Chapter VII: Conclusion (6)

But according to Gazali there must eternally belong to God a Will, as one of his eternal attributes. In a conventional way he grants, it is true, that in metaphysical and ethical considerations knowing precedes willing, but he is convinced that unity of Being does not more reside in knowing than in willing. Not only the multiplicity of the objects of knowledge, and their different relations to the knowing Subject, but even Self-Consciousness, or knowing about the knowing, considered per se, is an endless process. An act of will is absolutely necessary to bring it to a conclusion. In directing the attention and in self-communing an original “Willing” is in operation; and thus even Divine knowledge comes to a conclusion as a coherent unity, in its Personality, by means of an original eternal Will. In place of the assertion of the Philosophers that God wills the world, because he thinks of it as the best, Gazali substitutes the statement: “God has cognizance of the world because he wills it and in his willing it”.

Must not then He, who wills and creates all, have cognizance of his work down to the smallest part of its material? Just as his eternal will is the cause of all individual things, so his eternal knowledge embraces at one and the same time every particular thing, without the unity of his nature being thereby taken away. There is consequently a Providence.

To the objection that Divine Providence makes every particular event a necessary event, Gazali, like St. Augustine, replies that this fore-knowledge is not distinguishable from knowledge in memory,—that is to say, that God’s knowledge is exalted above every distinction of time.

It may be questioned whether, in order to save the eternal, almighty, creative Will, Gazali has not sacrificed to that absolute might both the temporary character of the world, which he would like to prove, and the freedom of human action, from which he sets out, and which he would not altogether surrender. This world of shadows and images, as he calls it, vanishes for the sake of God.

6. (3) The third question, with regard to which Gazali separates himself from the Philosophers, has less philosophic interest. It refers to the Resurrection of the Body. According to the Philosophers it is only the Soul that is immortal, either in its individuality or as a part of the World-Soul: The Body on the other hand is perishable. Against this Dualism, which in theory led to an ascetic Ethics, but which in practice was easily converted into Libertinism, the religious and moral feeling of Gazali rose in rebellion. If the flesh is to have its obligations, it must in turn be invested with its rights. The possibility of the Resurrection cannot be denied, for the reunion of the Soul with its (new) bodily frame is not more wonderful than its first union with the earthly body, which has been assumed even by the Philosophers. Surely then every soul at the resurrection-time may obtain a new body suited to it. But in any case Man’s real essence is the Soul; and it is of little consequence what the material is, out of which its heavenly body is formed.

7. Even from these last propositions it is clear that Gazali’s theology did not remain unaffected by philosophical speculation. Like the Fathers of the Western Church, he had, whether consciously or unconsciously, appropriated a good deal from philosophy; and for that reason his theology was long proscribed as a heretical innovation by the Muslims of the West. In reality his teaching regarding God, the World, and the human Soul exhibits many elements which are foreign to the oldest type of Islam, and which may be traced back,—partly through the intervening agency of Christian and Jewish writers and partly through that of more recent Muslim authors,—to heathen wisdom.

Allah, Lord of the Worlds, God of Mohammed, is for Gazali a living personality it is true, but yet far less anthropomorphic than he appeared to simple Faith or in the Antimutazilite dogma. The surest way of coming to know him must be to refuse to attribute to him any of the properties of his creatures. But that does not mean that he possesses no attributes: the very reverse is the case. The plurality of his qualities does not prejudice the Unity of his Being. Analogies are presented in the bodily world: A thing certainly cannot be both black and white at the same time, but it may well be cold and also dry. Only, if the qualities of men are attributed to God, they must be understood in another and higher sense, for he is pure Spirit. Besides omniscience and omnipotence, pure goodness and omnipresence belong to Him. By means of this omnipresence this world and the next are brought in a manner nearer to one another than by the usual representation.

The conception of God is thus spiritualized. But resurrection and the future life are also regarded as being much more spiritual in character than the present life. Such a conception is facilitated by the doctrine of the Gnostic Philosophy, that there are three or four worlds. One above the other in regular order rise the Earthly and Sensible World of Men, the World of Celestial Spirits, to which our Soul belongs, the World of Supra-celestial Angels, and lastly God himself, as the World of purest Light and most perfect Spirit. The pious and enlightened Soul ascends from the lower world through the heavens till it is face to face with God, for it is of spiritual nature and its resurrection-body is of celestial essence.

