep’ is his motto.
That has reference to his bodily attitude towards the earthly; but the
living principle binds him to the heavens, and, like the heavens, he
strives to be useful to his surroundings, and to keep his own life
pure. He therefore tends the plants and protects the animals about him,
in order that his island may become a paradise. He pays scrupulous
attention to the cleanliness of his person and his clothing, and
endeavours to give a harmonious turn to all his movements, in
conformity with those of the heavenly bodies.
In this way he is gradually rendered capable of elevating his own self
above earth and heaven to the pure Spirit. That is the condition of
ecstasy, which no thought, no word, no image has ever been able to
comprehend or express.
4. Ibn Roshd.
1. Abu-l-Walid Mohammed ibn Akhmed ibn Mohammed ibn Roshd (Averroes)
was born at Cordova, of a family of lawyers, in the year 1126. There
too he made himself master of the learned culture of his time. In 1153
he is said to have been presented to the prince Abu Yaaqub by Ibn
Tofail; and we possess a report of that occurrence, full of character.
After the introductory phrases of politeness the prince asked him:
“What is the opinion of philosophers about the heavens? Are they
eternal, or have they been brought into existence?” Ibn Roshd
cautiously replied that he had not given attention to philosophy.
Thereupon the prince commenced to discuss the subject with Ibn Tofail,
and, to the astonishment of the listener, shewed that he was acquainted
with Aristotle, Plato, and the philosophers and theologians of Islam.
Then Ibn Roshd also spoke out freely, and won the favour of his
high-placed master. His lot was fixed: He was destined to interpret
Aristotle, as no one before him had done, that mankind might be put in
complete and genuine possession of science.
He was, besides, a jurist and a physician. We find him in 1169 in the
position of judge in Seville, and shortly afterwards in Cordova. Abu
Yaakub, now Caliph, nominates him his Body-Physician in the year 1182;
but, a short time after, he is again judge in his native city, as his
father and grandfather had been. Circumstances, however, change for the
worse. Philosophers are pronounced accursed, and their writings are
committed to the flames. In his old age Ibn Roshd is banished by Abu
Yusuf to Elisana (Lucena, near Cordova), but yet he dies in Marocco the
capital, on the 10th December, 1198.
2. It was upon Aristotle that his activity was concentrated. All that
he could procure of that philosopher’s works, or about them, he
subjected to diligent study and careful comparison. Writings of the
Greeks, which are now lost either entirely or in part, were still known
to Ibn Roshd in translated form. He goes critically and systematically
to work: He paraphrases Aristotle and he interprets him, now with
comparative brevity, and anon in greater detail, both in moderate-sized
and in bulky commentaries. He thus merits the name of “the
Commentator”, which also is assigned to him in Dante’s “Commedia” [19].
It looks as if the Philosophy of the Muslims had been fated in him to
come to an understanding of Aristotle, just that it might then expire,
after that end had been attained. Aristotle for him is the supremely
perfect man, the greatest thinker, the philosopher who was in
possession of an infallible truth. New discoveries in Astronomy, Art or
Physics could make no alteration in that respect. Of course it is
possible to misunderstand Aristotle: Ibn Roshd himself came to have a
different and better understanding of many a point which he took from
the works of Farabi and Ibn Sina; but yet he lived continually in the
belief that Aristotle, when rightly understood, corresponds to the
highest knowledge which is attainable by man. In the eternal revolution
of worldly events Aristotle has reached a height which it is impossible
to transcend. Men who have come after him are frequently put to the
cost of much trouble and reflection to deduce the views which readily
disclosed themselves to the first master. Gradually, however, all doubt
and contradiction are reduced to silence, for Aristotle is one who is
more than man, destined as it were by Providence to illustrate how far
the human race is capable of advancing in its approximation to the
World-Spirit. As being the sublimest incarnation of the Spirit of
Mankind, Ibn Roshd would like to call his master the ‘Divine’ Teacher.
It will be shewn by what follows, that even in the instance of Ibn
Roshd, unmeasured admiration for Aristotle did not suffice to bring
about a perfect comprehension of his thoughts. He allows no opportunity
to pass of doing battle with Ibn Sina, and, upon occasion, he parts
company with Farabi and Ibn Baddja,—men to whom he owes a great deal.
He carps at all his predecessors, in a far more disagreeable fashion
than Aristotle did in the case of his teacher Plato. And yet he himself
is far from having got beyond the interpretation of Neo-Platonic
expositors and the misconceptions of Syrian and Arab translators.
Frequently he follows even the superficial Themistius in opposition to
the judicious Alexander of Aphrodisias, or else he tries to combine
their views.
