The Incoherence of the Philosophers

It may be said that if it is asserted that the First knows its own self as a principle by way of relation, the knowledge of two correlatives is one and the same, for the man who knows the son knows him through one single knowledge in which the knowledge of the father, of fatherhood, and sonhood are comprised, so that the objects of knowledge are manifold, but the knowledge is one. And in the same way the First knows its essence as a principle for the other things besides itself and so the knowledge is one, although what is known is manifold. Further, if the First thinks this relation in reference to one single effect and its own relation towards it, and this does not imply a plurality, then a plurality is not implied by an addition of things which generically do not imply a plurality. And likewise he who knows a thing and knows his knowing this thing, knows this thing through this knowledge, and therefore all knowledge is self-knowledge connected with the knowledge of the thing known, and the known is manifold, but knowledge forms a unity. An indication of this is also that you theologians believe that the things known to God are infinite, but His knowledge is one, and you do not attribute to God an infinite number of cognitions; if, indeed, the manifoldness of the known implied a plurality in the knowledge itself, well, let there then be an infinite number of cognitions in the essence of God. But this is absurd.

Then Ghazali says, answering the philosophers:

We say: Whenever knowledge is one in every respect, it cannot be imagined that it should be attached to two things known; on the contrary, this determines a certain plurality, according to the assumption and tenet of the philosophers themselves about the meaning of 'plurality', so that they even make the excessive claim that if the First had a quiddity to which existence were attributed, this would imply a plurality. And they do not think that to a single unity possessing reality existence also can be attributed; no, they assert that the existence is brought in relation to the reality and differs from it and determines a plurality, and on this assumption it is not possible that knowledge should attach itself to two objects of knowledge without this implying a greater and more important kind of plurality than that which is intended in the assumption of an existence, brought in relation to a quiddity. And as to the knowledge of a son and similarly of other relative concepts, there is in it a plurality, since there must necessarily be knowledge of the son himself and the father himself, and this is a dual knowledge, and there must be a third knowledge, and this is the relation; indeed, this third knowledge is implied in the dual knowledge which precedes it, as they are its necessary condition, for as long as the terms of relation are not known previously, the relation itself cannot be known, and there is thus a plurality of knowledge of which one part is conditioned through another. Likewise when the First knows itself as related to the other genera and species by being their principle, it needs the knowledge of its own essence and of the single genera and it must further know that there exists between itself and those genera and species the relation of being a principle, for otherwise the existence of this relation could not be supposed to be known to it. And as to their statement that he who knows something knows that he is knowing through this knowledge itself, so that the thing known can be manifold, but the knowledge remains one, this is not true; on the contrary, he knows that he knows through another knowledge, and this ends in a knowledge to which he does not pay attention and of which he is no longer conscious, and we do not say that there is an infinite regress, but there is a final term of knowledge attached to the thing known, and he is unconscious of the existence of the knowledge, but not of the existence of the known, like a man who knows the colour black and whose soul at the moment of his knowing it is plunged in the object of his knowledge, the colour black, and who is unconscious of his knowing this colour black and whose attention is not centred on it, for if it were, he would need another knowledge till his attention came to a stand.

And as to the affirmation of the philosophers that this can be turned against the theologians concerning the things known by God, for they are infinite, whereas God's knowledge according to the theologians is one, we answer, `We have not plunged ourselves into this book to set right, but to destroy and to refute, and for this reason we have called this book “The Incoherence of the Philosophers”, not “The Establishment of the Truth”, and this argument against us is not conclusive.'

And if the philosophers say: 'We do not draw this conclusion against you theologians in so far as you hold the doctrine of a definite sect but in so far as this problem is applied to the totality of mankind, and the difficulty for all human understanding is the same, and you have no right to claim it against us in particular, for it can be turned against you also, and there is no way out of it for any party'-we answer: 'No, but our aim is to make you desist from your claim to possess knowledge of the essential realities through strict proofs, and to make you doubt. And when your impotence becomes evident, we say that there are men who hold that the divine realities cannot be attained through rational inquiry, for it is not in human power to apprehend them and it was for this reason that Muhammad, the Lord of the Law, said "Ponder over God's creation, but do not ponder over God's essence". Why then do you oppose this group of men who believe in the truth of the prophet through the proof of his miracles, ' who confine the judgement of the intellect to a belief in God, the Sender of the Prophets, who guard themselves against any rational speculation about the attributes, who follow the Lord of the Law in his revelations about God's attributes, who accept his authority for the use of the terms "the knowing" "the wifer", "the powerful", "the living", who refuse to acknowledge those meanings which are forbidden and who recognize our impotence to reach the Divine Intellect? You only refute these men in so far as they are ignorant of the methods of demonstration and of the arrangement of premises according to the figures of the syllogisms, and you claim that you know these things by rational methods; but now your impotence, the breakdown of your methods, the shamelessness of your claim to knowledge, have come to light, and this is the intention of our criticism. And where is the man who would dare to claim that theological proofs have the strictness of geometrical proofs?';

I say:

All this prolix talk has only a rhetorical and dialectical value. And the arguments which he gives in favour of the philosophers about the doctrine of the unity of God's knowledge are two, the conclusion of which is that in our concepts there are conditions which do not through their plurality bring plurality into the concepts themselves, just as there appear in the existents conditions which do not bring plurality into their essences, for instance that a thing should be one and exist and be necessary or possible. And all this, if it is true, is a proof of a unique knowledge comprising a multitude, indeed an infinite number, of sciences.

The first argument which he uses in this section refers to those mental processes which occur to the concept in the soul and which resemble the conditions in the existents with respect to the relations and negations, which exist in them; for it appears from the nature of the relation which occurs in the concepts that it is a condition through which no plurality arises in the concepts, ' and it is now argued that the relation which presents itself in the related things belongs to this class of conditions. Ghazali objects to this that the relation and the terms of the relation form a plurality of knowledge, and that for instance our knowledge of fatherhood is different from our knowledge of the father and the son. Now the truth is that the relation is an attribute additional to the terms of the relation outside the soul in the existents, but as to the relation which exists in the concepts, it is better suited to be a condition than an attribute additional to the terms of the relation;' however, all this is a comparison of man's knowledge with the Eternal Knowledge, and this is the very cause of the mistake. Everyone who concerns himself with doubt about the Eternal Knowledge and tries to solve it by what occurs in human knowledge does indeed transfer the knowledge from the empirical to the Divine concerning two existents which differ in an extreme degree, not existents which participate in their species or genus, but which are totally unlike.

The second proof is that we know a thing through a single knowledge and that we know that we know by a knowledge which is a condition in the first knowledge, not an attribute additional to it, and the proof of this is that otherwise there would arise an infinite series. Now Ghazali's answer, that this knowledge is a second knowledge and that there is no infinite series here, is devoid of sense, for it is self-evident that this implies such a series, and it does not follow from the fact that when a man knows a thing but is not conscious that he knows the fact that he knows, that in the case when lie knows that he knows, this second knowledge is an additional knowledge to the first; no, the second knowledge is one of the conditions of the first knowledge and its infinite regress is therefore not impossible; if, however, it were a knowledge existing by itself and additional to the first knowledge, an infinite series could not occur.

As to the conclusion which the philosophers force upon the theologians, that all the theologians recognize that God's knowledge is infinite and that at the same time it is one, this is an negumentum ad hominem, not an objective argument based on the facts themselves. And from this there is no escape for the theologians, unless they assume that the knowledge of the Creator differs in this respect from the knowledge of the creature, and indeed there is no one more ignorant than the man who believes that the knowledge of God differs only quantitatively from the knowledge of the creature, that is that He only possesses more knowledge. All these are dialectical arguments, but one may be convinced of the fact that God's knowledge is one and that it is not an effect of the things known; no, it is their cause, and a thing that has numerous causes is indeed manifold itself, whereas a thing that has numerous effects need not be manifold in the way that the effects form a plurality. And there is no doubt that the plurality which exists in the knowledge of the creature must be denied of God's knowledge, just as any change through the change of the objects known must be denied of Him, and the theologians assume this by one of their fundamental principles. But the arguments which have been given here are all dialectical arguments.

And as to his statement that his aim here is not to reach knowledge of the truth but only to refute the theories of the philosophers and to reveal the inanity of their claims, this is not worthy of him-but rather of very bad men. And how could it be otherwise? For the greater part of the subtlety this man acquired-and he surpassed ordinary people through the subtlety he put in the books he composed-he only acquired from the books of the philosophers and from their teaching. And even supposing they erred in something, he ought not to have denied their merit in speculative thought and in those ideas through which they trained our understanding.

Nay more, if they had only invented logic, he and anyone else who understands the importance of this science ought to thank them for it, and he himself was conscious of the value of logic and urged its study and wrote treatises about it, and he says that there is no other way to learn the truth than through this science, and he had even such an exaggerated view of logic that he extracted it from the book of God, the holy Qur'an. ' And is it allowed to one who is indebted to their books and to their teaching to such an extent that he excelled his contemporaries and that his fame in Islam became immense, is it really allowed to such a man to speak in this way of them, and to censure them so openly, so absolutely, and condemn their sciences? And suppose they erred in certain theological questions, we can only argue against their mistakes by the rules they have taught us in the logical sciences, and we are convinced that they will not blame us when we show them a mistake which might be found in their opinions. And indeed their aim was only the acquisition of truth, and if their only merit consisted in this, it would suffice for their praise, although nobody has said anything about theological problems that can be absolutely relied upon and nobody is guaranteed against mistakes but those whom God protects in a divine, superhuman way, namely the prophets, and I do not know what led this man to this attack against such statements; may God protect me against failings in word and in deed and forgive me if I fail!

And what he says of the belief held by those who follow the Divine Law in these things is in agreement with what is said by the renowned philosophers, for when it is said that God's knowledge and attributes cannot be described by, or compared to, the attributes of the creature, so that it cannot even be asserted that they are essence or an addition to the essence, this expresses the thought of genuine philosophers and other true thinkers, and God is the Saviour, the Leader.

It may be said, 'This difficulty applies only to Avicenna in so far as he says that the First knows other things, but the acknowledged philosophers are in agreement that it does not know anything besides itself, and this difficulty is therefore set aside.'

But we answer, 'What a terrible blasphemy is this doctrine! Verily, had it not had this extreme weakness, later philosophers would not have scorned it, but we shall draw attention to its reprehensible character, for this theory rates God's effects higher than Himself, since angel and man and every rational being knows himself and his principle and knows also of other beings, but the First knows only its own self and is therefore inferior to individual men, not to speak of the angels; indeed, the animals besides their awareness of themselves know other things, and without doubt knowledge is something noble and the lack of it is an imperfection. And what becomes of their statement that God, because He is the most perfect splendour and the utmost beauty, is the lover and the beloved? But what beauty can there be in mere existence which has no quiddity, no essence, which i observes neither what occurs in the world nor what is a consequence or proceeds from its own essence? And what deficiency in God's whole world could be greater? And an intelligent man may well marvel at a group of men who according to their statement speculate deeply about the intelligibles, but whose inquiry culminates in a Lord of Lords and Cause of causes who does not possess any knowledge about anything that happens in the world. What difference is there then between Him and the dead, except that He has self-consciousness? And what perfection is there in His self-knowledge, if He is ignorant of everything else? And the blasphemy of this doctrine releases us from the use of many words and explanations.

Further, there may be said to them: 'Although you plunge yourselves in these shameful doctrines, you cannot free

yourselves from plurality, for we ask: “Is the knowledge He has of His essence identical with His essence or not?” If you say, “No”, you introduce plurality, and if you say they are identical, what then is the difference between you and a man who said that a man's knowledge of his essence was identical with his essence, which is pure foolishness? For the existence of this man's essence can be conceived, while he gives no attention to his essence, ' whereas when afterwards his attention returns, he becomes aware of his essence. Therefore his awareness of his essence differs from his essence. '

If it is argued: 'Certainly a man can be without knowledge of his essence, but when this knowledge occurs to him, he becomes a different being', we answer: 'Non-identity cannot be understood through an accident and conjunction, for the identical thing cannot through an accident become another thing and that other thing, conjoined with this, does not become identical with it, but keeps its individual otherness. And the fact that God is eternally self-conscious does not prove that His knowledge of His essence is identical with His essence, for His essence can be imagined separately and the occurrence of His awareness afterwards, and if they were identical this could not be imagined.

And if it be said: `His essence is intellect and knowledge, and He has not an essence in which afterwards knowledge exists', we answer: `The foolishness of this is evident, for knowledge is an attribute and an accident which demands a subject, and to say, "He is in His essence intellect and knowledge" is like saying, "He is power and will, and power and will exist by themselves", and this again is like saying of black and white, quantity, fourness and threeness and all other accidents that they exist by themselves. And in exactly the same way as it is impossible that the attributes of bodies should exist by themselves without a body which itself is different from the attributes, it is known to be impossible that attributes like the knowledge, life, power, and will of living beings should exist by themselves, for they exist only in an essence. For life exists in an essence which receives life through it, and the same is the case with the other attributes. And therefore they do not simply content themselves with denying to the First all qualities (and not merely its real essence and quiddity); no, they deny to it also its very existence by itself' and reduce it to the entities of accidents and attributes which have no existence by themselves; and besides we shall show later in a special chapter their incapacity to prove that it is conscious either of itself or of other things. '

I say:

The problem concerning the knowledge of the Creator of Himself and of other things is one of those questions which it is forbidden to discuss in a dialectical way, let alone put them down in a book, for the understanding of the masses does not suffice to understand such subtleties, and when one embarks on such problems with them the meaning of divinity becomes void for them and therefore it is forbidden to them to occupy themselves with this knowledge, since it suffices for their blessedness to understand what is within their grasp. The Holy Law, the first intention of which is the instruction of the masses, z does not confine itself to the explanation of these things in the Creator by making them understood through their existence in human beings, for instance by the Divine Words: 'Why dost thou worship what can neither hear nor see nor avail thee aught?' but enforces the real understanding of these entities in the Creator by comparing them even to the human limbs, for instance in the Divine Words: Or have they not seen that we have created for them of what our hands have made for them, cattle and they are owners thereof? and the Divine Words, I have created with my two hands'. s This problem indeed is reserved for the men versed in profound knowledge to whom God has permitted the sight of the true realities, and therefore it must not be mentioned in any books except those that are composed according to a strictly rational pattern, that is, such books as must be read in a rational order and after the acquisition of other sciences the study of which according to a demonstrative method is too difficult for most men, even for those w o possess by nature a sound understanding, although such men are very scarce. But to discuss these questions with the masses is like bringing poisons to the bodies of many animals, for which they are real poisons. Poisons, however, are relative, and what is poison for one animal is nourishment for another.

The same applies to ideas in relation to men; that is, there are ideas which are poison for one type of men, but which are nourishment for another type. And the man who regards all ideas as fit for all types of men is like one who gives all things as nourishment for all people; the man, however, who forbids free inquiry to the mature is like one who regards all nourishment as poison for everyone. But this is not correct, for there are things which are poison for one type of man and nourishment for another type.

And the man who brings poison to him for whom it is really poison merits punishment, although it may be nourishment for another, and similarly the man who forbids poison to a man for whom it is really nourishment so that this man may die without it, he too must be punished. And it is in this way that the question must be understood. But when the wicked and ignorant transgress and bring poison to the man for whom it is really poison, as if it were nourishment, then there is need of a physician who through his science will exert himself to heal that man, and for this reason we have allowed ourselves to discuss this problem in such a book as this, and in any other case we should not regard this as permissible to us; on the contrary, it would be one of the greatest crimes, or a deed of the greatest wickedness on earth, and the punishment of the wicked is a fact well known in the Holy Law. And since it is impossible to avoid the discussion of this problem, let us treat it in such a way as is possible in this place for those who do not possess the preparation and mental training needed before entering upon speculation about it.

So we say that the philosophers, when they observed all perceptible things, found that they fell into two classes, the one a class perceptible by the senses, namely the individual bodies existing by themselves and the individual accidents in these bodies, and the other a class perceptible by the mind, namely, the quiddities and natures of these substances and accidents. And they found that in these bodies there are quiddities which exist essentially in them, and I understand by the `quiddities' of bodies attributes existing in them, through which these bodies become existent in act and specified by the act which proceeds from them; and according to the philosophers these quiddities differ from the accidental attributes, because they found that the accidents were additions to the individual substance which exists by itself and that these accidents were in need of the substances for their existence, whereas the substances do not need the accidents for their own existence. And they found also that those attributes which were not accidents were not additional to the essence, but that they were the genuine essence of the individual which exists by itself, so that if one imagined these attributes annulled, the essence itself would be annulled. Now, they discovered these qualities in individual bodies through the acts which characterize each of them; for instance they perceived the attributes through which plants by their particular action become plants' and the attributes through which animals by their particular actions become animals, and in the same way they found in the minerals forms of this kind which are proper to them, through the particular actions of minerals. Then, when they had investigated these attributes, they learned that they were in a substratum of this essence and this substratum became differentiated for them, because of the changing of the individual exists from one species into another species and from one genus into another genus through the change and alteration of these attributes; for instance the change of the nature of fire into air by the cessation of the attribute from which the actuality of fire, through which fire is called fire, proceeds, and its change into the attribute from which the actuality peculiar to air, through which air is called air, proceeds. They also proved the existence of this substratum through the capacity of the individual essence to receive an actuality from another, just as they proved by the actuality the existence of form, for it could not be imagined that action and passivity proceed from one and the same natures.

They believed therefore that all active and passive bodies are composed of two natures, one active and the other passive, and they called the active nature form, quiddity, and substance, and the passive part subject, ultimate basis of existence and matter. And from this it became clear to them that the perceptible bodies are not simple bodies as they appear to be to the senses, nor compounded of simple bodies, since they are compounded of action and passivity; and they found that what the senses perceive are these individual bodies, which are compounded of these two things which they called form and matter and that what the mind perceives of these bodies are these forms which only become concepts and intellect when the intellect abstracts them from the things existing by themselves, i. e. what the philosophers call substratum and matter. ? And they found that the accidents also are divided in the intellect in a way similar to those two natures, s although their substratum in which they exist in reality is the bodies compounded of these two natures. And when they had distinguished the intelligibles from the sensibles and it had become clear to them that in sensible things there are two natures, potency and act, they inquired which of these two natures was prior to the other and found that the act was prior to the potency, because the agent was prior to its object, ' and they investigated also causes and effects, which led them to a primary cause which by its act is the first cause of all causes, and it followed that this cause is pure act and that in it there is no potency at all, since if there were potency in it, it would be in part an effect, in part a cause, and could not be a primary cause. And since in everything composed of attribute and subject there is potency and act, it was a necessary implication for them that the First could not be composed of attribute and subject, and since everything free from matter was according to them intellect, it was necessary for them that the First should be intellect.

This in summary is the method of the philosophers, and if you are one of those whose mind is sufficiently trained to receive the sciences, and you are steadfast and have leisure, it is your duty to look into the books and the sciences of the philosophers, so that you may discover in their works certain truths (or perhaps the reverse) ; but if you lack one of these three qualities, it is your duty to keep yourself to the words of the Divine Law, and you should not look for these new conceptions in Islam; for if you do so, you will be neither a rationalist nor a traditionalist. '

Such was the philosophers' reason for their belief that the essence which they found to be the principle of the world was simple and that it was knowledge and intellect. And finding that the order which reigns in the world and its parts proceeds from a knowledge prior to it, they judged that this intellect and this knowledge was the principle of the world, which gave the world existence and made it intelligible. This is a theory very remote from the primitive ideas of mankind and from common notions, so that it is not permitted to divulge it to the masses or even to many people; indeed, the man who has proved its evidence is forbidden to reveal it to the man who has no power to discover its truth, for he would be like his murderer.

And as to the term 'substance' which the philosophers give to that which is separate from matter, the First has the highest claim on the term 'substance', the terms 'existent', 'knowing', 'living', and all the terms for the qualities it bestows on the existents and especially those attributes which belong to perfection, for the philosophers found that the proper definition of substance was what existed by itself and the First was the cause of everything that existed by itself.

To all the other reproofs which he levels against this doctrine no attention need be paid, except in front of the masses and the ordinary man, to whom, however, this discussion is forbidden.

And as to Ghazali's words:

What beauty can there be in mere existence which has no quiddity, no essence, which observes neither what occurs in the world nor what is a consequence or proceeds from its own essence? . . .

-this whole statement is worthless, for if the philosophers assume a quiddity free from a substratum it is also void of attributes, and it cannot be a substratum for attributes except by being itself in a substratum and being composed of the nature of potency and the nature of act. The First possesses a quiddity that exists absolutely, and all other existents receive their quiddity only from it, and this First Principle is the existent which knows existents absolutely, because existents become existent and intelligible only through the knowledge this principle has of itself; for since this First Principle is the cause of the existence and intelligibility of existents, of their existence through its quiddity and of their intelligibility through its knowledge, it is the cause of the existence and intelligibility of their quiddities. The philosophers only denied that its knowledge of existents could take place in the same way as human knowledge which is their effect, whereas for God's knowledge the reverse is the case. For they had established this superhuman knowledge by proof. According to the Ash'arites, however, God possesses neither quiddity nor essence at all but the existence of an entity neither possessing nor being a quiddity cannot be understood, ' although some Ash'arites believed that God has a special quiddity by which He differs from all other existents, ' and according to the Sufis it is this quiddity which is meant by the highest name of God.

And as to Ghazali's words:

Further, there may be said to them: 'Although you plunge yourself in these shameful doctrines, you cannot free yourselves from plurality, for we ask: "Is the knowledge He has of His essence identical with His essence or not?" If you say, "No", you introduce plurality, and if you say, "they are identical", what then is the difference between you and a man who said that a man's knowledge of his essence was identical with his essence?'

I say:

This is an extremely weak statement, and a man who speaks like this deserves best to be put to shame and dishonoured. For the consequence he draws amounts to saying that the perfect one, who is free from the attributes of becoming and change and imperfection, might have the attribute of a being possessing imperfection and change. For a man indeed it is necessary, in so far as he is composed of a substratum and knowledge, which exists in this substratum, that his knowledge should differ from his essence in such a way as has been described before, since the substratum is the cause of change in the knowledge and the essence. And since man is man and the most noble of all sentient beings only through the intellect which is conjoined to his essence, but not by being essentially intellect, it is necessary that that which is intellect by its essence should be the most noble of all existents and that it should be free from the imperfections which exist in the human intellect.

And if it be said: His essence is intellect and knowledge and He has not an essence in which afterwards knowledge exists, we answer: `The foolishness of this is evident, for knowledge is an attribute and an accident which demands a subject, and to say "He is in His essence intellect and knowledge" is like saying "He is power and will, and power and will exist by themselves", and this again is like saying of

black and white, fourness and threeness, and all other accidents that they exist by themselves.

The error and confusion in his statement is very evident, for it has been proved that there is among attributes one that has a greater claim to the term 'substantiality' than the substance existing by itself, and this is the attribute through which the substance existing by itself becomes existing by itself. For it has been proved that the substratum for this attribute is something neither existing by itself nor existing in actuality; no, its existing by itself and its actual existence derive from this attribute, and this attribute in its existence is like that which receives the accidents, although certain of these attributes, as is evident from their nature, need a substratum in the changeable things, since it is the fundamental law of the accidents, that they exist in something else, whereas the fundamental law of the quiddities is that they exist by themselves, except when, in the sublunary world, these quiddities need a substratum through being in transitory i things. But this attribute is at the greatest distance from the nature of an accident, and to compare this transcendent knowledge to sublunary accidents is extremely foolish, indeed more foolish than to consider the soul an accident like threeness and fourness.

And this suffices to show the incoherence and the foolishness of this whole argument, and let us rather call this book simply 'The Incoherence', not 'The Incoherence of the Philosophers'. And what is further from the nature of an accident than the nature of knowledge, and especially the knowledge of the First? And since it is at the greatest distance from the nature of an accident, it is at the greatest distance from having a necessity for a substratum.

The Seventh Discussion

to Refute their Claim that Nothing can Share with the First its Genus, and be Differentiated from it through A Speck Difference, and that with Respect to its Intellect the Division into

Genus and Speck Difference Cannot Be Applied to It,

Indeed, they are all of this opinion, and they deduce from this that, since nothing can share its genus, it cannot be differentiated through a specific difference and cannot have a definition, since a definition is constructed out of genus and specific difference and what has no composition cannot have a definition, for a definition is a kind of composition. And they affirm that, since the First is said to resemble the first effect in being an existent and a substance and a cause for other things, and to differ from it in other respects, this certainly does not imply sharing in its genus; no, it is nothing but a sharing in a common necessary attribute. The difference between genus and necessary attribute consists in their content, not in universality, according to logical theory, for the genus, namely, the essential universal, is the answer to the question what the thing is, and is subsumed under the quiddity of the thing defined, and constitutes its essence: a man's being alive is subsumed under the quiddity of man, i. e. his animality, and is his genus, but his being born and created are his necessary attributes, and, although they are universals which can never be separated from him, are not subsumed under his quiddity, according to logical theory, about which there can be no misgiving. And the philosophers affirm that existence is never subsumed under the quiddity of things, but stands in a relation to the quiddity, either necessarily and inseparably, like its relation to heaven, or subsequently, after their nonexistence, like its relation to temporary things, and that the sharing of existence does not imply a sharing in genus. And as to its sharing in 'being a cause to other things' with all the other causes, this is a necessary relation which likewise cannot be subsumed under the quiddity, s for neither the fact of being a principle nor existence constitutes the essence, but they are necessary attributes of the essence, consequent upon the constitution of the essence out of the parts of its quiddity, and this community is only the sharing of a necessary common attribute consecutive to the essence, not a community of genus. Things therefore are only defined by their constituents, and if they are defined by the necessary attributes this is only a description to differentiate them, not to define their essential forms; for the triangle is not defined by the fact that its angles are equal to two right angles, although this is a necessary and common attribute of all triangles, but it is defined as a figure bounded by three sides. And the same applies to its being a substance, and the meaning of its being a substance is that it is an existent which does not exist in a substratum. And the existent is not a genus, since, as it is related to a negation, namely not being in a substratum, it cannot become a constituent genus; indeed, even if it could be brought into a relation to something positive and it could be said that it existed in a substratum, it could not become a genus in the accident. And the reason is that the man who knows substance by its definition, which is rather its description, namely that it is an existent which does not exist in a substratum, does not know whether it exists, and a fortiori does not know whether it exists in a substratum or not; no, the meaning of the description of substance is that it is the existent which does not exist in a substratum, i. e. that it is a certain reality which, when it does exist, does not exist in a substratum, but we do not mean that it actually exists at the time of the definition, and its community is not the community of the genus, for only the constituents of the quiddity form the community of the genus which needs also a specific differences But the First has no other quiddity, except necessary existence, and necessary existence is its real nature and its own quiddity, exclusively confined to it, and since necessary existence is exclusively confined to the First, it cannot be shared by others, it cannot have a specific difference, and it cannot have a definition.

Here ends what Ghazali says of the philosophical views about this question, and it is partly true, partly false. As to his statement that no other thing can share with the First its genus and be distinguished from it through a specific difference, if he means by this the genus and the difference that are predicated univocally, it is true, for anything of this description is composed of a common form and a specific form, and such things possess a definition. But if by 'genus' is meant what is predicated analogically, I mean pier prius et piosterius, then it can have a genus, e. g. existent, or thing, or identity, or essence, and it can have a kind of definition, and this kind of definition is used in the sciences-for instance, when it is said of the soul that it is the entelechy of the natural organic body, and when it is said of the substance that it is the existent which does not exist in a substratum -but these definitions do not suffice for knowledge of the thing, and they are only given to indicate through it the different individuals which fall under such definitions and to represent their peculiarities. But as to his statement that according to the philosophers the term 'existence' only indicates a necessary attribute of the essences of things, this is not true, and we have already explained this in another place and none of the philosophers has said this but Avicenna. Having denied that existence is a genus, predicted either univocally or equivocally, Avicenna affirmed that it was a term which signified a common necessary attribute of things. But the difficulty he found in regarding existence as an essence can be held up against him when it is regarded as a necessary attribute, for if it were a necessary attribute, this necessary attribute could not be given as an answer to the question what a thing is. I And further, if 'existence' really signifies a necessary attribute in things, does it signify this necessary attribute univocally, or equivocally, or in some other mode of attribution? And if it has a univocal meaning, how can there be an accident univocally predicated of things essentially different (I believe that Avicenna regarded this as possible)? z It is, however, impossible, because from different things the congruous and identical can only derive, when these different things agree in one nature, since necessarily a single necessary attribute must come from one nature, just as a single act can proceed only from one nature. And since this is impossible, the term 'existence' indicates essences which have analogical meanings, essences some of which are more perfect than others; and therefore there exists in the things which have such an existence a principle which is the cause of that which exists in all the other things of this genus, just as our term 'warm' is a term which is predicated per prius et posterius of fire and all other warm things, and that of which it is asserted first, i. e. fire, is the cause of the existence of warmth in all other things, and the same is the case with substance, intellect, and principle and such terms (most metaphysical terms are of this kind), and such terms can indicate both substances and accidents.

And what he says of the description of substance is devoid of sense, but existence is the genus of substance and is included in its definition in the way the genera of the sublunary things are included in their definitions, and Farabi proved this in his book about demonstration, and this is the commonest view amongst philosophers. Avicenna erred in this only because, since he thought that the 'existent' means the 'true' in the Arabic language, and that what indicates the true indicates an accident4-the true, however, really indicates one of the second, predicates, i. e. a predicable-he believed that when the translator used the word 'existent' it meant only the 'true'. This, however, is not so, for the translators meant only to indicate what is also meant by 'entity' and 'thing'.

Farabi explains this in his Book of the Letters and he shows that one of the reasons for the occurrence of this mistake is that the term 'existent' in Arabic is a derivative in form and that a derivative signifies an accident, and in fact an accident is linguistically a derivative. But since the translators did not find in Arabic a term which signified that concept which the ancient philosophers subdivided into substance and accident, potency and act, a term namely which should be a primitive symbol, some translators signified that concept by the term 'existent', not to be understood as having a derivative meaning and signifying therefore an accident, but as having the same meaning as 'essence'. It is thus a technical term, not an idiomatic word. Some translators, because of the difficulty attached to it, decided to use for the concept, which the Greek language tried to express by deriving it from the pronoun which joins the predicate and the subject, the term which expresses this, because they thought that this word comes nearer to expressing this meaning, and they used instead of the term 'existent' the term 'haeceitas', but the fact that its grammatical form is not found in Arabic hindered its use, and the other party therefore preferred the term 'existent'.-, And the term 'existent' which signifies the true does not signify the quiddity, and therefore one may often know the quiddity without knowing the existence, and this meaning of 'existent' of necessity does not signify the quiddity in the compound substance, but is in the simple substance identical with the quiddity; and this meaning is not what the translators intended by 'existence', for they meant the quiddity itself, and when we say of the existent that it is in part substance, in part accident, the sense meant by the translators must be understood, and this is the sense which is predicated analogically of different essences of things. When we say, however, that substance exists, it must be understood in the sense of the true. And therefore if we have understood the well-known discussion of the ancient philosophers, whether the existent is one or more than one, which is found in the first book of Aristotle's Physics where he conducts a discussion with the ancient philosophers Parmenides and Melissus, s we need only understand by 'existent' that which signifies the essence. And if the 'existent' meant an accident in a substratum, then the statement that the existent was one would be self-contradictory. ' And all this is clear for the man who is well grounded in the books of the philosophers.

And having stated the views of the philosophers, Ghazali begins to refute them, and says:

This is the sense of the doctrine of the philosophers. And the discussion with them consists of two parts: a question and a refutation. The question is: This is the simple narration of your doctrine, but how do you know the impossibility of this with respect to God, so as to build on it the refutation of dualism, since you say that a second God would have to participate in something and differ from the first in something, and that which partly possesses something in common with another, partly is different from it, is compound, whereas that He should be compound is absurd?

I have already said that this is only valid for something which possesses a common feature through a genus which is predicated univocally, not analogically. For if, by the assumption of a second God, a God were assumed of the same rank of divinity as the first, then the name of God would be predicated univocally, and He would be a genus, and the two Gods would have to be separated by a specific distinction and both would be compounded of a genus and a specific distinction, and the philosophers do not allow a genus to an eternal being; but if the term 'existence' is predicated per prius et posterius, the prior will be the cause of the posterior.

Ghazali says, refuting the philosophers:

But we say: How do you know the impossibility of this kind of composition? For there is no proof except your denial of the attributes, which has been mentioned, namely that the compound of genus and species is an aggregate of parts; thus if it is possible for one or for a collection of the parts to exist without the others, this single one will be the necessary existent and the others will not be necessary; and if it is possible neither for the parts to exist without the totality, nor for the totality to exist without the parts, then the whole is an effect needing something else as its cause. We have already discussed this in the case of the attributes, and have shown that their plurality is not impossible, since an end of the causal series is admitted and all that is proved is that there is an end of the causal series. For those enormous difficulties which the philosophers have invented concerning the inference of attributes in the necessary existent there is no proof whatever. If the necessary existent is what the philosophers describe it to be, namely to possess no plurality and not to need anything else for its existence, then there is no proof of the existence of this necessary existent; the only thing proved is that there is an end of the causal series, and we have exhausted this subject in our discussion of attributes. And for this kind of plurality it is still more obvious, for the division of a thing into genus and specific difference is not like the division of the subject into essence and attribute, since, indeed, the attribute is not the essence and the essence is not the attribute, but the species is not in every way different from the genus, for whenever we mention the species, we mention the genus with an addition, and when we speak of a man we only mention animal with the addition. of reason. ' And to ask whether humanity can be free from animality is like asking whether humanity can be without itself, when something is added to it. And indeed genus and species are more distant from plurality than attribute and subject. ' And why should it be impossible that the causal series should end in two causes, one the cause of the heavens and the other the cause of the elements, or one the cause of the intellects and the other the cause of all bodies, and that there should be between those two causes a conceptual difference and separation as between redness and warmth when they exist in one and the same place? For they differ in content without our being obliged to assume in the redness a compound of genus and specific difference through which this difference is established; indeed, if it possesses a plurality, this kind of plurality does not impair the singleness of its essence, and why should this be impossible with respect to the causes? Through this there is shown the weakness of their refutation of the existence of two Gods.

I say:

Composition out of genus and specific difference is exactly the same as the composition of a thing in potency and a thing in act, for the nature which is indicated by the genus does not actually exist at any time without the presence of the nature which is called specific difference and form. And everything which is composed of these two natures is, according to the philosophers, transitory, and possesses an agent, for the specific difference is one of the conditions for the existence of the genus in so far as the genus is in potency and does not exist without the specific difference. And the conjunction of either with its partner is in a certain way a condition for the existence of the other.

And as a thing cannot itself be a cause of the condition of its existence, it necessarily possesses a cause which provides it with existence by conjoining the condition and the conditioned. Also, according to the philosophers the recipient is in reality something which possesses only potency, and if it is actually, then only accidentally; and what is received is actuality, and if it is potency, then only accidentally; for the recipient and the thing it receives are only distinguished by the fact that one of them is potentially something else, whereas actually it is the thing received and whatever is potentially another thing must necessarily receive this other thing and lose the thing it actually is. Therefore, if there should exist a recipient in actuality and a thing received in actuality, both would exist by themselves, but the recipient is necessarily body, for only body, or what is in a body, possesses receptivity primarily, and receptivity cannot be attributed to accidents and forms, nor to the plane, the line, and the point, nor in general to what cannot be divided. As regards an incorporeal agent, this has been already proved, and as to an incorporeal recipient, or a recipient not embedded in matter, such a recipient is impossible, although there is a problem for the philosophers about the potential intellects And indeed, if the compound has a subject and an attribute which is not additional to its essence, b it is transitory and necessarily a body, and if it has a subject and an attribute additional to its essence, without its having any potency in its substance even in respect of this attribute, as is the case according to the ancients with the body of the heavens, ? it possesses quantity of necessity and is a body. For, if from such an essence, supporting the attribute, bodiliness were taken away, it would no longer be a perceptible recipient, and equally the sensory perception of its attribute would be annulled and its attribute and subject would both become intellect, and they would be reduced to one single simple entity, for from the nature of the intellect and the intelligible it is evident that they are both one and the same thing, since plurality exists in them accidentally, namely through the substratum. And in short, when the philosophers assume an essence and attributes additional to the essence, this amounts to their assuming an eternal body with accidents inherent in it, and they do not doubt that if they took away the quantity which is corporeity, the perceptible element in it would be annulled, and neither substratum nor inherent would exist any more; but if, on the other hand, they regarded the substratum and the inherent as abstracted from matter and body, the substratum and inherent would of necessity be both intellect and intelligible; but this is the Unique, the Uncompounded, God, the Truth.