In a manner corresponding to the different worlds and grades of Souls, men themselves differ from one another. The man of sensuous nature must be content with the Koran and Tradition: he should not venture beyond the letter of the Law. The study of duty is his bread of life; philosophy would be a deadly poison to him. He who cannot swim should not venture into the sea.

However there are always people who go into the water for the purpose of learning to swim. They want to elevate their faith into knowledge, but in the process they may easily fall into doubt and unbelief. For them, in Gazali’s opinion, a useful remedy may be found in the study of Doctrine and Polemics directed against Philosophy.

Those, however, have reached the highest degree of human perfection, who, without any laborious cogitation, experience in themselves by means of an inward and Divine illumination the truth and the reality of the Spiritual World. Such are the prophets and pious mystics, among whom Gazali himself may be reckoned. They see God in everything,—Him, and Him alone—, and in Nature just as in the life of their own Soul; but they see Him best in the Soul, for although it is not Divine it has at least a likeness to the Divine. How altered now is every outward thing! That which seems to be in existence outside of us, becomes a condition or a property of the Soul, which in the consciousness of its union with God, advances to the highest bliss. All things then become one in Love. The true service of God transcends fear of punishment and hope of reward, attaining to Love of God in the Spirit. The perfect servant of God is raised above endurance and thanksgiving,—which constitute the obligation of the pious wanderer upon the earth, so long as he remains imperfect—, so that even in this world he loves and praises God with joy of heart.

8. From what has been said it follows that there are three stages of Belief or Certainty. First, the belief of the multitude, who believe what some man worthy of belief declares to them, for instance, that So-and-so is in the house; secondly, the knowledge of the learned, gained by deduction: they have heard So-and-so speaking, and conclude that he is in the house; but thirdly we have the immediate certainty of the ‘knowing’ ones, for they have entered the house and seen the person with their own eyes.

In contradistinction to the Dialecticians and Philosophers, Gazali everywhere lays stress upon experience. The former, with their Universal Ideas, in the first place fail to do justice to the multiplicity which attaches to this world of sense. The sensible qualities of things,—even the number of the stars for example,—we come to know only through experience, and not from pure Ideas. Much less, however, do such Ideas exhaust the heights and depths of our inner being. That which the friend of God knows intuitively, remains hidden for ever from the discursive intellect of the learned. A very small number attain to this height of knowledge, where they meet with the Apostles of God and Prophets of all times. It is the duty then of the Spirits who stand at a lower level to strive to follow them.

But now how are we to recognize the superior Spirit whom we need as our guide? That is a question, on which every religiously-determined system, which cannot do without human intermediaries, must founder, if considered purely in the light of the understanding. Even Gazali’s answer is indecisive. This much is certain to him, that grounds furnished by the reason alone cannot decide this question. The Prophet and Teacher who has been actually inspired by God is recognized by merging ourselves in his peculiar personality, through the experience of an inward relationship. The truth of Prophecy is authenticated by the moral influence which it exercises upon the Soul. Of the truthfulness of God’s word in the Koran we acquire a moral, not a theoretical certainty. The detached miracle is not capable of convincing; but the revelation as a whole, together with the personality of the Prophet, through whom the revelation has been conveyed, produce an irresistible impression upon the kindred soul. Then, wholly carried away by such impression, the soul renounces the world, to walk in the way of God.

9. Gazali is without doubt the most remarkable figure in all Islam. His doctrine is the expression of his own personality. He abandoned the attempt to understand this world. But the religious problem he comprehended much more profoundly than did the philosophers of his time. These were intellectual in their methods, like their Greek predecessors, and consequently regarded the doctrines of Religion as merely the products of the conception or fancy or even caprice of the lawgiver. According to them Religion was either blind obedience, or a kind of knowledge which contained truth of an inferior order.

On the other hand Gazali represents Religion as the experience of his inner Being. It is for him more than Law and more than Doctrine: it is the Soul’s experience.

It is not every one who has this experience of Gazali’s. But even those who cannot follow him in his mystic flight, when he transcends the conditions of any possible experience, will at least be constrained to acknowledge that his aberrations in searching for the highest are not less important for the history of the Human Mind than the apparently surer paths taken by the philosophers of his time, through a land which others had discovered before them.

2. The Epitomists.

1. In a history of scholarly Education as conducted in the Muslim nations, this subject would necessarily have a larger space assigned it: but here we shall dismiss it in a few words.