3. Ibn Roshd is above all a fanatical admirer of the Aristotelian
Logic. Without it one cannot be happy, and it is a pity that Plato and
Socrates were ignorant of it! The happiness of men is measured by the
degree of their logical attainments. With the discernment of a critic
he recognizes Porphyry’s “Isagoge” as superfluous, but he still counts
the “Rhetoric” and the “Poetics” as forming part of the Organon. And
then the oddest misapprehensions are met with. For example, Tragedy and
Comedy are turned into Panegyrics and Lampoons; poetical probability
has to be content with signifying either truth capable of
demonstration, or deceptive appearance; recognition on the stage
(ἀναγνώρισις) becomes Apodictic judgment, and so on. Of course he has
absolutely no conception of the Greek world; and that is venial, for he
could not have had any notion of it. And yet we do not readily excuse
one who has been so severe a critic of others.
Like his predecessors, Ibn Roshd lays especial emphasis upon Grammar,
as far as it is common to all languages. This common principle, and
therefore the universal one, Aristotle, he thinks, keeps always before
him in his Hermeneutics, and even in the Rhetoric. Accordingly the Arab
philosopher is also bound to adhere to it, although in illustrating
universal rules he may take his examples from the Arabic language and
literature. But it is universal rules which form his object, for
science is the knowledge of the universal.
Logic smooths the path for the ascent of our cognition from sensuous
particularity to pure rational truth. The multitude will always live in
the sensuous element, groping about in error. Defective mental parts
and poor education, and depraved habits to boot, prevent them from
making any advance. But still it must be within the power of some to
arrive at a knowledge of truth. The eagle looks the sun in the face,
for if no being could look at him, Nature would have made something in
vain. Whatever shines there is meant to be seen; and so whatever exists
is meant to be known, were it only by one single man. Now truth exists;
and the love for it which fills our hearts would have been all in vain,
if we could not approach it. Ibn Roshd thinks that he has come to know
the truth in the case of many things, and even that he has been able to
discover absolute Truth. He would not, with Lessing, have cared to
resign himself to a mere search for it.
Truth, in fact, has been given him in Aristotle; and from that
standpoint he looks down upon Muslim theology. Certainly he recognizes
that religion has a truth of its own, but theology is repugnant to him.
It wants to prove what cannot be proved in this way. Revelation, as
contained in the Koran,—according to the teaching of Ibn Roshd and
others, and similarly of Spinoza in later times,—does not aim at making
men learned, but at making them better. Not knowledge, but obedience or
moral practice is the aim of the lawgiver, who knows that human welfare
can only be realized in society.
4. That which especially distinguishes Ibn Roshd from those who
preceded him, and in particular from Ibn Sina, is the unequivocal mode
in which he conceives of the world as an eternal process of ‘becoming’.
The world as a whole is an eternally necessary unity, without any
possibility of non-existence or of different existence. Matter and Form
can only be separated in thought. Forms do not wander like ghosts
through dull Matter, but are contained in it after the manner of germs.
The Material Forms, in the guise of natural forces, operate in an
eternal process of generation, never separated from matter, but yet
deserving to be called divine. Absolute origination or extinction there
is none, for all happening is a transition from potentiality to
actuality, and from actuality back to potentiality, in which process
like is ever generated by like and by that alone.
But there is a graded order in the world of Being. The material or
substantial Form stands midway between mere Accident and pure (or
separate) Form. Substantial Forms also exhibit varieties of
degree,—intermediate conditions between potentiality and actuality.
And, finally, the whole system of Forms, from the nethermost hylic Form
up to the Divine Essence, the original Form of the whole, constitutes
one compact structure rising tier upon tier.
Now the eternal process of Becoming, within the given System,
presupposes an eternal movement, and that again an eternal Mover. If
the world had had an origin, we might have reasoned from it to another
and a similarly originated corporeal world, which had produced it, and
so on without end. If again it had been a ‘possible’ entity, we might
have inferred a ‘possible’ entity out of which it had proceeded, and so
on ad infinitum. And according to Ibn Roshd, it is only the hypothesis
of a world moved as a unity and of eternal necessity, that yields us
the possibility of inferring a Being, separate from the world, yet
eternally moving it, who in his continually producing that movement and
maintaining the fair order of the All, may legitimately be called the
Author of the world, and who in the Spirits that move the Spheres,—for
every separate kind of movement demands its separate
principle,—possesses agents to give effect to his activity.
The essence of the First Mover, or of God, as well as of the
Sphere-Spirits, is found by Ibn Roshd in Thought, in which unity of
Being is given him. Thought which is identical with its object is the
sole positive definition of the Divine Essence; but Being and Unity
absolutely synchronize with such Thought. In other words, Being and
Unity are not annexed to the Essence, but are given only in Thought,
just like all universals. Thought produces everywhere the general in
the particular. It is true that the universal as a disposition is
operative in things, but the universal qua universal exists in the
understanding alone. Or, in possibility (or potentiality) it exists in
things, but it exists actually in the understanding,—that is, it has
more Being,—a higher kind of existence,—in the understanding than in
things.
If now the question is asked,—‘Does Divine Thought take in merely the
general, or does it take in the particular too?’, Ibn Roshd replies,
‘It does not directly take in either the one or the other, for the
Divine Essence transcends both of them. Divine Thought produces the All
and embraces the All. God is the principle, the original Form, and the
final aim of all things. He is the order of the world, the
reconciliation of all opposites, the All itself in its highest mode of
existence.’ It follows of course from this theory, that there can be no
talk of a Divine Providence in the ordinary sense of the term.