As to his statement that the whole mistake of the philosophers consists in their calling the First the 'necessary existent', and that if instead they called it 'the causeless', the conclusion which they draw about the First, concerning the necessary attributes of the necessary existent, would not follow-this statement is not true. For since they assume an existent which has no cause, it follows necessarily that it is in itself a necessary existent, just as, when a necessary existent existing by itself is assumed, it follows necessarily that it has no cause, and if it has no cause it is more appropriate that it should not be divided into two things, cause and effect. The assumption of the theologians that the First is composed of an attribute and a subject implies that it has an efficient cause, ' and that therefore it is neither a first cause nor a necessary existent, and this is in contradiction to their assumption that it is one of those existents of which the attribute and the subject are reduced to one single simple entity; but there is no sense in repeating this and expatiating on it.

And as to his statement that it is not impossible of God, the First, that He should be composed of a substratum and an attribute additional to the substratum, and that therefore a fortiori it is not impossible that He should be composed of a substratum and an attribute which is identical with its substratum, we have already explained the way in which this is not impossible, namely when both are abstract from matter.

And as to his statement that their refutation of dualism does not prevent the possibility of the existence of two Gods, one of whom would be, for instance, the cause of heaven and the other the cause of the earth, or one the cause of the intelligible and the other the cause of the sensible in the bodies, and that their differentiation and distinction need not determine a contradiction, as there is no contradiction in redness and warmth which exist in one place—this statement is not true. For if the production and creation of the existent is assumed to be the effect of one nature and of one essence, not of two different natures, it would necessarily follow that if a second thing of this nature were assumed, similar in nature and intellect to the first, they would share in one attribute and differ in another. And their difference would come about either through the kind of differentiation which exists between individuals or through the kind of differentiation which exists between species. In the latter case the term 'God' would be predicated of them equivocally, and this is in contradiction with their assumption, for the species which participate in the genus are either contraries or stand between contraries, and this is wholly impossible.

And if they were individually differentiated, they would both be in matter, and this is in opposition to what is agreed about them. But if it is assumed that one of these natures is superior to the other and that this nature is predicated of them per prius et posterius, then the first nature will be superior to the second and the second will be necessarily its effect, so that for instance the creator of heaven will be the creator of the cause which creates the elements; and this is the theory of the philosophers. And both theories lead to the acceptance of a first cause; that of those who believe that the First acts through the mediation of many causes, and that of those who believe that the First is directly the cause of all other things without mediation. But according to the philosophers this latter theory cannot be true. For it is evident that the worlds exist through cause and effect, and it is inquiry concerning these causes which leads us to a first cause for everything. And if some of these different principles were wholly independent of others—that is, if some were not the cause of others—then the world could not be a single well connected whole, and to the impossibility of this the Divine Words refer, 'Were there in both heaven and earth Gods beside God, both surely would have been corrupted'.

Ghazali says:

It may be said: This is impossible so far as the difference which exists between these two essences is either a condition for their necessary existence (and in that case it will exist in both the necessary existents, and then they will not differ anyhow), or neither the one nor the other specific difference is a condition (and since the necessary existence is able to exist without the things that are not a condition for it, the necessary existence will be perfected by something else).

But we reply: This is exactly the same answer as you gave concerning the attributes and we have already discussed it, ' and the source of confusion throughout this problem is the expression 'necessary existent'; let us therefore get rid of this term; and indeed, we do not accept that demonstration proves a necessary existent, if anything else is meant by it but an eternal existent which has no cause, and if this is meant by it, let us abandon the term 'necessary existent' and let it be proved that an existent which has no cause and no agents cannot have a plurality and a distinctive mark, but indeed there is no proof of it. There remains therefore your question whether this specific difference is a condition of the causeless character of this causeless existent, and this is nonsense. For we have shown that there is no cause for its being without a cause, so as to make it possible to ask for its condition. It would be like asking whether blackness is a condition for the colour's becoming a colour, and if it is a condition, why redness is then a colour. And the answer is: as to the essential nature of colour, i. e. in so far as the essence of colouredness is asserted in the intellect, neither of them is a condition, less than and as to its existence, each of them is a condition for its existence, but not individually, since a genus cannot exist in reality without a specific differences And likewise the man who accepts two causes as starting-points of the series must say that they are differentiated through a specific difference, and both differences are a condition for their existence, no doubt, though not through their individuality.

I say:

The summary of what he says here of the proof of the philosophers is that they say that the specific difference through which the duality in the necessary existent occurs is either a condition or not a condition for necessary existence. If the specific difference through which they are distinguished is a condition for both the necessary existents, they will no longer be separated in their necessary existence and the necessary existent will be of necessity one and the same, just as, if black were to be a condition for the necessity of colour and white a condition for colouredness, they could not differ in colouredness. If, on the other hand, the specific difference does not enter into the essence of necessary existence, then both these necessary existents will have necessary existence only by accident, and their duality will not be based on their both being necessary existents. This, however, is not true, for the species are a condition for the existence of the genus, and both colours are a condition for the existence of the genus, though not individually (for in this case they could not exist together in the existence of the colour).

Ghazali opposes this statement with two arguments. The first is that this can only happen in so far as 'necessary existent' means a special nature; according to the theologians, however, this is not the case, for they understand by 'necessary existent' only something negative, namely something which has no cause, and since negative things are not caused, how can, for the denial of the causeless, an argument like the following be used: 'That which distinguishes one causeless entity from another causeless entity is either a condition of its being causeless or not; if it is a condition, there cannot be any plurality or differentiation; and if it is not a condition, it cannot occasion a plurality in the causeless, which therefore will be one.' However, the erroneous part in Ghazali's reasoning is that he regards the causeless as a mere negation, and, as a negation has no cause, he asks how it could possess a condition which is the cause of its existence. But this is a fallacy, for particular negations, which are like infinite terms and which are used for distinguishing between existents, have causes and conditions which determine this negation in them, just as they have causes and conditions which determine their positive qualities; and in this sense there is no difference between positive and negative attributes, and the necessity of the necessary existent is a necessary attribute of the causeless and there is no difference between saying 'the necessary existent' or 'the causeless'.

And the nonsense comes from those who talk like Ghazali, not from his opponents.

And the summary of Ghazali's second objection is that to say, as the philosophers do, that the specific difference through which the necessary existent is distinguished is either a condition or not, that in the former case the one necessary existent cannot be distinguished from the other in so far as they are necessarily existent and that therefore the necessary existent is one, and that in the latter case the necessary existent has no specific difference through which it can be divided: that to speak like this is like saying that if there exist more colours than one of the genus colour, the difference through which one colour is distinguished from another is either a condition for the existence of colour or not; that in the former case the one cannot be distinguished from the other in so far as they are colour, and colour is therefore one single nature; that in the latter case, if neither of them is a condition for the existence of colouredness, one colour has no specific difference through which it can be distinguished from another, and this is not true.

Ghazali says, answering this problem on behalf of the philosophers:

It may be said perhaps: This is possible in the case of colour, for it has an existence related to the quiddity and additional to the quiddity, but it is not possible for the necessary existent, for it possesses only necessary existence, and there is therefore no quiddity to which its existence might be related, and just as the specific differences of black and red are not conditions for colouredness being colouredness, but only a condition for the actual realization of colour through a cause, , in the same way the specific difference cannot be a condition for necessary existence, for necessary existence is in relation to the First what colouredness is in relation to the colour, and not like the existence brought in relation to colouredness.

But we reply, we do not accept this; on the contrary, the necessary existent has a real essence to which existence is attributed, as we shall show in the next discussion, and their statement that the First is an existence without quiddity is incomprehensible. The trend of their argument is, in short, that they base their denial of dualism on the denial that the First is composed of the generic and the specific, then they base the denial of this on their denial that there is a quiddity behind the existence. Therefore as soon as we have refuted this last proposition, which is their fundamental principle, their whole structure (which is a very shaky fabrication, just like a spider's web) tumbles down.

Ghazali builds the answer he gives here in the name of the philosophers on their statement that existence is an accident in the existent, i. e. the quiddity, and he objects against them that the existence in everything is something different from the essence, and he affirms that their whole argument is built only on this. 'But the distinction which the philosophers make here does not save them from the implication held against them about colouredness and its specific differences, in whatever way they may turn the question. Indeed, nobody doubts that the specific differences of the genus are the cause of the genus, whether it is assumed that the existence of the genus is different from its essence, or that the essence and existence of the genus are identical; for if the specific differences were differences in the existence, and the existence of the colour were different from the quiddity of the colour, it would follow that the specific differences by which the colour is divided are not differences in the quiddity of the colour, but differences in one of its accidents, and this is an absurd assumption. Therefore the truth is to say, 'When we divide colour by its specific differences, the existence of the colour in so far as it is colour is only actual, either because it is white, or because it is black or any other colour.

Thus we do not divide an accident of the colour, but we divide only the essence of the colour. Through this solution the statement that existence is an accident in the existent is seen to be false, and the argument and his answer are unsound.

As to Ghazali's words:

They base their denial of dualism on the denial that the First is composed of the generic and the specific, then they base the denial of this on the denial that there is a quiddity behind the existence. Therefore as soon as we have refuted this last proposition, which is their fundamental principle, their whole structure tumbles down.

I say:

This argument is not sound, for their structure, the denial of individual duality attributed to simple things univocally, is self-evident, for if we assume a duality and two simple things possessing a common trait, the simple becomes a compounds And the summary of the philosophical proof for this is that the nature called 'necessary existent', i. e. the cause which has no cause and which is a cause for other things, must be either numerically one or many; if many, it must be many through its form, one through the genus predicated univocally of it, or one through a relation, or one through the term only. b If it is like Zaid and Amr individually differentiated and specifically one, then it necessarily possesses hyle, and this is impossible. If it is differentiated through its form, but one through the genus predicated univocally of it, then it is necessarily composite. If it is one in its genus, predicated by analogy to one thing, there is no objection, and one part of it will be the cause of another and the series will end in a first cause, and this is what happens with the forms abstracted from matter, according to the philosophers. If it is only common through the term, then there is no objection to its being more than one, and this is the case with the four primary causes, i. e. the first agent, the ultimate form, the ultimate end, the ultimate matter. Therefore, no strict proof is attained through this method, and one does not arrive at the First Principle as Avicenna thought; nor to its being necessarily one.

Ghazali says:

The second way is the drawing of the consequence, and we say: If existence, substantiality and being a principle are not a genus, because they do not give an answer to the question 'What is it?', then according to you the First is pure intellect just like the other intellects which are the principles of existence, called angels, according to the philosophers, and which are the effects of the First, are intellects separate from matter. And this abstract reality comprises the First and the first effect. This First, further, is according to the philosophers simple, and there is no compound in its essence except through its necessary attributes, and both the First Cause and the first effect participate in being intellect without matter.

This, however, is a generic reality. Nor is intellectuality, separate from matter, a necessary attribute, for it is indeed a quiddity, and this quiddity is common to the First and all the other intellects. Therefore, if they do not differ in anything else, you have necessarily conceived a duality without a further difference; and if they do differ, what then is this distinction apart from their intellectuality, which they have in common? For what they have in common is participation in this abstract reality.

For indeed the First is conscious of its own self and of others, according to those who believe that it is in its es3ence intellect separate from matter; and also the first effect, which is the first intellect which God has created without a mediator, participates in this characteristic. This proves that the intellects which are effects are different species, that they only participate in intellectuality and are besides this distinguished by specific differences, and that likewise the First participates with all the other intellects in this intellectuality. The philosophers, therefore, are either in plain contradiction to their own fundamental thesis, or have to affirm that intellectuality does not constitute God's essence. And both positions are absurd according to them.

I say:

If you have understood what we have said before this, that there are things which have a term in common not univocally or equivocally, but by the universality of terms analogically related to one thing, and that the characteristic of these things is that they lead upwards to a first term in this genus which is the first cause of everything to which this word refers, like warmth, which is predicated of fire and all other warm things, and like the term 'existent' which is predicated of the substance and all other accidents, and like the term 'movement' predicated of motion in space and all the other movements, you will not have to occupy yourself with the mistakes in this reasoning. For the term 'intellect' is predicated analogically of the separate intellects according to the philosophers, and there is among them a first intellect which is the cause of all the other intellects, and the same thing is true of substance. And the proof that they have not one nature in common is that some of them are the causes of others and the cause of a thing is prior to the effect, and the nature of cause and effect cannot be one in genus except in the individual causes, and this kind of community is contradictory to genuine generic community, for things which participate in genus have no first principle which is the cause of all the others—they are all of the same rank, and there is no simple principle in them—whereas the things which participate in something predicated of them analogically must have a simple first principle. And in this First no duality can be imagined, for if a second were assumed, it must be of the same level of existence and of the same nature as the First, and they would have one nature in common in which they would participate by generic participation and would have to be distinguished through specific differences, additional to the genus, and both would be composed of genus and specific difference, and everything which is of this description is temporal; and lastly that which is of the extreme perfection i of existence must be unique, for if it were not unique, it could not be of the extreme perfection of existence, for that which is in the extreme degree cannot participate with anything else, for in the same way as one single line cannot have two extreme points at the same end, things extended in existence and differentiated through increase s and decrease have not two extremes at the same side. And since Avicenna was not aware of this nature, which stands midway between the nature of that which is univocally predicated and those natures which participate only through the equivocation of the term or in a distant, accidental way, this objection was valid against him.

The Eighth Discussion

to Refute their Theory that the Existence of the First is Simple, Namely that it is Pure Existence and that its Existence Stands in Relation to no kwiditee and to no Essence, but Stands to Necessary Existence as do Other Beings to their kwiditee

Ghazali says:

There are two ways of attacking this theory. The first is to demand a proof and to ask how you know this, through the necessity of the intellect, or through speculation and not by immediate necessity; and in any case you must tell us your method of reasoning.

If it is said that, if the First had a quiddity, its existence would be related to it, and would be consequent' on this quiddity and would be its necessary attribute, and the consequent is an effect and therefore necessary existence would be an effect, and this is a contradiction, we answer: This is to revert to the source of the confusion in the application of the term 'necessary existence', for we call this entity 'reality' or 'quiddity' and this reality exists, i. e. it is not non-existent and is not denied, but its existence is brought into a relation with it, and if you like to call this 'consequent' and 'necessary attribute', we shall not quibble about words, if you have once acknowledged that it has no agent for its existence and that this existence has not ceased to be eternal and to have no efficient cause; if, however, you understand by 'consequent' and 'effect' that it has an efficient cause, this is not true. But if you mean something else, this is conceded, for it is not impossible, z since the demonstration proves only the end of a causal series and its ending in an existent reality; a positive quiddity, therefore, is possible, and there is no need to deny the quiddity.

If it is said: Then the quiddity becomes a cause for the existence which is consequent on it, and the existence becomes an effect and an object of the act, we answer: The quiddity in temporal things is not a cause of their existence, and why should it therefore be the case in the eternal, if you mean by 'cause' the agent? But if you mean something else by it, namely that without which it could not be, let that be accepted, for there is nothing impossible in it; the impossibility lies only in the infinite causal series, and if this series only comes to a final term, then the impossibility is cancelled; impossibility can be understood only on this point, therefore you must give a proof of its impossibility.

All the proofs of the philosophers are nothing but presumptions that the term has a sense from which certain consequences follow, and nothing but the supposition that demonstration has in fact proved a necessary existent with the meaning the philosophers ascribed to it. We have, however, shown previously that this is not true. In short, this proof of the philosophers comes down to the proof of the denial of attributes and of the division into genus and specific difference; only this proof is still more ambiguous and weak, for this plurality is purely verbal, for the intellect does allow the acceptance of one single existent quiddity. The philosophers, however, say that every existent quiddity is a plurality, for it contains quiddity and existence, and this is an extreme confusion; for the meaning of a single existent is perfectly understandable-nothing exists which has no essence, and the existence of an essence does not annul its singleness.

I say:

Ghazali does not relate Avicenna's doctrine literally as he did in his book The Aims of the Philosophers. 'For since Avicenna believed that the existence of a thing indicated an attribute additional to its essence, he could no longer admit that its essence was the agent of its existence out of the possibles, for then the thing would be the cause of its own existence and it would not have an agent. It follows from this, according to Avicenna, that everything which has an existence additional to its essence has an efficient cause, and since according to Avicenna the First has no agent, it follows necessarily that its existence is identical with its essence. z And therefore Ghazali's objection that Avicenna assimilates existence to a necessary attribute of the essence is not true, because the essence of a thing is the cause of its necessary attribute and it is not possible that a thing should be the cause of its own existence, because the existence of a thing is prior to its quiddity. To identify the quiddity and the existence of a thing is not to do away with its quiddity, as Ghazali asserts, but is only the affirmation of the unity of quiddity and existence. If we regard existence as an accidental attribute of the existent, and it is the agent which gives possible things their existence, necessarily that which has no agent either cannot have an existence (and this is absurd), or its existence must be identical with its essence.

But the whole of this discussion is built on the mistake that the existence of a thing is one of its attributes. For the existence which in our knowledge is prior to the quiddity of a thing is that which signifies the true. Therefore the question whether a thing exists, either (1) refers to that which has a cause that determines its existence, and in that case its potential meaning is to ask whether this thing has a cause or not, according to Aristotle at the beginning of the second chapter of the Posterior Analytics;s or (2) it refers to that which has no cause, and then its meaning is to ask whether a thing possesses a necessary attribute which determines its existence. ' And when by 'existent' is meant what is understood by 'thing' and 'entity', it follows the rule of the genus which is predicated analogically, and whatever it is in this sense is attributed in the same way to that which has a cause and to that which has none, and it does not signify anything but the concept of the existent, and by this is meant 'the true', and if it means something additional to the essence, it is only in a subjective sense which does not exist outside the soul except potentially, as is also the case with the universal. And this is the way in which the ancient philosophers considered the First Principle, and they regarded it as a simple existent. As to the later philosophers in Islam, they stated that, in their speculation about the nature of the existent qua existent, they were led to accept a simple existent of this description.

The best method to follow, in my opinion, and the nearest to strict proof, is to say that the actualization of existents which have in their substance a possible existence necessarily occurs only through an actualizer which is in act, i. e. acting, and moves them and draws them out of potency into act. And if this actualizer itself is also of the nature of the possible, i. e. possible in its substance, there will have to be another actualizer for it, necessary in its substance and not possible, so that this sublunary world may be conserved, and the nature of the possible causes may remain everlastingly, proceeding without end. And if these causes exist without end, as appears from their nature, and each of them is possible, necessarily their cause, i. e. that which determines their permanence, must be something necessary in its substance, and if there were a moment in which nothing was moved at all, there would be no possibility of an origination of movements The nexus between temporal existence and eternal can only take place without a change affecting the First through that movement which is partly eternal, partly temporal. b And the thing moved by this movement is what Avicenna calls 'the existence necessary through another', and this 'necessary through another' must be a body everlastingly moved, and in this way it is possible that the essentially temporal and corruptible should exist in dependence on the eternal, and this through approach to something and through recession from it, as you observe it happen to transitory existents in relation to the heavenly bodies. ? And since this moved body is necessary in its substance, possible in its local movement, it is necessary that the process should terminate in an absolutely necessary existent in which there is no potency at all, either in its substance, or locally or in any of the other forms of movement; and that which is of this description is necessarily simple, because if it were a compound, it would be possible, not necessary, and it would require a necessary existent. And this method of proving it is in my opinion sufficient, and it is true.

However, what Avicenna adds to this proof by saying that the possible existent must terminate either in an existent necessary through another or in an existent necessary through itself, and in the former case that the necessary through another should be a consequence of the existent necessary through itself, for he affirms that the existent necessary through another is in itself a possible existent and what is possible needs something necessary—this addition, is to my mind superfluous and erroneous, for in the necessary, in whatever way you suppose it, there is no possibility whatsoever and there exists nothing of a single nature of which it can be said that it is in one way possible and in another way necessary in its existence. 'For the philosophers have proved that there is no possible whatsoever in the necessary; for the possible is the opposite of the necessary, and the only thing that can happen is that a thing should be in one way necessary, in another way possible, as they believed for instance to be the case with the heavenly body or what is above the body of the heavens, namely that it was necessary through its substance and possible in its movement and in space. What led Avicenna to this division was that he believed that the body of the heavens was essentially necessary through another, possible by itself, and we have shown in another place that this is not true. And the proof which Avicenna uses in dealing with the necessary existent, when this distinction and this indication are not made, is of the type of common dialectical notions; when, however, the distinction is made, it is of the type of demonstrative proof.

You must know further that the becoming of which the Holy Law speaks is of the kind of empirical becoming in this world, and this occurs in the forms of the existents which the Ash'arites call mental qualitiesand the philosophers call forms, and this becoming occurs only through another thing and in time, and the Holy Words: 'Have not those who have disbelieved considered that the heavens and the earth were coherent, and we have rent them . . . 'and the Divine Words 'then he straightened himself up to the sky which was smoke . . .', refer to this. But as to the relation which exists between the nature of the possible existent and the necessary existent, about this the Holy Law is silent, because it is too much above the understanding of the common man and knowledge of it is not necessary for his blessedness. When the Ash'arites affirm that the nature of the possible' is created and has come into existence in time out of nothing (a notion which all the philosophers oppose, whether they believe in the temporal beginning of the world or not), they do not say this, if you consider the question rightly, on the authority of the law of Islam, and there is no proof for it. What appears from the Holy Law is the commandment to abstain from investigating that about which the Holy Law is silent, and therefore it is said in the Traditions: 'The people did not cease thinking till they said: God has created this, but who has created God? And the Prophet said: When one of you finds this, this is an act of pure faith', and in another version: 'When one of you finds this, let him read the verse of the Qur'an: Say, He, God is one. And know that for the masses to turn to such a question comes from the whisperings of Satan and therefore the prophet said: This is an act of pure faith.

Ghazali says:

The second way is to say that an existence without quiddity or essence cannot be conceived, and just as mere non-existence, without a relation to an existent the non-existence of which can be supposed, cannot be conceived, in the same way existence can be only conceived in relation to a definite essence, especially when it is defined as a single essence; for how could it be defined as single, conceptually differentiated from others, if it had not a real essence? For to deny the quiddity is to deny the real essence, and when you deny the real essence of the existent, the existent can no longer be understood. It is as if the philosophers affirmed at the same time existence and a non-existent, which is contradictory. This is shown by the fact that, if it were conceivable, it would be also possible in the effects that there should be an existence without an essence, participating with the First in not having a real essence and a quiddity, differing from it in having a cause, whereas the First is causeless. And why should such an effect not be imagined? And is there any other reason for this than that it is inconceivable in itself? But what is inconceivable in itself does not become conceivable by the denial of its cause, nor does what is conceivable become inconceivable because it is supposed to have a cause. Such an extreme negation is the most obscure of their theories, although they believe indeed that they have proved what they say. Their doctrine ends in absolute negation, and indeed the denial of the quiddity is the denial of the real essence, and through the denial of this reality nothing remains but the word 'existence', which has no object at all when it is not related to a quiddity.

And if it is said: 'Its real essence is that it is the necessary, and the necessary is its quiddity', we answer: 'The only sense of “necessary” is “causeless”, and this is a negation which does not constitute a real essence; and the denial of a cause for the real essence presupposes the real essence, and therefore let the essence be conceivable, so that it can be described as being causeless; but the essence cannot be represented as non-existent, since “necessity” has no other meaning than “being causeless”. ' Besides, if the necessity were added to the existence, this would form a plurality; and if it is not added, how then could it be the quiddity? For the existence is not the quiddity, and thus what is not added to the existence cannot be the quiddity either. '

This whole paragraph is sophistry. For the philosophers do not assume that the First has an existence without a quiddity and a quiddity without an existence. They believe only that the existence in the compound is an additional attribute to its essence and it only acquires this attribute through the agent, and they believe that in that which is simple and causeless this attribute is not additional to the quiddity and that it has no quiddity differentiated from its existence; but they do not say that it has absolutely no quiddity, as he assumes in his objection against them.

Having assumed that they deny the quiddity-which is false Ghazali begins now to charge them with reprehensible theories and says:

If this were conceivable it would also be possible in the effects that there should be an existence without an essence, participating with the First in not having a real essence.

I say:

But the philosophers do not assume an existent absolutely without a quiddity: they only assume that it has not a quiddity like the quiddities of the other existents; and this is one of the sophistical fallacies, for the term 'quiddity' is ambiguous, and this assumption, and everything built upon it, is a sophistical argument, for the non-existent cannot be described either by denying or by affirming something of it. And Ghazali, by fallacies of the kind perpetrated in this book, is not exempt from wickedness or from ignorance, and he seems nearer to wickedness than to ignorance-or should we say that there is a necessity which obliged him to do this?

And as to his remark, that the meaning of 'necessary existent' is , causeless', this is not true, but our expression that it is a necessary existent has a positive meaning, consequent on a nature which has absolutely no cause, no exterior agent, and no agent which is part of it.

And as to Ghazali's words:

If the necessity were added to the existence, this would form a plurality; and if it is not added, how then could it be the quiddity? For existence is not the quiddity, and thus what is not added to the existence cannot be the quiddity either.

According to the philosophers necessity is not an attribute added to the essence, and it is predicated of the essence in the same way as we say of it that it is inevitable and eternal. 'And likewise if we understand by 'existence' a mental attribute, it is not an addition to the essence, but if we understand it as being an accident, in the way Avicenna regards it in the composite existent, then it becomes difficult to explain how the uncompounded can be the quiddity itself, although one might say perhaps: 'In the way the knowledge in the uncompounded becomes the knower himself.' If, however, one regards the existent as the true, all these doubts lose their meaning, and likewise, if one understands 'existent' as having the same sense as 'entity', and according to this it is true that the existence in the uncompounded is the quiddity itself.

The Ninth Discussion

To Refute Their Proof That the First Is Incorporeal

Ghazali says:

There is a proof only for him who believes that body is only temporal, because it cannot be exempt from what is temporal and everything that is temporal needs a creator. But you, when you admit an eternal body which has no beginning for its existence, although it is not exempt from temporal occurrences, why do you regard it as impossible that the First should be a body, either the sun, or the extreme heaven, or something else?

If the answer is made 'Because body must be composite and divisible into parts quantitatively, and into matter and form conceptually, and into qualities which characterize it necessarily so that it can be differentiated from other bodies (for otherwise all bodies in being body would be similar) and the necessary existent is one and cannot be divided in any of these ways' we answer: 'We have already refuted you in this, and have shown that you have no proof for it except that a collection is an effect, since some of its parts require others, and we have argued against it and have shown that when it is not impossible to suppose an existent without a creator, it is not impossible to suppose a compound without a composing principle and to suppose many existents without a creator, since you have based your denial of

plurality and duality on the denial of composition and your denial of composition on the denial of a quiddity distinct from existence, and with respect to the last principle we have asked for its foundation and we have shown that it is a mere presumption.

And if it is said: 'If a body has no soul, it cannot be an agent, and when it has a soul, well, then its soul is its cause, and then body cannot be the First', we answer: 'Our soul is not the cause of the existence of our body, nor is the soul of the sphere in itself a cause of its body, according to you, but they are two, having a distinct cause; and if they can be eternal, it is possible that they have no cause.'

And if the question is asked, 'How can the conjunction of soul and body come about?', we answer, 'One might as well ask how the existence of the First comes about; the answer is that such a question may be asked about what is temporal, but about what is eternally existent one cannot ask how it has come about, and therefore” since body and its soul are both eternally existent, it is not impossible that their compound should be a creator.

I say:

When a man has no other proof that the First is not body than that he believes that all bodies are temporal, how weak is his proof, and how far distant from the nature of what has to be proved!—since it has been shown previously that the proofs on which the theologians build their statement that all bodies are temporal are conflicting; and what is more appropriate than to regard an eternal composite as possible, as I said in this book when speaking of the Ash'arites, i. e. in saying that according to them an eternal body is possible, since in the accidents there is some eternal element, according to their own theory, for instance, the characteristic of forming a compound; and therefore their proof that all bodies are temporal is not valid, because they base it exclusively on the temporal becoming of the accidents. 'The ancient philosophers do not allow for the existence of a body eternal through itself, but only of one eternal through another, and therefore according to them there must be an existent eternal through itself through which the eternal body becomes eternal. But if we expound their theories here, they have only a dialectical value, and you should therefore instead ask for their proofs in their proper place.

And as to Ghazali's refutation of this, and his words:

We answer: 'We have already refuted you in this, and we have shown that you have no proof for this except that a collection is an effect, since some of its parts require others.

I say:

He means that he has discussed this already previously, and he says that the philosophers cannot prove that the existent necessary through itself is not a body, since the meaning of 'existent necessary through itself' is 'that which has no efficient cause', and why should they regard an eternal body which has no efficient cause as impossible—and especially when it should be supposed to be a simple body, indivisible quantitatively or qualitatively, and in short an eternal composite, without a composing principle? This is a sound argument from which they cannot escape except through dialectical arguments. z But all the arguments which Ghazali gives in this book either against or on behalf of the philosophers or against Avicenna are dialectical through the equivocation of the terms used, and therefore it is not necessary to expatiate on this.

And as to his answer on behalf of the Ash'arites that what is eternal through itself does not need a cause for its eternity, and that when the theologians assume something eternal through itself and assume its essence as the cause of its attributes, this essence does not become eternal because of something else,

It is a necessary consequence to be held up against Ghazali that the Eternal will be composed of a cause and an effect, and that the attributes will be eternal through their cause, i. e. the essence. And since the effect is not a condition for its own existence, the Eternal is the cause. And let us say that the essence which exists by itself is God and that the attributes are effects; then it can be argued against the theologians that they assume one thing eternal by itself and a plurality of things eternal through another, and that the combination of all these is God. But this is exactly their objection against those who say that God is eternal through Himself and the world eternal through another, namely God. Besides, they say that the Eternal is one, and all this is extremely contradictory.

And as to Ghazali's statement that to assume a compound without the factor which composes it, is not different from assuming an existent without a creator, and that the assumption either of a single existent of this description or of a plurality is not an impossible supposition for the mind, all this is erroneous. For composition does not demand a composing factor which again itself is composed, but there must be a series leading up to a composing factor composing by itself, just as, when the cause is an effect, there must finally be a cause which is not an effect. Nor is it possible, by means of an argument which leads to an existent without a creator, to prove the oneness of this existent.

And as to his assertion that the denial of the quiddity implies the denial of the composition, and that this implies the assertion of composition in the First, this is not true. And indeed the philosophers do not deny the quiddity of the First, but only deny that it has the kind of quiddity which is in the effects, and all this is a dialectical and doubtful argument. And already previously in this book we have given convincing arguments, according to the principles of the philosophers, to prove that the First is incorporeal, namely that the possible leads to a necessary existent and that the possible does not proceed from the necessary except through the mediation of an existent which is partly necessary, partly possible, and that this is the body of the heavens and its circular motion; and the most satisfactory way of expressing this according to the principles of the philosophers is to say that all bodies are finite in power, and that they only acquire their power of infinite movement through an incorporeal being.

Ghazali answering the objection which infers that according to the philosophers the agent is nothing but the sphere, composed of soul and body, says:

If it is answered: 'This cannot be so, because body in so far as it is body does not create anything else and the soul which is attached to the body does not act except through the mediation of the body, but the body is not a means for the soul in the latter's creating bodies or in causing the existence of souls and of things which are not related to bodies', we answer: 'And why is it not possible that there should be amongst the souls a soul which has the characteristic of being so disposed that both bodies and incorporeals are produced through it? The impossibility of this is not a thing known necessarily, nor is there a proof for it, except that we do not experience this in the bodies we observe; but the absence of experience does not demonstrate its impossibility, and indeed the philosophers often ascribe things to the First Existent which are not generally ascribed to existents, and are not experienced in any other existent, and the absence of its being observed in other things is not a proof of its impossibility in reference to the First Existent, and the same holds concerning the body and its soul.'

I say:

As to his assertion that bodies do not create bodies, if by 'creating' is understood producing, the reverse is true, for a body in the empirical world can only come into being through a body, , and an animated body only through an animated body, but the absolute body does not come into being at all, for, if it did, it would come into being from non-existence, not after non-existence. ' Individual bodies only come into being out of individual bodies and through individual bodies, and this through the body's being transferred from one name to another and from one definition to another, so that for instance the body of water changes into the body of fire, because out of the body of water is transformed the attribute through the transformation of which the name and definition of water is transferred to the name and definition of fire, and this happens necessarily through a body which is the agent, participating with the becoming body specifically or generically in either a univocal or an analogical ways and whether the individual special corporeality in the water is transformed into the individual special corporeality of the fire is a problem to be studied.

But the body is not a means for the soul in the latter's creating bodies or in causing the existence of souls,

This is an argument which he builds on an opinion some of the philosophers hold, that the bestower of forms on inanimate bodies and of souls is a separate substance, either intellect or a separate soul, and that it is not possible that either an animated body or an inanimate body should supply this. And if this opinion is held and at the same time it is assumed that heaven is an animated body, it is no longer possible for heaven to supply any of the transitory forms, either the soul or any other of these forms. For the soul which is in the body only acts through the mediation of the body, and that which acts through the mediation of the body can produce neither form nor soul, since it is not of the nature of the body to produce a substantial form, either a soul or any other substantial form.

And this theory resembles that of Plato about forms separate from matter, and is the in theory of Avicenna and others among the Muslim philosophers; their proof is that the body produces in the body only warmth or cold or moisture or dryness, and only these are acts of the heavenly bodies according to them. But that which produces the substantial forms, and especially those which are animated, is a separate substance which they call the giver of forms. But there are philosophers who believe the contrary and affirm that what produces the forms in the bodies is bodies possessing forms similar to them either specifically or generically, those similar specifically being the living bodies which produce the living bodies of the empirical world, like the animals which are generated from other animals, whereas those forms produced by forms generically similar, and which are not produced from a male or a female, receive their lives according to the philosophers from the heavenly bodies, since these are alive. And these philosophers have non-empirical proofs which, however, need not be mentioned here.

And therefore Ghazali argues against them in this way:

And why is it not possible that there should be among the souls a soul which has the characteristic of being so disposed that both bodies and incorporeals are produced through it?

He means: 'Why should it not be possible that there should be among the souls in bodies souls which have the characteristic of generating other animate and inanimate forms? ' And how strange it is that Ghazali assumes that the production of body out of body does not happen in the empirical world, whereas nothing else is ever observed.

But you must understand that when the statements of the philosophers are abstracted from the demonstrative sciences they certainly become dialectical, whether they are generally acknowledged, or, if not, denied and regarded as strange. The reason is that demonstrative statements are only distinguished from statements which are not demonstrative, by being considered in the genus of science which is under investigation. Those statements which can be subsumed under the definition of this genus of science, or which comprise in their definition this genus of science, are demonstrative, and those statements which do not seem to fulfil these conditions are not demonstrative. Demonstration is only possible when the nature of this genus of science under investigation is defined, and the sense in which its essential predicates exist is distinguished from the sense in which they do not, and when this is retained in mind by keeping to that sense in every statement adopted in this science, and by having the identical meaning always present in the mind.

And when the soul is convinced that the statement is essential to this genus or a necessary consequence of its essence, the statement is true; but when this relation does not enter into the mind, or when it is only weakly established, the statement is only an opinion, and is not evident. And therefore the difference between proof and convincing opinion is more delicate than the appearance of a hair and more completely hidden than the exact limit between darkness and light, especially in theological questions which are laid before the common people, because of the confusion between what is essential and what is accidental. Therefore we see that Ghazali, by relating the theories of the philosophers in this and others of his books and by showing them to people who have not studied their works with the necessary preparation the philosophers demand, changes the nature of the truth which exists in their theories or drives most people away from all their views. And by so doing he does more harm than good to the cause of truth. And God knows that I should not have related a single one of their views, or regarded this as permissible, but for the harm which results from Ghazali's doings to the cause of wisdom; and I understand by 'wisdom' speculation about things according to the rules of the nature of proof.

Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:

If it is said that the highest sphere, or the sun, or whatever body you may imagine, possesses a special size which may be increased or decreased, and this possible size needs for its differentiation a differentiating principle and can therefore not be the First, ' we answer: By what argument will you refute the man who says that this body must have the size it possesses for the sake of the order of the universe, and this order could not exist if this body were smaller or larger—since you philosophers yourselves affirm that the first effect' determines the size of the highest sphere because all sizes are equivalent in relation to the essence of the first effect, but certain sizes are determined for the sake of the order which depends on them and therefore the actual size is necessary and no other is possible; and all this holds just as well when no effect is assumed. Indeed, if the philosophers had established in the first effect, which is according to the philosophers the cause of the highest sphere, a specifying principle, as for instance the will, a further question might be put, since it might be asked why this principle willed this actual size rather than another, in the way the philosophers argued against the Muslims about their theory of the relation between the temporal world and the Eternal Will, an argument which we turned against them with respect to the problems of the determination of the direction of the heavenly movement and of the determination of the points of the poles. And if it is clear that they are forced to admit that a thing is differentiated from a similar one and that this happens through a cause, it is unessential whether this differentiation be regarded as possible without a cause or through a cause, for it is indifferent whether one puts the question about the thing itself and asks why it has such-and such a size, or whether one puts the question about the cause, and asks why it gave this thing this special size; and if the question about the cause may be answered by saying that this special measure is not like any other, because the order depends on it exclusively, the same answer may be made about the thing itself, and it will not need a cause. And there is no escape from this. For if the actual size which has been determined and has been realized were equivalent to the size which has not been realized, one might ask how one thing comes to be differentiated from a similar one, especially according to the principle of the philosophers who do not admit a differentiating will. If, however, there is no similar size, no possibility exists, and one must answer: 'This has been so from all eternity, and in the same way therefore as, according to the philosophers, the eternal cause exists.' And let the man who studies this question seek help from what we said about their asking about the eternal will, a question which we turned against them with respect to the points of the poles and the direction of the movement of the sphere. It is therefore clear that the man who does not believe in the temporal creation of the bodies cannot establish a proof that the First is incorporeal.

I say:

This indeed is a very strange argument of Ghazali's. For he argues that they cannot prove another creator than the heavenly body, since they would have to give an answer by a principle in which they do not believe. For only the theologians accept this principle, since they say that heaven receives the determinate size it has, to the exclusion of other sizes it might have, from a differentiating cause, and that the differentiating principle must be eternal. He either attempted to deceive in this matter or was himself deceived. For the differentiation which the philosophers infer is different from that which the Ash'arites intend, for the Ash'arites understand by 'differentiation' the distinguishing of one thing either from a similar one or from an opposite one without this being determined by any wisdom in the thing itself which makes it necessary to differentiate one of the two opposite things. The philosophers, on the other hand, understand here by the differentiating principle only that which is determined by the wisdom in the product itself, namely the final cause, for according to them there is no quantity or quality in any being that has not an end based on wisdom, an end which must either be a necessity in the nature of the act of this being or exist in it, based on the principle of superiority. 'For if, so the philosophers believe, there were in created things a quantity or quality not determined by wisdom, they would have attributed to the First Maker and Creator an attitude in relation to His work which may be only attributed to the artisans among His creatures, with the intention of blaming them. For when one has observed a work with respect to its quantity and quality, and asked why the maker of this work chose this quantity or this quality to the exclusion of all other possible quantities and qualities, there is no worse mistake than to answer 'Not because of the intrinsic wisdom and thoughtfulness in the product itself, but because he willed it, ' since according to this view all quantities and qualities are similar with respect to the end of this product, which in fact the maker produced for its own sake, namely for the sake of the act for whose purpose it exists. For indeed every product is produced in view of something in it which would not proceed from it, if this product had no definite quantity, quality and nature, although in some products an equivalent is possible. If any product whatever could determine any act whatever, there would exist no wisdom at all in any product, and there would be no art at all, and the quantities and qualities of the products would depend on the whim of the artisan and every man would be an artisan. Or should we rather say that wisdom exists only in the product of the creature, not in the act of the Creator? But God forbid that we should believe such a thing of the First Creator; on the contrary, we believe that everything in the world is wisdom, although in many things our understanding of it is very imperfect and although we understand the wisdom of the Creator only through the wisdom of nature. And if the world is one single product of extreme wisdom, there is one wise principle whose existence the heavens and the earth and everything in them need. Indeed, nobody can regard the product of such wonderful wisdom as caused by itself, and the theologians in their wish to elevate the Creator have denied Him wisdom and withheld from Him the noblest of His qualities.

The Tenth Discussion

To Prove Their Incapacity to Demonstrate That the World Has a Creator and a Cause, and That in Fact They Are Forced to Admit Atheism

Ghazali says:

Their statement that body needs a creator and a cause can be understood from the theory of those' who argue that all bodies are temporal, because they cannot exist without what is temporal. But what keeps you philosophers from the doctrine of the materialists, namely that the world is eternal in the condition in which it actually is, and that it has no cause and no creator, that there is only a cause for temporal events and that no body comes into existence and no body is annihilated, and that only forms and accidents come into existence, for the bodies are the heavens (which are eternal) and the four elements, which are the stuff of the sublunary world, and their bodies and matters are eternal too, and there is only a change of forms in them through mixtures and alterations; and that the souls of men and animals and plants come into existence, that all the causes of these temporal events terminate in the circular movement, and that the circular movement is eternal and its source the eternal soul of the sphere. Therefore there is no cause for the world and no creator for its bodies, but since the world, as it is, is eternal, there is no cause for it, i. e. no cause for its bodies. For indeed, what sense is there in the doctrine of the philosophers that these bodies exist through a cause, although they are eternal?

The philosophers assert that the man who says that all bodies have been produced (and by 'produced' must be understood creation ex nihilo) gives a meaning to the term 'produced' which is never found in the empirical world, and his statement surely stands in need of a proof. As to his attacks on the philosophers in this passage, so that he even forces on them the implication of atheism, we have already answered them previously and there is no sense in repeating ourselves, but, in short, the philosophers hold that body, be it temporal or eternal, cannot be independent in existence through itself; and this principle is, according to the philosophers, binding for the eternal body in the same way as for the temporal, although imagination does not help to explain how this is the case with the eternal body in the way it is with the temporal body. Aristotle therefore, in the second book of De caelo et mundo, when he wanted to explain the fact that the earth was circular by nature, first assumed it to have come into being in time so that the intellect might imagine its cause, and then transferred its existence to eternity.

Having forced on the philosophers these reprehensible deductions, Ghazali now gives an answer in defence of them and objects then to their answer.

Ghazali says:

And if the philosophers say: 'Everything that has no cause is of a necessary existence, and we philosophers have already mentioned the qualities of the necessary existent through which it is proved that body cannot be the necessary existent, ' we answer: We have shown the mistake in your claim about the attributes of the necessary existent, and that your proof does not demonstrate anything but the termination of a causal series, and this termination also exists for the materialists at the beginning of things, , for they say that there is no cause for the bodies, and the forms and accidents are causes for each other and terminate in the circular movement part of which is the cause of another part in the same way as it takes place according to the doctrine of the philosophers, and this causal series' ends in this circular movement.

And the man who observes what we have related will understand the inability of those who believe in the eternity of bodies to claim at the same time that they have a cause, and the consequence of their theory is atheism and apostasy, which one party has clearly admitted, those namely who rely solely on the determinations of the intellect.

All this has been already answered, and its degree of truth has been stated, and there is no reason to repeat ourselves. And as to the materialists, they rely only on the senses, and when according to them the movements had terminated in the heavenly body and through this the causal series was ended, they thought that where sensation had come to a limit, the intellect also had come to a limit; but this is not true. But the philosophers considered the causes till they ended in the heavenly body, then they considered the intelligible causes and arrived at an existent which cannot be perceived and which is the principle of perceptible being, and this is the meaning of the words: 'Thus did we show Abraham the Kingdom of Heaven and of the earth . . . . 'The Ash'arites, however, rejected sensible causes; that is, they denied that certain sensible things are the causes of other sensible things, and they made the cause of sensible being a nonsensible being by a way of becoming which is neither experienced nor perceived, and they denied causes and effects; and this is a kind of view which is inconsistent with the nature of man in so far as he is man.

Ghazali says, objecting to the argument of the philosophers:

If it is said that the proof that body is not a necessary existent is that, if it were a necessary existent, it would have neither an external nor an internal cause, but if it has a cause for its being composed, it will be possible in respect of its essence, and every possible needs a necessary existent, we answer: The terms 'necessary existent' and 'possible existent' are devoid of sense, and your whole confusion lies in these terms; but let us revert to their plain sense, which is the denial and the affirmation of a cause, for then your words amount to nothing else but saying that bodies either have a cause or not, and the materialists affirm the latter, 'and why should you deny it? And when this is understood by 'possibility' and 'necessity', we say body is necessary and

not possible, and your statement that body cannot be necessary is pure presumption without any foundation.

We have already said that if by 'necessary existent' is understood the causeless and by 'possible existent' is understood that which has a cause, the division of being into these two sections is not acknowledged, and opponents might say that this division is not true, but that, indeed, all existents are causeless. But when by 'necessary existent' is understood absolute necessary being and by 'possible' the genuinely possible, then we must arrive at a being which has no cause, for we can say that every being is either possible or necessary; if possible, it has a cause, and if this cause is of the nature of the possible, we have a series which ends in a necessary cause. Then, concerning this necessary cause it may be asked again whether some necessary beings might have a cause and other necessary beings none, and if a cause is ascribed to the nature of the necessary being which can have a cause, there will follow a series which ends in a necessary being which has no cause. Avicenna wanted by this division only to conform to the opinion of the philosophers concerning existents, for all philosophers agree that the body of the heavens is necessary through something else; whether, however, this thing necessary through another is possible by itself is a problem which has to be studied. And this argument is therefore faulty when this method is followed, and this method is of necessity faulty, because being is not primarily divided into the genuinely possible and the necessary, for this is a division which is only known through the nature of existing things.

Then Ghazali answers the philosophers' statement that body cannot be a necessary existent by itself, because it has parts which are its cause.

If it is said: 'It cannot be denied that body has parts, and that the whole is only constituted through the parts, and that the parts in a thing are prior to the whole, ' we answer: 'Let it be so; certainly, the whole is constituted by the parts and their aggregation, but there is no cause for the parts nor for their aggregation, which on the contrary are eternally in the condition in which they are without an efficient cause. ' And the philosophers cannot refute this, except by the argument of theirs which we have mentioned, which is based on the denial of plurality in the First; we have shown its futility, and apart from it there is no other method. It is therefore clear that for the man who does not believe in the temporal creation of bodies there is no foundation for believing in a creator at all.

I say:

This argument is, without doubt, binding for the man who follows the method of a necessary existent to prove the existence of an incorporeal being, but this is not the method followed by the ancient philosophers, and the first, so far as we know, who used it was Avicenna. He said that it was superior to the proof of the ancients, because the ancients arrived only at an immaterial being, the principle of the universe, through derivative things, namely motion and time; whereas this proof, according to Avicenna, arrives at the assertion of such a principle as the ancients established, through the investigation of the nature of the existent in so far as it is an existent. If indeed it did arrive at such an affirmation, what Avicenna says would be true; however, it does not. For the most that could be affirmed of the existent necessarily existing by itself would be that it is not composed of matter and form, and generally speaking that it has no definition. But if it is supposed to exist as composed of eternal parts which are continuous by nature, as is the case with the world and its parts, it may indeed be said of the world with its parts that it is a necessary existent, z it being of course understood that there is a necessary existent. And we have already said that the method Avicenna followed to establish an existent of this description is not demonstrative and does not by nature lead to it, except in the way we have stated.

The utmost consequence of this argument—and this constitutes its weakness—is the theory of those, namely the Peripatetics, who assume that there exists a simple body not composed of matter and form. For the man who assumes an eternal compound of actual parts must necessarily acknowledge that it is essentially one, and every oneness in a compound is one through an essential unity, namely a simple, and through this unity the world becomes one, and therefore Alexander of Aphrodisias says that there must exist a spiritual force which is diffused in all the parts of the universe in the same way as there is a force in all the parts of a single animal which binds them. together, and the difference between the two forces is that the binding force in the world is eternal, because the conjoining principle is eternal, whereas the conjunction between the parts of the sublunary animal is individually transitory-although, through the eternal conjunction, not specifically transitory-since it cannot be individually imperishable like the world. z And through this theory the Creator will be deprived of that very kind of perfection which nothing else can equal, as Aristotle says in his book De animalibus. And we see nowadays that many of Avicenna's followers because of this aporia ascribe this opinion to him, and they say that he does not believe that there exists a separate existence, and they assert that this can be seen from what he says about the necessary existent in many passages, and that this is the view which he has laid down in his Oriental Philosophy, and they say that he only called this book Oriental Philosophy' because it is the doctrine of the Orientals; for they believed that according to the Orientals divinity is located in the heavenly bodies, as Avicenna himself had come to believe. However, notwithstanding this they accept Aristotle's argument to prove the First Principle through movement.

And as for ourselves, we have discussed this argument at other times and have shown in what sense it can be regarded as evident, and we have solved all the doubts concerning it; we have also discussed Alexander's argument on this question, namely the one he uses in his book called On the printiples. s For Alexander imagined that he was turning from Aristotle's argument to another; his argument, however, is taken from the principles which Aristotle proved, and both arguments are sound, though the more usual is Aristotle's.

And when the argument for a necessary existent is verified, it is true according to me in the way I shall describe it, although it is used too generally and its different senses must be distinguished. It must, namely, be preceded by knowledge of the different kinds of possible existents in substance and the different kinds of necessary existents in substance. And then this argument takes this form: The possible existent in bodily substance must be preceded by the necessary existent in bodily substance, and the necessary existent in bodily substance must be preceded by the absolute necessary existent which does not possess any potency whatsoever, either in its substance or in any other of the different kinds of movements, and such an entity is not a body. For instance, it appears from the nature of the body of the heavens that it is a necessary existent in its bodily substance, ' for otherwise there would have to be a body prior to it, and it appears also from its nature that it is a possible existent in its local movement; it is therefore necessary that its mover should be a necessary existent in its substance, and that there should be in it no potency whatsoever, either as regards movement or in any other respect, and that neither movement nor rest could be ascribed to it nor any other kind of change, and such an entity is absolutely without body and without any potency in a body. But the eternal parts of the world are only necessary existents in their substance, either universally like the four elements, or individually like the heavenly bodies. ,

to Show the Incapacity of those Philosophers who Believe that the First Knows Other Things beside its own Self and that it Knows the jenura and the speeshiz in A Universal Way, to Prove that this is so

Ghazali says:

Since for the Muslims existence is confined to the temporal and the eternal, and there is for them nothing eternal except God and His attributes, and everything besides Him is temporally created by Him through His will, according to them the existent of necessity exists previously in His knowledge, for the object willed must be known by the willer. They deduced from this that the universe is known to Him, for the universe was willed by Him and produced by Him, and nothing comes into existence but what is produced through His will, and nothing is everlasting but His essence alone. And when once it was established that God wills and knows what He wills, He must be necessarily living, ; and every living being is conscious of its own self, and He is the most capable of knowing Himself. Therefore the whole universe is known to God, and they understood this through this argument, since they had found that He willed everything that happens in the world.

He says this only as an introduction and preparation for the comparison between his theory and that of the philosophers about eternal knowledge, because his theory seems at first sight more satisfactory than that of the philosophers. But when the theory of the theologians is tested, and shown up to him for whom such an exposure is necessary, it becomes clear that they only made God an eternal man, for they compared the world with the products of art wrought by the will and knowledge and power of man. And when it was objected against them that He must then have a body, they answered that He is eternal and that all bodies are temporal. They were therefore forced to admit an immaterial man who produces all existents.

But this theory is nothing but a metaphor and a poetical expression; and metaphorical expressions are certainly very convincing, till they are explored, but then their deficiency becomes evident. For indeed there is no nature more distant from that of the transitory than that of the eternal. And if this is true, it cannot be that there should exist one single species which is differentiated by eternity and non-eternity as one single genus is differentiated through the various differences into which it is divided. For the distance between the eternal and the temporal is far greater than that between the different species which participate in temporality. And if the distance between eternity and non-eternity is greater than that between the various species, how then is it possible to apply a judgement about the empirical world to the invisible: for those two are opposite extremes?

And when you have understood the sense of the attributes which exist in the visible world and those which exist in the invisible world, it will be clear to you that through the ambiguity of the terms they are so equivocal that they do not permit a transference from the visible to the invisible.

Life, for instance, added to the intellect of man only applies to the potentiality of motion in space through will and sense-perception, ; but senses are impossible for the Creator and still more impossible for Him is motion in space. But the theologians ascribe to the Creator the faculty of sense-perception without sense-organs, and deny His movement absolutely. Therefore either they do not ascribe life to the Creator in the sense it has in the animal and which is a condition for the existence of knowledge in man, or they identify it with perception in the way the philosophers say that perception and knowledge in the First are identical with life. Further, the meaning of 'will' in man and in animal is a desire which rouses movement and which happens in animal and man to perfect a deficiency in their essence, and it is impossible that there should be in the Creator a desire because of an imperfection in His essence, which could be a cause of movement and action either in Himself or in something different from Himself. And how could an eternal will be imagined which should be the cause of an act occurring without an increase of the desire at the time of the act, , or how could a will and a desire be imagined which would be before, during, and after the act in the same state without any change occurring to them? And again, desire (in so far as it is _the cause of movement) and movement are only found in body, and desire is only found in the animate body.

Therefore according to the philosophers the meaning of 'will' in God is nothing but that every act proceeds from Him through knowledge, and knowledge in so far as it is knowledge is the knowledge of opposites, either of which can proceed from Him. And the Knower is called excellent by the fact that there always proceeds from Him the better of the opposites to the exclusion of the worse. Therefore the philosophers say that three attributes are most appropriate to the Creator, namely that He has knowledge, excellence, and power. And they say that His power is not inferior to His will, as is the case with man.

All this is the theory of the philosophers on this problem and in the way we have stated it here with its proofs, it is a persuasive not a demonstrative statement. It is for you to inquire about these questions in the places where they are treated in the books of demonstration, if you are one of the people of perfect eudaemonia, and if you are one of those who learn the arts the function of which is proof. For the demonstrative arts are very much like the practical; for just as a man who is not a craftsman cannot perform the function of craftsmanship, in the same way it is not possible for him who has not learned the arts of demonstration to perform the function of demonstration which is demonstration itself: indeed this is still more necessary for this art than for any other—and this is not generally acknowledged in the case of this practice only because it is a mere act-and therefore such a demonstration can proceed only from one who has learned the art. The kinds of statement, however, are many, some demonstrative, others not, and since non-demonstrative statements can be adduced without knowledge of the art, it was thought that this might be also the case with demonstrative statements; but this is a great error. And therefore in the spheres of the demonstrative arts, no other statement is possible but a technical statement which only the student of this art can bring, just as is the case with the art of geometry. Nothing therefore of what we have said in this book is a technical demonstrative proof; they are all non-technical statements, some of them having greater persuasion than others, and it is in this spirit that what we have written here must be understood. So this book of Ghazali might be best given the name of the 'Incoherence of both parties together'.

All this in my opinion is in excess of the Holy Law, and an inquiry into something not ordered by a religious law because human power does not suffice for it. For not all knowledge about which the Holy Law is silent needs to be explored and explained to the masses as being, according to speculative thought, part of the dogmas of religion; for from this the greatest confusion arises. One must not speak about those things concerning which the Holy Law is silent; the masses must learn that human understanding is not sufficient to treat these problems, and must not go beyond what the teaching of the Holy Law explains in its texts, since this is teaching in which all can participate and which suffices for the attainment of their happiness. And just as the physician investigates the measure of health which agrees most with the healthy for the preservation of their health, and with the sick for the curing of their illness, so the Lord of the Holy Law instructs the masses only in so far as is needed for their acquisition of happiness. And the same thing holds in respect of the facts of human behaviour, only the investigation of these facts in so far as the Holy Law is silent about them is more legitimate, especially when they are of the same genus as those about which the Law pronounces judgement. For this reason the lawyers disagree about this kind of facts; some of them, the Zahirites, deny the use of analogy, whereas others, the analogists, admit it, and this is absolutely the same thing as happens in the sphere of knowledge, only perhaps the Zahirites are happier in the purely intellectual sphere than in the practical.

And anyone amongst the two opposing parties who inquires after these questions must either belong to the followers of proof, i. e. the rationalists, or not; in the former case he will speak about them and base his statements on demonstration, he will know that this way of discussion is limited to the followers of proof, and he will know the places in which the Holy Law gives to the people who possess this kind of knowledge a hint about the conclusions to which demonstration leads; in the latter case he will be either a believer or an unbeliever: if he is a believer he will know that to discuss those questions is forbidden by the Holy Law, and if he is an unbeliever, it is not difficult for the followers of proof to refute him with the stringent proofs they possess. The rationalist must act in this way in every religion, but especially in our Divine Revelation, which although it is silent on certain intellectual problems nevertheless hints at the conclusions about them to which demonstration leads, without, however, mentioning these problems in its instruction of the masses.

Since this is established, we shall revert now to our subject, which is forced upon us by necessity—for otherwise, by God, the Knower, the Witness, the Revealer, we should not think it permissible to discuss such questions in this way. And Ghazali, having described the arguments through which the theologians prove the attribute of knowledge and other attributes, and shown that they are very evident because they are generally admitted and extremely easy to accept, begins to compare these arguments with those of the philosophers about these attributes, and this is an act of rhetoric.

Ghazali says, addressing the philosophers:

And you, philosophers, when you affirm that the world is eternal and not produced by God's will, how do you know that He knows something beside His essence, for you require a proof of this?

Then Ghazali says:

And the summary of what Avicenna says to prove this in the course of his argument can be reduced to two heads: First, that the First does not exist in matter, and everything which does not exist in matter is pure intellect and all the intelligibles are revealed to it, for the obstacle to perceiving all things is attachment to matter and being occupied with matter, and the human soul is occupied by directing matter, i. e. its body, and when this occupation is terminated and it is not any longer defiled by the bodily passions and the despicable conditions which affect it through the things of nature, all the realities of the intelligibles are revealed to it, and therefore is it asserted that all the angels know all the intelligibles without exception, for they too are pure immaterial intellects.

And having related their theory; Ghazali argues against them:

But we say: If by your assertion that the First does not exist in matter, you mean that it is not a body, nor impressed on a body, but exists by itself not comprised by space nor locally specified by a direction, this is admitted by us. There remains then your answer to the question what its attribute is, namely that it is pure intellect-and what do you understand by 'intellect'? If you mean by it that which thinks all the other things, this is just what we are trying to find out and the point under discussion, and how, therefore, can you take it as the premiss of a syllogism which must prove it? And if you mean by it something else, namely that it thinks its own self-and some of your fellow-philosophers may concede this to you, but this amounts again to your saying that what thinks its own self thinks other things also-the answer to be made is 'Why do you claim this? For this is not known by necessity, and only Avicenna of all the philosophers affirmed it; and how can you claim this as necessary knowledge, or, if you know it by deduction, what is your proof? '

And if the assertion is made: 'Because what prevents the perception of things is matter, and the First is not matter', we answer: We concede that matter is an impediment, but we do not admit that it is the only impediment; and let them arrange their syllogism in the figure of the hypothetical syllogism and say: 'If this First is in matter it cannot think things, but it is not in matter, therefore it thinks things'. And this is the assumption as a minor premiss of the opposite of the antecedent, but such an assumption does not lead to a conclusion in all cases, for it is like saying: 'If this is a man, it is an animal, but it is not a man, therefore it is not an animal'. But this is not a necessary conclusion, for although not a man, it might be a horse, and therefore an animal. The assumption as a minor premiss of the opposite of the antecedent is valid only conditionally, as we have shown in our logic-namely, when the consequent is universally convertible with the antecedent, as when the logicians say: 'If the sun has risen, it is day, but the sun has not risen, therefore it is not day', for the only cause of its being day is the fact that the sun has risen-an example in which antecedent and consequent are convertible with each other-and the explanation of these theories and terms can be understood from our book 'The Touchstone of Knowledge', which we have written as an appendix to this book. If, however, they say 'We claim that antecedent and consequent are here convertible, and that the one and only obstacle to thinking is being in matter', we answer: 'This is a pure presumption; where is your proof?'

I say:

The first mistake he makes here is that, in relating the theory and the proof, he regards the premises he mentions as first principles, whereas for the philosophers they are conclusions from many premises. For the philosophers had seen that every sensible existent is composed of matter and form, and that the form is the entity through which the existent becomes existent and that it is the form which is designated by the name and the definitions and that the specific act proceeds from the form in every existent, and it is this act which shows the existence of the forms in the existent. b For they had found that in substances there are active potencies, particular to every single existent, and passive potencies, either particular or common, ? and that a thing cannot be passive by reason of the same thing as it is active; for activity is the opposite of passivity, and opposites do not admit each other, and it is only their substratum which admits them successively, e. g. hotness does not accept coldness, it is simply the hot body that accepts coldness by divesting itself of hotness and accepting coldness, and vice versa. Now when the philosophers found that this was the case with activity and passivity, they understood that all existents of this description were composed of two substances, a substance which is the act and a substance which is the potency, and they realized that the substance in act is the perfection of the substance in potency and that the substance in act stands in relation to the substance in potency as if it were the end of its actualization, for there is no actual difference between them. Then, when they looked through all the different forms of existents, they found that all these substances must necessarily lead up to a substance in act which is absolutely devoid of matter, and this substance must necessarily be active and cannot have any passivity and cannot be subject to exhaustion, weariness, and decay; for such things occur to the substance in act only because it is the perfection of the substance in potency, not because it is pure act.

For since the substance in potency only goes forth into act through a substance in act, the series of substances which are at the same time both active and passive must terminate in a substance which is pure act, and the series must terminate in that substance. And the proof of the existence of this substance, in so far as it is a mover and agent, through essential particular premisses, can be found in the eighth book of Aristotle's Physics.

Having established the existence of this substance by special and general arguments according to what is known in their books, the philosophers now investigated the nature of the forms in matter which produce motion, and they found some of them nearer to actuality and farther from potency because they are less than others involved in passivity, which is the special sign of the matter which exists in them. And they realized that that which among these forms is most destitute of matter is the soul, and especially the intellect, so that they started to doubt whether the intellect belongs to the forms which are in matter or not. z But when they investigated the perceiving forms amongst the forms of the soul and found that they were free from matter, they understood that the cause of perception consists in freedom from matter, ; and since they discovered that the intellect is without passivity they understood that the reason why one form is inorganic and another perceptive consists in the fact that when it is the perfection of a potency it is inorganic or not percipient, ' and when it is pure perfection with which no potency is mixed it is intellect. ' All this they proved in a demonstrative order and by natural deductions which cannot be reproduced here in this demonstrative sequence, for this would involve collecting in one place what by its nature is treated in many different books, and anyone who has the slightest experience of the science of logic will acknowledge that this is an impossibility. Through arguments of this kind they came to realize that what has no passivity whatever is intellect and not body, for what is passive is body which exists in matter according to them.

An objection against the philosophers in these questions ought to be made only against the first principles they use in the proof of these conclusions, not against those conclusions themselves, as it is made by Ghazali. Through this they came to understand that there exists here an existent which is pure intellect, and when they saw further that the order which reigns in nature and in the act of nature follows an intellectual plan very much like the plan of the craftsman, they realized that there must exist an intellect which causes these natural potencies to act in an intellectual way, and through these two points they received the conviction that this existent which is pure intellect is that which bestows on the existents the order and arrangement in their acts. And they understood from all this that its thinking its own self is identical with its thinking all existents, and that this existent is not such that its thinking its own self is something different from the thought by which it thinks other things, as is the case with the human intellect. And about this intellect the disjunction assumed as a premiss, that every intellect either thinks its own self or thinks something else or thinks both together, is not valid. For when this disjunction is admitted, what is said is: 'If it thinks other things, it is self-evident that it must think its own self; however, if it thinks its own self, it is not at all necessary that it should think other things.' And we have discussed this previously.

And all the things which he says about the hypothetical syllogism which he formed in the figure he explained are not true. For the hypothetical syllogism is only valid when the minor and the legitimacy of the inferencee are proved through one or more categorical syllogisms. For correct hypothetical inference in this question is: 'If what does not think is in matter, then what is not in matter thinks.' But, of course, first the truth of this conjunction and disjunction must be proved. ' And these are the premisses of which we said that they are according to the philosophers conclusions, whereas Ghazali pretends they are first principles for them, or nearly so. And when it is explained as we have done, it is a syllogism of a legitimate figure and of true premisses. As to its legitimate form, the minor is the opposite of the consequent and the conclusion is the opposite of the antecedent, not as Ghazali believed, the minor the opposite of the antecedent and the conclusion the opposite of the consequent. ' But since they are not first principles, nor generally acknowledged, nor evident at first sight, they are regarded, no doubt, by those who have never heard anything of these things as very much open to objection. But indeed Ghazali confused the sciences in a most terrible way, and he uprooted science from its foundation and its method.

Ghazali says:

The second argument is that the philosophers say: 'Although we assert neither that the First wills temporal production nor that it produces the world in time by secondary intention, we nevertheless affirm that the First has made the world and that indeed the world has its existence through the First only, the First never losing its character as an agent and never ceasing to act; our theory only distinguishes itself from others in this point, in no way however with respect to the principle of the act. And since the agent must have knowledge in conformity with its act, the universe, according to us, exists through its act.'

But there are two ways to answer this, of which the first is: 'There are two kinds of action: voluntary, like the action of animal and man; and involuntary, like the action of the sun in producing light, of fire in producing heat, of water in producing cold. Now knowledge of the act is only necessary in voluntary acts, as in the human products of art, not in the acts of nature. But according to you philosophers, God has made the world consequent on His essence by nature and by necessity, not through will and choice; indeed, the universe is consequent on His essence, as light is on the sun, and just as the sun has no power to check its light, nor

fire to repress its producing heat, so the First cannot check its acts. Now this kind of occurrence, although it may be called an act, does not imply knowledge at all. ' And if it is answered that there is a difference between the two things, in that the procession of the universe from God's essence occurs through His knowledge of the universe and His representing the universal order in the course of the emamation of the universe, and He has no other cause than His knowledge of the universe, and His knowledge of the universe is identical with His essence, and if He had not this knowledge of the universe, the universe would not exist through Him, which is not the case with light in relation to the sun, we answer: 'In this you are in contradiction to your fellow-philosophers, for they say that His essence is the essence from which the existence of the universe in its order follows naturally and necessarily, and it is not because He knows this. ' And what is wrong with this conception, once you agree with them in denying His will? And since the sun's knowledge of its light is no condition for its light, but its light is necessarily consequent on the sun, so let us accept this also in the case of the First; and nothing prevents this. '

I say:

In this section Ghazali begins by saying something reprehensible about the philosophers, namely that the Creator possesses a will neither with respect to the things produced nor with respect to the universe as a whole, because His act proceeds from His essence necessarily like the procession of light from the sun. Then he says of them that they say that through His acting He must have knowledge. The philosophers, however, do not deny the will of God, nor do they admit that He has a human will, for the human will implies a deficiency in the willer and a being affected by the object willed, and when the object is attained, the deficiency is completed and the passivity, which is called will, ceases. The philosophers only attribute a will to God in the sense that the acts which proceed from Him proceed through knowledge, and everything which proceeds through knowledge and wisdom proceeds through the will of the agent, not, however, necessarily and naturally, since the nature of knowledge does not imply (as he falsely affirms of the philosophers) the proceeding of the act. For if the nature of knowledge did imply this, then, when we say that God knows the opposites, it would be necessary that the opposites should proceed from Him together, and this is absurd. The fact that only one of the opposites proceeds from Him shows that there is another attribute present beside knowledge, namely will, and it is in this way that the affirmation of will in the First must be understood according to the philosophers. z For God, according to the philosophers, necessarily knows and wills through His knowledge. As to Ghazali's assertion that the act can be subdivided into two, into a natural act and a voluntary act, this is false. God's act according to the philosophers is in a certain way not natural, nor is it absolutely voluntary; it is voluntary without having the deficiency which is attached to the human will. Therefore the term 'will' is attributed to the Divine Will and the human in an equivocal way, just as the term 'knowledge' is attributed equivocally to eternal knowledge and to temporal. For the will in animals and man is a passivity which occurs to them through the object of desire and is caused by it. This is the meaning of 'will' in the case of the human will, but the Creator is too exalted to possess an attribute which should be an effect. Therefore by 'will' in God only the procession of the act joined to knowledge can be understood. And 'knowledge', as we said, refers to the two opposites, and in the knowledge of God there is knowledge of the opposites in a certain way, and His performing only the one shows that there exists in Him another attribute which is called 'will'.

Ghazali says:

The second way of answering is to concede that the procession of a thing from the agent implies knowledge of the thing which proceeds. Now, according to them, the act of God is one, namely the effect which is pure intellect, and God can only know this effect. The first effect again will only know what proceeds from it. For the universe does not proceed from God immediately, but through mediators and derivation and a series of consequences. For that which proceeds from what proceeds from Him need not be known to Him, and from Him Himself only one thing proceeds. And how should He know everything that proceeds mediately

from Him? For this is not even necessary in voluntary acts, and how could it be necessary in natural acts? For the movement of a stone from the top of a mountain can occur through a voluntary propulsion which implies knowledge of the principle of motion, but does not imply knowledge of all the consequences which may occur through its knocking and breaking something. ' And to this again the philosophers have no answer.

I answer:

The answer to this is that the Agent whose knowledge is of the highest perfection knows everything which proceeds from Him and which proceeds from that which proceeds from Him, and so from the first term to the last. And if the knowledge of the First is of the highest perfection, the First must know everything that proceeds from it either mediately or immediately, and its knowledge need not be of the same kind as our knowledge, for our knowledge is imperfect and posterior to the thing known.

Then Ghazali says, answering the objection he brought forward against the philosophers:

If, however, the philosophers should say: 'If we declared that the First only knows its own self, this would be a very reprehensible doctrine, for all other beings know themselves and know the First, and would therefore be superior to it; and how can the effect be superior to the cause?

I say:

This is an insufficient answer, for it opposes a rational argument with a moral one.

Then Ghazali answers this and says:

We should answer: 'This reprehensible doctrine is a necessary consequence for those who follow the philosophers in denying the Divine Will and the production of the world, and one must either adhere to it as the other'

philosophers do, or abandon the philosophers and acknowledge that the world is produced through will.

Ghazali means that if they belong to those who affirm that God knows His work, only to avoid the reprehensible doctrine that He does not know anything but His own self, they are forced to acknowledge this reprehensible doctrine just as well, since they affirmed another reprehensible doctrine, namely the eternity of the world and the denial of the Will. ' However, the philosophers do not deny the Will, and only deny that part of it which implies a deficiency.

Then Ghazali says:

How will you refute those philosophers who say that this knowledge does not add to God's dignity, since other beings need knowledge only in order to acquire perfection (for in their essence there is a deficiency) and man receives dignity through the intelligibles either that he may see his advantage in the coming events of this world and the next, or that his obscure and insufficient essence may be perfected, and likewise all the other creatures, but that the essence of God does not stand in need of perfection: nay, if a knowledge could be imagined through which He would be perfected, His essence, in so far as it is His essence, would be imperfect

This is just the same kind of remark as your assertions, Avicenna, concerning His hearing and seeing and His knowing the particular beings which fall under the concept of time, for you agree with all the other philosophers in saying that God is too exalted for that, and that the changes which fall under the concept of time and which are divided into past and future events are not known to the First, since this would imply a change in its essence and a being influenced, and the denial of this does not imply an imperfection, but rather a perfection, and there is only an imperfection in the senses and the need for them. 'If there were not this human imperfection, man would not be in need of the senses to guard himself against any change which might affect him.

And in the same way you affirm that the knowledge of particular events is an imperfection. And if it is true that we can know all particular events and perceive all sensible things, whereas the First cannot know anything of the particulars nor perceive anything of sensible things without this implying any imperfection in the First, it may also be permitted to ascribe to others knowledge of the intelligible universals but to deny it of the First without this implying any imperfection in the First. There is no way out of this.

I say:

This is the proof of those who say that the First knows only itself, and we have already spoken of the theory of those who combine the doctrine that the First knows only itself with the theory that it knows all existents; and for this reason some of the best known philosophers affirm that God the Creator is Himself all existents and that He grants them in His benevolence, and there is no sense in repeating ourselves. The premises used in this section are common dialectical propositions, since they all belong to those which compare the Divine to the empirical, although no common genus unites these two spheres and they do not possess any common factor at all. In general his discussion in this section, when he argues with Avicenna, who adduces the argument of those philosophers who believe that God in knowing Himself must know other things, since He must necessarily know what proceeds from Himself, and all the other assertions of Avicenna to prove this, which he relates, and which he uses himself again to refute Avicenna, are all taken from human conditions which he tries to refer to the Creator; and this is false, since the terms of these two types of knowledge are predicated equivocally.