That Gazali has annihilated philosophy in the East, for all time to come, is an assertion frequently repeated but wholly erroneous, and one which evidences neither historical knowledge nor understanding. Philosophy in the East has since his day numbered its teachers and students by hundreds and by thousands. The teachers of the Faith have no more discontinued their dialectical arguments in support of Doctrine than the teachers of Morals have abandoned their hair-splitting casuistry. General culture too has adopted an element of philosophical learning.

But it is true that Philosophy did not succeed in conquering for itself a commanding position, or in retaining the consideration which it once enjoyed. According to an Arab anecdote a Philosopher, who had been thrown into prison, on being asked what he was fit for, by a man who wanted to purchase him as a slave, is said to have replied: “For freedom”. Philosophy needs freedom. And where was this Freedom to be met with in the East? Freedom from material cares, freedom to exemplify unprejudiced thinking, tended continually to dwindle away from regions where no enlightened despots were to be found, able to warrant and protect it. But that is just a symptom of the general decay of civilization. And although travellers from the West in the twelfth century praised highly the culture of the East, it had, in comparison with earlier times, at least begun to decline. In no department did they pass the mark which had been reached of old: Minds were now too weak to accomplish such a feat. Literary production became stagnant, and the only merit which belongs to the voluminous compilers of the following centuries is that of elegant selection. Ethical and religious doctrine had ended in Mysticism; and the same was the case with Philosophy. After the time of Ibn Sina, the Prince of Philosophy, no one felt called upon to come forward with independent views. The day had come for Abridgements, Commentaries, Glosses, and Glosses upon Glosses. The learned world occupied their time in school with work of that nature, while the believing multitude placed themselves more and more under the guidance of the Dervish orders.

2. That which general education borrowed most from philosophical Propaedeutics was a little Mathematics &c., naturally exceedingly elementary as a rule. By sectaries and mystics a good deal was taken over from Pythagorean-Platonic wisdom. In particular these doctrines had to be drawn upon in order to support the belief in saints and miracles; and a barren syncretistic Theosophy was tricked out therewith. The system even enrolled Aristotle among its teachers, of course the spurious Aristotle, but it turned him into a disciple of Agathodaemon and Hermes.

The more sober-minded thinkers, on the other hand, kept to Aristotelianism, so far as it agreed with their own views or with the orthodox Faith. The system of Ibn Sina was almost universally followed by them; and it was only a few that went back to Farabi, or that endeavoured to combine the two. Very little notice was taken of Physical and Metaphysical doctrines: Ethics and Politics were rather more attended to. Logic was the only subject universally studied; for it could be admirably conveyed in scholastic form; and, as pure Formal Logic, it was an instrument which every one was able to make use of. In fact with the resources of Logic everything might be proved; and even if the demonstration should be recognized as faulty, there was this consolation that the averment might still be true, although its demonstration had not been properly conducted.

Even in the Encyclopaedia of Abu Abdallah al-Khwarizmi, a production of the last quarter of the tenth century, a larger space was assigned to Logic than to Physics and Metaphysics. The very same thing was done in many later encyclopaedias and compilations. The Dogmatists also commenced their system with logical and epistemological considerations, in which a traditional eulogy was pronounced over “knowing”. And from the twelfth century onwards there arose a whole multitude of separate arrangements of the Aristotelian Organon. Here may be mentioned only,—as being much used, commented on, and so forth,—the works of Abhari († 1264), who gave a short summary of the whole ‘Logic’ under the title of “Isagudji” (εἰσαγωγή); and the works of Qazwini († 1276).

At the greatest University in the Muslim world, that of Cairo, the Epitomes of the 13th and 14th centuries are used, up to this day. There the word still is, as for a long time it was with ourselves: “First of all a College of Logic”, and, we need scarcely add, with no better result. They indulge themselves, within the limits of the Law, in the luxury of studying the rules of thinking discovered by the ancient philosophers, but all the while they smile at these men and at the Mutazilite Dialecticians, who “believed in Reason!”

VI. PHILOSOPHY IN THE WEST.

1. Beginnings.

1. Western North-Africa, Spain and Sicily are reckoned as forming the Muslim West. North-Africa, to begin with, is of subordinate importance: Sicily is regulated by Spain, and is soon overthrown by the Normans of Lower Italy. For our purpose Muslim Spain or Andalusia first falls to be considered.