5. Two kinds of Being we know: one which is moved, and one which causes
motion, though itself unmoved,—or a corporeal and a spiritual. But it
is in the spiritual that the higher unity or perfection of all Being
lies, and that too in graded order. It is thus no abstract unity. The
farther the Sphere-Spirits are from the First, so much the less simple
are they. All know themselves, but in their knowledge there is at the
same time a reference to the First Cause. The result is a kind of
parallelism between the corporeal and the spiritual. There is something
in the lower Spirits which corresponds to the composition of the
corporeal out of Matter and Form. What is mingled with the purely
spiritual is of course no mere Matter, that could suffer anything, but
yet it is something resembling Matter,—something which has the faculty
of taking to itself something else. Otherwise the multiplicity of
intelligibilia could not be brought into harmony with the unity of the
Spirit which apprehends them.
Matter suffers, but Spirit receives. This parallelism, with its subtle
distinction, has been introduced by Ibn Roshd with special reference to
the human Spirit.
6. Ibn Roshd is firmly of opinion that the human soul is related to its
body, as Form is to Matter. He is completely in earnest on this point.
The theory of numerous immortal souls he most decidedly rejects,
combating Ibn Sina. The soul has an existence only as a completion of
the body with which it is associated.
As regards empirical psychology he has anxiously endeavoured to keep by
Aristotle, in opposition to Galen and others; but in the doctrine of
the “nous” he diverges from his master not inconsiderably, without
being aware of it. His conception,—springing from Neo-Platonic
views,—of the Material Reason, is peculiar. It is not a mere aptitude
or capacity of the human soul, neither is it equivalent to the
sensuous-spiritual life of presentation, but it is something above the
soul, and above the individual. The Material Reason is eternal,
imperishable Spirit, as eternal and imperishable as the pure Reason or
the Active Spirit over us. The ascription of a separate existence to
Matter in the domain of the corporeal, is here transferred by Ibn
Roshd,—following of course Themistius and others,—to the region of the
spiritual.
The Material Reason is thus eternal substance. The natural aptitudes,
or the capacity of the human individual for intellectual knowledge Ibn
Roshd denominates the Passive Reason. That comes into being and
disappears, with men as individuals, but the Material Reason is
eternal, like Man as a race.
But a measure of obscurity remains, and it could hardly have been
otherwise, about the relation between the Active Spirit and the
Receptive Spirit, (if we may for the time use this last term for the
Material Reason). The Active Spirit renders intelligible the
presentations of the human soul, while the Receptive Spirit absorbs
these intelligibilia. The life of the soul in individual men thus forms
the meeting-place of this mystic pair of lovers. And such places differ
very greatly. It depends on the entire capacity of a man’s soul, and on
the disposition of his perceptions, in what degree the Active Spirit
can elevate these to intelligibility, and how far the Receptive Spirit
is in a position to make them a portion of its own contents. This
explains why men are not all at the same stage of spiritual knowledge.
But the sum of spiritual knowledge in the world continues unaltered,
although the partition of it undergoes individual variations. By a
necessity of nature, the Philosopher re-appears, without fail, whether
an Aristotle or an Ibn Roshd, in whose brain Being becomes Idea. It is
true that the thoughts of individual men occur in the element of time,
and that the Receptive Spirit is changeable, so far as the individual
has a part in it; but considered as the Reason of the Human Race, that
Spirit is eternally incapable of change, like the Active Spirit from
the last Sphere above us.
7. On the whole, three great heresies set the system of Ibn Roshd in
opposition to the theology of the three world-religions of his time:
first, the eternity of the material world and of the Spirits that move
it; next, the necessary causal nexus in all that happens in the world,
so that no place is left for providence, miracle, and the like; and,
thirdly, the perishable nature of all that is individual, by which
theory individual immortality is also taken away.
Considered logically the assumption of a number of independent
Sphere-Spirits under God does not appear to have any sufficient basis.
But Ibn Roshd, like his predecessors, gets over this difficulty by
asserting that these Sphere-Spirits do not differ individually but only
in kind. Their sole purpose was to explain the different movements in
the system of the world, so long as its unity was still unknown. After
the Ptolemaic system of the world had been put aside, and these
intermediary Spirits had become superfluous, men identified the Active
Spirit with God, as, for the matter of that, they had even in earlier
times attempted to do, on speculative and religious grounds. It was
merely one step farther, to identify even the eternal Spirit of Man
with God. Ibn Roshd did neither of these things, at least according to
the strict letter of his writings; but his system, when consistently
carried out, made it possible to take these steps, and in this way to
arrive generally at a Pantheistic conception of the world. On the other
hand Materialism might easily find support in the system, however
decidedly our philosopher contended against such a view; for where the
eternity, form and efficacy of all that is material are so strongly
emphasized, as was done by him, Spirit may indeed still receive the
name of king, but seemingly by the favour merely of the material.