Avicenna's assertion that any intelligent being from whom an act proceeds knows this act is a true proposition; not, however, in the sense in which the word 'knowledge' is used of the human intellect, when it understands a thing, for the human intellect is perfected by what it perceives and knows, and is affected by it, and the cause of action in man is the representation he forms in his intellect. 'And Ghazali argues against this kind of proposition by saying that when a man acts and there follows from his act another act and from the second act a third and from the third a fourth, it is not necessary that the conscious agent should know all the consequences which follow from his first act; and Ghazali says to his opponent this is a fact which concerns voluntary acts, but how is it when one assumes an agent whose acts are not voluntary? And he only says this because he means that the affirmation of God's knowledge implies the affirmation of God's will.

And therefore Ghazali says:

I say:

To this again the philosophers have no answer.

Ghazali means that it does not follow that the First according to Avicenna thinks anything but the act which proceeds from it primarily, and this act is the second cause and the first effect. Neither is there an answer to the other difficulty which he states that if the First thinks only itself and nothing else, man would be more noble than it. And the reason why Ghazali's words carry a certain conviction is that if one imagins two men, one of whom thinks only his own self, whereas the other thinks his own self and other things besides, the latter intellect is regarded as superior to the former. However, as the term 'intellect' is applied to the human intellect and to this Divine Intellect in a purely equivocal way, since the latter is an agent and not a patient and the former a patient and not an agent, this analogy does not hold any longer.

Having given as Avicenna's argument the maxim which Avicenna applies to every intelligent being, 'that the more knowledge an intellect possesses the nobler it is, and having affirmed that, according to him (Ghazali), it is just the philosophers' denial of God's will and of temporal creation which forces them to deny to God a knowledge of anything but Himself, since the conscious agent knows his effect only in so far as it differs from himself by being an object of his will, he says that this reprehensible assertion, i. e. the assertion that the effect which is man must be nobler than the cause which is the Creator, is a consequence for the philosophers only, since as the philosophers deny the coming into being of the world, they deny the Divine Will, as he affirms, and as they deny the Divine Will, they deny that God knows what proceeds from Him. But all this, namely the denial of God's will, has been shown previously not to be true; for they deny only His temporal will. And having repeated Avicenna's arguments, which he regarded as being applicable both to the knowledge of the temporal and the knowledge of the eternal, he begins to argue against him, showing the distinction which the philosophers established on this point between these two sciences, and indeed this consequence is incumbent on Avicenna.

And Ghazali says:

How will you refute those philosophers who say that this knowledge does not add to God's dignity, for only other beings need knowledge. . . ?

I say:

The summary of this is that, if all these perceptions exist only because of man's imperfection, then God is too exalted for them; and therefore Ghazali says to Avicenna: Just as you acknowledge with your fellow-philosophers that God's not perceiving individual things is not a consequence of an imperfection in Him, for you have proved that the perception of individuals rests on an imperfection in the perceiver, in the same way the perception of other things than Himself need not derive from an imperfection in Him, since the perception of these other things depends on the imperfection of the perceiver.

The answer to all this is that God's knowledge cannot be divided into the opposites of true and false in which human knowledge is divided; for instance, it may be said of a man that either he knows or he does not know other things, because these two propositions are contradictory, and when the one is true the other is false; but in the case of God both propositions, that He knows what He knows and that He does not know it, are true, for He does not know it through a knowledge which determines an imperfection, namely human knowledge, but knows it through a knowledge which does not carry with it any imperfection, and this is a knowledge the quality of which nobody but God Himself can understand. And concerning both universals and individuals it is true of Him that He knows them and does not know them. This is the conclusion to which the principles of the ancient philosophers led; but those who make a distinction, and say that God knows universals but does not know particulars have not fully grasped their theory, and this is not a consequence of their principles. For all human sciences are passivities and impressions from the existents, and the existents operate on them.

But the knowledge of the Creator operates on existents, and the existents receive the activities of His knowledge.

Once this is established, the whole quarrel between Ghazali and the philosophers comes to an end in regard to this chapter as well as the next two. We shall, however, give an account of these chapters and mention in them both what is particular to them and those arguments which have been already discussed above.

The Twelfth Discussion

About the Impotence of the Philosophers to Prove That God Knows Himself

Ghazali says:

We say that when the Muslims understood that the world was created through the will of God, they proved His knowledge from His will, then His life from His will and His knowledge together, ' then from His life, according to the principle that every living being knows itself, they proved that He too must know His own essence, since He is alive. And this is a rational procedure of extreme force. For you philosophers, however, since you deny the divine will and the world's coming into existence, and since you affirm that what proceeds from Him proceeds in a necessary and natural sequence, why should it be impossible that His essence should be of such a nature that only the first effect proceeded from it, and that then the second effect followed the first till the whole order of existents was completed, but, notwithstanding this, the First would not know itself, just as neither fire from which heat proceeds, nor the sun from which light proceeds, know themselves or anything else? For only that which knows itself knows what proceeds from itself, and therefore knows other things besides itself. And we have already shown that, according to the theory of the philosophers the First does not know other things, and we have forced those who do not agree with them on this point to acknowledge this consequence which follows from their assumption. And if it does not know others, it is not absurd to suppose that it does not know its own self.

If they say: 'Everyone who does not know himself is dead, and how could the First be dead? '-we answer: 'This is indeed a conclusion which follows from your theory, since there is no difference between you and those who say that every one who does not act through will, power and choice, who neither hears nor sees, is dead, and he who does not know other things is dead. And if it is possible that the First is destitute of all these attributes, what need has it of knowing itself? ' And if they return to the doctrine that everything which is free from matter is intellect by itself and therefore thinks itself, we have shown that this is an arbitrary judgement without any proof.

And if they say: 'The proof is that what is existent is divided into what is alive and what is dead, and what is alive is prior and superior to what is dead, and the First is prior and superior: therefore let it be alive; and every living being knows itself, since it is impossible that the living should be amongst its effects and should not itself be alive', we answer: 'All this is pure presumption, for we affirm that it is not impossible that that which knows itself should follow from that which does not, either through many intermediaries or without mediation. And if the reason for its impossibility is that in that case the effect would be superior to the cause, well, it is not impossible that the effect should be superior to the cause, for the superiority of the cause to the effect is not a fundamental principle. Further, how can you refute the view that its superiority might consist not in its knowledge but in the fact that the existence of the universe is a consequence of its essence? For the proof is that, whereas the First neither sees nor hears, there are many other beings who know other things than themselves and who do see and hear.'

And if it were said, 'Existents are divided into the seeing and the blind, the knowing and the ignorant', we answer:

'Well, let the seeing then be superior and let the First see and have knowledge of things!' But the philosophers deny this, and say that its excellence does not consist in seeing and knowing things, but in not being in need of sight and knowledge and being the essence from which there proceeds the universe in which the knowing and the seeing beings exist. And in the same way it may be said that this essence does not possess excellence because it has knowledge itself, but because it is the principle of essences which possess knowledge, and this is an excellence which is peculiar to it.

The philosophers are therefore forced to deny also that the First knows itself, for nothing proves such a knowledge but will, and nothing proves will except the temporal beginning of the world, and if this principle is destroyed, all these things are destroyed which are accepted through the speculation of the mind alone. For, they do not possess a proof for any thing they affirm or deny concerning the attributes of the First, but they make only such guesses and conjectures as lawyers would despise in their suppositions. However, no wonder that the intellect should be perplexed about the divine attributes; one should wonder only at the wonderful self-complacency of the philosophers, at their satisfaction with their proofs and their belief that they know those things through evident proofs, notwithstanding the mistakes and the errors in them.

The most wonderful thing is the claim of the theologians that the temporal becoming of the world implies that it has been willed by a will, for we find that temporal things occur through nature, through will, and by chance. x Those that occur through will are the products of art, and those that occur through nature are natural things, and if temporal things occurred only through will, will would have to be included in the definition of the temporal, whereas it is well known that the definition of temporal becoming is 'existence succeeding non-existence'. If indeed the world had come into being temporally, it would be more appropriate that it should have come into being, in so far as it was a natural existent, from principles appropriate to natural things, rather than from principles appropriate to artificial things, i. e. the will. Since, however, it is established that the world exists through a First Agent which preferred its existence to its nonexistence, it is necessary that this agent should be a willer, and if this First Agent does not cease to prefer the world's existence to its nonexistence, and the willer-as Ghazali says-must have knowledge, the philosophers are in complete agreement with the theologians about this fundamental point. The whole theological argument, however, which he gives has only persuasive power, because it compares natural things to artificial.

As to what he says of the philosophers, that they believe that what proceeds from the Creator proceeds in a natural way, this is a wrong imputation. What they really believe is that existents proceed from Him in a way superior to nature and to the human will, for both these ways are subject to an imperfection, but they are not the only possible ways, since it has been proved that the act of God can proceed from Him neither in a natural way nor in a voluntary, in the sense in which this is understood in the sublunary world. For will in an animal is the principle of movement, and if the Creator is devoid of movement, He is devoid of the principle of movement in the way a voluntary agent in the empirical world moves. 'What proceeds from God proceeds in a nobler way than the voluntary, a way which nobody can understand but God Himself. And the proof that He wills is that He knows the opposites, and if He were an agent in absolutely the same way as He is a knower, He would carry out the two contrary acts together, and this is impossible; and therefore it is necessary that He should perform one of the two contraries through choice.

The error of the theologians with regard to this question is that they say that every act is either natural or voluntary, but do not understand the meaning of either of these words. For nature, according to the philosophers, has different meanings, the primary being the ascending of fire and the descending of earth, ' and an existent only has this movement when something has prevented it from being in its natural place, and there was therefore something that constrained it; but the Creator is too high for this kind of nature. The philosophers also apply the term 'nature' to every potency from which an intellectual act proceeds, in the same way as the acts which proceed from the arts, and some of the philosophers ascribe intellect to this nature, and some say that this nature does not possess intellect but acts only by natures And they say that this nature proceeds from an intellect, because they compare it to artificial things which move themselves and from which orderly well-arranged acts proceed . And therefore their master Aristotle asserts that it is manifest that the nature of intellect rules the universe. ? And how far is this belief from what Ghazali ascribes to them!

Who, however, assumes as a universal maxim that he who knows himself must know other things which proceed from him, must conclude that he who does not know other things cannot know himself.

And having refuted Avicenna's theory that God knows other things, by the arguments of the philosophers on this point which he adduces against him, ' he concludes against him that the First does not know itself; and this conclusion is valid. ,

And as to what he relates of the argument of the philosophers on this point, namely that they say that he who does not know himself is dead and the First cannot be dead, this is a persuasive argument composed of common propositions, for he who is not alive is not dead unless it is in his nature to receive life's or one must mean by 'dead' what is meant by 'inanimate' and 'inorganic', and then this is a true dichotomy, for every existent is either alive or inorganic, provided we understand by 'life' a term which is equivocally used of the eternal and the corruptible.

And as to Ghazali's words:

And if they return to the doctrine that everything which is free from matter is intellect by itself and therefore thinks itself, we have shown that this is an arbitrary judgement without any proof.

We have already shown the manner in which this proof of the philosophers must be taken, in so far as this proof preserves its power by being given in this book-I mean its power is diminished, as is necessary when a thing is removed from its natural context. And as to what he says of their arguing on this point against the philosophers that the existent is either alive or dead, and that which is alive is more noble than that which is dead, and that the principle is nobler than that which is alive and that it is therefore necessarily alive, if by 'dead' is understood the inanimate, these propositions are common and true.

His assertion, however, that life can proceed from the lifeless and knowledge from what does not possess knowledge, and that the dignity of the First consists only in its being the principle of the universe, is false. For if life could proceed from the lifeless, then the existent might proceed from the non-existent, and then anything whatever might proceed from anything whatever, and there would be no congruity between causes and effects, either in the genus predicated analogically or in the species. 4

As to his assertion that, when the philosophers say that what is nobler than life must be alive, it is like saying that that which is nobler than what has hearing and seeing must have hearing and seeing: the philosophers do not say so, for they deny that the First Principle can hear and see. And Ghazali's argument that, since, according to the philosophers, that which is superior to what hears and sees . need not hear and see, then also what is superior to the living and the knowing need not itself be alive and possessed of knowledge and that, just as according to the philosophers that which possesses sight can proceed from what has no sight, so it is possible that knowledge should proceed from what has no knowledge: this is a very sophistical and false argument.

For according to the philosophers that which has no hearing or seeing is not absolutely superior to that which has hearing and seeing, but only because it has a perception superior to seeing and hearing, namely knowledge. 'But, since there is nothing superior to knowledge, it is not possible that which does not possess knowledge should be superior to that which does, be it a principle or not. For since some of the principles possess knowledge, others not, it is not permissible that those which do not know should be superior to those that do, just as little as this is possible in regard to effects which do and do not possess knowledge. And the nobility of being a principle cannot surpass the nobility of knowledge, unless the nobility of a principle that does not possess knowledge could surpass the nobility of a principle that does. And the excellence of being a principle cannot surpass the excellence of knowledge. And therefore it is necessary that the principle which has the utmost nobility should possess the utmost excellence, which is knowledge. The philosophers only avoid ascribing to the First hearing and seeing, because this would imply its possessing a soul. The Holy Law ascribes hearing and seeing to God to remind us that God is not deprived of any kind of knowledge and understanding, and the masses cannot be made to grasp this meaning except by the use of the terms 'hearing' and 'seeing', and for this reason this exegesis is limited to the learned, and therefore cannot be taken as one of the dogmas of the Holy Law common to the masses. And the same is the case with many questions the solutions of which the Holy Law leaves to science.

Everything this chapter contains is the confusion and the incoherence of Ghazali himself. But, we appeal to God on account of the mistakes the learned have made, and that He may pardon them because of their wish to glorify His name in all such questions, and we pray God that He may not place us among those who are excluded from the next world through their faults in this, or from the highest through their desire for the lowest, and that He may bestow on us final blessedness!

The Thirteenth Discussion

To Refute Those Who Affirm That God Is Ignorant of the Individual Things Which Are Divided in Time into Present, Past, and Future

Ghazali says:

About this theory they all agree; for as to those who believe that God only knows Himself, this is implied in their belief; and as to those who believe that He knows things besides Himself (and this is the theory which Avicenna has chosen) they believe that God knows other things in a universal knowledge which does not fall under the concept of time and which is not differentiated through past, future, and present although, nevertheless, Avicenna affirms that not the weight of a grain escapes God's knowledge either on earth or in the heavens, since He knows individual things in a universal way.

Now we must first understand this theory, and then occupy ourselves with refuting it. We shall explain this through an example, namely that the sun, for example, suffers an eclipse, after not having been eclipsed, and afterwards recovers its light. There are therefore in an eclipse three moments: the moment when there was not yet an eclipse but the eclipse was expected in the future, the time when the eclipse was actually there, its being, and thirdly, the moment the eclipse had ceased but had been. Now we have in regard to these three conditions a threefold knowledge: we know first that there is not yet an eclipse, but that there will be one, secondly that it is now there, and thirdly, that it has been present but is no longer present. This threefold knowledge is numerically distinguishable and differentiated and its sequence implies a change in the knowing essence, for if this knowing essence thought after the cessation of the eclipse that the eclipse was present as before, this would be ignorance, not knowledge, and if it thought during its presence that it was absent, this again would be ignorance, and the one knowledge cannot take the place of the other.

The philosophers affirm now that the condition of God is not differentiated by means of these three moments, for this would imply a change, and that He whose condition does not change cannot be imagined to know these things, for knowledge follows the object of knowledge, and when the object of knowledge changes, the knowledge changes, and when the knowledge changes, without doubt the knower changes too; but change in God is impossible. However, notwithstanding this, the philosophers affirm that God knows the eclipse and all its attributes and accidents, but through a knowledge which is attributed to Him in an eternal attribution and is unchangeable: God knows for instance that the sun exists and that the moon exists, and that they have emanated from God Himself through the medium of angels whom the philosophers in their technical terminology call 'separate intellects', and God knows that the sun and moon move in circles and that between their orbits there is an intersection at two points, the ascending and the descending node, ' and that at certain times the sun and moon are together in these nodes and that then the sun is eclipsed. e. the body of the moon comes between the sun and the eyes of the observer, and the sun is concealed from his eyes, and that when the sun has passed a certain distance beyond this node, say a year, it is eclipsed again, and that this eclipse is either total or for a third or for a half, and that it will last an hour or two hours, and God knows equally all other time determinations and all other accidents of the eclipse; and nothing of this escapes God's knowledge. However, God's knowledge before, during, and after the eclipse is all of one kind without any differentiation and without any implication of a change in His essence. And such is His knowledge of all temporal occurrences which take place through causes which have other causes terminating finally in the circular movement of the heavens, and the cause of this movement is the soul of the heavens, and the cause of the soul's movement is its desire to assimilate itself to God and to the angels near Him. z And the whole universe is known to Him, that is, it is manifested to Him in one single congruous manifestation which is not influenced by time. Still, at the time of the eclipse it cannot be said that He knows that the eclipse is taking place now, nor does He know when it has passed that it has passed now, for He cannot be imagined to know anything which for its definition needs a relation to time, since this implies a change. This is their solution in so far as it concerns a division in time.

And as concerns their theory about what is divided in matter and space, like individual men and animals, they say that God does not know the accidents of Zaid, Amr, and Khalid and that He knows only man in general, through a universal knowledge, and that He knows the accidents and properties of man in general, namely that he must have a body composed of limbs, some to grasp with, some to walk with, some to perceive with, some of which form a pair while some are single, and that the bodily faculties must be dispersed in all parts of the body. And the same applies to all the qualities which are inside and outside man's body and all its accidents, attributes, and consequences, so that there is nothing that is hidden from God in His knowledge of the universal. But the individual Zaid can only be distinguished from Amr through the senses, not through the intellect, and this distinction is based on pointing to a special direction, whereas the intellect can only understand direction and space absolutely as universals. And when we say 'this' and 'that', this is a case of pointing to a special relation of a sensible thing to the observer as being near to him or far from him, or in a definite place, and this is impossible where God is concerned.

This then is the principle in which they believe, and through it they uproot the Divine Laws absolutely, for this principle implies that God cannot know whether Zaid obeys or disobeys Him, since God cannot know any new occurrences that happen to Zaid, as He does not know the individual Zaid; for the individual and his acts come into existence after nonexistence, and as God does not know the individual, He cannot know his conditions and his acts indeed, He cannot know that Zaid becomes a heretic or a true believer, for He can know only the unbelief and the belief of man in general, not as it is specified in individuals. Yes, God cannot know Muhammad's proclaiming himself a prophet at the time he did, nor can God know this of any definite prophet; He can only know that some people proclaim themselves prophets and that they have such-and-such qualities, but any individual prophet He cannot know, for he can only be known by sense-perception. Nor can He know the acts which proceed from the prophets, since they are divided as acts of a definite man through the division of time, and their perception with their diversity implies a change in the observer.

This is what we wanted to do first, namely to expound their view, then to render it intelligible, thirdly to show the perversities implied in it.

We shall now pass on to relate the artfulness of their theory and the point where it fails. Their artfulness lies in the fact that they say: 'There are here three different moments, and a sequence of different things in one single subject no doubt implies a change in it. For if at the moment of the eclipse God thought that what was happening was like what had been before, He would be ignorant; if, on the other hand, He knew that it was happening and knew previously that it was not happening, but would happen, His knowledge and His condition would have become different, and this would imply a change, for "change" means only a difference in the knowledge and a difference in the knowledge implies a difference in the knower, for he who did not know a thing and then knows it, has changed; previously he had no knowledge that it was happening, and then his knowledge was realized: therefore he changed.

And they have elaborated this by saying that there are three kinds of conditions; first a condition which is a mere relation, as when we say right and left, for this does not refer to an essential attribute, but is a mere relation; for if you change a thing from your right to your left, your relation to it changes, but the condition of your essence does not change, for the relation changes with respect to the essence, but the essence does not change. The second kind of condition is of the same type, i. e. when you have the capacity to move bodies in front of you, and those bodies or part of them disappear, your innate power and your capacity does not change, for your capacity is first the capacity to move body in general and secondly to move a definite body in so far as it is a body; and the relation of the capacity to the definite body is not an essential attribute, but a mere relation, and the disappearance of the body determines the cessation of the relation, but not a change in the condition of the one who possesses this capacity. The third kind of condition, however, is a change in the essence, for when one who had no knowledge acquires knowledge and one who had no power becomes powerful there is indeed a change.

And the change in the object known causes a change in the knowledge, for the relation to the definite object known enters into the essence of the knowledge itself, since the essence of the definite knowledge is attached to the definite object known as it exists in reality, and when the knowledge attaches itself to it in another relation, it becomes necessarily another knowledge and this succession implies a differentiation in the essence of the knowledge. And it cannot be said that God has one single knowledge which, having been knowledge of the future event, could become knowledge of the present event, and having been knowledge of the present event, could become knowledge of the past event, for although the knowledge would be one and the same and have similar conditions, there would be a change of relation to Him and the change of relation would enter into the essence of the knowledge; and this change would imply a change in the essence of the knowledge, and from this there would result a change (which is impossible) in God.

The objection to this is twofold.

First one can say: How will you refute one who says that God has one single knowledge of the eclipse, for instance, at a definite time, and that this knowledge before the occurrence of the eclipse is the knowledge that the eclipse will occur, and during the eclipse is identical with the knowledge that it is occurring, and after the eclipse identical with the knowledge that it has ceased, and that these differences refer to relations which imply neither a change in the essence of the knowledge nor a change in the essence of the knower, and that this is exactly like a mere relation? For one single person can be at your right and then turn in front of you and go to your left, and there is a succession of relations with respect to you; but that which is changing is the person who takes up different positions, and God's knowledge must be understood in this way, for indeed we admit that God comprehends things in one single knowledge in everlasting eternity, and that His condition does not change; with their intention, the denial of His change, we do agree, but their assertion that it is necessary to regard the knowledge of an actual becoming and its cessation as a change, we refuse to accept. For how do you know this? Indeed, suppose God had created in us a knowledge that Zaid will arrive tomorrow at daybreak, and had made this knowledge permanent without creating for us another knowledge or the forgetfulness of this knowledge; then, by the mere previous knowledge, we should know at daybreak that at present Zaid is arriving and afterwards that he had arrived, and this one permanent knowledge would suffice to comprehend these three moments.

There still remains their assertion that the relation to a definite object known enters into the essence of the knowledge of this object, and that whenever the relation becomes different the thing which has this essential relation becomes different, and that whenever this differentiation and this sequence arise there is a change.

We say: If this is true, then rather follow the path of your fellow-philosophers when they say that God knows only Himself and that knowing Himself is identical with His essence, for if He knew man and animal and the inorganic in general (and these are undoubtedly different things), His relation to them would undoubtedly be different too; and one single knowledge cannot be a knowledge of different things, since the object related is differentiated, and the relation is differentiated, and the relation to the object known is essential to the knowledge, and this implies a multiplicity and a differentiation-not a mere multiplicity with a similarity, for similar things are things which can be substituted for each other, but the knowledge of an animal cannot be substituted for the knowledge of the inorganic, nor the knowledge of white for the knowledge of black, for they are two different things. ' Besides, these species and genera and universal accidents are infinite and they are different, and how can different sciences fall under one science? Again, this knowledge is the essence of the knower without any addition, and I should like to know how an intelligent man can regard the unity of the knowledge of one and the same thing, when this knowledge is divided through its relations with the past, the future, and the present, as impossible, and uphold the unity of the knowledge which is attached to all genera and all different species! For the diversity and the distance between the genera and the remote species is far greater than the difference which occurs in the conditions of one thing which is divided through the division of time; and if the former does not imply a plurality and differentiation, why then does the latter?

And as soon as it is proved that the diversity of times is less important than the diversity of genera and species, and that the latter does not imply a plurality and a diversity, the former also will not imply this. And if this does not imply a diversity, then it will be possible that the whole universe should be comprehended in one everlasting knowledge in everlasting time, and that this should not imply a change in the essence of the knower.

I say:

This sophistry is based on the assimilation of Divine Knowledge to human and the comparison of the one knowledge with the other, for man perceives the individual through his senses, and universal existents through his intellect, and the cause of his perception is the thing perceived itself, and there is no doubt that the perception changes through the change in the things perceived and that their plurality implies its plurality.

As to his answer that it is possible that there should exist a knowledge the relation of which to the objects known is that kind of relation which does not enter into the essence of the thing related, like the relation of right and left, to that which has a right and a left his is an answer which cannot be understood from the nature of human knowledge. And his second objection, that those philosophers who affirm that God knows universals must, by admitting in His knowledge a plurality of species, conclude that a plurality of individuals and a plurality of conditions of one and the same individual is permissible for His knowledge, is a sophistical objection. For the knowledge of individuals is sensation or imagination, and the knowledge of universals is intellect, z and the new occurrence of individuals or conditions of individuals causes two things, a change and a plurality in the perception; whereas knowledge of species and genera does not imply a change, since the knowledge of them is invariable and they are unified in the knowledge which comprehends them, and universality and individuality only agree in their forming a plurality.

And his statement that those philosophers who assume one simple knowledge, which comprehends genera and species without there existing in it a plurality and diversity which the differentiation and diversity of the species and genera would imply, will have also to admit one simple knowledge which will comprehend different individuals and different conditions of one and the same individual, is like saying that if there is an intellect which comprehends species and genera, and this intellect is one, there must be one simple genus which comprehends different individuals; and this is a sophism, since the term 'knowledge' is predicated equivocally of divine and human knowledge of the universal and the individual. But his remark that the plurality of species and genera causes a plurality in the knowledge is true, and the most competent philosophers therefore do not call God's knowledge of existents either universal or individual, for knowledge which implies the concepts of universal and individual is a passive intellect and an effect, whereas the First Intellect is pure act and a cause, and His knowledge cannot be compared to human knowledge; for in so far as God does not think other things as being other than Himself His essence is not passive knowledge, and in so far as He thinks them as being identical with His essence, His essence is active knowledge.

And the summary of their doctrine is that, since they ascertained by proofs that God thinks only Himself, His essence must of necessity be intellect. And as intellect, in so far as it is intellect, can only be attached to what exists, not to what does not exist, and it had been proved that there is no existent but those existents which we think, it was necessary that His intellect should be attached to them, since it was not possible that it should be attached to non-existence and there is no other kind of existent. to which it might be attached. ' And since it was necessary that it should be attached to the existents, it had to be attached either in the way our knowledge is attached to it, or in a superior way, and since the former is impossible, this knowledge must be attached in a superior way and according to a more perfect existence of existents than the existence of the existents to which our intellect is attached. For true knowledge is conformity with the existent, z and if His knowledge is superior to ours and His knowledge is attached to the existent in a way superior to our attachment to the existent, then there must be two kinds of existence, a superior and an inferior, and the superior existence must be the cause of the inferior.

And this is the meaning of the ancient philosophers, when they say that God is the totality of the existents which He bestows on us in His bounty and of which He is the agent. And therefore the chiefs of the Sufis say: there is no reality besides Him. But all this is the knowledge of those who are steadfast in their knowledge, and this must not be written down and it must not be made an obligation of faith, and therefore it is not taught by the Divine Law. And one who mentions this truth where it should not be mentioned sins, and one who withholds it from those to whom it should be told sins too. And that one single thing can have different degrees of existence can be learned from the different degrees of existence of the sou1.

Ghazali says:

The second refutation is: 'What prevents you, according to your doctrine, from affirming God's knowledge of individuals, even if this implies His changing, for why do you not believe that this kind of change is not impossible in God, just as Jahm, one of the Mu'tazilites, says that His knowledge of temporals is temporal' and the later Karramites say that God is the substratum of the temporal'? The true believers refute these theories only by arguing that what changes cannot be without change, and what cannot be without change and without temporal occurrences is itself temporal and not eternal. 'For you, however, according to your doctrine the world is eternal but not without change, and if you acknowledge an eternal which changes, nothing prevents you from accepting this theory.

If you replied: We only regard this as impossible, because the temporal knowledge in His essence must either derive from Himself or from something else; that it should derive from Himself is impossible, for we have shown that from the eternal no temporal can proceed and that God cannot become active after having been at rest, for this would imply a change, and we have established this in treating the question of the temporal becoming of the world; and if it were to arise in His essence from something else, how could something else influence and change Him so that His conditions changed as if under the power and necessity of something different from Him? -we answer: Neither of these alternatives is impossible, according to your doctrine. As to your assertion that it is impossible that from the eternal a temporal being should proceed, we refuted this sufficiently when we treated this problem. According to you it is impossible that from the eternal there should proceed a temporal being which is the first of a series of temporal beings and it is only impossible that there should be a first temporal being.

However, these temporal beings have no infinite number of temporal causes, but by means of the circular movement they terminate in something eternal which is the soul and life of the sphere; and the soul of the sphere is eternal and the circular movement arises temporally from it and each part of this movement begins and ends, and that which follows it is surely a new occurrence. Therefore, according to you the temporal beings arise from the eternal. However, since the conditions of the eternal are uniform, the emanation of temporal occurrences from Him will be eternally uniform, just as the conditions of the movement are uniform, since they proceed from an eternal being whose conditions are uniform; and all the philosophical sects acknowledge that from an eternal being a temporal being can proceed, when this happens in a proportionate way and eternally. Therefore let the different types of His knowledge proceed from Him in this way.

And as to the other alternative, that His knowledge should proceed from another, we answer: Why is that impossible according to you? There are here only three difficulties. The first is the changing, but we have already shown that this is a consequence of your theory.

The second difficulty, that one thing should be the cause of a change in another, is not impossible according to you; for let the occurrence of the thing be the cause of the occurrence of its being known, just as you say that the appearance of a coloureds figure in front of the pupil of the eye is the cause of the impression of the image of this figure on the vitreous humour of the pupil through the medium of the transparent air between the pupil and the figure seen ;b and if therefore an inanimate object can be the cause of the impression of the form on the pupil-and this is the meaning of sight-why should it be impossible that the occurrence of temporal beings should cause the First to acquire its knowledge of them? And just as the potency of seeing is disposed to perceive, and the appearance of the coloured figure, when the obstacles are removed, is the cause of the actualization of the perception, so let according to you the essence of the First Principle be disposed to receive knowledge and emerge from potency into act through the existence of this temporal being. And if this implies a change in the eternal, a changing eternal is not impossible according to you. And if you protest that this is impossible in the necessary existent, you have no other proof for establishing the necessary existent than the necessity of a termination to the series of causes and effects, as has been shown previously, and we have proved that to end this series with an eternal being which can change is not impossible.

The third difficulty in the problem is that if the Eternal could change through another, this would be like subjection and the control of another over Him.

But one may say: Why is this impossible according to you? For it only means that the Eternal is the cause of the occurrence of the temporal beings through intermediaries, and that afterwards the occurrence of these temporal beings becomes the cause of the knowledge which the Eternal has of them. It is therefore as if Hemere Himself the cause of this knowledge reaching Him, although it reaches Him through intermediaries. And if you say that this is like subjection, let it be so, for this conforms to your doctrine, since you say that what proceeds from God proceeds in the way of necessity and nature, and that He has no power not to do it, and this too resembles a kind of bondage, and indicates that He is as it were under necessity as to that which proceeds from Him. And if it is said that this is no constraint, since His entelechy consists in the fact that He makes everything proceed from Himself, and that this is no subjection, then we answer that His entelechy consists in knowing everything, and if it is true to say that the knowledge which we receive in conjunction with everything that happens is a perfection for us, , not an imperfection or subjection, let the same be the case with respect to God.

I say:

The summary of this first objection against the philosophers, which is a refutation of their theories, not of the fact itself, is that 'according to your principles, philosophers, there exists an eternal being in which temporal beings inhere, namely the sphere; how can you therefore deny that the First Eternal is a subject in which temporal beings inhere?' The Ash'arites deny this only because of their theory that any subject in which temporal beings inhere is itself a temporal being. And this objection is dialectical, for there are temporal beings which do not inhere in the eternal, namely the temporal beings which change the substance in which they inhere; and there are temporal beings which inhere in the eternal, namely the temporal beings which do not change the substance of their substratum, like the local movement of the moving body and transparency and illumination; and further there is an eternal in which no movements and no changes inhere at all, namely the incorporeal eternal; and there is an eternal in which only some movements inhere, namely the eternal which is a body like the heavenly bodies, and when this distinction, which the philosophers require, is made, this objection becomes few-tul, for the discussion is only concerned with the incorporeal eternal.

Having made this objection against the philosophers, he gives the answer of the philosophers about this question, and the summary is that they are only prevented from admitting temporal knowledge in the First, because temporal knowledge must arise through itself or through another; and in the former case there would proceed from the eternal a temporal being, and according to the principles of the philosophers no temporal being can proceed from the eternal. Then he argues against this assertion that from the eternal no temporal being can proceed, by showing that they assume that the sphere is eternal and that they assume that temporal beings proceed from it.

But their justification of this is that the temporal cannot proceed from an absolutely eternal being, but only from an eternal being which is eternal in its substance, but temporal in its movements, namely the celestial body; and therefore the celestial body is according to them like an intermediary between the absolutely eternal and the absolutely temporal, for it is in one way eternal, in another way temporal, and this intermediary is the celestial circular movement according to the philosophers, and this movement is according to them eternal in its species, temporal in its parts. And so far as it is eternal, it proceeds from an eternal, and in so far as its parts are temporal, there proceed from them infinite temporal beings. And the only reason that prevented the philosophers from accepting an existence of temporal beings in the First was that the First is incorporeal and temporal beings only exist in body, for only in body, according to them, there is receptivity, and that which is free from matter has no receptivity.

And Ghazali's objection to the second part of the argument of the philosophers, namely that the First Cause cannot be an effect, is that it is possible that God's knowledge should be like the knowledge of man, that is that the things known should be the cause of His knowledge and their occurrence the cause of the fact that He knows them, just as the objects of sight are the cause of visual perception and the intelligible the cause of intellectual apprehension; so that in this way God's producing and creating exists would be the cause of His apprehending them, and it would not be His knowledge that would be the cause of His creating them.

But it is impossible, according to the philosophers, that God's knowledge should be analogous to ours, for our knowledge is the effect of the existents, whereas God's knowledge is their cause, and it is not true that eternal knowledge is of the same form as temporal. He who believes this makes God an eternal man' and man a mortal God, and in short, it has previously been shown that God's knowledge stands in opposition to man's, for it is His knowledge which produces the existents, and it is not the existents which produce His knowledge.

The Fourteenth Discussion

T'O Refute Their Proof That Heaven Is an Animal Moving in a Circle in Obedience to God

Ghazali says:

The philosophers say also that heaven is an animal and possesses a soul which has the same relation to the body of heaven as our souls to our bodies, and just as our bodies move by will to their ends through the moving power of the soul, heaven acts. And the aim of the heavens in their essential movement is to serve the Lord of the world in a way we shall relate.

Their doctrine in this question is something that cannot be refuted, and we shall not declare that it is impossible; for God has the power of creating life in any body, and neither the size of a body nor its circular shape is a hindrance to its being animated, for the condition of the existence of life is not limited to a particular shape, since animals, notwithstanding their different shapes, all participate in the reception of life. But we claim their incapacity to reach this knowledge by rational proof, even if it is true, and only the prophets through divine revelation or inspiration could apprehend such a knowledge, but rational argument does not prove it; indeed, we do not even assert that it is impossible that such a thing should be known by proof, if there is a proof and this proof is valid, but we must say that what they have given as a proof has only the value of a conjecture, but lacks all strictness.

Their device is that they say that heaven is moved, and this is a premiss given by perception. And every body moved has a mover, which is a premiss established by reason, since if body were moved merely by being body, every body would be in motion. ' Every mover receives its impulse either from the moved itself, like the nature in the stone which falls and the will in the movement of the animal conjoined with its power to move, or from an external mover which moves through constraint, as when a stone is flung upwards. Everything that is moved by something existing in itself is either unconscious of its movement (and we call this nature), like the falling of the stone, or conscious (and we call this voluntary or animated). This disjunction, that a movement is either constrained or natural or voluntary, comprises all the cases completely, so that if a movement does not fall under two of these divisions it must be of the third type. Now the movement of heaven cannot be constrained, because the mover of a movement by constraint is either (1) another body which is moved by constraint or by will, and in this case we must finally no doubt arrive at a will as mover, and when in the heavenly bodies a body moved through will is established, then our aim is reached, for what use is it to assume movements through constraint when finally we must admit a will? or (2) God is the mover of its movement by constraint without intermediary, and this is impossible; for if it moves through Him in so far as it is a body and in so far as He is its creator, then necessarily every body ought to be moved.;

This movement, therefore, must be distinguished by a quality which marks this body off from all other bodies; and this quality will be its proximate mover, either by will or by nature. And it cannot be said that God moves it through His will, because His will has the same relation to all bodies, and why should this body be specially disposed so that God should move it rather than another? One cannot suppose this; for it is impossible, as has been shown in the question about the temporal beginning of the world. When it is therefore established that this body needs as a principle of movement a special qualification, the first division, that of the movement through constraint, is ruled out.