The drama of culture in the East passes here through a second representation. Just as Arabs there intermarried with Persians, so in the West they intermarry with Spaniards. And instead of Turks and Mongols we have here the Berbers of North-Africa, whose rude force is flung into the play of more refined civilization with a blighting influence ever on the increase.

After the fall of the Omayyads in Syria (750), a member of that House, Abderrakhman ibn Moawiya, betook himself to Spain, where he contrived to work his way up to the dignity of Emir of Cordova and all Andalusia. This Omayyad overlordship lasted for more than 250 years, and after a passing system of petty States, it attained its greatest brilliancy under Abderrakhman III (912–961), the first who assumed the title of Caliph, and his son al-Hakam II (961–976). The tenth century was for Spain, what the ninth was for the East,—the time of highest material and intellectual civilization. If possible, it was more fresh and native here than in the East, and, if it be true that all theorizing betokens either a lack or a stagnation of the power of production, it was more productive also: The sciences, and Philosophy in particular, had far fewer representatives in Spain. Speaking generally, we may say that the relations of intellectual life took a simpler form. There was a smaller number of strata in the new culture than in the old. No doubt there were, besides Muslims, Jews and Christians in Spain, who in the time of Abderrakhman III played their part in this cultivated life, of the Arabic stamp, in common with the rest. But of adherents of Zoroaster, atheists and such like, there were none. Even the sects of Eastern Islam were almost unknown. Only one school of Law, that of Malik, was admitted. No Mutazilite dialectic troubled the peace of the Faith. True enough the Andalusian poets glorified the trinity of Wine, Woman and Song; but flippant free-thinking on the one hand, and gloomy theosophy and renunciation of the world on the other, rarely found expression.

On the whole, intellectual culture was dependent upon the East. From the tenth century onwards many journeys in search of knowledge were undertaken thither from Spain, by way of Egypt and as far as Eastern Persia, for the purpose of attending the prelections of scholars of renown. And farther, educational requirements in Andalusia attracted to it many a learned Eastern who found no occupation in his own home. Besides, al-Hakam II caused books to be copied, all over the East, for his library, which is said to have contained 400,000 volumes.

The West was mainly interested in Mathematics, Natural Science, Astrology and Medicine, precisely as was the case at first in the East. Poetry, History and Geography were cultivated with ardour. But the mind was not yet “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought”, for when Abdallah ibn Masarra of Cordova, under Abderrakhman III, brought home with him from the East a system of Natural Philosophy, he had to submit to see his writings consigned to the flames.

2. In the year 1013 Cordova, “the Gem of the World”, was laid waste by the Berbers, and the kingdom of the Omayyads was split up into a number of minor States. Its second bloom fills up the eleventh century,—the Medicean age of Spain, in which Art and Poetry still flourish in luxuriant growth at the courts of the various cities, upon the ruins of ancient splendour. Art grows refined; poetry becomes sage, and scientific thought subtle. Intellectual nutriment continues to be fetched from the East; and Natural Philosophy, the writings of the Faithful Brethren, and Logic from the school of Abu Sulaiman al-Sidjistani find admission one after the other. Towards the close of the century it is possible to trace the influence even of the writings of Farabi, and the “Medicine” of Ibn Sina becomes known.

The beginnings of philosophical reflection are found chiefly with the numerous men of culture among the Jews. Eastern Natural Philosophy produces a powerful and quite singular impression upon the mind of Ibn Gebirol, the Avencebrol of Christian authors; and Bakhya ibn Pakuda is influenced by the Faithful Brethren. Even the religious poetry of the Jews is affected by the philosophical movement; and what speaks therein is not the Jewish Congregation seeking after God, but the Soul rising towards the Supreme Spirit.

Among the Muslims, however, the number of those who addressed themselves to a thorough study of Philosophy was very limited. No master gathered about him a numerous band of disciples; and meetings of the learned, for the discussion of philosophical subjects, were scarcely ever held. The individual thinker must have felt very lonely in these circumstances. In the West, just as in the East, Philosophy was developed subjectively; but here it was more the concern of a few isolated individuals; and, besides, it stood more apart from the faith of the mass of the people. In the East there were countless intermediary agencies between faith and knowledge,—between the philosophers and the believing community. The problem of the individual thinker, confronted by political society and the faith of narrow-minded fanatical multitudes, was accordingly realized more acutely in the West.