Ibn Roshd deserves at all events to be called a bold and consistent
thinker, although not an original one. Theoretical philosophy was
sufficient for him; but yet he owed it to his time and his position to
come to an understanding with religion and practice. We may devote a
few words to this point.
8. Ibn Roshd often takes the opportunity of expressing himself against
the uneducated rulers and obscurantist theologians of his own day; but
he continues to prefer life as a citizen to a solitary life. He even
thanks his opponents for many a piece of instruction,—and that is a
pleasing touch of character. He thinks that the solitary life produces
no arts or sciences, and that one can at the most enjoy in it what has
been gained already, or perhaps improve it a little. But every one
should contribute to the weal of the whole community: even women as
well as men should be of service to society and the State. In this
opinion Ibn Roshd agrees with Plato (for he was not acquainted with the
Politics of Aristotle), and he remarks with entire good sense that a
great deal of the poverty and distress of his time arises from the
circumstance that women are kept like domestic animals or house plants
for purposes of gratification, of a very questionable character
besides, instead of being allowed to take part in the production of
material and intellectual wealth, and in the preservation of the same.
In his Ethical system our philosopher animadverts with great severity
upon the doctrine of the professors of Law, that a thing is good or bad
only because God so willed it. On the contrary, says he, everything has
its moral character from nature or in conformity with reason. The
action which is determined by rational discernment is moral. It is not,
of course, the individual Reason, but the Reason which looks to the
welfare of the community or State, to which appeal must be made in the
last instance.
Ibn Roshd regards religion also from a statesman’s point of view. He
values it on account of its moral purpose. It is Law, not Learning. He
is therefore constantly engaged in fighting the Theologians, who wish
to understand intellectually, instead of obeying with docile faith. He
makes it a reproach to Gazali, that he has allowed philosophy to
exercise an influence upon his religious doctrine, and thereby has led
many into doubt and unbelief. The people should believe, exactly in
accordance with what stands in the Book. That is Truth,—Truth meant no
doubt for a bigger sort of children, to whom we convey it in the form
of stories. Whatever goes beyond this, comes of evil. For example, the
Koran has two proofs of the existence of God, which are evident to
every one, viz: the Divine care of everything, especially of human
beings,—and the production of life in plants, animals, &c. These
deliverances should not be disturbed, nor should the literal
acceptation of revelation be quibbled about, in the theological
fashion. For, the proofs which theologians adduce of the existence of
God can make no stand against a scientific criticism, any more than the
proof which is furnished from the notion of the possible and the
necessary, in Farabi and Ibn Sina. All this leads to Atheism and
Libertinism. In the interests of morality, and therefore of the State,
this semi-theology should be fought against.
On the other hand, philosophers who have attained to knowledge are
permitted to interpret the Word of God in the Koran. In the light of
the highest truth they understand what is aimed at therein; and they
tell merely just so much of it to the ordinary man as he is capable of
apprehending. In this way the most admirable harmony results. Religious
precept and philosophy are in agreement with one another, precisely
because they are not seeking the same thing. They are related as
practice and theory. In the philosopher’s conception of religion, he
allows its validity in its own domain, so that philosophy by no means
rejects religion. Philosophy, however, is the highest form of truth,
and at the same time the most sublime religion. The religion of the
philosopher, in fact, is the knowledge of all that exists.
But yet this view has the appearance of being irreligious; and a
positive religion can never be content to recognize the leading
position of philosophy in the realm of truth. It was only natural that
the theologians of the West, like their brethren of the East should
seek to profit by the favour of circumstances, and take no rest until
they had reduced the mistress to the position of the handmaid of
Theology.
VII. CONCLUSION.
1. Ibn Khaldun.
1. The Philosophy of Ibn Roshd, and his interpretation of Aristotle,
have had extremely little effect upon the Muslim world. Many of his
works, in the original, are lost, and we have them only in Hebrew and
Latin translations. He had no disciples or followers. In retired
corners no doubt many a free-thinker or Mystic might be met with, to
whose mind it looked sufficiently fantastic to toil earnestly with
philosophic questions of a theoretical kind; but Philosophy was not
permitted to influence general culture or the condition of affairs.
Before the victorious arms of the Christians the material civilization
as well as the intellectual culture of the Muslims retreated farther
and farther. Spain became like Africa, where the Berber was ruler. The
times were serious: the very existence of Islam in these regions was at
stake. Men made ready for fighting against the enemy, or even against
one another; and pious brethren everywhere formed unions for mystic
observances. In the Sufi orders of these people, a few philosophical
formulae at least were still preserved in safety. When, towards the
middle of the thirteenth century, the emperor Frederick II submitted a
number of philosophical questions to the Muslim scholars of Ceuta, the
Almohad Abdalwahid charged Ibn Sabin, founder of a Mystic order, to
reply to them. He did so, drawling forth in a pedantic tone the views
both of ancient and recent philosophers, and affording a glimpse of the
Sufi secret,—that God is the reality of all things. The only thing,
however, which we can learn from his answers, may be said to be, that
Ibn Sabin had read books, of which he thought the Emperor Frederick had
not the faintest notion.