So there remains the possibility that this movement occurs by nature. But this is not possible, for nature by itself is not the cause of motion, because the meaning of 'motion' is the withdrawal from one place to another place; and a body does not move from the place in which it is when that place is its proper place. For this reason a bladder full of air on the surface of the water does not move, but when it is immersed it moves towards the surface of the water, and then it has found its proper place and has come to rest and its nature is stabilized; when, however, it is transferred to a place which is not its proper one, it withdraws to its proper place, just as it withdraws from mid-water to the border of the air. Now it cannot be imagined that the circular movement is natural, since it returns to every position and place which it would be supposed to abandon, and it is not by nature that a body seeks the place which it abandons, and therefore the bladder of air does not seek the interior of the water, nor the stone when it has come to rest on the earth the air. Thus only the third division remains, that of movement by will.

What he lays down in this section, that every thing moved either is moved by itself or through a body from outside and that it is this which is called constraint, is self-evident. But that for every thing which is moved by itself there is no mover but the movedz is not a self-evident proposition; it is only a common notion, and the philosophers indeed try to prove that everything moved by itself has an interior mover different from it, through the use of other premisses which are self-evident, and of premisses which are the conclusions of other proofs, and this is something which may be ascertained in their books. And likewise it is not self-evident that everything moved by an exterior mover must finally terminate in a thing moved by itself: what is posed here as a set of self-evident premisses is, as a matter of fact, a mixture of the two kinds of assertions; that is to say they are partly conclusions and partly self-evident. Indeed, that what is moved by itself and not by an external body is moved either by its substance and nature or by an interior principle, and that it cannot be moved by something which cannot be seen or touched and which is connected with it from the outside (or in other words by an incorporeal entity) is self-evident. You can claim to have a proof for this, namely by saying that if this were not so, upward movement would not be proper to fire rather than to earth; but it is, indeed, evident in itselfAnd as to that which does not move by its own substance and nature, this is evident in the things which are sometimes in motion and sometimes at rest, since that which is by nature cannot perform both of two opposites; for those things, however, which are perceived to move continually, a proof is necessary.

Again, as to his assertion that what is moved by itself is moved through a principle in itself, either a principle called 'nature' or a principle called 'soul' and 'choice', this is true, when previously it has been proved that nothing exists which is moved by itself. As concerns his affirmation that the principle called nature does not move by itself in space, except when it is not its proper place (for then it moves to its proper place and stays there), this is true. And his further remark that what moves in a circle has neither an improper nor a proper place, so that it could move from the one to the other either totally or partially, this is nearly self-evident and easy to uphold, and he has in this section mentioned something of its explanation and proof; and therefore, when we understand 'nature' in the sense he has established here, circular movement cannot move by nature.

And as to his further remark that, when it does not move by nature, it moves through soul or through a potency which resembles the soul, it appears that the term 'soul' is predicated only equivocally of the soul in the celestial bodies, ' and the learned for the most part apply the term 'nature' to every potency which performs a rational act, namely an act which conforms to the order and arrangement which exist in rational things; but they exclude heaven from this kind of potency, because according to them it is heaven which provides this directing power for all existents?

However, the argument of the ancients he relates here has only dialectical value, partly because much in it which is in reality a conclusion of a proof is assumed to be self-evident and partly because things are opposed in it which are not really in opposition. It is also dialectical because its premises are probable and common notions. This was Avicenna's method of proving that the heavenly body was an animated body, but for this the ancients have a more efficient and clearer proof.

Ghazali says:

The objection is that we can assume besides your theory three hypotheses which cannot be proved to be untrue. The first is that we assume the movement of heaven to take place through constraint by another body which desires its movement and makes it turn eternally, and that this body which sets it in motion is neither a sphere nor a circumference nor a heaven; their assertion is therefore false that the movement of heaven is voluntary and that heaven is animated, and what we have said is possible, and it cannot be denied except by a presumption of impossibility.

I say:

This is false, for the philosophers have proved that outside heaven there is no other body, and it cannot be inside heaven; besides, were this body to set it in motion, it would necessarily have to be moved itself, and we should have an infinite regress.

The second hypothesis is to say: 'The movement occurs by constraint and its principle is the will of God, and indeed we say that the downward movement of a body also occurs by constraint, through God's creating this movement in this body; and the same can be said of all the other movements of those bodies which are not living.'

There still remains the fact that the philosophers regard this as impossible, because they ask why the will should have distinguished just this body, whereas all other bodies participate in bodiliness. But we have already explained that it is of the nature of the eternal Will to differentiate one thing from a similar one, and that the philosophers are forced to admit such a quality for the determination of the direction of the circular movement and for the determination of the place of the poles and their points, and we shall not repeat this; but our argument is, in short, that when they deny that a body can be differentiated for the attachment of the will to it without a distinctive attribute, this can be turned against them in regard to this distinctive attribute, for we ask them: 'Why is the body of heaven distinguished by this attribute, which sets it apart from all other bodies, although all other bodies are also bodies; and how can anything occur to it which does not occur to other bodies?' If this is caused by another attribute, we must repeat the same question about this other attribute, and in this way we should get an infinite series, and they would be forced in the end to acknowledge an arbitrary judgement of the will and the fact that in the principles there is something that distinguishes one thing from a similar one.

I say:

That a stone moves downwards through a quality which has been created in it, and fire upwards, and that these qualities are opposed -this is a self-evident fact, and to contradict it is pure folly. But it is still more foolish to say that the eternal Will causes the movement in these things everlastingly-without any act He deliberately choseland that this movement is not implanted in the nature of the thing, and that this is called constraint; for if this were true, things would have no nature, no real essence, no definition at all. For it is selfevident that the natures and definitions of things only differ through the difference of their acts, just as it is self-evident that every movement forced on a body comes from a body outside it. And this argument has no sense whatever.

And as to his affirmation 'that to assume that the act which proceeds from an existent requires a special attribute makes it necessary to ask about this attribute also why it characterizes this existent rather than any other of its kind', this is like saying that one ought to ask a man who asserted that earth and fire, which participate in bodiliness, were distinguished only by an attribute added to their bodiliness, why the attribute of fire characterizes fire and the attribute of earth, earth, and not rather the reverse. These, indeed, are the words of a man who does not assume for the attributes themselves a particular subject, but on the contrary believes that any attribute can be in any subject. 'He who speaks like this denies also the definition and the differentiation of subjects, and their characterization through special attributes, which is the first cause of the specification of existents through particular attributes, and this assumption belongs to the principles of the Ash'arites who tried thereby to annul both religious and rational wisdom and, in short, reason itself.

Ghazali says:

The third hypothesis is to admit that heaven is differentiated by an attribute and that this attribute is the principle of the movement, in the way they believe this of the downward movement, although in this case it is not known, as it is known in the case of the stone.

And their assertion that a thing cannot by its nature abandon the place sought by its nature rests on a confusion. For according to them there is here no numerical difference; on the contrary, the body is one and the circular movement is one, and neither the body nor the movement has an actual part; they are only divided by imagination, and this movement is not there to seek its place or to abandon it-indeed, it may well be that God creates a body in the essence of which there is something which determines a circular movement. The movement itself will then be determined by this attribute, not, however, the aiming at the place, for that would imply that arrival at the place would be the aim of the movement. And if your assertion that every movement takes place in seeking a place or abandoning it is a necessary principle, it is as if. you made the seeking of the place the goal of nature, not the movement itself which will in this case only be a means. ' But we say it is not absurd that the movement, not the seeking of a place, should be the goal itself; and why should that be impossible? And it is clear that, simply because they regard their hypothesis as the most plausible, we are not obliged to deny any other hypothesis absolutely; for to assert absolutely that heaven is a living being is pure presumption, for which there is no support.

I say:

The assertion of the philosophers that this movement is not a natural potency resembling the natural movement in earth and fire is true. And this is clear from their saying that this potency desires the place suitable to the body which possesses existence through this potency, and that the heavenly body, since all space is suitable to it, is not moved through such a potency, and the learned do not call this potency heavy or light. b Whether this potency depends on perception or not, and if so which kind of perception, is shown by other arguments.

And the summary of this is to say: The inanity of the first hypothesis, namely that the mover of heaven might be another body which is not heaven, is self-evident or nearly so. For this body cannot set the heavenly body in a circular movement without being moved by itself, as if one were to say that a man or an angel turned the heavens from east to west. And if this were true, this animated body would have to be either outside the world or inside it; and it is impossible that it should be outside the world, since outside the world there is neither place nor emptiness, as has been shown in many passages, and it would also be necessary that when this body set it in motion it should rest upon a body supporting it, and this latter body again upon another, and so ad infinitum. But that it should be inside the world is also impossible, for then it ought to be perceived by the senses, since any body inside the world can be perceived, and this body, besides needing a body which would make it turn, would also need a body to carry it or perhaps the body conveying it and the body setting it in motion might be identical, and the conveying body would need a body to convey it, and the number of animated bodies which set things in motion would have to be equal to the number of heavenly bodies. And one would also have to ask about these bodies whether they were composed of the four elements, in which case they would be transitory, or whether they might be simple; and, if they were simple, what their nature was. All this is impossible, especially for one who has ascertained the natures of the simple bodies and learned their number and the species of bodies composed of them, and there is no sense in occupying ourselves with this matter here, for it has been proved in another place that this movement does not take place by constraint, since it is the principle of all movements, and through its intermediary, not only movements, but lifer is distributed to all beings.

As to the second hypothesis, that God moves the heavens without having created a potency in them through which they move, this also is a very reprehensible doctrine, far from man's understanding. It would mean that God touches and moves everything which is in this sublunary world, and that the causes and effects which are perceived are all without meaning, and that man might be man through another quality than the quality God has created in him and that the same would be true for all other things. But such a denial would amount to a denial of the intelligibles, for the intellect perceives things only through their causes. This theory resembles the theory of those ancient philosophers, the Stoics, ? who say that God exists in everything; and we shall engage in a discussion with them' when we treat the question of the denial of causes and effects.

The third objection which assumes a natural movement is to suppose that the movement of heaven is caused by a natural potency in it and through an essential attribute, not through a soul. It says that the argument of the philosophers in denying this is false, in so far as they build their proof on the following argument. The philosophers, that is, say that if the movement of heaven occurred by nature, the place sought by its natural movement would be identical with the place which it abandoned, because every part of heaven moves to places from which it has moved, since its movement is circular. The place, however, from which natural local movement retires is different from the place it aims at, for the place from which it moves is an accidental place, while the place to which it moves is its natural place, in which it will come to rest. But, says Ghazali, this is a false assumption of the philosophers, for although they assume that the parts of heaven have many movements through many movers, this cannot be correct according to their own principles, for they affirm that the circular movement is unique, and that the body moved by it is unique, and therefore heaven is not in search of a place through its circular movement, and it is thus possible that in heaven there should be something through which it aims at the movement itself.

But the justification of the philosophers is that they only say this to such people as believe that the stars change their place through a natural movement, similar to the change of place found in things moved by nature. And the true assumption of the philosophers is that through the circular movement the thing moved is not in search of a place, but only seeks the circular movement itself, and that things which behave in this way have of necessity as their mover a soul and not nature. Movement, that is to say, has existence only in the intellect, since outside the soul there exists only the thing moved and in it there is only a particular movement without any lasting existence. But what is moved towards movement in so far as it is movement must of necessity desire this movement, and what desires movement must of necessity represent it.

And this is one of the arguments through which it is evident that the heavenly bodies are provided with intellect and desire; and this is clear also from various other arguments, one of which is that we find that circular bodies move with two contrary movements at the same time, towards the east and towards the west; and this cannot happen through nature, for that which moves through nature moves in one movement alone.

And we have already spoken of what caused the philosophers to believe that heaven possesses intellect, and their plainest proof is that, having understood that the mover of heaven is free from matter, they concluded that it can only move through being an object of thought and representation, and therefore the thing moved must be capable of thought and representation. And this is clear also from the fact that the movement of the heavens is a condition of the existence and preservation of the existents in the sublunary world, which cannot take place by accident. But these things can only be explained here in an informative and persuasive fashion.

The Fifteenth Discussion

To Refute the Theory of the Philosophers About the Aim Which Moves Heaven

Ghazali says:

The philosophers have also affirmed that heaven is an animal which obeys God by movement and by drawing near Him; for every voluntary movement arises for the sake of an end, since one cannot imagine that an act and a movement can proceed from an animal which does not prefer the act to its omission-indeed, if the act and its omission were to be equipollent, no act could be imagined.

Further, approach to God does not mean seeking His grace and guarding oneself from His wrath, since God is too exalted for wrath and grace; similar words can only be applied to Him metaphorically, and they are used in a metaphorical way when one speaks of His will to punish or to reward. 'Approach cannot mean the seeking of an approach to Him in space, for this is impossible; the only meaning it can have is of an approach in qualities, for God's existence is the most perfect and every other existence is imperfect in relation to His, and in this imperfection there are degrees and distinctions. The angels are nearest to Him in quality, not in place; and this is the meaning of the term 'the angels in His proximity' -namely, the intellectual substances which neither change nor alter nor pass away, and which know things as they really are. And the nearer man comes to the angels in qualities the nearer he comes to God, and the end of man's nature lies in assimilation to the angels.

And when it is established that this is the meaning of 'approach to God', and that it refers to seeking approach to Him in qualities, then this consists for man in knowledge of the realities of the existents and in his remaining eternally in the most perfect condition possible to him; for indeed permanence in the utmost perfection is God.

As to the angels in His proximity, any perfection that is possible for them is actual with them in their existence, since there is no potency in them which could emerge into act, and therefore they are in the utmost perfection in regard to everything but God. And by 'heavenly angels' is meant the souls which move the heavens, and in them there is potency, and their perfections are divided into what is actual, like their circular shape and their appearance, which exists always, and what is potential, namely their appearance in a definite position and place; for any definite position is possible to them, but they are not actually in all positions, for to be in all of them at once is impossible. And since they cannot be at all times in all particular positions at once, they try to exhaust all these particular positions by being in them specifically, so that they do not cease to aim at one position and one place after another; and this potentiality is never ending, nor do these movements ever end.

But their one aim is to assimilate themselves to the First Principle, in the acquisition of the utmost perfection within the bounds of possibility with respect to Him, and this is the meaning of the obedience of the heavenly angels to God. And their assimilation is acquired in two ways. First, in completing every position specifically possible, and this is aimed at by first intention; secondly, by the order proceeding from their movement through the diversity of their configuration in trine and quartile, in conjunction and opposition, and through the diversity in the ascendant in relation to the earth, so that the good which is in the sublunary world can emanate from it, and all that happens arise from it. And every soul is intellective and longs for the perfection of its essence.

Everything he says here about the philosophers is a philosophical doctrine, or its consequence, or can be regarded as a philosophical doctrine, with one exception, when he says that heaven seeks by its movement the particular positions which are infinite; however, what is infinite cannot be sought, since it cannot be attained. Nobody has held this doctrine but Avicenna, and Ghazali's objection to it, which we will mention later, is sufficient, and according to the philosophers it is the movement itself in so far as it is movement which is aimed at by heavens. For the perfection of an animal, in so far as it is an animal, is movement; in this sublunary world rest occurs to the transitory animal only by accident, that is through the necessity of matter, for lassitude and fatigue touch the animal only because it is in matter. b The whole life and perfection of those animals which are not affected by tiredness and languor must of necessity lie in their movement; and their assimilation to their Creator consists in this, that by their movement they impart life to what exists in this sublunary world.

This movement, however, does not occur according to the philosophers in first intention for the sake of this sublunary world; that is, the heavenly body is not in first intention created for the sake of this sublunary world. For indeed this movement is the special act for the sake of which heaven is created, and if this movement occurred in first intention for the sake of the sublunary world, the body of the heavens would be created only for the sake of this sublunary world, and it is impossible, according to the philosophers, that the superior should be created for the sake of the inferior; on the contrary, out of the superior there follows the existence of the inferior, just as the perfection of the ruler in relation to his subject does not lie in his being a ruler, but his being a ruler is only the consequence of his perfection. In the same way the providence which prevails in this world is like the care of the ruler for his subjects, who have no salvation and no existence except in him, and especially in the ruler who for his most perfect and noble existence does not need to be a ruler, let alone that he should need his subjects' existence.

The objection to this is that in the premises of this argument there are controversial points. We shall not, however, pay any attention to them, but shall revert at once to the final intention the philosophers had in view and refute it from two standpoints.

The first is to say: 'To seek perfection through being in all possible places may be foolishness rather than obedience; is it not in some degree like a man, who has no occupation and who has adequate means to satisfy his wishes and needs, and who gets up and walks round in a country or in a house, and declares that by doing so he approaches God and that he perfects himself by arriving at all possible places, and says that it is possible for him to be in these places, but not possible for him to unite all the places numerically, and that therefore he fulfils this task specifically and that in this there is perfection and an approach to God? Indeed, it is his foolishness which makes him do such a stupid thing, and it may be said that to change positions and pass from place to place is not a perfection which has any value or which may be an object of desire.

And there is no difference between what they say and this.

I say:

It might be thought that the silliness of such an argument either comes from a very ignorant or from a very wicked man. Ghazali, however, has neither of these dispositions. But sometimes unwise words come by way of exception from a man who is not ignorant, and wicked talk from a man who is not wicked, and it shows the imperfection of people that such conceits can be addressed to them.

But if we concede to Avicenna that the sphere aims through its movement at a change of positions, that this change of positions is what conserves the beings of this sublunary world after giving them their existence, and that this action is everlasting, can there then exist an obedience more complete than this? For instance, if a man exerted himself in guarding a city against the enemy, going round the city day and night, should we not regard this as a most important act of approach to God? But if we assumed that he moved round the town for the end which Ghazali attributes to Avicenna, namely that he only sought to perfect himself through trying to be in an infinite number of places, he would be declared mad. ' And this is the meaning of the Divine Words: 'Verily thou canst not cleave the earth, and thou shalt not reach the mountains in height. '2

And his assertion that, since heaven cannot complete the individual numerical positions or join them, it has to complete them specifically, is a faulty, incomprehensible expression, unless he means that its movement has to last in its totality since it cannot be lasting in its parts. For there are movements which are lasting neither in their parts nor in their totality, namely the movements of the transitory; and there are movements which are lasting in their totality, transitory in their parts, but notwithstanding this such a movement is said to be one in ways which are distinguished in many passages of the books of the philosophers. And his assertion that, since heaven cannot complete them numerically, it completes them specifically, is erroneous, since the movement of heaven is numerically one, and one can only apply such an expression to the transitory movements in the sublunary world; for these movements, since they cannot be numerically one, are specifically one and lasting through the movement which is numerically one.

Ghazali says:

The second is to say: What you assert of the aim can be realized through the movement from west to east. Why, then, is the first movement from east to west, and why are not all the movements of the universe in the same direction? And if there is an intention in their diversity, why are they not different in an opposite way, so that the movement from the east should become the movement from the west, and the reverse? Everything you have mentioned of the occurrence of events like trine and sextile and others through the diversity of movements would happen just the same through the reverse.

Also, what you have mentioned of the completion of the positions and places would happen just the same if the movement were in the opposite direction. Why then, since the reverse movement is possible for them, do they not move sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, to complete all their possibilities, if it is in the completion of all their possibilities that their perfection lies? It is therefore shown that all these things are phantasms without any substance; for the secrets of the heavenly kingdom cannot be attained through such phantasms. God alone can manifest them to His prophets and saints through revelation, not through proof, and therefore the later philosophers are unable to give the reason for the direction of the movement of the heavenly bodies and why they have chosen it.

I say:

This objection is sophistical, for the transference from one question to another is an act of sophistry. Why does there follow, from their inability to assign the reason of the diversity in the directions of the movements of heaven, their inability to give the reason for the movement of heaven or to say that there is no reason at all for this movement? But this whole argument is extremely weak and feeble. However, how happy the theologians are about this problem!

They believe that they have refuted the philosophers over it, since they are ignorant of the different arguments by which the philosophers have arrived at their reasons and of the many reasons that are required and must be assigned to every existent, since the causes differ through the variety in the natures of the existents. For simple existents have no other cause for what proceeds from them than their own natures and their forms, , but in composite things there are found, beside their forms, efficient causes which produce their composition and the conjunction of their parts. The earth, for instance, has no other cause for its downward movement than its attribute of earthiness, and fire has no other cause for its upward movement than its own nature and its form, and through this nature it is said to be the opposite of earth. Likewise, for up and down there are no reasons why the one direction should be higher and the other lower, but this is determined by their nature.

And since the differentiation of directions is determined through the directions themselves, and the differentiation of the movements through the differentiation of the directions, no other reason can be assigned for the variation in the movements than the variation in the directions of the things moved, and the variation in their natures depends on the variation of their natures; i. e. some are nobler than others.

For instance, when a man sees that animals in walking place one leg in front of their body before the other and not the reverse, and asks why the animal does this, there is no sufficient answer except to say that an animal in its movement must have one leg to put forward and one to support itself on, and therefore an animal must have two sides, right and left, and the right is the one which is always put forward first because of its special potency and the left the one which always, or mostly, follows, because of its special potency; and it cannot be the reverse, so that the left side became the right, since the natures of the animal determine this, either through a determination in a majority of cases, or through a constant determination.

The same is the case with the heavenly bodies since, if a person asks why heaven moves in a particular direction, the answer is that it is because it has a right and a left, and especially because it is evident from its nature that it is a living being, only it has the peculiarity that the right side in a part of it is the left side in another part, z and that although it has only this one organ of locomotion it moves in opposite directions like a left foot which can also do the work of a right. And just as the answer to the question whether the animal would not be more perfect if its right were its left, and why the right has been differentiated to be the right, and the left to be the left, is that the only reason for this is that the nature of the side called right has been determined by its essence to be the right and not the left, and that the left side has been determined by its essence to be the left and not the right, and the noblest has been attributed to the noblest; in the same way, when it is asked why the right side has been differentiated for the movement of the highest sphere to be the right and the left side to be the left (for the reverse was also possible as the case of the planets shows), the only answer is that the noblest direction has been attributed to the noblest body, as upward movement has been attributed to fire, downward movement to earth. As to the fact that the other heavens move in two contrary movements' besides the diurnal, this happens because of the necessity of this opposition of movements for the sublunary world, namely the movement of generation and corruption, b and it is not of the nature of the human intellect that it should apprehend more in such discussions and in this place than what we have mentioned.

Having made this objection against the philosophers and asserted that they have no answer to it, he mentions an answer which some of the philosophers give.

Some philosophers say that since the perfection occurs through movement, from whatever side it may be, and the order of events on earth requires a diversity of movements and a determination of directions, the motive concerning them of the principle of movement lies in the approach to God' and the motive of the direction of movement in the diffusion of good over the sublunary world. But we answer: 'This is false for two reasons. The first is: if one may imagine such a thing, let us declare that the nature of heaven demands rest, and must avoid movement and change, for this is in truth assimilation to God; for God is too exalted to change, and movement is a change, although God chose movement for the diffusion of His grace. For through it He is useful to others and it does not weigh on Him nor tire Him-so what is the objection to such a supposition?

'The second is that events are based on the diversity of the relations which result from the diversity in the directions of the movements. Now let the first movement be a movement from the west, and let the others move from the east, then the same diversity will arise as is needed for the diversity of the relations. Why then has one direction been specially chosen, since these varieties require only the principle of variety and in this sense one direction by itself is not superior to its contrary?'

This theologian wants to indicate the cause of this from the point of view of the final cause, not of the efficient, and none of the philosophers doubts that there is here a final cause in second intention, which is necessary for the existence of everything in the sublunary world. And although this cause has not yet been ascertained in detail, nobody doubts that every movement, every progression or regression of the stars, has an influence on sublunary existence, so that, if these movements differed, the sublunary world would become disorganized. But many of these causes are either still completely unknown or become known after a long time and a long experience, z as it is said that Aristotle asserted in his book On Astrological Theorems. 3

As to the general questions, it is easier to discover them, and the astrologers have indeed come to know many of them and in our own time many of these things have been apprehended which ancient nations, like the Chaldaeans and others, had already discovered.

And for this reason one cannot doubt that there is a wisdom in the exists, since it has become clear through induction that everything which appears in heaven is there through provident wisdom and through a final cause. And if there are final causes in animals, it is still more appropriate that there should be final causes in the heavenly bodies. ' For in the case of man and animal about ten thousand signs of providence, have become known in a period of a thousand years, and it seems not impossible that in the infinite course of years much of the purpose of the heavenly bodies will come to light. ' And we find that about these things the ancients give some mysterious indications which the initiated, that is the most highly reputed of the philosophers, know how to interpret.

As to the two reasons in Ghazali's argument, the first, that assimilation to God would determine heaven to be at rest, since God is too exalted for movement, but that God has chosen movement because through it His grace can be diffused over transitory things—this is a faulty argument, since God is neither at rest nor moving, ' and the motion of body is nobler for it than rest, and when an existent assimilates itself to God it assimilates itself to Him by being in the noblest of its states, which is movement. As to Ghazali's second point, it has been answered previously.

to Refute their Theory that the Souls of the Heavens Observe all the Particular Events of this World, and that the Meaning of 'The Indelible Tablet 'Is the Souls of the Heavens, and that the Inscription of the Particular Events of the World on the Tablet Resembles the Delineation of the Facts Remembered on the Faculty of Memory Contained in the Brain of Man, and that this is not A Broad Hard Body' on Which Things are Written as Things are Written on A Slate by Children; Since the Quantity of this Writing Demands A Large Surface of Material on Which it is Written, and if this Writing is Infinite, the Material on Which it is Written Must be Infinite too, and One Cannot Imagine an Infinite Body, nor Infinite Lines on A Body, nor can an Unlimited Number of Things be Determined by A Finite Number of Lines

Ghazali says:

And they assert that the heavenly angels are the souls of the heavens, and that the cherubim which are in the proximity of God are the separate intellects, which are substances subsisting by themselves which do not fill space and do not employ bodies, and that from them the individual forms emanate in the heavenly souls, and that those separate intellects are superior to the heavenly angels, because the former bestow and the latter acquire, and bestowing is superior to acquiring, and therefore the highest is symbolized by the pen' and it is said that God knows through the pen, because He is like the engraver who bestows as does the pen and the recipient is compared to the tablet. And this is their doctrine. And the discussion of this question differs from the preceding one in so far as that what we mentioned previously is not impossible, because its conclusion was that heaven is an animal moving for a purpose, and this is possible; but this doctrine amounts to the assertion that the created can know the infinite particulars, which is often regarded as impossible, and in

any case, has to be proved, since by itself it is a mere presumption.

What he mentions here is, to my knowledge, not said by any philosophers except Avicenna, namely that the heavenly bodies have representations, not to speak of the fact that these representations should be infinite, and Alexander of Aphrodisias explains in his book called The Principles of the Universe that these bodies have no representations, because representations exist only in animals because of their conservation, and these bodies do not fear corruption, and with respect to them representations would be valueless (and likewise sensations). 'If they had representations they would also have sensations, since sensations are the condition for representations and every being which has representations necessarily has sensations, although the reverse is not true. Therefore to interpret the indelible tablet in the way Ghazali says that they do is not correct, and the only possible interpretation of the separate intellects which move the different spheres by means of subordination is that they are the angels in the proximity of God, s if one wants to harmonize the conclusions of reason with the statements of the Holy Law.

Ghazali says:

And they prove this by saying that the circular movement is voluntary and that the will follows the thing willed, b and that a universal thing willed can only be intended by a universal will, and that from the universal will nothing proceeds. For-so they say-every actual existent is determined and individual, and the relation of the universal will to the individual units is one and the same, and no individual thing proceeds from it. Therefore an individual will be needed for a definite movement. For every particular movement from every definite point to another definite point the sphere has a will, and this sphere no doubt has a representation of this particular movement through a bodily potency, since individuals only perceive through bodily potencies and every will must of necessity represent the thing willed, i. e. must know it, be it an individual or a universal. And if the sphere has a representation and a comprehension of the particular movements, it must of necessity also comprehend what follows from them through the diversity of their relations to the earth, because some of the individuals of the sphere are rising, some setting, some in the middle of the sky for some people and under the earth for others.

And likewise it must know the consequences of the diversity of those relations which always arise anew through the movement, like trine and sextile, opposition and conjunction, to other such heavenly occurrences; and all earthly occurrences depend on heavenly occurrences either directly, or through one intermediary, or through many; and in short every event has a cause, occurring in a concatenation which terminates in the eternal heavenly movement, some parts of which are the causes of others.

Thus the causes and effects ascend in their concatenation to the particular heavenly movements, and the sphere representing the movements represents their consequences and the consequences of their consequences, so as to reach the end of the series. And therefore the sphere observes everything that occurs and everything that will occur, and its occurrence is necessary through its cause, and whenever the cause is realized, the effect is realized. We only do not know the future events because all their causes are not known to us; for if we knew all the causes, we should know all the effects, for when we know, for instance, that fire will come into contact with cotton at a certain moment, we know that the cotton will burn, and when we know that a man will eat, we know that his appetite will be satisfied, and when we know that a man will walk over a certain spot lightly covered where a treasure is buried, and his feet will accidentally touch the treasure and he will perceive it, ' we know that he will be rich because of this treasure. Only as a matter of fact we do not know these causes. Sometimes we know part of the causes, and then we guess what may happen, and when we know the more important or the greater f part of them, we have a sound opinion about the occurrence of these events; but if we knew all the causes, then we should know all the effects. However, the heavenly occurrences are many and, besides, they are mixed up with earthly events and it is not in human power to observe the causality of all these. But the souls of the heavens perceive it through their perception of the First Cause and through the observation of their consequences and the consequences of their consequences, to the end of their concatenation.

And therefore they say that the man who dreams sees in his dream what will happen in the future through being in contact with the indelible tablet and observing it. And when he observes a thing it remains often in his memory as it really was, but sometimes his imagination hastens to symbolize it, for it is of the nature of this faculty to represent things through things which, in some way or another, are related to them, or to transfer things to their opposites; and the thing that was perceived is then effaced in his memory, but the image belonging to his imagination remains there. Then it is necessary to interpret what his imagination symbolizes, e. g. a man by means of a tree, a woman by means of a shoe, a servant by means of some household vessels, and a man who observes the paying of the legal alms and the poor-tax by means of linseed oil, for the linseed in the lamp is the cause of the illumination; it is on this principle that the interpretation of dreams is based.

And they assert that contact with these souls takes place in a state of languor, since then there is no obstacle; for when we are awake we are occupied with what the senses and our passions convey to us, and occupation with those sensual things keeps us away from this contact, but when in sleep some of these occupations are obliterated, the disposition for this contact appears. And they assert that the prophet Muhammad perceived the hidden universe in this way; however, the spiritual faculty of a prophet has such power that it cannot be overwhelmed by the external senses, and therefore he sees in a waking condition what other people perceive in their sleep. “But his imagination also pictures to him what he sees, and although sometimes the thing he sees remains in his memory exactly as it was, sometimes only its representation remains, and such an inspiration is just as much in need of interpretation as such dreams are. And if all events were not eternally inscribed on the indelible tablet, the prophets would not know the hidden world either awake or asleep; but the pen has indelibly fixed what shall be till the day of resurrection, and the meaning of this we have explained. And this we wanted to impart to make their doctrine understood.

I say:

We have already said that we do not know of anyone who holds this theory but Avicenna. And the proof which Ghazali relates rests on very weak premises, although it is persuasive and dialectical. For it is assumed that every particular effect proceeds from an animate being through the particular representation of this effect and of the particular movements through which this effect is realized. To this major premiss a minor premiss is joined, that heaven is an animate being from which particular acts proceed. From these premisses it is concluded that the particular effects, and the particular acts which proceed from heaven, occur through a particular representation which is called imagination; and that this is not only apparent from the different sciences, but also from many animals which perform particular acts, like the bees and the spider.

But the objection to these premisses is that no particular act proceeds from beings endowed with intellect, except when this act is represented through a universal representation, and then endless individual things proceed from it-for instance the form of a cupboard proceeds from a carpenter only through a universal representation which does not distinguish one particular cupboard from another. And the same thing happens when the works of animals proceed by nature' from them. And these representations are an intermediary between the universal and the particular perceptions; that is, they are an intermediary between the definition of a things and its particular representation. But if the heavenly bodies have representations, then they must have representations that are of the nature of the universal, not of the nature of the particular representation which is acquired through the senses. And it is not possible that our acts should proceed from particular representations, and therefore the philosophers believe that the represented forms from which the definite acts of animals proceed are like an intermediary between the intelligibles and the individual forms represented, e. g. the form by reason of which non-carnivorous birds flee from birds of prey, and the form by reason of which bees build their cells. ? The only artisan who needs an individual sensible image is the one who does not possess this universal representation, which is necessary for the origination of the individual things. e

It is this universal image which is the motive power for the universal will which does not aim at a particular individual; and it is the individual will which aims at a particular individual of one and the same species-this, however, does not happen in the heavenly bodies.

And that a universal will should exist for a universal thing in so far as it is universal is impossible, since the universal does not exist outside the soul and has no transitory existence. And his primary division of will into a universal and an individual will is, indeed, not correct; otherwise one must say that the heavenly bodies move towards the definite limits of things without the definite limit being accompanied by the representation of an individual existent, in contrast to what happens with us. And his assertion that no individual is realized through the universal will is false, if by 'universal will' is understood that which does not distinguish one individual from another, but represents it universally, as is the case with a king who arranges his armies for battle. 'If, however, there is understood by 'will' its being attached to a universal entity itself, then it must be said that such an attachment is not a will at all, and there does not exist such a will except in the way we have explained.

And if it followed from the nature of the heavenly bodies that they think sublunary things by way of imagination, they must do this through universal imaginations which are the results of definition, not through particular imaginations which are the results of senseimpressions. And it seems quite clear that they cannot think sublunary things through individual representations especially when it is said that what proceeds from them proceeds from them by second intention. However, the doctrine of the philosophers is that the heavenly bodies think themselves and think the sublunary world, and whether they think the sublunary world as something different from themselves is a problem that must be examined in places specially reserved for this problem; and in general, if the heavens know, the term 'knowledge' is attributed to our knowledge and theirs in an equivocal way.

As to the theory he gives here about the cause of revelation and dreams, this is the theory of Avicenna alone, and the opinions of the ancient philosophers differ from his. For the existence of a knowledge of individuals actually infinite, in so far as it is an individual knowledge, is impossible, and I understand by individual knowledge that kind of apprehension which is called representation. But there is no reason to introduce here the question of dreams and revelation, for this leads to much controversy, and such an act is an act of sophistry, not of dialectics. My statement, however, that the imaginations of the heavenly bodies are imaginations intermediary between individual and universal representations is a dialectical argument; for what results from the principle of the philosophers is that the heavenly bodies have no imagination whatever, for these imaginations, as we have said already, whether they are universal or particular, aim only at conservation and protection; and they are also a condition for our intellectual representation, which therefore is transitory, but the intellectual representation of the heavenly bodies, since it is not transitory, cannot be accompanied by imagination, for otherwise it would depend in one way or another on imagination. Therefore their apprehension is neither universal nor individual, but these two kinds of knowledge, universal and individual, are here unified, and because of this they can only be distinguished by their matters. And in this way knowledge of the occult and of dreams and the like can be acquired, and this will be explained perfectly in its proper place.

And the answer is for us to ask: How will you refute those who say that the prophet knows the occult through God, who shows it to him by way of revelation, arid the same is the case with the man who has visions in his sleep, which he only sees because God or an angel inspires them in him? We do riot need any of the things you have related, and you have not the slightest proof for introducing the Holy Law by mentioning the Tablet and the Pen; for true believers do not in the least understand by 'the Tablet' and 'the Pen' what you have mentioned, and the way to embrace the religious dogmas is not to refuse to admit them in the way they must be understood. ' And, although the possibility of what you have said is granted, so long as you cannot indicate why you deny the correctness of the sense in which these religious terms are understood, the reality of what you say-cannot be known or verified. Indeed, the only way to arrive at knowledge of such things is through the Holy Law, not by reason. The rational proofofwhat you have said is primarily based on many premisses, the refutation of which need not detain us, but we shall limit ourselves to the discussion of three propositions.

The first proposition is that you say that the movement of heaven is voluntary, and we have already settled this problem and shown the futility of your claim.

If; however, to oblige you the grant you this voluntary movement, the second proposition is your saying that heaven needs a particular representation for each particular movement, and this we do not concede. For according to you there are no parts in the sphere, which is one single thing and is only divided in imagination; nor are there particular movements, for there is only one continuous movement, and in order to complete all the places possible for it, it is sufficient for the sphere to desire this one movement, as you have indicated yourselves, and it will only need universal representation and a universal will.

Let us give ail example of the universal and the particular will to make the intention of the philosophers clear. When, for instance, a man has a universal aim to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, from this universal will no movement follows, ' for the movement occurs as a particular movement, in a particular direction, and of a particular extent, and the man does not cease, in directing himself to Mecca, to form new representations of the place one after another, where he will go and the direction lie will take, and every particular representation will be followed by a particular will to move from the place which lie has reached by his movement. And this is what they understood by a particular movement which follows a particular will; and this is granted, for the directions, when lie takes the road to Mecca, are many, and the distance is undetermined, and lie must determine place after place and direction after direction, passing from one particular will to another.

But the heavenly movement has only one direction, for it is a sphere and moves oil its axis in its own space, going neither beyond its own space nor beyond the movement willed. There is therefore only one direction and one impulse and one aim, like the downward movement of the stone, which tends towards the earth in the shortest way, and the shortest way is the straight line, and the straight line is determined, ' and therefore this movement needs no new cause besides the universal nature which tends to the centre of the earth while it changes its distance from the earth, and arrives at and departs from one definite place after another. In the same way the universal will suffices for this movement, and nothing else is required, and the assumption of this proposition is a mere presumption.

As to Ghazali's words:

And the answer is for us to ask: How will you refute those who say . . . We do not need any of the things you have related. this answer is based on tradition, not on reason, and there is no sense in introducing it in this book. The philosophers examine everything there is in the Holy Law, and, if it is found to agree with reason, we arrive at a more perfect knowledge; if, however, reason does riot perceive its truth, it becomes known that human reason cannot attain it, and that only the Holy Law perceives it. , Ghazali's argument against the philosophers about the interpretation of the Tablet and the Pen does not belong to the problem under discussion, and there is therefore no sense in introducing it here. And this interpretation of knowledge of the occult, according to Avicenna, leas no sense.

The rational objection he adduces against Avicenna over this problem is well founded. For there are for heaven no particular motions of particular distances that would require imagination. The animate being which moves through particular motions in particular spaces imagins, no doubt, these spaces towards which it moves, and these movements, when it cannot visually perceive these distances; the circular, however, as Ghazali says, moves qua circular in one single movement, although from this one movement there follow many different particular motions in the existents below it. These spheres, however, are not concerned with those particular movements, but their only intention is to conserve the species of which these particulars are the particulars, not to conserve the existence of any of these particulars in so far as they are particulars, for, if so, heaven would surely possess imagination.

The question that still needs to be examined is whether the temporal particulars which proceed from the heavenly movement are intended for their own sake or only for the preservation of the species. ' This question cannot be treated here, but it certainly seems that there exists a providence as concerns individuals, as appears from true dreams and the like, e. g. the prognostication of the future; however, in reality this is a providence concerning the species.

The third proposition-and this indeed is a very bold presumption is that they say that, when heaven represents particular movements, it also represents their results and consequences. This is pure nonsense, like saying that, when a man moves himself and knows his movement, he must also know the consequences of his movement vertically and horizontally (that is, the bodies which are above and under him and at his side), and when he moves in the sun he must know the places upon, which his shadow falls and does not fall, and what happens through the coolness of his shadow because of the interruption of the rays of the sun there, and what happens through the compression of the particles of earth under his foot, and what happens through the separation of these particles, and what happens to the humours inside him by their changing through his movement into warmth, and which parts of him are changed into sweat, and so on, till he knows all the occurrences inside and outside his body of which the movement is the cause or the condition or the disposition or the aptitude. And this is nonsense which no intelligent man can believe, and by which none but the ignorant can be beguiled. And this is what this presumption amounts to.

Besides, we may ask: 'Are these different particulars which are known to the soul of the sphere the events which are occurring at the present moment or are future events also brought in relation to it? If you limit its knowledge to present events you deny its perception of the occult and the apprehension of future events through it, by the prophets in the state of wakefulness, by others in their sleep; and then the point of this proof disappears. For it is indeed presumption to say that he who knows a thing knows its consequences and results, so that if we knew all causes we should also know all future events. For, indeed, the causes of all events are to be found at present in the heavenly movement, but it determines the effect either through one intermediary or through many.

And if this knowledge covers the future also, it will not have an end, and how can the distinction between particulars in the infinite future be known, and how can many different particular objects of knowledge, of an infinite number and without an end to their units, be collected in a created soul, at one and the same moment without any sequence? He whose intellect does not perceive the impossibility of this may well despair of his intellect.

And if they reverse this against us with respect to God's knowledge, God's knowledge is not attached to its object in its correspondence with the things known, in the way this attachment exists in the case of things known by created beings, but as soon as the soul of the sphere moves round like the soul of man, ' it belongs to the same kind as the soul of man, and also it participates with the soul of man in the perception of individuals through an intermediary. , And although no absolute knowledge can be had about this, it is most probable that the soul of the sphere is of the same kind as the human soul; and if this is not most probable, it is possible, and the possibility destroys the claim to absolute knowledge they put forward.

And if it is said, 'It is also proper to the human soul in its essence to perceive all things, but its preoccupation with the consequences of passion, anger, greed, resentment, envy, hunger, pain, and in short the accidents of the body and what the sensations convey to the body, is so great that, when the human soul is occupied with one of these things, it neglects everything else; but the souls of the spheres are free from these attributes, and nothing occupies them, and neither care nor pain nor perception overwhelms them, and therefore they know everything'-we answer: 'How do you know that nothing occupies them? Does not their service of the First and their longing for Him submerge them and keep them from the representation of particular things? And what makes it impossible to suppose other impediments than anger and passion?

For these are sensual hindrances, and how do you know that these hindrances are limited in the way we experience them? For there are occupations for the learned through the excellence of their interests and the desire for leadership which children are unable to imagine, and which they cannot believe to be occupations and hindrances. ' And how do you know that analogous things are impossible for the souls of the spheres? ' This is what we wanted to mention about those sciences to which they give the name of metaphysical.

As to his regarding it as impossible that there should exist an immaterial intellect which thinks things with their consequences, comprising them all, neither the impossibility nor the necessity of its existence is a self-evident fact, but the philosophers affirm that they have a proof of its existence. As to the existence of infinite representations, this cannot be imagined in any individual, but the philosophers affirm that they have a proof of the existence of the infinite in the eternal knowledge and an answer to the question how man can attain knowledge of particular events in the future through the eternal knowledge, namely that of these things the soul thinks only the universal which is in the intellect, not the particular which is particularized in the soul. For individuals are known to the soul because it is potentially all existents, and what is in potency emerges into act either through the sensible things or through the nature of the intellect, which is prior to sensible things in reality (I mean the intellect through which sensible things become stable intelligibles, not, however, in such a way that in this knowledge there are representations of an infinite number of individuals). 'In short, the philosophers assert that these two kinds of knowledge, the universal and the particular, are unified in the knowledge which is separated from matter; and when this knowledge emanates in the sublunary world it divides itself into universal and particular, although this knowledge itself is neither the one nor the other.

But the proof of this or its contrary cannot be given here. And the discussion here about these questions is like the assumption of geometrical propositions which are not well enough known to meet with immediate assent and which are not convincing at first sight. And Ghazali mixes one part with another, i. e. lie starts objecting to one part of the theory through another, and this is the worst method of discussion, because in this way assent neither by proof nor by persuasion can be obtained.

Likewise the problems about the differences between the souls of the heavenly bodies and the soul of man are all very obscure, and when such things are discussed in a place not proper to them the discussion becomes either irrelevant or dialectical and superficial; that is to say, the conclusions are drawn from possible premises, like their assertion that the irascible and the concupiscible soul hinder the human soul in the perception of what is proper to it. It appears from the nature of these and similar sayings that they are possible and are in need of proofs, and that they open the way to many conflicting possibilities.

And this closes what we decided to mention of the different assertions which this book contains about theological problems; this is the most important part of our book. We shall now speak on physical problems.

About the Natural Sciences

Ghazali says:

The so-called natural sciences are many, and we shall enumerate their parts, in order to make it known that the Holy Law does not ask one to contest and refute them, except in certain points we shall mention. 'They are divided into principal classes and subdivisions The principal classes are eight. In the first class are treated the divisibility, movement, and change which affect body in so far as it is body, and the relations and consequences of movement like time, space, and void, ' and all this is contained in Aristotle's Physics. The second treats of the disposition of the parts of the elements of the world, namely heaven and the four elements which are within the sphere of the moon, and their natures and the cause of the disposition of each of them in a definite place; and this is contained in Aristotle's De coelo. The third treats of the conditions of generation and corruption, of equivocal generation and of sexual generation, of growth and decay, of transmutations, and how the species are conserved, whereas the individuals perish through the two heavenly movements (westwards and eastwards), and this is contained in De generatione et corruptione. The fourth treats of the conditions which are found in the four elements through their mixture, by which there occur meteorological phenomena like clouds and rain and thunder, lightning, the halo round the moon, the rainbow, thunderbolts, winds, and earthquakes. The fifth treats of mineralogy, the sixth of botany. The seventh treats of zoology, which is contained in the book Historia animalium. The eighth treats of the soul of animals and the perceptive faculties, and says that the soul of man does not die through the death of his body but that it is a spiritual substance for which annihilation is impossible.

The subdivisions are seven: The first is medicine, whose end is the knowledge of the principles of the human body and its conditions of health and illness, their causes and symptoms, so that illness may be expelled and health preserved. The second, judicial astrology, which conjectures from the aspects and configuration of the stars the conditions which will be found in the world and in the State and the consequences of dates of births and of years. The third is physiognomy, which infers character from the external appearance. The fourth is dream-interpretation, which infers what the soul has witnessed of the world of the occult from dream images, for the imaginative faculty imagins this symbolically.

The fifth is the telesmatical art, that is the combination of celestial virtues with some earthly so as to constitute a power which can perform marvellous acts in the earthly world. The sixth is the art of incantation, which is the mixing of the virtues of earthly substances to produce marvellous things from them. The seventh is alchemy, whose aim is to change the properties of minerals so that finally gold and silver are produced by a kind of magic. And there is no need to be opposed to any of these sciences by reason of the Divine Law; we dissent from the philosophers in all these sciences in regard to four points only.

As to his enumeration of the eight kinds of physical science, this is exact according to the doctrine of Aristotle. But his enumeration of the subdivisions is not correct. Medicine is not one of the natural sciences, but is a practical science which takes its principles from physical science; for physical science is theoretical and medicine is practical, and when we study a problem common to theoretical science and practical we can regard it from two points of view; for instance, in our study of health and illness the student of physics observes health and nature as kinds of natural existents, whereas the physician studies them with the intention of preserving the one, health, and keeping down the other, illness. Neither does judicial astrology belong to physical science; it is only a prognostication of future events, and is of the same type as augury and vaticination. Physiognomy is also of the same kind, except that its object is occult things in the present, not in the future. , The interpretation of dreams too is a prognosticating science, and this type belongs neither to the theoretical nor to the practical sciences, although it is reputed to have a practical value.

The telesmatical art is vain, for if we assume the positions of the spheres to exert a power on artificial products, this power will remain inside the product and not pass on to things outside it. As to conjuring, this is the type of thing that produces wonder, but it is certainly not a theoretical science. Whether alchemy really exists is very dubious; if it exists, its artificial product cannot be identical with the product of nature; art can at most become similar to nature but cannot attain nature itself in reality. ' As to the question whether it can produce anything which resembles the natural product generically, we do not possess sufficient data to assert categorically its impossibility or possibility, but only prolonged experiments over a lengthy period can procure the necessary evidence. We shall treat the four points Ghazali mentions one after the other.

Ghazali says:

The first point is their assertion that this connexion observed between causes and effects is of logical necessity, and that the existence of the cause without the effect or the effect without the cause is not within the realm of the contingent and possible. The second point is their assertion that human souls are substances existing by themselves, not imprinted on the body, and that the meaning of death is the end of their attachment to the body and the end of their direction of the body; and that otherwise the soul would exist at any time by itself. They affirm that this is known by demonstrative proof. The third point is their assertion that these souls cannot cease to exist, but that when they exist they are eternal and their annihilation cannot be conceived. The fourth point is their assertion that these souls cannot return to their bodies.

As to the first point, it is necessary to contest it, for on its negation depends the possibility of affirming the existence of miracles which interrupt the usual course of nature, 4like the changing of the rod into a serpents or the resurrection of the dead or the cleavage of the moon, b and those who consider the ordinary course of nature a logical necessity regard all this as impossible. They interpret the resurrection of the dead in the Qur'an by saying that the cessation of the death of ignorance is to be understood by it, and the rod which conceived the arch-deceiver, the serpent, by saying that it means the clear divine proof in the hands of Moses to refute the false doctrines of the heretics; and as to the cleavage of the moon they often deny that it took place and assert. that it does not rest on a sound tradition; and the philosophers accept miracles that interrupt the usual course of nature only in three cases.

First: in respect to the imaginative faculty they say that when this faculty becomes predominant and strong, and the senses and perceptions do not submerge it, it observes the Indelible Tablet, and the forms of particular events which will happen in the future become imprinted on it; and that this happens to the prophets in a waking condition and to other people in sleep, and that this is a peculiar quality of the imaginative faculty in prophecy.

Secondly: in respect of a property of the rational speculative faculty i. e. intellectual acuteness, that is rapidity in passing from one known thing to another; for often when a problem which has been proved is mentioned to a keen-sighted man he is at once aware of its proof, and when the proof is mentioned to him he understands what is proved by himself, and in general when the middle term occurs to him he is at once aware of the conclusion, and when the two terms of the conclusion are present in his mind the middle term which connects the two terms of the conclusion occurs to him. And in this matter people are different; there are those who understand by themselves, those who understand when the slightest hint is given to them, and those who, being instructed, understand only after much trouble; and while on the one hand it may be assumed that incapacity to understand can reach such a degree that a man does not understand anything at all and has, although instructed, no disposition whatever to grasp the intelligibles, it may on the other hand be assumed that his capacity and proficiency may be so great as to arrive at a comprehension of all the intelligibles or the majority of them in the shortest and quickest time. And this difference exists quantitatively over all or certain problems, and qualitatively so that there is an excellence in quickness and easiness, and the understanding of a holy and pure soul may reach through its acuteness all intelligibles in the shortest time possible; and this is the soul of a prophet, who possesses a miraculous speculative faculty and so far as the intelligibles are concerned is not in need of a teacher; but it is as if he learned by himself, and he it is who is described by the words 'the oil of which would well-nigh give light though no fire were in contact with it, light upon light'.

Thirdly: in respect to a practical psychological faculty which can reach such a pitch as to influence and subject the things of nature: for instance, when our soul imagins something the limbs and the potencies in these limbs obey it and move in the required direction which we imagine, so that when a man imagins something sweet of taste the corners of his mouth begin to water, and the potency which brings forth the saliva from the places where it is springs-into action, and when coitus is imagined the copulative potency springs into action, and the penis extends;z indeed, when a man walks on a plank between two walls over an empty space, his imagination is stirred by the possibility of falling and his body is impressed by this imagination and in fact he falls, but when this plank is on the earth, he walks over it without falling. 'This happens because the body and the bodily faculties are created to be subservient and subordinate to the soul, and there is a difference here according to the purity and the power o: the souls. And it is not impossible that the power of the soul should reach such a degree that also the natural power of things outside a man's body obeys it, since the soul of man is not impressed on his body although there is created in man's nature a certain impulse and desire to govern his body. And if it is possible that the limbs of his body should obey him, it is not impossible that other things besides his body should obey him and that his soul should control the blasts of the wind or the downpour of rain, or the striking of a thunderbolt or the trembling of the earth, which causes a land to be swallowed up with its inhabitants. s The same is the case with his influence in producing cold or warmth or a movement in the air; this warmth or cold comes about through his soul, b all these things occur without any apparent physical cause, and such a thing will be a miracle brought about by a prophet. But this only happens in matters disposed to receive it, and cannot attain such a scale that wood could be changed into an animal or that the moon, which cannot undergo cleavage, could be cloven. This is their theory of miracles, and we do not deny anything they have mentioned, and that such things happen to prophets; we are only opposed to their limiting themselves to this, and to their denial of the possibility that a stick might change into a serpent, and of the resurrection of the dead and other things. We must occupy ourselves with this question in order to be able to assert the existence of miracles and for still another reason, namely to give effective support to the doctrine on which the Muslims base their belief that God can do anything. And let us now fulfil our intention.

The ancient philosophers did not discuss the problem of miracles, since according to them such things must not be examined and questioned; for they are the principles of the religions, and the man who inquires into them and doubts them merits punishment, like the man who examines the other general religious principles, such as whether God exists or blessedness or the virtues. For the existence of all these cannot be doubted, and the mode of their existence is something divine which human apprehension cannot attain. The reason for this is that these are the principles of the acts through which man becomes virtuous, and that one can only attain knowledge after the attainment of virtue. One must not investigate the principles which cause virtue before the attainment of virtue, and since the theoretical sciences can only be perfected through assumptions and axioms which the learner accepts in the first place, this must be still more the case with the practical sciences.

As to what Ghazali relates of the causes of this as they are according to the philosophers, I do not know anyone who asserts this but Avicenna. And if such facts are verified and it is possible that a body could be changed qualitatively through something which is neither a body nor a bodily potency, ' then the reasons he mentions for this are possible; but not everything which in its nature is possible' can be done by man, for what is possible to man is well known. Most things which are possible in themselves are impossible for man, and what is true of the prophet, that he can interrupt the ordinary course of nature, is impossible for man, but possible in itself; and because of this one need not assume that things logically impossible are possible for the prophets, and if you observe those miracles whose existence is confirmed, you will find that they are of this kind. The clearest of miracles is the Venerable Book of Allah, s the existence of which is not an interruption of the course of nature assumed by tradition, like the changing of a rod into a serpent, but its miraculous nature is established by way of perception and consideration for every man who has been or who will be till the day of resurrection. And so this miracle is far superior to all others.

Let this suffice for the man who is not satisfied with passing this problem over in silence, and may he understand that the argument on which the learned base their belief in the prophets is another, to which Ghazali himself has drawn attention in another place, b namely the act which proceeds from that quality through which the prophet is called prophet, that is the act of making known the mysterious and establishing religious laws which are in accordance with the truth and which bring about acts that will determine the happiness of the totality of mankind. I do not know anyone but Avicenna who has held the theory about dreams Ghazali mentions. The ancient philosophers assert about revelation and dreams only that they proceed from God through the intermediation of a spiritual incorporeal being which is according to them the bestower of the human intellect, and which is called by the best authors the active intellect and in the Holy Law angel. We shall now return to Ghazali's four points.

Ghazali says:

The First Discussion

According to us the connexion between what is usually believed to be a cause and what is believed to be an effect is not a necessary connexion; each of two things has its own individuality and is not the other, ' and neither the affirmation nor the negation, neither the existence nor the non-existence of the one is implied in the affirmation, negation, existence, and non-existence of the other-e. g. the satisfaction of thirst does not imply drinking, nor satiety eating, nor burning contact with fire, nor light sunrise, nor decapitation death, nor recovery the drinking of medicine, nor evacuation the taking of a purgative, and so on for all the empirical connexions existing in medicine, astronomy, the sciences, and the crafts. For the connexion in these things is based on a prior power of God to create them in a successive order, though not because this connexion is necessary in itself and cannot be disjoined-on the contrary, it is in God's power to create satiety without eating, and death without decapitation, and to let life persist notwithstanding the decapitation, and so on with respect to all connexions. The philosophers, however, deny this possibility and claim that that is impossible. To investigate all these innumerable connexions would take us too long, and so we shall choose one single example, namely the burning of cotton through contact with fire; for we regard it as possible that the contact might occur without the burning taking place, and also that the cotton might be changed into ashes without any contact with fire, although the philosophers deny this possibility. The discussion of this matter has three points.

The first is that our opponent claims that the agent of the burning is the fire exclusively; this is a natural, not a voluntary agent, and cannot abstain from what is in its nature when it is brought into contact with a receptive substratum. This we deny, saying: The agent of the burning is God, through His creating the black in the cotton and the disconnexion of its parts, and it is God who made the cotton burn and made it ashes either through the intermediation of angels or without intermediation. For fire is a dead body which has no action, and what is the proof that it is the agent?

Indeed, the philosophers have no other proof than the observation of the occurrence of the burning, when there is contact with fire, but observation proves only a simultaneity, ' not a causation, and, in reality, there is no other cause but God. For there is unanimity of opinion about the fact that the union of the spirit with the perceptive and moving faculties in the sperm of animals does not originate in the natures contained in warmth, cold, moistness, and dryness, and that the father is neither the agent of the embryo through introducing the sperm into the uterus, nor the agent of its life, its sight and hearing, and all its other faculties. And although it is well known that the same faculties exist in the father, still nobody thinks that these faculties exist through him; no, their existence is produced by the First either directly or through the intermediation of the angels who are in charge of these events. Of this fact the philosophers who believe in a creator are quite convinced, but it is precisely with them that we are in dispute.

It has been shown that coexistence does not indicate causation. We shall make this still more clear through an example. Suppose that a man blind from birth, whose eyes are veiled by a membrane and who has never heard people talk of the difference between night and day, has the membrane removed from his eyes by day and sees visible things, he will surely think then that the actual perception in his eyes of the forms of visible things is caused by the opening of his eyelids, and that as long as his sight is sound and in function, the hindrance removed and the object in front of him visible, he will, without doubt, be able to see, and he will never think that he will not see, till, at the moment when the sun sets and the air darkens, he will understand that it was the light of the sun which impressed the visible forms on his sight. And for what other reason do our opponents believe that in the principles of existences there are causes and influences from which the events which coincide with them proceed, than that they are constant, do not disappear, and are not moving bodies which vanish from sight? For if they disappeared or vanished we should observe the disjunction and understand then that behind our perceptions there exists a cause. And out of this there is no issue, according to the very conclusions of the philosophers themselves.

The true philosophers' were therefore unanimously of the opinion that these accidents and events which occur when there is a contact of bodies, or in general a change in their positions, proceed from the bestower of forms who is an angel or a plurality of angels, so that they even said that the impression of the visible forms on the eye occurs through the bestower of forms, and that the rising of the sun, the soundness of the pupil, and the existence of the visible object are only the preparations and dispositions which enable the substratum to receive the forms; and this theory they applied to all events. And this refutes the claim of those who profess that fire is the agent of burning, bread the agent of satiety, medicine the agent of health, and so on.

To deny the existence of efficient causes which are observed in sensible things is sophistry, and he who defends this doctrine either denies with his tongue what is present in his mind or is carried away by a sophistical doubt which occurs to him concerning this question. For he who denies this can no longer acknowledge that every act must have an agent. The question whether these causes by themselves are sufficient to perform the acts which proceed from them, or need an external cause for the perfection of their act, whether separate or not, is not self-evident and requires much investigation and research. And if the theologians had doubts about the efficient causes which are perceived to cause each other, because there are also effects whose cause is not perceived, this is illogical. Those things whose causes are not perceived are still unknown and must be investigated, precisely because their causes are not perceived; and since everything whose causes are not perceived is still unknown by nature and must be investigated, it follows necessarily that what is not unknown has causes which are perceived. 'The man who reasons like the theologians does not distinguish between what is self-evident and what is unknown, z and everything Ghazali says in this passage is sophistical.

And further, what do the theologians say about the essential causes, the understanding of which alone can make a thing understood? For it is self-evident that things have essences and attributes which determine the special functions of each thing and through which the essences and names of things are differentiated. If a thing had not its specific nature, it would not have a special name nor a definition, and all things would be one-indeed, not even one; for it might be asked whether this one has one special act or one special passivity or not, and if it had a special act, then there would indeed exist special acts proceeding from special natures, but if it had no single special act, then the one would not be one. But if the nature of oneness is denied, the nature of being is denied, and the consequence of the denial of being is nothingness.

Further, are the acts which proceed from all things absolutely necessary for those in whose nature it lies to perform them, or are they only performed in most cases or in half the cases? I This is a question which must be investigated, since one single action-and passivity between two existent things occurs only through one relation out of an infinite number, and it happens often that one relation hinders another. Therefore it is not absolutely certain that fire acts when it is brought near a sensitive body, for surely it is not improbable that there should be something which stands in such a relation to the sensitive thing as to hinder the action of the fire, as is asserted of talc and other things. But one need not therefore deny fire its burning power so long as fire keeps its name and definition.

Further, it is self-evident that all events have four causes, agent, form, matter, and end, and that they are necessary for the existence of the effects—especially those causes which form a part of the effect, namely that which is called by the philosophers matter, by the theologians condition and substratum, and that which is called by the philosophers form, by the theologians psychological quality. The theologians acknowledge that there exist conditions which are necessary to the conditioned, as when they say that life is a condition of knowledge; and they equally recognize that things have realities and definitions, and that these are necessary for the existence of the existent, and therefore they here judge the visible and the invisible according to one and the same scheme. 'And they adopt the same attitude towards the consequences of a thing's essence, namely what they call 'sign', as for instance when they say that the harmony in the world indicates that its agent possesses mind and that the existence of a world having a design indicates that its agent knows this world? Now intelligence is nothing but the perception of things with their causes, and in this it distinguishes itself from all the other faculties of apprehension, and he who denies causes must deny the intellect.

Logic implies the existence of causes and effects, and knowledge of these effects can only be rendered perfect through knowledge of their causes. Denial of cause implies the denial of knowledge, and denial of knowledge implies that nothing in this world can be really known, and that what is supposed to be known is nothing but opinion, that neither proof nor definition exist, and that the essential attributes which compose definitions are void. The man who denies the necessity of any item of knowledge must admit that even this, his own affirmation, is not necessary knowledge.

As to those who admit that there exists, besides necessary knowledge, knowledge which is not necessary, about which the soul forms a judgement on slight evidence and imagins it to be necessary, whereas it is not necessary, the philosophers do not deny this. And if they call such a fact 'habit' this may be granted, but otherwise I do not know what they understand by the term 'habit'-whether they mean that it is the habit of the agent, the habit of the existing things, or our habit to form a judgement about such things? ' It is, however, impossible that God should have a habit, for a habit is a custom which the agent acquires and from which a frequent repetition of his act follows, whereas God says in the Holy Book: 'Thou shalt not find any alteration in the course of God, and they shall not find any change in the course of God. 'If they mean a habit in existing things, habit can only exist in the animated;; if it exists in something else, it is really a nature, and it is not possible that a thing should have a nature which determined it either necessarily or in most cases. If they mean our habit of forming judgements about things, such a habit is nothing but an act of the soul which is determined by its nature and through which the intellect becomes intellect.

The philosophers do not deny such a habit; but 'habit' is an ambiguous term, and if it is analysed it means only a hypothetical act; as when we say 'So-and-so has the habit of acting in such-and-such a way', meaning that he will act in that way most of the time. If this were true, everything would be the case only by supposition, and there would be no wisdom in the world from which it might be inferred that its agent was wise.

And, as we said, we need not doubt that some of these existents cause each other and act through each other, and that in themselves they do not suffice for their act, but that they are in need of an external agent whose act is a condition of their act, and not only of their act but even of their existence. However, about the essence of this agent or of these agents the philosophers differ in one way, although in another they agree. They all agree in this, that the First Agent is immaterial and that its act is the condition of the existence and acts of existents, and that the act of their agent reaches these existents through the intermediation of an effect of this agent, which is different from these existents and which, according to some of them, is exclusively the heavenly sphere, whereas others assume besides this sphere another immaterial existent which they call the bestower of forms.

But this is not the place to investigate these theories, and the highest part of their inquiry is this; and if you are one of those who desire these truths, then follow the right road which leads to them. The reason why the philosophers differed about the origin of the essential forms and especially of the forms of the soul is that they could not relate them to the warm, cold, moist, and dry, which are the causes of all natural things which come into being and pass away, ' whereas the materialists related everything which does not seem to have an apparent cause to the warm, cold, moist, and dry, affirming that these things originated through certain mixtures of those elements, just as colours and other accidents come into existence. And the philosophers tried to refute them.

Ghazali says:

Our second point is concerned with those who acknowledge that these events proceed from their principles, but say that the disposition to receive the forms arises from their observed and apparent causes. However, according to them also the events proceed from these principles not by deliberation and will, but by necessity and nature, as light does from the sun, and the substrata differ for their reception only through the differentiations in their disposition. For instance, a polished body receives the rays of the sun, reflects them and illuminates another spot with them, whereas an opaque body does not receive them; the air does not hinder the penetration of the sun's light, but a stone does; certain things become soft through the sun, others hard; certain things, like the garments which the fuller bleaches, become white through the sun, others like the fuller's face become black: the principle is, however, one and the same, although the effects differ through the differences of disposition in the substratum.

Thus there is no hindrance or incapacity in the emanation of what emanates from the principles of existence; the insufficiency lies only in the receiving substrata. If this is true, and we assume a fire that has the quality it has, and two similar pieces of cotton in the same contact with it, how can it be imagined that only one and not the other will be burned, as there is here no voluntary act? And from this point of view they deny that Abraham could fall into the fire and not be burned. notwithstanding the fact that the fire remained fire, and they affirm that this could only be possible through abstracting the warmth from the fire (through which it would, however, cease to be fire) or through changing the essence of Abraham and making him a stone or something on which fire has no influence, and neither the one nor the other is possible.

I say:

Those philosophers who say that these perceptible existents do not act on each other, and that their agent is exclusively an external principle, cannot affirm that their apparent action on each other is totally illusory, but would say that this action is limited to preparing the disposition to accept the forms from the external principle. However, I do not know any philosopher who affirms this absolutely; they assert this only of the essential forms, not of the forms of accidents. They all agree that warmth causes warmth, and that all the four qualities act likewise, but in such a way that through it the elemental fire' and the warmth which proceeds from the heavenly bodies are conserved. The theory which Ghazali ascribes to the philosophers, that the separate principles act by nature, not by choice, is not held by any important philosophers; on the contrary, the philosophers affirm that that which possesses knowledge must act by choice. However, according to the philosophers, in view of the excellence which exists in the world, there can proceed out of two contraries only the better, and their choice is not made to perfect their essences—since there is no imperfection in their essence—but in order that through it those existents which have an imperfection in their nature may be perfected.

As to the objection which Ghazali ascribes to the philosophers over the miracle of Abraham, such things are only asserted by heretical Muslims. The learned among the philosophers do not permit discussion or disputation about the principles of religion, and he who does such a thing needs, according to them, a severe lesson. For whereas every science has its principles, and every student of this science must concede its principles and may not interfere with them by denying them, this is still more obligatory in the practical science of religion, for to walk on the path of the religious virtues is necessary for man's existence, according to them, not in so far as he is a man, but in so far as he has knowledge; and therefore it is necessary for every man to concede the principles of religion. and invest with authority the man who lays them down. The denial and discussion of these principles denies human existence, and therefore heretics must be killed. Of religious principles it must be said that they are divine things which surpass human understanding, but must be acknowledged although their causes are unknown.

Therefore we do not find that any of the ancient philosophers discusses miracles, although they were known and had appeared all over the world, for they are the principles on which religion is based and religion is the principle of the virtues; nor did they discuss any of the things which are said to happen after death. For if a man grows up according to the religious virtues he becomes absolutely virtuous, and if time and felicity are granted to him, so that he becomes one of the deeply learned thinkers and it happens that he can explain one of the principles of religion, it is enjoined upon him that he should not divulge this explanation and should say 'all these are the terms of religion and the wise', conforming himself to the Divine Words, 'but those who are deeply versed in knowledge say: we believe in it, it is all from our Lord'.

Ghazali says:

There are two answers to this theory. The first is to say: 'We do not accept the assertion that the principles do not act in a voluntary way and that God does not act through His will, and we have already refuted their claim in treating of the question of the temporal creation of the world. If it is established that the Agent creates the burning through His will when the piece of cotton is brought in contact with the fire, He can equally well omit to create it when the contact takes place.

Ghazali, to confuse his opponent, here regards as established what his opponent refuses to admit, and says that his opponent has no proof for his refusal. He says that the First Agent causes the burning without an intermediary He might have created in order that the burning might take place through the fire. But such a claim abolishes any perception of the existence of causes and effects. No philosopher doubts that, for instance, the fire is the cause of the burning which occurs in the cotton through the fire-not, however, absolutely, but by an external principle which is the condition of the existence of fire, not to speak of its burning. The philosophers differ only about the quiddity of this principle-whether it is a separate principle, or an intermediary between the event and the separate principle besides the fire.

Ghazali says, on behalf of the philosophers:

But it may be said that such a conception involves reprehensible impossibilities. For if you deny the necessary dependence of effects or their causes and relate them to the will of their Creator, and do not allow even in the will a particular definite pattern, but regard it as possible that it may vary and change in type, then it may happen to any of us that there should be in his presence beasts of prey and flaming fires and immovable mountains and enemies equipped with arms, without his seeing them, because God had not created in him the faculty of seeing them. And a man who had left a book at home might find it on his return changed into a youth, handsome, intelligent, and efficient, or into an animal; or if he left a youth at home, he might find him turned into a dog; or he might leave ashes and find them changed into musk; or a stone changed into gold, and gold changed into stone. And if he were asked about any of these things, he would answer: 'I do not know what there is at present in my house; I only know that I left a book in my house, but perhaps by now it is a horse which has soiled the library with its urine and excrement, and I left in my house a piece of bread which has perhaps changed into an appletree.' For God is able to do' all these things, and it does not belong to the necessity of a horse that it should be created from a sperm, nor is it of the necessity of a tree that it should be created from a seed; no, there is no necessity that it should be created out of anything at all. And perhaps God creates things which never existed before; indeed, when one sees a man one never saw before and is asked whether this man has been generated, one should answer hesitantly: 'It may be that he was one of the fruits in the market which has been changed into a man, and that this is that man. For God can do any possible thing, and this is possible, and one cannot avoid being perplexed by it; and to this kind of fancy one may yield ad infinitum, but these examples will do.

But the answer is to say: If it were true that the existence of the possible implied that there could not be created in man any knowledge of the non-occurrence of a possible, all these consequences would follow necessarily. But we are not at a loss over any of the examples which you have brought forward. For God has created in us the knowledge that He will not do all these possible things, and we only profess that these things are not necessary, but that they are possible and may or may not happen, and protracted habit time after time fixes their occurrence in our minds according to the past habit in a fixed impression.

Yes, it is possible that a prophet should know in such ways as the philosophers have explained that a certain man will not come tomorrow from a journey, and although his coming is possible the prophet knows that this possibility will not be realized. And often you may observe even ordinary men of whom you know that they are not aware of anything occult, and can know the intelligible only through instruction, and still it cannot be denied that nevertheless their soul and conjecturing power' can acquire sufficient strength to apprehend what the prophets apprehend in so far as they know the possibility of an event, but know that it will not happen. And if God interrupts the habitual course by causing this unusual event to happen this knowledge of the habitual is at the time of the interruption removed from their hearts and He no longer creates it. There is, therefore, no objection to admitting that a thing may be possible for God, but that He had the previous knowledge that although He might have done so He would not carry it out during a certain time, and that He has created in us the knowledge that He would not do it during that time.

When the theologians admit that the opposite of everything existing is equally possible, and that it is such in regard to the Agent, and that only one of these opposites can be differentiated through the will of the Agent, there is no fixed standard for His will either constantly or for most cases, according to which things must happen. For this reason the theologians are open to all the scandalous implications with which they are charged. For true knowledge is the knowledge of a thing as it is in reality. And if in reality there only existed, in regard both to the substratum and to the Agent, the possibility of the two opposites, ; there would no longer, even for the twinkling of an eye, be any permanent knowledge of anything, since we suppose such an agent to rule existents like a tyrannical prince who has the highest power, for whom nobody in his dominion can deputize, of whom no standard or custom is known to which reference might be made. Indeed, the acts of such a prince will undoubtedly be unknown by nature, and if an act of his comes into existence the continuance of its existence at any moment will be unknown by nature.

Ghazali's defence against these difficulties that God created in us the knowledge that these possibilities would be realized only at special times, such as at the time of the miracle, is not a true one. For the knowledge created in us is always in conformity with the nature of the real thing, since the definition of truth is that a thing is believed to be such as it is in reality. b If therefore there is knowledge of these possibles, there must be in the real possibles a condition to which our knowledge refers, either through these possibles themselves or through the agent, or for both reasons-a condition which the theologians call habit. ? And since the existence of this condition which is called habit is impossible in the First Agent, this condition can only be found in the existents, and this, as we said, is what the philosophers call nature.