2. In small State-systems, the Muslim civilization of the West drifted
away, now rising, now falling. But before it vanished completely, a man
appeared, who endeavoured to discover the law of its formation, and who
thought to found therewith a new philosophical discipline,—the
Philosophy of Society or of History. That remarkable man was Ibn
Khaldûn, born at Tunis is the year 1332, of a family belonging to
Seville. There he also received his upbringing, and there he was next
instructed in philosophy, partly by a teacher who had been trained in
the East. After studying all known sciences, he occupied himself
sometimes in the service of the Government, and sometimes in travel,
proving everywhere an excellent observer. He served various princes in
the capacity of secretary, and he was ambassador at several courts in
Spain and Africa: as such he visited the Christian court of Peter the
Cruel in Seville. He was also at the court of Tamerlane in Damascus. He
had thus acquired a wide and full experience of the world, when he died
at Cairo in the year 1406.
In character perhaps he does not take a high rank; but a measure of
vanity, dilettantism and the like, may readily be forgiven to the man
who, above all others in his time, lived for Science.
3. Ibn Khaldûn was not satisfied with the School-Philosophy, as he had
come to know it. His picture of the world would not fit its
conventional framing. If he had been somewhat more given to theorizing,
he might no doubt have constructed a system of Nominalism. Philosophers
pretend to know everything; but the universe seems to him too great to
be capable of being comprehended by our understanding. There are more
beings and things, infinitely more, than Man can ever know. “God
creates what you know nothing of”. Logical deductions frequently do not
agree with the empirical world of individual things, which becomes
known by observation alone. That we can reach truth by merely applying
the rules of Logic, is a vain imagination: therefore reflection on what
is given in experience is the task of the scientific man. And he must
not rest satisfied with his own individual experience; but, with
critical care he must draw upon the sum of the collected experience of
mankind, which has been handed down.
By nature the soul is devoid of knowledge; but yet by nature it has the
power of reflecting on the experience which is given, and elaborating
it. In the course of such reflection, there frequently springs forth,
as if by inspiration, the proper middle term, by means of which the
insight which has been gained may be arranged and explained according
to the rules of Formal Logic. Logic does not produce knowledge: it
merely traces the path which our reflection ought to take: it points
out how we arrive at knowledge; and it has the farther value of being
able to preserve us from error, and to sharpen the intellect and keep
it to accuracy in thinking. It is therefore an auxiliary science, and
ought to be cultivated even for its own sake by one or two qualified
men, called specially to that task; but it does not possess the
fundamental importance which is attributed to it by the Philosophers.
The path which it indicates for our reflection to take, is at need
followed by scientific talent in any individual science, quite
independently of logical guidance.
Ibn Khaldûn is a sober thinker. He combats Alchemy and Astrology on
rational grounds. To the Mystic rationalism of the Philosophers he
opposes frequently the simple doctrines of his religion, whether from
personal conviction, or from political considerations. But religion
exercises no greater influence upon his scientific opinions than
Neo-Platonic Aristotelianism. Plato’s Republic, the
Pythagorean-Platonic Philosophy, but without its marvel-mongering
outgrowths, and the historical works of his oriental forerunners,
particularly of Masudi, have had most influence on the development of
his thoughts.
4. Ibn Khaldûn comes forward with a claim to establish a new
philosophical discipline, of which Aristotle had no conception.
Philosophy is the science of what exists, developed from its own
principles or reasons. But what the Philosophers advance, about the
high Spirit-world and the Divine Essence, does not correspond thereto:
that which they say on these subjects is incapable of proof. We know
our world of men much better; and a more certain deliverance may be
given regarding it, by means of observation and inner mental
experience. Here facts permit of being authenticated, and their causes
discovered. Now, so far as the latter process is feasible in History,
i.e. so far as historical events are capable of being traced back to
their causes, and historical laws capable of being discovered, History
deserves actually to be called Science and a part of Philosophy. Thus
the idea of History as Science clearly emerges. It has nothing to do
with curiosity, frivolousness, general benefit, edifying effect &c. It
should, although in the service of the higher purposes of life,
determine nothing except facts, endeavouring to find out their causal
nexus. The work must be done in a critical, unprejudiced spirit. The
governing principle which rules here is this,—that the cause
corresponds to the effect,—that is to say, that like events presuppose
the same conditions, or, that under the same circumstances of
civilization the like events will occur. Now, as it is a probable
assumption that the nature of men and of society undergoes no change by
the advance of time, or no considerable change, a living comprehension
of the present is the best means of investigating the past. That which
is fully known and is under our very eyes permits us to form
retrospective conclusions in regard to the less fully known events of
an earlier time: it promises even a glance into the future. In every
instance, therefore, tradition must be tested by the present; and if it
tells us of things which are impossible now, we must for that very
reason doubt its truth. Past and Present are as like one another as two
drops of water. If understood absolutely, that might have been said
even by Ibn Roshd. But according to Ibn Khaldûn it is only quite
generally valid as a principle of research. In detail it suffers many a
limitation; and in any case it has itself to be established by facts.