The same congruity exists between God's knowledge and the existents, although God's knowledge of existents is their cause, and these existents are the consequence of God's knowledge, and therefore reality conforms to God's knowledge. If, for instance, knowledge of Zaid's coming reaches the prophet through a communication of God, the reason why the actual happening is congruous with the knowledge is nothing but the fact that the nature of the actually existent, ' is a consequence of the eternal knowledge, for knowledge qua knowledge can only refer to something which has an actualized nature. 'I The knowledge of the Creator is the reason why this nature becomes actual in the existent which is attached to it.' Our ignorance of these possibles is brought about through our ignorance of the nature which determines the being or non-being of a thing. If the opposites in existents were in a condition of equilibrium, both in themselves and through their efficient causes, it would follow that they neither existed nor did not exist, or that they existed and did not exist at the same time, and one of the opposites must therefore have a preponderance in existence. And it is the knowledge of the existence of this nature which causes the actualization of one of the opposites. And the knowledge attached to this nature is either a knowledge prior to it, and this is the knowledge of which this nature is the effect, namely eternal knowledge, or the knowledge which is consequent on this nature, namely non-eternal knowledge. The attainment of the occult is nothing but the vision of this nature, and our acquisition of this knowledge not preceded by any proof is what is called in ordinary human beings a dream, and in prophets inspiration. The eternal will and eternal knowledge are the causes of this nature in existents. And this is the meaning of the Divine Words: 'Say that none in the heavens or on the earth know the occult but God alone. 'This nature is sometimes necessary and sometimes what happens in most cases. 'Dreams and inspiration are only, as we said, the announcement of this nature in possible things, and the sciences which claim the prognostication of future events possess only rare traces of the influences of this nature or constitution or whatever you wish to call it, namely that which is actualized in itself and to which the knowledge attaches itself.

The second answer-and in it is to be found deliverance from these reprehensible consequencesb-is to agree that in fire there is created a nature which burns two similar pieces of cotton which are brought into contact with it and does not differentiate between them, when they are alike in every respect. ? But still we regard it as possible that a prophet should be thrown into the fire and not burn, either through a change in the quality of the fire or through a change in the quality of the prophet, and that either through God or through

the angels there should arise a quality in the fire which limited its heat to its own body, so that it did not go beyond it, but remained confined to it, keeping, however, to the form and reality of the fire, without its heat and influence extending beyond it; or that there should arise in the body of the person an attribute, which did not stop the body from being flesh and bone, but still defended it against the action of the fire. For we can see a man rub himself with talc and sit down in a lighted oven and not suffer from it; and if one had not seen it, one would deny it, and the denial of our opponents that it lies in God's power to confer on the fire or to the body an attribute which prevents it from being burnt is like the denial of one who has not seen the talc and its effect. For strange and marvellous things are in the power of God, many of which we have not seen, and “, by should we deny their possibility and regard them as impossible?

And also the bringing back to life of the dead and the changing of a stick into a serpent are possible in the following way: matter can receive any form, and therefore earth and the other elements can be changed into a plant, and a plant, when an animal eats it, can be changed into blood, ' then blood can be changed into sperm, and then sperm can be thrown into the womb and take the character of an animal. , This, in the habitual course of nature, takes place over a long space of time, but why does our opponent declare it impossible that matter should pass through these different phases in a shorter period than is usual, and when once a shorter period is allowed there is no limit to its being shorter and shorter, so that these potencies can always become quicker in their action and eventually arrive at the stage of being a miracle of a prophet.

And if it is asked: 'Does this arise through the soul of the prophet or through another principle at the instigation of the prophet? '-we answer: 'Does what you acknowledge may happen through the power of the prophet's soul, like the downpour of rain or the falling of a thunderbolt or earthquakes—does that occur through him or through another principle? What we say about the facts which we have mentioned is like what you say about those facts which you regard as possible. And the best method according to both you and us is to relate these things to God, either immediately or through the intermediation of the angels. But at the time these occurrences become real, the attention of the prophet turns to such facts, and the order of the good determines its appearance to ensure the duration of the order of religion, and this gives a preponderance to the side of existence. The fact in itself is possible, and the principle in God is His magnanimity; but such a fact only emanates from Him when necessity gives a preponderance to its existence and the good determines it, and the good only determines it when a prophet needs it to establish his prophetic office for the promulgation of the good. “

And all this is in accordance with the theory of the philosophers and follows from it for them, since they allow to the prophet a particular characteristic which distinguishes him from common people. There is no intellectual criterion for the extent of its possibility, but there is no need to declare it false when it rests on a good tradition and the religious law states it to be true. Now, in general, it is only the sperm which accepts the form of animals-and it receives its animal potencies only-from the angels, who according to the philosophers, are the principles of existents -and only a man can be created from the sperm of a man, and only a horse from the sperm of a horse, in so far as the actualization of the sperm through the horse determines the preponderance of the analogous form of a horse over all other forms, and it accepts only the form to which in this way the preponderance is given, and therefore barley never grows from wheat or an apple from a pear. ' Further, we see that certain kinds of animal are only produced by spontaneous generation from earth and never are generated by procreation-e. g. worms, and some which are produced both spontaneously and by procreation like the mouse, the serpent, and the scorpion, for their generation can come also from earth. Their disposition to accept forms varies through causes unknown to us, and it is not in human power to ascertain them, since those forms do not, according to the philosophers, emanate from the angels by their good pleasure or haphazard, but in every substratum only in such a way that a form arises for whose acceptance it is specially determined through its own disposition. These dispositions differ, and their principles are, according to the philosophers, the aspects of the stars and the different relative positions of the heavenly bodies in their movements.

And through this the possibility is open that there may be in the principles of these dispositions wonderful and marvellous things, so that those who understand talismans through their knowledge of the particular qualities of minerals and of the stars succeed in combining the heavenly potencies with those mineral peculiarities, and make shapes of these earthly substances, and seek a special virtue for them and produce marvellous things in the world through them. And often they drive serpents and scorpions from a country, and sometimes bugs, and they do other things which are known to belong to the science of talismans.

And since there is no fixed criterion for the principles of these dispositions, and we cannot ascertain their essence or limit them, how can we know that it is impossible that in certain bodies dispositions occur to change their phases at a quicker rhythm, so that such a body would be disposed to accept a form for the acceptance of which it was not prepared before, which is claimed to be a miracle? There is no denying this, except through a lack of understanding and an unfamiliarity with higher things and oblivion of the secrets of God in the created world and in nature. And he who has examined the many wonders of the sciences does not consider in any way impossible for God's power what is told of the wonders of the prophets.

Our opponents may say: 'We agree with you that everything possible is in the power of God, and you theologians agree with us that the impossible cannot be done and that there are things whose impossibility is known and things which are known to be possible, and that there are also things about which the understanding is undecided and which it does not hold to be either impossible or possible. Now what according to you is the limit of the simultaneous affirmation and negation of the same thing, then say that of two things the one is not the other, and that the existence of the one does not demand the existence of the other. And say then that God can create will without knowledge of the thing willed, and knowledge without life, ' and that He can move the hand of a dead man and make him sit and write volumes with his hand and engage himself in sciences while he has his eye open and his looks are fixed on his work, although he does not see and there is no life in him and he has no power, and it is God alone who creates all these ordered actions with the moving of the dead man's hand, and the movement comes from God. But by regarding this as possible the difference between voluntary action and a reflex action like shivering is destroyed, and a judicious act will no longer indicate that the agent possesses knowledge or power It will then be necessary that God should be able to change genera and transform the substance into an accident and knowledge into power and black into white and a voice into an odour, just as He is able to change the inorganic into an animal and a stone into gold, and it will then follow that God can also bring about other unlimited impossibilities.

The answer to this is to say that the impossible cannot be done by God, and the impossible consists in the simultaneous affirmation and negation of a thing, or the affirmation of the more particular with the negation of the more general, or the affirmation of two things with the negation of one of them, and what does not refer to this is not impossible and what is not impossible can be done.

identification of black and white is impossible, because by the affirmation of the form of black in the substratum the negation of the form of white and of the existence of white is implied; and since the negation of white is implied by the affirmation of black, the simultaneous affirmation and negation of white is impossible. ' And the existence of a person in two places at once is only impossible because we imply by his being in the house that he cannot be in another place, and it cannot be understood from the denial that he is in another place that he can be simultaneously both in another place and in the house. And in the same way by will is implied the seeking of something that can be known, and if we assume a seeking without knowledge there cannot be a will and we would then deny what we had implied. And it is impossible that in the inorganic knowledge should be created, because we understand by inorganic that which does not perceive, and if in the organic perception was created it would become impossible to call it inorganic in the sense in which this word is understood.

As to the transformation of one genus into another, some theologians affirm that it is in the power of Gods but we say that for one thing to become another is irrational; for, if for instance, the black could be transformed into power, the black would either remain or not, and if it does not exist any more, it is not changed but simply does not exist any more and something else exists; and if it remains existent together with power, it is not changed, but something else is brought in relation to it, and if the black remains and power does not exist, then it does not change, but remains as it was before. And when we say that blood changes into sperm, we mean by it that this identical matter is divested of one form and invested with another; and it amounts to this, that one form becomes nonexistent and another form comes into existence while the matter remains, and that two forms succeed one another in it. And when we say that water becomes air through being heated, we mean by it that the matter which had received the form of the water is deprived of this form. and takes another, and the matter is common to them but the attribute changes. And it is the same when we say that the stick is changed into a serpent or earth into an animal. But there is no matter common to the accident and the substance, nor to black and to power, nor to the other categories, and it is impossible for this reason that they should be changed into each other.

As to God's moving the hand of a dead man, and raising this man up in the form of a living one who sits and writes, so that through the movement of his hand a well-ordered script is written, this in itself is not impossible as long as we refer events to the will of a voluntary being, and it is only to be denied because the habitual course of nature is in opposition to it. And your affirmation, philosophers, that, if this is so, the judiciousness of an act no longer indicates that the agent possesses knowledge is false, for the agent in this case is God; He determines the act and He performs it. And as to your assertion that if this is so there is no longer any difference between shivering and voluntary motion, we answer that we know this difference only because we experience in ourselves the difference between these two conditions, and we find thereby that the differentiating factor is power, ' and know that of the two classes of the possible the one happens at one time, the other at another; that is to say, we produce movement with the power to produce it at one time, and a movement without this power at another. Now, when we observe other movements than ours and see many well-ordered movements, we attain knowledge of the power behind them, and God creates in us all these different kinds of knowledge through the habitual course of events, through which one of the two classes of possibility becomes known, though the impossibility of the second class is not proved thereby.

When Ghazali saw that the theory that things have no particular qualities and forms from which particular acts follow, for every thing is very objectionable, and contrary to common sense, he conceded this in this last section and replaced it by the denial of two points: first that a thing can have these qualities but that they need not act on a thing in the way they usually act on it, e. g. fire can have its warmth but need not burn something that is brought near to it, even if it is usually burnt when fire is brought near to it; secondly that the particular forms have not a particular matter in every object.

The first point can be accepted by the philosophers, for because of external causes the procession of acts from agents may not be necessary, ' and it is not impossible that for instance fire may sometimes be brought near cotton without burning it, when something is placed with the cotton that makes it non-inflammable, as Ghazali says in his instance of talc and a living being.

As to the point that matter is one of the conditions for material things, this cannot be denied by the theologians, for, as Ghazali says, there is no difference between our simultaneous negation and affirmation of a thing and our simultaneous denial of part of it and affirmation of the whole. And since things consist of two qualities, a general and a particular-and this is what the philosophers mean by the term 'definition', a definition being composed according to them of a genus and a specific difference-it is indifferent for the denial of an existent which of its two qualities is denied. For instance, since man consists of two qualities, one being a general quality, namely animality, and the second a particular, namely rationality, man remains man just as little when we take away his animality as when we take away his rationality, for animality is a condition of rationality and when the condition is removed the conditioned is removed equally.

On this question the theologians and the philosophers agree, except that the philosophers believe that for particular things the general qualities are just as much a condition as the particular, and this the theologians do not believe; for the philosophers, for instance, warmth and moisture are a condition of life in the tran-zee-unt, because they are more general than life, just as life is a condition of rationality. But the theologians do not believe this, and so you hear them say: 'For us dryness and moisture are not a condition of life. ' For the philosophers shape, too, is one of the particular conditions of life in an organic being; if not, one of two following cases might arise: either the special shape of the animal might exist without exercising any function, or this special shape might not exist at all. ' For instance, for the philosophers the hand is the organ of the intellect, and by means of it man performs his rational acts, like writing and the carrying on of the other arts; now if intelligence were possible in the inorganic, it would be possible that intellect might exist without performing its function, and it would be as if warmth could exist without warming the things that are normally warmed by it. b Also, according to the philosophers, every existent has a definite quantity and a definite quality, and also the time when it comes into existence and during which it persists are determined, although in all these determinations there is, according to the philosophers, a certain latitude. '

Theologians and philosophers agree that the matter of existents which participate in one and the same matter sometimes accepts one of two forms and sometimes its opposite, as happens, according to them, with the forms of the four elements, fire, air, water, and earth. Only in regard to the things which have no common matter or which have different matters do they disagree whether some of them can accept the forms of others-for instance, whether something which is not known by experience to accept a certain form except through many intermediaries can also accept this ultimate form without intermediaries. For instance, the plant comes into existence through composition out of the elements; it becomes blood and sperm through being eaten by an animal and from sperm and blood comes the animal, as is said in the Divine Words: 'We created man from an extract of clay, then We made him a clot in a sure depository' and so on till His words 'and blessed be God, the best of creators'. The theologians affirm that the soul of man can inhere in earth without the intermediaries known by experience, whereas the philosophers deny this and say that, if this were possible, wisdom would consist in the creation of man without such intermediaries, and a creator who created in such a way would be the best and most powerful of creators; both parties claim that what they say is selfevident, and neither has any proof for its theory. And you, reader, consult your heart; it is your duty to believe what it announces, and this is what God-who may make us and you into men of truth and evidence-has ordained for you.

But some of the Muslims have even affirmed that there can be attributed to God the power to combine the two opposites, and their dubious proof is that the judgement of our intellect that this is impossible is something which has been impressed on the intellect, whereas if there had been impressed on it the judgement that this is possible, it would not deny this possibility, but admit it. For such people it follows as a consequence that neither intellect nor existents have a well-defined nature, and that the truth which exists in the intellect does not correspond to the existence of existing things. The theologians themselves are ashamed of such a theory, but if they held it, it would be more consistent with their point of view than the contradictions in which their opponents involve them on this point. For their opponents try to find out where the difference lies between what as a matter of fact the theologians affirm on this point and what they deny, and it is very difficult for them to make this out-indeed they do not find anything but vague words.

We find, therefore, that those most expert in the art of theological discussion take refuge in denying the necessary connexion between condition and conditioned, between a thing and its definition, between a thing and its cause and between a thing and its sign. All this is full of sophistry and is without sense, and the theologian who did this was Abu-l-Ma'ali. 'The general argument which solves these difficulties is that existents are divided into opposites and correlates, and if the latter could be separated, the former might be united, but opposites are not united and correlates therefore cannot be separated. And this is the wisdom of God and God's course in created things, and you will never find in God's course any alteration. 'And it is through the perception of this wisdom that the intellect of man becomes intellect, and the existence of such wisdom in the eternal intellect is the cause of its existence in reality. The intellect therefore is not a possible entity which might have been created with other qualities, as Ibn Hazm imagined.

The Second Discussion

their Impotence to Show by Demonstrative Proof that the Human Soul is A Spiritual Substance Which Exists by Itself and Does not Fill Space, is Neither Body nor Impressed on A Body, is Neither Continuous with the Body nor Separated from the Body, just as Neither God

Nor the Angels According to Them Is Outside or Inside the World

The discussion of this question demands the exposition of their theory about the animal and human faculties. s The animal faculties are divided according to them into motive and apprehensive, and the apprehensive are of two classes, the external and the internal. The external are the five senses, and these faculties are entities impressed on the bodies. b The internal are three in number. ? The first is the representative faculty in the foremost part of the brain behind the faculty of sight; in it the forms of the things seen remain after the closing of the eye, and in this faculty there is impressed and collected what the five senses bring to it, and it is therefore called the common sense. If it did not exist, a man who saw white honey and perceives its sweetness by taste could not, when he saw it a second time, apprehend its sweetness as long as he had not tasted it as he did the first time, but in the common sense there is something which judges that this white is the sweetness, and there is in it, no doubt, a judging element for which both these things, colour and sweetness, are brought together and which determines then that when the one is present the other must be there too.

The second is the estimative faculty which is that which apprehends the intentions' whereas the first apprehends the forms;^ and the meaning of 'forms' is 'that which cannot be without matter, i. e. body', whereas the meaning of 'intentions' is 'that which does not require a body for its existence, although it can happen that it occurs in a body'-like enmity and concord. The sheep perceives the colour, shape, and appearance of the wolf, which are only found in body, but it perceives also that the wolf is its enemy, and the lamb perceives the shape and colour of its mother and then perceives its love and tenderness, and for this reason it flees from the wolf while it walks behind the mother. Discord and concord need not be in bodies like colour and shape, but it sometimes happens that they occur in bodies. This faculty differs from the first, and is located in the posterior ventricle of the brains

The third faculty is called in animals the imaginative and in man the cogitative, b and its nature is to combine the sensible forms and to compose the intentions with the farms:' it is located in the middle ventricle between the place where the forms are kept and that where the intentions are retained. s Because of this man can imagine a horse that flies and a being with the head of a man and the body of a horse, and other combinations, although he has never seen such things. It is more appropriate, as will be shown, to join this faculty with the motive faculties than with the apprehensive. 'The places where these faculties are located are known only through medicine, for if a lesion occurs to one of these ventricles the faculties become defective.

Further, the philosophers affirm that the faculty on which the forms of sensible things are impressed through the five senses retains these forms so that they do not disappear after their reception, for one thing does not retain another through the faculty by which it receives it, for water receives without retaining, while wax receives through its wetness and retains through its dryness, by contrast with water. “Through this consideration that which retains is different from that which receives, and this is called the retentive faculty. And in the same way intentions are impressed on the estimative faculty, and a faculty retains them, which is called the memorative. 'Through this consideration, these internal perceptions, when the imaginative faculty is joined to them, become five in number, like the external faculties.

The motive faculties' form two classes, in so far as they are only stimulating motion or executing motion and acting; the stimulating motive faculty is the impulsive and appetitive faculty; this is the faculty which stimulates the acting motive power to move when, in the representative faculty which we have mentioned, ' there is inscribed the form of something to be sought or avoided. The stimulating faculty has two branches, one called concupiscent which excites to a movement, through which there is an approach to the things represented as necessary or useful in a search for pleasure, and the irascible which excites to a movement through which the thing represented as injurious or mischievous is removed as one seeks to master it. Through this faculty the complete determination to act is effected, which is called will.

The motive faculty which itself executes movement is a faculty which is diffused in the nerves and muscles and has the function of contracting the muscles and drawing the tendons and ligaments which are in contact with the limbs in the direction where this faculty resides, or of relaxing and extending them so that the ligaments and tendons move in the opposite direction. These are the animal faculties of the soul as described in a summary way, without the details.

And as regards the soul which thinks things and is called the rational or discursive soul by the philosophers (and by 'discursive' is meant 'rational', because discourse is the most typical external operation of reason and therefore the intellective soul takes its name from it), it has two faculties, a knowing and an acting, and both are called intellect, though equivocally. b And the acting faculty is one which is a principle moving man's body towards the well-ordered human arts, whose order derives from the deliberation proper to man. The knowing faculty, which is called the speculative, is one which has the function of perceiving the real natures of the intelligibles in abstraction from matter, place, and position; and these are the universal concepts which the theologians call sometimes conditions and sometimes modes, ' and which the philosophers call abstract universals.

The soul has therefore two faculties on two sides: the speculative faculty on the side of the angels, since through it it receives from the angels knowledge of realities (and this faculty must always be receptive for the things coming from above); and the practical faculty on the inferior side, which is the side of the body which it directs and whose morals it improves. This faculty must rule over all the other bodily faculties, and all the others must be trained by it and subjected to it. It must not itself be affected or influenced by them, but they must be influenced by it, in such a way that there will not through the bodily attributes occur in the soul subservient dispositions, called vices, but that this faculty may remain predominant and arouse in the soul dispositions called virtues.

This is a summary of the human vital faculties, which they distinguished and about which they spoke at great length, and we have omitted the vegetative faculties, since there is no need to mention them as they are not connected with our subject. Nothing of what we have mentioned need be denied on religious grounds, for all these things are observable facts whose habitual course has been provided by God. We only want now to refute their claim that the soul being an essence subsistent by itself, can be known by demonstrative rational proofs, and we do not seek to refute those who say that it is impossible that this knowledge should derive from God's power or who believe that the religious law is opposed to this; for perhaps it will be clear at the dividing on the Day of Judgement that the Holy Law regards it as true. However, we reject their claim that this can be known by mere reason and that the religious law is not necessary for its knowledge, and we shall ask them to produce their proofs and indeed they have many.

All this is nothing but an account of the theory of the philosophers about these faculties and his conception of them; only he followed Avicenna, who distinguished himself from the rest of the philosophers by assuming in the animal another faculty than the imaginative; which he calls the estimative faculty and which replaces the cognitive faculty in man, and he says that the ancients applied the term 'imaginative faculty' to the estimative, and when they do this then the imaginative faculty in the animal is a substitute for the cognitive faculty in man and will be located in the middle ventricle of the brain. And when the term 'imaginative' is applied to the faculty which apprehends shape, this is said to reside in the foremost part of the brain. There is no contradiction in the fact that the retentive and memorative faculties should both be in the posterior part of the brain, for retaining and memory are two in function, but one in their substratum.

And what appears from the theory of the ancients is that the imaginative faculty in the animal is that which determines that the wolf should be an enemy of the sheep and that the sheep should be a friend of the lamb, for the imaginative faculty is a perceptive ones and it necessarily possesses judgement, and there is no need to introduce another faculty. What Avicenna says would only be possible if the imaginative faculty were not perceptive; and there is no sense in adding another faculty to the imaginative in the animal, especially in an animal which possesses many arts by nature, for its representations are not derived from the senses and seem to be perceptions intermediary between the intellectual and the sensible forms, and the question of these forms is concisely treated in De sensu et sensato, and we shall leave this subject here and return to Ghazali's objections against the philosophers.

Ghazali says:

The first proof is that they say that intellectual cognitions in here in human souls, and are limited and have units which cannot be divided, and therefore their substratum must also be indivisible and every body is divisible, and this proves that the substratum of the cognitions is something incorporeal. One can put this into a logical form according to the figures of logic, but the easiest way is to say that if the substratum of knowledge is a divisible body, then the knowledge which inheres in it must be divisible too; but the inherent knowledge is not divisible, and therefore the substratum is not a body: and this is a mixed hypothetical syllogism in which the consequent is denied, from which there follows the denial of the antecedent in all cases; and there is no doubt about the validity of this figure of the syllogism, nor again about its premisses, for the major is that everything inherent in something divisible is necessarily divisible, the divisibility of its substratum being assumed, and this is a major about which one cannot have any doubt. The minor is that knowledge as a unity inheres in man and is not divided, for its infinite division is impossible, and if it is limited, then it comprises no doubt units which cannot be divided; and in short, when we know a thing, we cannot assume that a part can cease and a part remain, because it has no parts.

The objection rests on two points. It may be said:

'How will you refute those who say that the substratum of knowledge is an atom in space which cannot be divided, as is known from the theory of the theologians?' And then there remains nothing to be said against it but to question its possibility, and to ask how all that is known can exist in one atom, whereas all the atoms which surround this one are deprived of it although they are near to it. But to question its possibility has no value, as one can also turn it against the doctrine of the philosophers, by asking how the soul can be one single thing which is not in space or outside the body, either continuous with it or separated from it. However, we should not stress this first point, for the discussion of the problem of the atom is lengthy, ' and the philosophers have geometrical proofs against it whose discussion is intricate, and one of their many arguments is to ask: 'Does one of the sides of an atom between two atoms touch the identical spot the other side touches or not? ' The former is impossible, because its consequence would be that the two sides coincided, whereas a thing that is in contact with another is in contact, and the latter implies the affirmation of a plurality and divisibility, and the solution of this difficulty is long and we need not go deeper into it and will now turn to the other point.

Your affirmation that everything which inheres in a body must be divisible is contradicted by what you say of the estimative faculty of the sheep where the hostility of the wolf

is concerned, for in the judgement of one single thing no division can be imagined, since hostility has no part, so that one part of it might be perceived and another neglected. Still, according to you this perception takes place in a bodily faculty, and the souls of animals are impressed on their bodies and do not survive death, and all the philosophers agree about this. And if it is possible for you to regard as divisible that which is perceived by the five senses, by the common sense and by the faculty which retains the forms, this is not possible for you in the case of those intentions which are not supposed to be in matter.

And if it be said: 'Absolute hostility, abstracted from matter, is not perceived by the sheep, but only the hostility of the definite individual wolf connected with its bodily individuality and shape, and only the rational faculty perceives universal realities abstracted from matter'-we answer that the sheep perceives, indeed, the colour and shape of the wolf and then its hostility, and if the colour is impressed on the faculty of sight and the same happens to the shape, and it is divided through the division of the substratum of sight, I ask, 'through what does the sheep perceive the hostility? If through a body, hostility is divided, and I should like to know what this perception is when it is divided, whether it is a perception of a part of the hostility-and how can it have a part? -or whether every part is a perception of the hostility and the hostility is known many times as its perception is fixed in every part of the substratum. “ And thus this problem is a difficulty for their proof and must be solved.

And if it is said: 'This is an argument against the intelligibles, but the intelligibles cannot be denied, ' and as long as you cannot call in question the premisses that knowledge cannot be divided and that what cannot be divided cannot be in a divisible body, you can have no doubt about the consequence'--the answer is: 'We have only written this book to show the incoherence and contradictions in the doctrine of the philosophers, and such a contradiction arises over this question, since through it either your theory about the rational soul is refuted or your theory about the estimative faculty.

Further we say that this contradiction shows that they are not conscious of the point, which confounds their syllogism, and it may well be that the origin of their confusion lies in their statement that knowledge is impressed on a body in the way colour is impressed on a coloured thing, the colour being divided with the division of the coloured thing, so that knowledge must be divided by the division of its substratum. The mistake lies in the term 'impression', since it may well be that the relation of knowledge to its substratum is not like that of colour to the coloured object so that it could be regarded as being spread over it, diffused over its sides and divisible with it; knowledge might well be related to its substratum in another way which would not allow its divisibility although its substratum was divisible; yes, its relation to it might be like that of perception of the hostility to the body, ; and the relations of the attributes to their substrata do not all follow the same pattern and they are not all known to us with all their details so that we could rely on our knowledge, and to judge such a question without a perfect comprehension of all the details of the relation is an unreliable judgement. In short, we do not deny that what the philosophers say gives reasonable and predominant reasons for belief, but we deny that it is known by an evidence which excludes error and doubt. And it is in this way that a doubt about it may be raised.

When the premisses which the philosophers use are taken in an indefinite way the consequence Ghazali draws is valid. For our assertion that every attribute inhering in a body which is divisible is divisible through the divisibility of the body can be understood in two ways. First it may be meant that the definition of every part of this attribute which inheres in the particular body is identical with the definition of the whole: for instance the white inhering in the white body, for every part of whiteness which inheres in the individual body has one and the same definition as the whole of whiteness in this body. 'Secondly, it may be meant that the attribute is attached to the body without a specific shape, ' and this attribute again is divided through the division of the body not in such a way that the intension of the definition of the whole is identical with the intension of the definition of every part-for instance, the faculty of sight which exists in one who sees-but in such a way that it is subject to a difference in intensity according to the greater and lesser receptivity of the substratum, and therefore the power of sight is stronger in the healthy and the young than in the sick and the old. What is common to those two classes is that they are composed of individuals, i. e. that they are divided by quantity and not by quiddity, i. e. that either the uniqueness of the definition and the quiddity remains or that they are annulled. less than Those which can be divided quantitatively into any particular part are one by definition and quiddity and those which cannot be divided into any individual part whatever only differ from the first class in a degree of intensity, for the action of the part which has vanished is not identical with that of the part which remains, since the action of the part which has vanished in weak sight does not act in the same way as the weak sight. b Those two classes have it in common that colour also cannot be divided by the division of its substratum into any particular part whatever and keep its definition absolutely intact, but the division terminates in a particular part in which the colour, when it is distributed to it, disappears. ? The only thing which keeps its distribution always intact is the nature of the continuous in so far as it is continuous, i. e. the form of continuity.

When this premiss is assumed in this way, namely by holding that everything which is divisible in either of these two classes has a body as its substratum, it is self-evident, and the converse, that everything which is in a body is divisible according to one of these two classes, is evident too; and when this is verified, then the converse of its opposite is true also, namely that what is not divisible according to one of these two classes cannot be in a body. If to these premisses there is added further what is evident in the case of the universal intelligibles, namely that they are not divisible in either of the two ways, since they are not individual forms, it is clear that there follows from this that neither is the substratum of these intelligibles a body, nor is the faculty which has the power to produce them a faculty in a body; and it follows that their substratum is a spiritual faculty which perceives itself and other things.

But Ghazali took first the one of these two classes and denied that the universal intelligibles belong to it, and then made his objection by means of the second class, which exists in the faculty of sight and in the imaginative faculty, and in doing this he committed a sophism; but the science of the soul is too profound and too elevated to be apprehended by dialectics.

Besides, Ghazali has not adduced the argument in the manner in which Avicenna brought it out, for Avicenna built his argument only on the following: If the intelligibles inhered in a body, they would have to be either in an indivisible part of it, or in a divisible part. Then he refuted the possibility of their being in an indivisible part of the body, and after this refutation he denied that, if the intellect inhered in a body, it could inhere in an indivisible part of it. Then he denied that it could inhere in a divisible part of it and so he denied that it could inhere in body at all.

And when Ghazali denied one of these two divisions he said it was not impossible that there might be another form of relation between the intellect and the body than this, but it is quite clear that if the intellect is related to the body there can exist only two kinds of relation, either to a divisible or to an indivisible substratum.

This proof can be completed; by saying that the intellect is not attached to any animal faculty in the way the form is attached to its substratum, for the denial of its being attached to the body implies necessarily the denial of its being attached to any animal faculty which is attached to the body. For, if the intellect were attached to any of the animal faculties, it would as Aristotle says be unable to act except through this faculty, but then this faculty would not perceive the intellect. This is the argument on which Aristotle himself bases his proof that the intellect is separate.

We shall now mention the second objection which Ghazali raises against the second proof of the philosophers, but we must first observe that their proofs, when they are taken out of their context in those sciences to which they belong, can have at the most the value of dialectical arguments. The only aim of this book of ours is therefore to ascertain the value of the arguments in it which are ascribed to the two parties, and to show to which of the two disputants the terms 'incoherence' and 'contradiction' would be applied with greater justification.

The second proof is that the philosophers say:

'If the knowledge of one single intellectual notion, i. e. a notion abstracted from matter, were impressed on matter as accidents are impressed on bodily substances, their division would necessarily follow the division of the body, as has been shown before. And if it is not impressed on matter nor spread out over it, and the term 'impression' is rejected, let us then use another term and say, 'Is there a relation between knowledge and the knower?'

It is absurd to deny the relation, for if there did not exist a relation, why would it be better to know something than not to know it? And if there is a relation, this relation can take place in three ways; either there will be a relation to every part of the substratum, or to some parts to the exclusion of others, or to no part whatever. It is false to say that the notion has no relation to any individual part of the substratum; for if there is no relation to the units, there can be no relation to the aggregate, since a collection of disconnected units is not an aggregate, but itself disconnected. It is false to say that there might be a relation to some part, for the part that was not related would have nothing to do with this notion and therefore would not come into the present discussion. And it is false to say that every part of the substratum might be related to it, for if it were related in all its parts to this notion in its totality, then each single part of the substratum would possess not a part of the notion but the notion in its totality, and this notion would therefore be repeated infinitely in act; on the other hand, if every part were related to this notion in a special way, different from the relation of another part, then this notion would be divided in its content; and we have shown that the content of a notion, one and the same in every respect, is indivisible; if the relation, however, of each part were related to another part of the notion, then this notion would clearly be divided, and this is impossible. And from this it is clear that the things perceived which are in the five senses are only images of the particular divided forms, and that the meaning of perception is the arrival of the image of the thing perceived in the soul of the perceiver, so that every part of the image of the thing perceived is related to a part of the bodily organ.

And the objection against this is what has been said before. For by replacing the term 'impression' by 'relation' the difficulty is not removed which arises over the question what of the hostility of the wolf is impressed on the estimative faculty of the sheep, as we have mentioned; for the perception is no doubt related to it, and with this relation there must occur what you have said, and hostility is not a measurable thing possessing a measurable quantity, so that its image could be impressed on a measurable body and its parts related to the parts of that body, and the fact that the shape of the wolf is measurable does not remove the difficulty, for the sheep perceives something else as well as the shape, namely the adversity, opposition, and hostility, and this hostility, added to the shape through the hostility, has no magnitude, and still the sheep perceives it through a body having magnitude; and that is necessarily a difficulty in this proof as well as in the first.

And if someone says: 'Do you not refute these proofs by asserting that knowledge inheres in a spatial indivisible body, namely the atom?' we answer: 'No, for the discussion of the atom is connected with geometrical questions the solution and discussion of which is long and arduous. Further, such a theory would not remove the difficulty, for the power and the will ought then also to be in this atom. For man acts, and this acting cannot be imagined without power and will, which would also be in this atom; and the power to write resides in the hand and the fingers, but knowledge of it does not reside in the hand, for it does not cease when the hand is cut off; nor is the will in the hand, for often a man wants to write, when his hand has withered and he is not able to do so, not because his will has gone, but because his power has. “

I say:

This discussion is not an independent one, but only a complement to the first, for in the first discussion it was merely assumed that knowledge is not divided by the division of its substratum, and here an attempt is made to prove this by making use of a division into three categories. And he repeats the same objection, which presented itself to him because he did not carry out the division of matter in the two senses in which it can be taken. For when the philosophers denied that the intellect could be divided through the division of its substratum in the way in which accidents are divided through the division of their substratum, and there exists another way of division in body which must be applied to the bodily functions of perception, they had a doubt about these faculties. The proof is only completed by denying that the intellect can be divided in either of these ways, and by showing that everything which exists in a body is necessarily divisible in one of them.

For of those things in the body which are divided in this second way, i. e. which are not by definition divisible through the division of their substratum' it was sometimes doubted whether they are separable from their substratum or not. For we see it happen that most parts of the substratum decay and still this kind of existence, i. e. the individual perception, does not decay; and it was thought that it might happen that, just as the form does not disappear through the disappearance of one or more parts of its substratum, in the same way the form might not disappear when the whole was destroyed, and that the decay of the act of the form through its substratum was similar to the decay of the act of the artisan through the deterioration of his tools. And therefore Aristotle says that if an old man had the eye of a young man, he would see as well as the young one, meaning that it is thought that the decrepitude which occurs to the sight of the old man does not happen because of the decay of the faculty but because of the decay of the organs. And he tries to prove this by the inactivity of the organ or the greater part of it in sleep, fainting, drunkenness, and the illnesses through which the perceptions of the senses decay, whereas it is quite certain that the faculties are not destroyed in these conditions. And this is still more evident in those animals which live when they are cut in two; and most plants have this peculiarity, although they do not possess the faculty of perceptions

But the discussion of the soul is very obscure, and therefore God has only given knowledge of it to those who are deeply learned; and therefore God, answering the question of the masses about this problem, says that this kind of question is not their concern, saying: 'They will ask thee of the spirit. Say: “The spirit comes at the bidding of my Lord, and ye are given but a little knowledge thereof. “ 'And the comparison of death with sleep in this question is an evident proof that the soul survives, since the activity of the soul ceases in sleep through the inactivity of its organ, but the existence of the soul does not cease, and therefore it is necessary that its condition in death should be like its condition in sleep, for the parts follow the same rule? And this is a proof which all can understand and which is suitable to be believed by the masses, and will show the learned the way in which the survival of the soul is ascertained. And this is evident from the Divine Words: 'God takes to Himself souls at the time of their death; and those who do not die in their sleep.