5. What then is the subject of History as a philosophical discipline?
Ibn Khaldûn answers that it is the Social life,—the collective,
material and intellectual culture of Society. History has to show how
men work and provide themselves with food, why they contend with each
other and associate in larger communities under single leaders, how at
last they find in a settled life leisure for the cultivation of the
higher arts and sciences, how a finer culture comes into bloom in this
way out of rude beginnings, and how again this in time dies away.
The forms of Society which replace one another are, in the opinion of
Ibn Khaldûn; 1) Society in the Nomad condition; 2) Society under a
Military Dynasty; and 3) Society after the City type. The first
question is that of food. Men and nations are differentiated by their
economical position, as nomads, settled herdsmen, agriculturists. Want
leads to rapine and war, and to subjection to a monarch who will lead
them. Thus dynastic authority is developed. This again founds for
itself a city, where division of labour or mutual assistance produces
prosperity. But this prosperity leads to degenerate idleness and
luxury. Labour has in the first place brought about prosperity; but
now, at the highest stage of civilization, men get others to labour for
them, and often without any direct equivalent, because regard or even
servility to the upper classes, and extortionate treatment of the
lower, secure success. But, all the same, men are coming to depend upon
others. Needs are always growing more clamant, and taxes more
oppressive. Rich spendthrifts and tax-payers grow poor, and their
unnatural life makes them ill and miserable. [20] The old warlike
customs have been refined away, so that people are no longer capable of
defending themselves. The bond,—formed by a sense of belonging to one
community, or the bond of Religion,—by the help of which the necessity
and the will of the chief knit the individual members together in older
days, is relaxed, for the citizens are not pious. Everything,
therefore, is ready to break up from within. And then appears a new and
powerful nomad race from the desert, or a people not so greatly
over-civilized, but possessed of a firmer public spirit; and it falls
upon the effeminate city. Thereafter a new State is formed, which
appropriates the material and intellectual wealth of the old culture,
and the same history is repeated. It fares with States and the larger
associations of men, just as with single families: their history is
brought to a close, in from three to six generations. The first
generation founds; the second maintains, as perhaps the third or even
farther generations also do; the last demolishes. That is the cycle of
all civilization.
6. According to August Müller the theory of Ibn Khaldûn is in
conformity with the history of Spain, West Africa and Sicily, from the
eleventh to the fifteenth century,—from the study of which, in fact, it
was taken. His own historical work is a compilation, it is true. In
detail he is often at fault, when he criticizes tradition with the help
of his theory; but there is an abundance of fine psychological and
political observation in his philosophical Introduction, and as a whole
it is a masterly performance. The ancients never dealt thoroughly with
the problem of History. They have bequeathed to us great works of art
in their historical compositions, but no philosophical establishment of
History as a Science. That mankind, though existing from all eternity,
long failed to attain to much of the higher civilization, was explained
by elementary occurrences, such as earthquakes, floods, and the like.
On the other hand Christian philosophy regarded History with its
vicissitudes as the realization of, or the preparation for, the kingdom
of God upon the earth. Now Ibn Khaldûn was the first to endeavour,—with
full consciousness and in a statement amply substantiated,—to derive
the development of human society from proximate causes. The conditions
of race, climate, production of commodities, and so on, are discussed,
and are set forth in their effect upon the sensuous and intellectual
constitution of man and of society. In the course which is run by
civilization he finds an intimate conformity to Law. He searches
everywhere for natural causes, with the utmost completeness which was
possible for him. He also asserts his belief that the chain of causes
and effects reaches its conclusion in an Ultimate Cause. The series
cannot go on without end, and therefore we argue that there is a God.
But this deduction, as he calls it, properly means this,—that we are
not in a position to become acquainted with all things and the manner
of their operation: it is virtually a confession of our ignorance.
Conscious ignorance is even a kind of knowledge; but knowledge should
be pursued, as far as possible. In clearing the way for his new
science, Ibn Khaldûn considers that he has merely indicated the main
problems, and merely suggested generally the method and the subject of
the science. But he hopes that others will come after him to carry on
his investigations and propound fresh problems, with sound
understanding and sure knowledge.
Ibn Khaldûn’s hope has been realized, but not in Islam. As he was
without forerunners, he remained without successors. But yet his work
has been of lasting influence in the East. Many Muslim statesmen who,
from the fifteenth century onwards, drove so many a European sovereign
or diplomatist to despair, had studied in our philosopher’s school.
2. The Arabs and Scholasticism.
1. To the victor belongs the bride. In the wars which were waged in
Spain between Christians and Muslims, the former had often come under
the influence of the attractions of Moorish fair ones. Many a Christian
knight had celebrated “the nine-days’ religious rite” with a Moorish
woman. But besides material wealth and sensual enjoyment, the charm of
intellectual culture had also its effect upon the conqueror. And Arab
Science thus presented the appearance of a lovely bride to the eyes of
many men who felt their want of knowledge.