Ghazali says:

The third proof is that they say that, if knowledge resided in a part of the body, the knower would be this part to the exclusion of all the other parts of man, but it is said of man that it is he who knows, and knowledge is an attribute of man in his totality without reference to any specified place. ' But this is nonsense, for he is spoken of as seeing and hearing and tasting, and the animals also are described in this way; but this does not mean that the perception of the senses is not in the body, it is only a metaphorical expression like the expression that someone is in Baghdad although he is in a part of the whole of Baghdad, not in the whole of Baghdad, the reference however being made to the whole.

When it is conceded that the intellect is not related to one of man's organs—and this has already been proved, since it is not self-evident—it follows that its substratum is not a body, and that our assertion that man knows is not analogous to our assertion that he sees. For since it is self-evident that he sees through a particular organ, it is clear that when we refer sight to man absolutely, the expression is allowed according to the custom of the Arabs and other people.; And since there is no particular organ for the intellect, it is clear that, when we say of him that he knows, this does not mean that a part of him knows. However, how he knows is not clear by itself, for it does not appear that there is an organ or a special place in an organ which possesses this special faculty, as is the case with the imaginative faculty and the cognitive and memorative faculties, the localization of which in parts of the brain is known.

Ghazali says:

The fourth proof is that, if knowledge inherited for instance in a part of the heart or the brain, then necessarily ignorance, its opposite, might reside in another part of the heart or the brain, and it would then be possible that a man should both know and not know one and the same thing at the same time. And since this is impossible, it is proved that the place of ignorance and the place of knowledge are identical, and that this place is one single place in which it is impossible to bring opposites together. But if this place were divisible, it would not be impossible that ignorance should reside in one part of it and knowledge in another, for a thing's being in one place is not contradicted by its opposite's being in another, just as there may be pie baldness in one and the same horse, and black and white in a single eye, but in two spots. This, however, does not follow for the senses, as there is no opposite to their perception; but sometimes they perceive and sometimes not, and there exists between them the sole opposition of being and not being, and we can surely say that someone perceives through some parts, for instance the eye and the ear, and not through the other parts of his body; and there is no contradiction in this. And you cannot evade this difficulty by saying that knowing is the opposite of not-knowing, and that judgment is something common to the whole body; for it is impossible that the judgment should be in any other place but in the place of its cause, and the knower is the place in which the knowledge resides; and if the term is applied to the whole, this is a metaphor, as when we say that a man is in Baghdad, although he is in a part of it, and when we say that a man sees although we know with certainty that the judgment of his sight does not reside in his foot and hand but is peculiar to his eye. The judgments are opposed to each other in the same way as their causes, and the judgments are limited to the place where the causes reside. And one cannot evade the difficulty by saying that the place disposed to receive the knowledge and the ignorance of man is one single place in which they can oppose each other, for according to you theologians every body which possesses life can receive knowledge and ignorance, and no other condition but life is imposed, and all the parts of the body are according to you equivalent so far as the reception of knowledge is concerned.

The objection to this is that it can be turned against you philosophers in the matter of desire, longing, and will; these things exist in animals as well as in men, and are things impressed on the body, but it is impossible that one should flee from the object one longs for and that repugnance and craving in regard to one and the same thing should exist in him together, the desire being in one place and the repugnance in another. Still, that does not prove that they do not inhere in bodies, for these potencies, although they are many and distributed over different organs, have one thing that joins them together, namely the sou1, which is common both to animal and to man; and since this cohesive entity forms a unity, the mutually contradictory relations enter into relation with it in turns. This does not prove that the soul is not impressed upon the body, as is quite clear in the case of animals.

The only logical consequence of what he says here in the name of the philosophers is that knowledge does not inhere in the body in the way colour and in general all accidents do; it does not, however, follow that it does not inhere in body at all. For the impossibility that the place of knowledge should receive the knowledge and want of knowledge of a thing necessarily demonstrates its identity, since opposites cannot inhere in one and the same place, and this kind of impossibility is common to all attributes, whether perceptive or nonperceptive. But what is peculiar to the receptivity of knowledge is that it can perceive opposites together; and this can only happen through an indivisible apprehension in an indivisible substratum, for he who judges is of necessity one, and therefore it is said that knowledge of opposites is one and the same. And this kind of receptivity is of necessity proper to the soul alone. What is indeed proved by the philosophers is that this is the condition of the common sense when it exercises its judgement over the five senses, and this common sense is according to the philosophers something bodily. And therefore there is in this argument no proof that the intellect does not inhere in a body, for we have already said that there are two kinds of inherence, the inherence of non-perceptive attributes and that of perceptive.

And the objection Ghazali makes here is true, namely that the appetitive soul does not tend to opposites at the same time although it resides in the body. I do not know of any philosopher who has used this argument' to establish the survival of the soul, unless he paid no attention to the philosophical doctrine that it is the characteristic of every perceptive faculty that in its perception two opposites cannot be joined, just as it is the peculiarity of contraries outside the soul that they cannot be together in one and the same substratum; and this is what the perceptive potencies have in common with the non-perceptive. It is proper to the perceptive faculties to judge coexisting contraries, one of them being known through knowledge of the others and it is proper to non-psychical potencies to be divided through the division of the body so that contraries can be in one body at the same time, though not in the same part. And since the soul is a substratum that cannot be divided in this way, contraries cannot be in it together, i. e. in two parts of the substratum.

Such arguments are all arguments of people who have not grasped the views of the philosophers about this problem. How little does a man understand, who gives it as a proof of the soul's survival that it does not judge two opposites at the same time, for from this it follows only that the substratum of the soul is one, and not divided in the way the substratum of the accidents is divided; and it does not follow from the proof that the substratum is not divided in the way the substratum of the accidents is divided that the substratum is not divided at all.

Ghazali says:

The fifth proof is: If the intellect perceived the intelligibles through a bodily organ, it would not know its own self. But the consequent is impossible; therefore it knows its own self and the antecedent is impossible. We answer: It is conceded that from the exclusion of the contrary of the consequent the contrary of the antecedent follows, 'but only when the consequence of the antecedent has been previously established, and we say we do not concede the necessity of the consequence; and what is your proof?

And if it is said that the proof is that, because sight is in the body, sight does not attach itself to sight, and the seeing is not seen nor the hearing heard, and so on with respect to the other senses; and if the intellect, too, could only perceive through body it could not perceive itself, but the intellect thinks itself just as it thinks other things, and it thinks that it thinks itself and that it thinks other things—we answer: What you assert is wrong on two points. The first is that according to us sight could be attached to itself, just as one and the same knowledge can be knowledge of other things and of itself, only in the usual course of events this does not happen; but according to us the interruption of the usual course of events is possible. The second, and this is the stronger argument, is for us to say that we concede this for the senses; but why, if this is impossible for some senses, is it impossible for others, and why is it impossible that there should be a difference in the behaviour of the senses with respect to perception although they are all in the body? just as sight differs from touch through the fact that touch, like taste, can only come to perceive by being in contact with the object touched, whereas separation from the object is a condition of sight, so that when the eyelids cover the eye it does not see the colour of the eyelid, ' not being at a distance from it. , But this difference does not necessitate that they should differ in their need to be in a body, and it is not impossible that there should be among the senses something called intellect that differs from the others in that it perceives itself.

I say:

The first objection, that the usual course of events might be interrupted so that sight might see itself, is an argument of the utmost sophistry and imposture, and we have discussed it already. As to the second objection, that it is not impossible that a bodily perception should perceive itself, this has a certain plausibility, but when the motive is known which led the philosophers to their assertion, then the impossibility of this supposition becomes clear, for perception is something which exists between the agent and the patient, and it consists of the perceiver and the perceived. It is impossible that a sense should be in one and the same respect its own agent and patient, and the duality of agent and patient in sense arises, as concerns its act, from the side of the form and, as concerns its passivity, from the side of the matter. But no composite can think itself, because if this were so, its essence would be different from that by which it thinks, for it would think only with a part of its essence; and since intellect and intelligible are identical, I if the composite thought its essence, the composite would become a simple, and the whole the part, and all this is impossible. When this is established here in this way, it is only a dialectical proof; but in the proper demonstrative order, i. e. preceded by the conclusions which ought to precede it, it can become a necessary one.

The sixth proof is that they say that, if the intellect perceived through a bodily organ like sight, it would be just as incapable of perceiving its own organ as the other senses; but it perceives the brain and the heart and what is claimed to be its organ, so that it is proved that it has no organ or substratum, for otherwise it would not perceive the brain and the heart.

We have the same kind of objection against this as against the preceding proof. We say it is not inconceivable that sight should perceive its subject, for that it does not perceive it is only what happens in the usual course of events. Or shall we rather say it is not impossible that the senses should differ individually in this respect, although it is common to them all to be impressed on bodies, as has been said before? And why do you say that what exists in a body cannot perceive the body, and how do you know its impossibility in all cases, since to make an infinite generalization from a finite number of individual cases has no logical validity?

In logic it is stated, as an example of an inference made from one particular cause or many particular causes to all causes, that when we say, after learning it by induction through observing all the animals, 'all animals move the lower jaw in masticating', the crocodile has been neglected, since it moves the upper. 'The philosophers have only made the induction from the five senses, and found this known common feature in them and then judged that all the senses must be like this. But perhaps the intellect is another type of sense which stands in regard to the other senses as the crocodile stands to the other animals, and in this case there would be some senses which could perceive their substratum although they were corporeal and divisible, and other senses which could not do this; just as the senses can be divided into those which perceive the thing perceived without contact, like sight, and those which cannot perceive without contact, like taste and touch. Although, therefore, what the philosophers affirm creates a certain presumption, it does not afford reliable evidence.

But it may be said by the philosophers: We do not merely point to the enumeration of the senses but lay stress on a proof, and say that if the heart or the brain were the soul of man, he could never be unaware of them, and never for a moment not think of them, just as he is never unconscious of himself; for nobody's self is ever unaware of itself, but it is always affirming itself in its soul, but as long as man has not heard any one speaking about the heart and the brain or has not observed them through the dissection of another man, he does not perceive them and does not believe in their existence. But if the intellect inherited in the body, it would necessarily either think or not think of this body continually; neither the one nor the other is the case, but it sometimes thinks of its body and sometimes does not. This can be proved by the fact that the perception which inheres in the substratum perceives that substratum either because of a relation between itself and the substratum—and one cannot imagine another relation between them than that of inherence—and then the perception must perceive its substratum continually, or this relation will not suffice; and in this case the perception can never perceive its substratum, since there can never occur another relation between them; just as because of the fact that it thinks itself, it thinks itself always and is not sometimes aware, sometimes unaware of itself.

But we answer: As long as a man is conscious of himself and aware of his soul, he is also aware of his body; indeed, the name, form, and shape of the heart are not well defined for him, but he regards his soul and self as a body to such an extent that he regards even his clothes and his house as belonging to his self, ' but the soul or the self which the philosophers mention has no relation to the house or the clothes. This primary attribution of the soul to the body is necessary for man, and his unconsciousness of the form and name of his soul is like his unconsciousness of the seat of smell, which is two excrescences in the foremost part of the brain resembling the nipples of the breast; still, everyone knows that he perceives smell with his body, but he does not represent the shape of the seat of this perception, nor does he define this seat, although he perceives that it is nearer to his head than to his heels, and, in relation to the whole of his head, nearer to the inside of his nose than to the inside of his ear. Man knows his soul in the same way, and he knows that the essence through which the soul exists is nearer to his heart and breast than to his foot, and he supposes that his soul will persist when he loses his foot, but he does not regard it as possible that his soul should persist when his heart is taken away. But what the philosophers say about his being sometimes aware of his body, sometimes not, is not true.

I say:

As to his objection against the assertion that a body or a bodily faculty cannot know itself, because the senses are perceptive faculties in bodies and do not know themselves, this assertion indeed is based on induction, and induction does not provide absolute evidence. ; As to Ghazali's comparison of this to the induction which establishes that all animals move their lower jaw, this comparison is only valid in part. For the induction that all animals move their lower jaw is an imperfect one, because not all animals have been enumerated; whereas the man who assumes that no sense perceives itself has certainly made a complete induction, for there are no other senses than the five. ' But the judgement based on the observation of the senses that no perceptive faculty is in a body resembles the induction by which it is judged that all animals move their lower jaw; for, just as in the latter case not all the animals, in the former not all the perceptive faculties are enumerated?

As to his saying in the name of the philosophers that if the intellect were in the body, it would, when it perceives, perceive the body in which it is, this is a silly and inane assertion which is not made by the philosophers. It would only follow if everyone who perceived a thing had to perceive it together with its definition; but that is not so, for we perceive the soul and many other things without perceiving their definition. If, indeed, we perceived the definition of the soul together with its existence, we should of necessity know through its definition that it was in the body or that it was incorporeal; for, if it were in the body, the body would be necessarily included in its definition, and if it were not in the body, the body would not be included in the definition. And this is what one must believe about this problem.

As for Ghazali's objection, that a man knows of his soul that it is in his body although he cannot specify in which part-this indeed is true, for the ancients had different opinions about its seat, but our knowledge that the soul is in the body does not mean that we know that it receives its existence through being in the body; this is not self-evident, and is a question about which the philosophers ancient as well as modern differ, for if the body serves as an instrument for the soul, the soul does not receive its existence through the body; but if the body is like a substratum for its accident; then the soul can only exist through the body.

Ghazali says:

The seventh proof. The philosophers say that the faculties which perceive through the bodily organs become tired through the long-continued performance of the act of perception, since the continuation of their action destroys the mixture of their elements and tires them, and in the same way excessive stimulation of the perceptive faculties makes them weak and often even corrupts them, so that afterwards they are not able to perceive something lighter and more delicate; so for instance a loud voice and a strong light hinder or corrupt the perception of a low voice and delicate objects of sight afterwards; and in fact the man who tastes something extremely sweet does not afterwards taste something less sweet. But the intellectual faculty behaves in the opposite way; a long observation of intelligibles does not tire it, and the perception of important necessary truths gives it strength for the perception of easy observations and does not weaken it, and if sometimes tiredness may befall it, this happens because it makes use of and gets assistance from the imaginative faculty, so that the organ of the imaginative faculty becomes weary and no longer serves the intellect.

Our objection to this follows the same line as before, and we say that it may well be that the bodily senses differ in this; and what is true for some of them need not be true for others-yes, it may be that the bodies themselves may differ and that some of them may grow weak through a certain type of movement, whereas others may grow strong through a certain type of movement, not weak, and that when this type of movement has made an impression on them, it causes a renewal of strength in them so that they do not perceive any new impression made on them. And all this is possible, since a judgement valid for some is not valid for all.

I say:

This is an old proof of the philosophers, and it amounts to this: that when the intellect perceives a strong intelligible and afterwards turns to the perception of a slighter, it perceives it more easily, and this shows that it does not perceive through the body, since we find that the bodily perceptive faculties are impressed by strong sensations in a way which lessens their power of perception, so that after strong sensations they cannot perceive things of slight intensity. The reason is that through every form which inheres in a body the body receives an impression, because this form is necessarily mixed with it; for otherwise this form would not be a form in a body. Now since the philosophers found that the receptacle of the intelligibles was not impressed by the intelligibles, they decided that this receptacle was not a body.

And against this there is no objection. For every substratum which is impressed congruously or incongruously by the inference of the form in it, be it little or much, is necessarily corporeal, and the reverse is also true, namely that everything corporeal is impressed by the form which is realized in it, and the magnitude of the impression depends on the magnitude of the mixing of the form and the body. And the cause of this is that every becoming is the consequence of a change, and if a form could inhere in a body without a change it might happen that, there could be a form whose realization did not impress its substratum.

The eighth proof is that the philosophers say: 'All the faculties of parts of the body become weaker, when they have reached the end of their growth at forty years and later; so sight and hearing and the other faculties become weaker, but the intellectual faculty becomes strong in most cases only after this age. And the loss of insight in the intelligibles, through illness in the body and through dotage in old age, does not argue against this, for as long as it is proved that at certain times the intellect is strong notwithstanding the weakness of the body, it is clear that it exists by itself, and its decline at the time of the declining of the body does not imply that it exists through the body, for from a negative consequent alternating with a positive consequent there is no inference. For we say that, if the intellectual faculty exists through the body, then the weakness of the body will weaken it at all times, but the consequent is false and therefore the antecedent is false; but, when we say the consequent is true, sometimes it does not follow that the antecedent is true. Further, the cause of this is that the soul has an activity through itself, when nothing hinders it and it is not preoccupied with something. For the soul has two kinds of action, one in relation to the body, namely to govern and rule it, and one in relation to its principles and essence, and this is to perceive the intelligibles, and these two kinds of action hinder each other and are opposed to each other, and when it is occupied with the one action, it turns away from the other and it cannot combine both.

And its occupations through the body are sense-perception and imagination and the passions, anger, fear, grief, and pain, but when it sets out to think the intelligible it neglects all these other things. Yes, sense-perception by itself sometimes hinders the apprehension and contemplation of the intellect without the occurrence of any damage to the organ of the intellect or to the intellect itself, and the reason for this is that the soul is prevented from one action through being occupied with another, and therefore during pain, disease, and fear—for this also is a disease of the brain—intellectual speculation leaves off. And why should it be impossible that through this difference in these two kinds of action in the soul they should hinder each other, since even two acts of the same kind may impede each other, for fear is stunned by pain and desire by anger and the observation of one intelligible by that of another? And a sign that the illness which enters the body does not occur in the substratum of the sciences is that, when the sick man recovers, he does not need to learn the sciences anew, but the disposition of his soul becomes the same as it was before, and those sciences come back to him exactly as they were without any new learning.

The objection is that we say that there may be innumerable causes for the increase and the decrease of the faculties, for some of the faculties increase in power at the beginning of life, some in middle life, some at the end, and the same is the case with the intellect and only a topical proof can be claimed. And it is not impossible that smell and sight should differ in this, that smell becomes stronger after forty years and sight weaker, although they both inhere in the body, just as those faculties differ in animals; for in some animals smell is stronger, in others hearing and sight because of the difference in their temperaments, and it is not possible to ascertain these facts absolutely. Nor is it impossible that the temperament of the organs also should differ with individual persons and conditions. One of the reasons why the decay of sight is earlier than the decay of the intellect is that sight is earlier, for a man sees when he is first created, Whereas his intellect is not mature before fifteen years or more, ' according to the different opinions we find people to have about this problem; and it is even said that greyness comes earlier to the hair on the head than to that on the beard, because the hair on the head grows earlier. If one goes deeper into these causes and does not simply refer them to the usual course of nature, one cannot base any sure knowledge thereon, because the possibilities for certain faculties to become stronger and others weaker are unlimited, and nothing evident results from this.

When it is assumed that the substratum of the perceptive faculties is the natural heat, and that natural heat suffers diminution after forty years, then intellect must behave in the same way in this respect; that is, if its substratum is natural heat, then it is necessary that the intellect should become old as the natural heat becomes old. If, however, it is thought that the substrata for the intellect and the senses are different, then it is not necessary that both should be similar in their lifetimes.

Ghazali says:

The ninth proof is that the philosophers say: How can man be attributed to body with its accidents, for those bodies are continually in dissolution, and nutrition replaces what is dissolved, so that when we see a child after its separation from its mother's womb fall ill a few times and become thin and then fat again and grow up, we may safely say that after forty years no particle remains of what was there when his mother was delivered of it. Indeed, the child began its existence out of the parts of the sperm alone, but nothing of the particles of the sperm remains in it; no, all this is dissolved and has changed into something else, and then this body has become another. Still we say that the identical man remains and his notions remain with him from the beginning of his youth, although all the bodily parts have changed. And this shows that the soul has an existence outside the body and that the body is its organ!

The objection is that this is contradicted by what happens to animals and plants, for when the condition of their being small is compared to the condition of their being big, their identity is asserted equally with the identity of man; still, it does not prove that they have an incorporeal existence. And what is said about knowledge is refuted by the retention of imaginative forms, for they remain in the boy from youth to old age, although the particles of his brain change.

I say

None of the ancient philosophers used this proof for the survival of the soul; they only used it to show that in individuals there is an essence which remains from birth to death and that things are not in an eternal flux, as was believed by many ancients who denied necessary knowledge, so that Plato was forced to introduce the forms. There is no sense in occupying ourselves with this, and the objection of Ghazali against this proof is valid.

The tenth proof is that they say that the intellectual faculty perceives the general intellectual universals which the theologians call modes, so that man in general is apprehended (whereas the senses perceive the individuality of a definite man), and this universal differs from the man who is perceived by the senses, for what is perceived by the senses is in a particular place, and his colour, size, and position are particular, but the intelligible absolute man is abstracted from all these things; however, in him there is everything to which the term 'man' is applied, although he has not the colour, size, position, or place, of the man perceived by the senses, and even a man who may exist in the future is subsumed under him; indeed, if man disappeared there would remain this reality of man in the intellect, in abstraction from all these particular things.

And in this way, from everything perceived by the senses as an individual, there results for the intellect a reality, universal and abstracted from matters and from positions, so that its attributes can be divided into, what is essential (as, for example, corporeity for plants and animals, and animality for man) and into what is accidental (like whiteness and length for man), and this reality is judged as being essential or accidental for the genus of man and plant and of everything not apprehended as an individual perceived by the senses, and so it is shown that the universal, in abstraction from sensible attachments, is intelligible and invariable in the mind of man.

This intelligible universal cannot be pointed at, , nor has it a position or size, and in its abstraction from position and matter it is either related to its object (which is impossible, for its object has position and place and size) or to its subject (which is the rational soul), and therefore the soul cannot have a position or be pointed at or have a size, for if it had all these things what inheres in it would also possess them. z

And the objection is that the idea of a universal which you philosophers assume as existing in the intellect is not accepted by us.; According to us nothing inheres in the intellect but what inheres in the senses, only it inheres in the senses as an aggregate which they cannot separate, whereas the intellect is able to do so. Further, when it is separated, the single part separated from its attachments is just as much an individual in the intellect as the aggregate with its attachments, only this invariable part' in the mind is related to the thing thought oft and to similar things by one single relation, and in this way it is said to be a universal. For there is in the intellect the forma of the individual thing thought of which is first perceived by the senses, and the relation of this form to all the individuals of this genus which the senses perceive is one and the same. If, after seeing one man, someone sees another, no new form occurs to him, as happens when he sees a horse after seeing a man, for then two different forms occur in him. A similar thing happens to the senses themselves, for when a man sees water, one form occurs in his imagination, and if he sees blood afterwards, another form occurs, but if he sees another water, no other form occurs, but the form of the water which is impressed on his imagination is an image for all individual stretches of water, and for this reason it is often thought to be a universal.

And in the same way, when for instance he sees a hand, there occurs in his imagination and in his intellect the natural position of its parts, namely the surface of the hand and the division of the fingers in it and the ending of the fingers in the nails, and besides this there occur to him the smallness or bigness of the hand and its colour, and if he sees another hand which resembles the first in everything, no other new form occurs to him; no, this second observation, when a new thing occurs, does not produce an impression on his imagination, just as, when he sees the water after having previously seen it in one and the same vessel and in the same quantity, no new impression is produced. And he may see another hand, different in colour and size, and then there occurs to him another colour and another size, but there does not happen to him a new form of hand, for the small black hand has in common with the big white hand the position of its parts, differing from it in colour, and of that in which the second hand agrees with the first no new form is produced, since both forms are identical, but the form of the things in which they differ is renewed. And this is the meaning of the universal both in sensation and in intellect, for when the intellect apprehends the form of the body of an animal, then it does not acquire a new form of corporeity from a plant, just as in imagination the form of two stretches of water perceived at two different times need not be renewed; and the same happens with all things that have something in common.

But this does not permit one to assert the existence of a universal which has no position whatever, although the intellect can judge that there exists something that cannot be pointed at and has no spatial position; for instance, it can assert the existence of the creator of the universe, with the understanding, however, that such a creator cannot be imagined to exist in matter, and in this kind of reality the abstraction from matter is in the intelligible itself and is not caused by the intellect and by thinking. But as to the forms acquired from material things, this happens in the way we have mentioned.

The meaning of the philosophical theory he relates is that the intellect apprehends, in relation to the individuals which have a common species, a single entity, in which they participate and which is the quiddity of this species without this entity's being divided into the things in which the individuals qua individuals are divided, like space and position and the matters through which they receive their plurality. This entity must be ingenerable and incorruptible' and is not destroyed by the disappearance of one of the individuals in which it exists, and the sciences therefore are eternal and not corruptible except by accident, that is to say by their connexion with Zaid and Amr; that is, only through this connexion are they corruptible, and not in themselves, since if they were transitory in themselves this connexion would exist in their essence and they could not constitute an identity. And the philosophers say that, if this is established for the intellect and the intellect is in the soul, it is necessary that the soul should not be. divisible in the way in which individuals are divisible, and that the soul in Amr and in Zaid should be one single entity. And this proof is strong in the case of the intellect, because in the intellect there is no individuality whatever; the soul, however, although it is free from the matters' through which the individuals receive their plurality, is said by the most famous philosophers not to abandon the nature of the individual, although it is an apprehending entity. This is a point which has to be considered.

As for Ghazali's objection, it amounts to saying that the intellect is something individual and that universality is an accident of it, and therefore Ghazali compares the way in which the intellect observes a common feature in individuals to the way in which the senses perceive the same thing many times, since for Ghazali the intelligible is a unity, but not something universal, and for him the animality of Zaid is numerically identical with the animality which he observes in Khalid And this is false, and if it were true, there would be no difference between sense-perception and the apprehension of the intellect.

The Third Discussion

And after this Ghazali says that the philosophers have two proofs to demonstrate that the soul after once existing cannot perish. The first is that if the soul perished this could only be imagined in one of these three ways: either (1) it perishes simultaneously with the body, or (2) through an opposite which is found in it, or (3) through the power of God, the powerful. It is false that it can perish through the corruption of the body, for it is separated from the body. It is false that it can have an opposite, for a separate substance has no opposite. And it is false, as has been shown before, that the power of God can attach itself to non-being.

Now, Ghazali objecting to the philosophers answers: 'We theologians do not admit that the soul is external to the body; besides, it is the special theory of Avicenna that the souls are numerically differentiated through the differentiation of the bodies, for that there should be one single soul in every respect and in all people brings about many impossibilities, for instance that when Zaid knows some, thing Amr should know it too, and when Amr does not know something Zaid should not know it either; and many other impossibilities follow from this assumption. 'And Ghazali's adduces against Avicenna the argument that when it is assumed that the souls are numerically differentiated through the differentiation of the bodies, then they are attached to the bodies and must necessarily perish with their decay.

The philosophers, however, can answer that it is by no means necessary that, when there exists between two things a relation of attachment and love, for instance the relation between the lover and the beloved and the relation between iron and the magnet, the destruction of the one should cause the destruction of the other. But Avicenna's opponents may ask his partisans through what the individuation and numerical plurality of souls takes place, when they are separated from their matters, for the numerical plurality of individuals arises only through matter. He who claims the survival and the numerical plurality of souls should say that they are in a subtle matter, namely the animal warmth which emanates from the heavenly bodies, and this is a warmth which is not fire and in which there is not a principle of fire; in this warmth there are the souls which create the sublunary bodies and those which inhere in these bodies.

And none of the philosophers is opposed to the theory that in the elements there is heavenly warmth and that this is the substratum for the potencies which produce animals and plants, but some of the philosophers call this potency a natural heavenly potency, whereas Galen calls it the forming power and sometimes the demiurge, saying that it seems that there exists. A wise maker of the living being who has created it and that this is apparent from anatomy, but where this maker is and what His substance is is too lofty a problem for human understanding. From this Plato proves that the soul is separated from the body, for the soul creates and forms the body, and if the body were the condition for the existence of the soul, the soul would not have created it or formed it. z This creative soul is most apparent in the animals which do not procreate, but it is also evident in the animals which do. And just as we know that the soul is something added to the natural warmth, since it is not of the nature of warmth qua warmth to produce well-ordered intelligible acts, so we know that the warmth which is in the seeds does not suffice to create and to form. And the philosophers do not disagree about the fact that there are in the elements souls creating each species of animals, plants, and minerals that exists, and that each of them needs a directing principle and preserving powers for it to come into existence and remain. And these souls are either like intermediaries between the souls of the heavenly bodies and the souls in the sensible bodies of the sublunary world, and then no doubt they have absolute dominion over these latter souls and these bodies, and from here arises the belief in the Jinn, ' or these souls themselves are attached to the bodies which they create according to a resemblance which exists between them, and when the bodies decay they return to their spiritual matter and to the subtle imperceptible bodies.

And there are none of the old philosophers who do not acknowledge these souls, and they only disagree as to whether they are identical with the souls in our bodies or of another kind. And as to those who accept a bestower of forms, they regard these powers as a separate intellect; but this theory is not found in any of the old philosophers, but only in some philosophers of Islam, because it belongs to their principles that the separate principles do not change their matters by transformation in respect of substance and primarily, for the cause of change is the opposite of the thing changed. s This question is one of the most difficult in philosophy, and the best explanation that can be given of this problem is that the material intellect thinks an infinite number of things in one single intelligible, and that it judges these things in a universal judgement, and that that which forms its essence is absolutely immaterial. b Therefore Aristotle praises Anaxagoras' for having made intellect, namely an immaterial form, the prime mover, and for this reason it does not suffer any action from anything, for the cause of passivity is matter and in this respect the passive potencies are in the same position as the active, for it is the passive potencies possessing matters which accept definite things.

The Fourth Discussion

Having finished this question Ghazali begins to say that the philosophers deny bodily resurrection. This is a problem which is not found in any of the older philosophers, although resurrection has been mentioned in different religions for at least a thousand years and the philosophers whose theories have come to us are of a more recent date. The first to mention bodily resurrection were the prophets of Israel after Moses, as is evident from the Psalms and many books attributed to the Israelites. Bodily resurrection is also affirmed in the New Testament and attributed by tradition to Jesus. It is a theory of the Sabaeans, whose religion is according to Ibn Hazm the oldest.

But the philosophers in particular, as is only natural, regard this doctrine as most important and believe in it most, and the reason is that it is conducive to an order amongst men on which man's being, as man, depends and through which he can attain the greatest happiness proper to him, for it is a necessity for the existence of the moral and speculative virtuess and of the practical sciences in men. They hold namely that man cannot live in this world without the practical sciences, nor in this and the next world without the speculative virtues, and that neither of these categories is perfected or completed without the practical virtues, b and that the practical virtues can only become strong through the knowledge and adoration of God by the services prescribed by the laws of the different religions, like offerings and prayers and supplications and other such utterances by which praise is rendered to God, the angels, and the prophets.

In short, the philosophers believe that religious laws are necessary political arts, the principles of which are taken from natural reason and inspiration, especially in what is common to all religions, although religions differ here more or less. The philosophers further hold that one must not object either through a positive or through a negative statement to any of the general religious principles, for instance whether it is obligatory to serve God or not, and still more whether God does or does not exist, and they affirm this also concerning the other religious principles, for instance bliss in the beyond and its possibility; for all religions agree in the acceptance of another existence after death, although they differ in the description of this existence, just as they agree about the knowledge, attributes, and acts of God, although they differ more or less in their utterances about the essence and the acts of the Principle. All religions agree also about the acts conducive to bliss in the next world, although they differ about the determination of these acts.

In short, the religions are, according to the philosophers, obligatory, since they lead towards wisdom in a way universal to all human beings, for philosophy only leads a certain number of intelligent people to the knowledge of happiness, and they therefore have to learn wisdom, whereas religions seek the instruction of the masses generally. Notwithstanding this, we do not find any religion which is not attentive to the special needs of the learned, although it is primarily concerned with the things in which the masses participate. And since the existence of the learned class is only perfected and its full happiness attained by participation with the class of the masses, the general doctrine is also obligatory for the existence and life of this special class, both at the time of their youth and growth (and nobody doubts this), and when they pass on to attain the excellence which is their distinguishing characteristic. For it belongs to the necessary excellence of a man of learning that he should not despise the doctrines in which he has been brought up, and that he should explain them in the fairest way, and that he should understand that the aim of these doctrines lies in their universal character, not in their particularity, and that, if he expresses a doubt concerning the religious principles in which he has been brought up, or explains them in a way contradictory to the prophets and turns away from their path, he merits more than anyone else that the term unbeliever should be applied to him, and he is liable to the penalty for unbelief in the religion in which he has been brought up.

Further, he is under obligation to choose the best religion of his period, even when they are all equally true for him, and he must believe that the best will be abrogated by the introduction of a still better. Therefore the learned who were instructing the people in Alexandria became Muslims when Islam reached them, and the learned in the Roman Empire became Christians when the religion of Jesus was introduced there. And nobody doubts that among the Israelites there were many learned men, and this is apparent from the books which are found amongst the Israelites and which are attributed to Solomon. And never has wisdom ceased among the inspired, i. e. the prophets, and therefore it is the truest of all sayings that every prophet is a sage, ' but not every sage a prophet; the learned, however, are those of whom it is said that they are the heirs of the prophets.

And since in the principles of the demonstrative sciences there are postulates and axioms which are assumed, this must still more be the case for the religions which take their origin in inspiration and reason. Every religion exists through inspiration and is blended with reason. And he who holds that it is possible that there should exist a natural religion based on reason alone must admit that this religion must be less perfect than those which spring from reason and inspiration. And all philosophers agree that the principles of action must be taken on authority, for there is no demonstration for the necessity of action except through the existence of virtues which are realized through moral actions and through practice.

And it is clear from this that all the learned hold about religions the opinion that the principles of the actions and regulations prescribed in every religion are received from the prophets and lawgivers, who regard those necessary principles as praiseworthy which most incite the masses to the performance of virtuous acts; and so nobody doubts that those who are brought up on those principles are of a more perfect virtue than those who are brought up on others, for instance that the prayers in our religion hold men back from ignominy and wickedness, as God's word certifies, and that the prayer ordained in our religion fulfils this purpose more truly than the prayers ordained in others, and this by the conditions imposed on it of number, time, recitation, purity, and desistance from acts and words harmful to it. And the same may be said of the doctrine of the beyond in our religion, which is more conducive to virtuous actions than what is said in others. Thus to represent the beyond in material images is more appropriate than purely spiritual representation, as is said in the Divine Words: 'The likeness of the Paradise which those who fear God are promised, beneath it rivers flow.'; And the Prophet has said: 'In it there is what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor ever entered the mind of man. And Ibn Abbas said: There is no relation in the other world to this world but the names.' And he meant by this that the beyond is another creation of a higher order than this world, and another phase superior to our earthly. He need not deny this who believes that we see one single thing developing itself from one phase to another, for instance the transformation of the inorganic into the being conscious of their own essences, i. e. the intellectual forms. Those who are in doubt about this and object to it and try to explain it are those who seek to destroy the religious prescriptions and to undo the virtues.

They are, as everyone knows, the heretics and those who believe that the end of man consists only in sensual enjoyment. When such people have really the power to destroy religious belief both theologians and philosophers will no doubt kill them, but when they have no actual power the best arguments that can be brought against them are those that are contained in the Holy Book. What Ghazali says against them is right, and in refuting them it must be admitted that the soul is immortal, as is proved by rational and religious proofs, and it must be assumed that what arises from the dead is simulacra' of these earthly bodies, not these bodies themselves, for that which has perished does not return individually and a thing can only return as an image of that which has perished, not -as a being identical with what has perished, as Ghazali declares. Therefore the doctrine of resurrection of those theologians who believe that the soul is an accident and that the bodies which arise are identical with those that perished cannot be true. For what perished and became anew can only be specifically, not numerically, one, and this argument is especially valid against those theologians who hold that an accident does not last two moments.

Ghazali accused the philosophers of heresy on three points. One concerns this question, and we have already shown what opinion the philosophers hold about this, and that according to them it is a speculative problem. The second point is the theory attributed to the philosophers that God does not know individuals, but here again we have shown that they do not say this.

The third point is their theory of the eternity of the world, but again we have shown that what they understand by this term has not the meaning for which they are accused of heresy by the theologians. Ghazali asserts in this book that no Muslim believes in a purely spiritual resurrection, and in another book he says that the Sufis hold it. According to this latter assertion those who believe in a spiritual but not in a perceptible resurrection are not declared heretics by universal consent, and this permits belief in a spiritual resurrection. But again in another book he repeats his accusation of heresy as if it rested on universal consent.

And all this, as you see, is confusing. And no doubt this man erred in religious questions as he erred in rational problems. God is the succourer for the finding of what is true, and He invests with the truth whomever He chooses.

I have decided to break off my inquiry about these things here, and I ask pardon for their discussion, and if it were not an obligation to seek the truth for those who are entitled to it-and those are, as Galen says, one in a thousand'-and to prevent from discussion those who have no claim to it, I would not have treated all this. And God knows every single letter, and perhaps God will accept my excuse and forgive my stumbling in His bounty, generosity, munificence and excellence-there is no God but He!

The End

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