It was the Jews especially who played the part of matchmakers in the
transaction. The Jews had participated in all the transformations of
Muslim intellectual culture: many of them wrote in Arabic, and others
translated Arabic writings into Hebrew; not a few philosophical works
by Muslim authors owe their preservation to the latter circumstance.
The development of this Jewish study of philosophy culminated in
Maimonides (1135–1204), who sought, chiefly under the influence of
Farabi and Ibn Sina, to reconcile Aristotle with the Old Testament. In
part he expounded the doctrines of philosophy from the text of
revelation, and in part he restricted the Aristotelian philosophy to
what belongs to this earth, while a knowledge of that which is above
it, had to be gained from the Word of God.
In the various Muslim States, at the time when they were most
flourishing, the Jews had shewn an interest in scientific work, and
they had not only been tolerated, but even regarded with favour. Their
position, however, was altered, when those States were together
overthrown, and when the decline of their civilization ensued. Expelled
by fanatical mobs they fled for refuge to Christian lands, and
particularly to Southern France, there to fulfil their mission as the
disseminators of culture.
2. The Muslim world and the Christian world of the West came into
contact at two points,—in Lower Italy and in Spain. At the court of the
Emperor Frederick II in Palermo, Arab science was eagerly cultivated
and made accessible to Latinists. The Emperor and his son Manfred
presented the Universities of Bologna and Paris with translations of
philosophical works, partly rendered from the Arabic, and partly direct
from the Greek.
Of much greater importance and influence, however, was the activity of
translators in Spain. In Toledo, which had been re-captured by the
Christians, there existed a rich Arabic Mosque-library, the renown of
which, as a centre of culture, had penetrated far into the Christian
countries of the North. Arabs of mixed lineage and Jews, some of them
converts to Christianity, worked together there, along with Spanish
Christians. Fellow-workers were present from all countries. Thus
co-operated as translators, for example, Johannes Hispanus and
Gundisalinus (first half of the twelfth century), Gerard of Cremona
(1114–1187), Michael the Scot and Hermann the German (between 1240 and
1246). We are not yet in possession of sufficiently detailed
information regarding the labours of these men. Their translations may
be called faithful, to the extent that every word in the Arabic
original, or the Hebrew (or Spanish?) version has some Latin word
corresponding to it; but they are not generally distinguished by an
intelligent appreciation of the subject matter. To understand these
translations thoroughly is a difficult thing, for one who is not
conversant with Arabic. Many Arabic words which were taken over as they
stood, and many proper names, disfigured beyond recognition, flit about
with the air of ghosts. All this may well have produced sad confusion
in the brains of Latinist students of Philosophy; and the thoughts,
which were being disclosed afresh, had themselves at least an equally
perplexing tendency.
The activity of translators kept pace generally with the interest shewn
by Christian circles, and this interest followed a development similar
to that which we had occasion to observe in Eastern and Western Islam
(cf. VI, 1 § 2). The earliest translations were those of works on
Mathematical Astrology, Medicine, Natural Philosophy, and Psychology,
including Logical and Metaphysical material. As time went on, people
restricted themselves more to Aristotle and commentaries upon him; but,
at first, a preference was shewn for everything that met the craving
for the marvellous.
Kindi became known chiefly as a physician and an astrologer. Ibn Sina
produced a notable effect by his ‘Medicine’, and his empirical
psychology, and also by his Natural Philosophy and his Metaphysics.
Compared with him, Farabi and Ibn Baddja exercised a less considerable
influence. Lastly came the Commentaries of Ibn Roshd (Averroes); and
the reputation which they gained, along with that which was secured by
Ibn Sina’s Canon of Medicine, has been longest maintained.
3. What then does the Christian Philosophy of the Middle Ages owe to
the Muslims? The answer to this question lies properly outside the
scope of the present monograph. It is a special task, which
necessitates the ransacking of many folios, none of which I have read.
In general terms it may be affirmed that in the translations from the
Arabic a twofold novelty was disclosed to the Christian West. In the
first place men came to possess Aristotle, both in his Logic and in his
Physics and Metaphysics, more completely than they had hitherto known
him. But still this circumstance was only of passing importance, though
stimulating for the moment, for erelong all his writings were
translated much more accurately, direct from the Greek into Latin. The
most important result, however, was—that from the writings of the
Arabs, particularly of Ibn Roshd, a peculiar conception of the
Aristotelian doctrines, as constituting the highest truth, came to the
knowledge of men. This was bound to give occasion for contradiction, or
for compromise, between theology and philosophy, or even for denial of
the Church’s creed. Thus the influence of Muslim Philosophy upon the
scholastic development of Church dogma was partly of a stimulating,
partly of a disintegrating character; for, in the Christian world,
philosophy and theology were not yet able to proceed side by side in an
attitude of mutual indifference, as doubtless happened in the case of
Muslim thinkers. Christian Dogmatic had adopted too much Greek
Philosophy already in the first centuries of its development, to admit
of such an attitude: it could even assimilate a little more. It was
therefore relatively easier to get the better of the simple teachings
of Islam than the complicated dogmas of Christianity.
In the twelfth century, when the influence of the Arabs commenced to
operate in that field, Christian Theology exhibited a Neo-Platonic,
Augustinian character. That character continued to be kept up with the
Franciscans, even in the thirteenth century. Now the
Pythagorean-Platonic tendency, in Muslim thought, harmonized well with
this. Ibn Gebirol (Avencebrol, v. VI, 1 § 2) was, for Duns Scotus, an
authority of the first rank. On the other hand, the great Dominicans,
Albert and Thomas, who decided the future of the doctrine of the
Church, adopted a modified Aristotelianism, with which a good deal out
of Farabi, but especially out of Ibn Sina and Maimonides, agreed quite
well.
A more profound influence emanates from Ibn Roshd, but not till about
the middle of the thirteenth century, and, in fact, in Paris, the
centre of the Christian scientific education of that time. In the year
1256 Albertus Magnus writes against Averroes; and fifteen years later
Thomas Aquinas controverts the Averroists. Their leader is Siger of
Brabant (known from 1266), member of the Parisian Faculty of Arts. He
does not shrink from the rigorous, logical results of the Averroist
system. And just as Ibn Roshd censures Ibn Sina, so Siger criticizes
the great Albert and the saintly Thomas, although in terms of the
utmost respect. It is true that he asseverates his submission to
Revelation; but still, his reason confirms what Aristotle,—as he is
expounded, in doubtful cases, by Ibn Roshd,—has taught in his works.
This subtle intellectualism of his, however, does not please the
theologians. At the instance of the Franciscans, it would seem, who
perhaps wished also to strike at the Aristotelianism of the Dominicans,
he was persecuted by the Inquisition, till he died in prison at Orvieto
(circa 1281–1284). Dante, who possibly knew nothing of his heresies has
placed Siger in Paradise as the representative of secular wisdom. The
two champions of Muslim Philosophy, on the other hand, he met with in
the vestibule of the Inferno, in the company of the great and wise men
of Greece and Rome. Ibn Sina and Ibn Roshd there end the series of the
great men of heathendom, towards whom succeeding ages, like Dante, have
so often lifted up their eyes in admiration.
NOTES
[1] S. Munk, “Mélanges de Philosophie juive et arabe”, Paris 1859.
[2] Carra de Vaux, “Avicenne”, Paris 1900.
[3] [Translator’s Note: In this version the transliteration has been
adapted as far as possible to English sounds.]
[4] Cf. Snouck Hurgronje, “Mekka”, II, p. 228 sq.
[5] Job XXXVIII.
[6] Gen. XV:5.
[7] The dialogue has received this name from the circumstance that
during the conversation Aristotle holds in his hand an apple, the smell
of which keeps awake what remains of his vital powers. At the close,
his hand drops powerless, and the apple falls to the ground.
[8] Farther, an epitome of the στοιχείωσις θεολογική of Proclus, was
held even in later times to be a genuine work of Aristotle’s.
[9] Examples of both methods occur, but usually Qiyas is equivalent to
Analogy. However, in the philosophical terminology which owes its
origin to the Translators, Qiyas always stands for συλλογισμός, while
ἀναλογία is rendered by the Arabic mithl.
[10] Cf. Snouck Hurgronje in ZDMG, LIII p. 155.
[11] For this the Mystics introduced a sixth sense.
[12] Ascetics were called Sufis, from their coarse woollen garment, or
Sûf.
[13] V. Rückerts Uebers. d. Makamen II, p. 219.
[14] [Translator’s note.—‘John of Leyden’.]
[15] Cf. my Article “On Kindi and his School” in Stein’s ‘Archiv für
Geschichte der Philosophie XIII’, p. 153 sqq., from which I have taken
over, without much alteration, not a little that appears in this
chapter.
[16] [Translator’s note.—The Bagdad Caliphate lasted up to the death of
Mustassim (A.H. 656 or A.D. 1258), i.e. for 400 Mohammedan years
after A.H. 256 or A.D. 870].
[17] The Arabic ʻaql (νοῦς) is usually translated by Reason and
Intelligence (Lat. intellectus and intelligentia). I prefer however the
rendering, Geist, Spirit or Mind, because the expression includes God
and the pure (separate) spirits of the spheres. Moreover it is hard to
decide how far the personification of Reason was carried by individual
thinkers.
[18] [Translator’s note.—Accordingly Ibn Sina’s Five Internal Senses
are: A. The General or Co-ordinating Sense; 2. Memory of the Collective
sense-images; 3. Unconscious Apperception, referring to individuals; 4.
Conscious Apperception, with generalization; 5. Memory of the higher
apperceptions].
[19] “Averrois, che’l gran comento feo” Canto IV.
[20] Ibn Khaldûn speaks only of rich people who have grown poor, and
says nothing of the misery of the proletariate, and that which prevails
in large cities, as we know it. He lived too in smaller cities, for the
most part, and till late in life admired Cairo from a distance.
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