2. Ibn Baddja.

1. Towards the end of the eleventh century, when Abu Bekr Mohammed ibn Yakhya ibn al-Saig ibn Baddja (Avempace) was born in Saragossa, the fair kingdom of Andalusia was approaching the time of its disappearance in a system of petty States. It was threatened from the North by the less civilized but yet powerful and brave Christian knights. But the Berber dynasty of the Almoravids came to the rescue, who were not only firmer in the faith but also wiser in their policy than the voluptuous ruling race of Spain. Then the time of refined culture and free enquiry seemed gone for ever. Only traditionalists, of the strictest rite, ventured to make a public appearance, while philosophers, unless they kept concealed, were persecuted or put to death.

2. But barbarous lords have their caprices, being fond of appropriating, at least superficially, the culture of those who have been subjugated by them. Thus Abu Bekr ibn Ibrahim, brother-in-law of the Almoravid prince Ali,—who was for some time Governor of Saragossa, made Ibn Baddja his intimate friend and first minister, thereby giving great offence to his Faqihs and soldiers. Now this was a man, skilled both in the theory and practice of the Mathematical Sciences, particularly Astronomy and Music, as well as an adept in Medicine, and one who was devoted to speculative studies in Logic, Natural Philosophy and Metaphysics; and in the opinion of the fanatics he was an utterly abandoned atheist and immoral person.

We know nothing more of the outward life of Ibn Baddja except that he was in Seville in the year 1118, after the fall of Saragossa, and that he composed several of his works there, afterwards betaking himself to the Almoravid court in Fez, where he died in 1138. According to tradition he met his death by poison, administered at the instigation of a jealous physician. His short life, as he himself confesses, had not been a happy one; and he had often longed for death, as a final refuge. Material want, and, above all, intellectual isolation, may have weighed down his spirits. His extant writings abundantly evince that he was unable to feel at home in that day and that environment.

3. He conforms almost entirely to Farabi, the quiet, solitary Eastern. Like him he was little given to systematizing. His original treatises are but few in number; and they consist chiefly of brief expositions of Aristotelian and other philosophical works. His observations are of a desultory character: Now he makes a beginning in one place; again, he starts afresh in another. In continually renewed approaches he endeavours to get nearer Greek thought, and to penetrate from every possible side to ancient science. He does not discard philosophy, and he does not deal conclusively with it. On a first glance, that produces a puzzling impression; but, in the sombre impulse which is upon him, the philosopher has become aware of the path he is pursuing. In searching for truth and righteousness, he is coming upon another thing,—unity and joy in his own life. In his opinion, Gazali took the matter much too easily, when he thought he could be happy only in the full possession of the truth comprehended by means of Divine illumination. In his love for the truth, which is concealed rather than revealed by the sensuous images of religious mysticism, the philosopher must be strong enough to renounce that happiness. Only pure thinking, undisturbed by any sensuous desire, is privileged to behold the supreme Godhead.

4. In his logical writings Ibn Baddja hardly departs from Farabi. Even his physical and metaphysical theories agree generally with the views of the master. But perhaps the mode, in which he represents the history of the development of the human spirit and the position of man in knowledge and in life, may claim a measure of interest. There are two kinds of existence, according to his view,—one which is moved, and one which is not moved. That which is moved is corporeal and limited, but its everlasting movement cannot be explained by finite Body. On the contrary, in order to explain this endless movement, an unending power is needed, or an eternal essence, namely Spirit. Now while the corporeal or the natural is moved from without, and the Spirit, itself unmoved, confers movement upon the corporeal, the Soul-substance occupies a middle position, being that which moves itself. The relation between the natural and the psychical presents as little difficulty to Ibn Baddja as to his predecessors; but the great problem is this:—‘How are the Soul and the Spirit related to each other, that is to say in Man?’

5. Ibn Baddja starts with the assumption that Matter cannot exist without some Form, while Form may exist by itself, without Matter. Otherwise, in fact, absolutely no change is thinkable, because that is rendered possible only by the coming and going of substantial Forms.

These Forms then, from the hylic up to the purely spiritual, constitute a series, to which the development of the human spirit corresponds, in so far as it realizes the rational ideal. Man’s task is to comprehend all the spiritual Forms together; first the intelligible Forms of all that is corporeal, then the sensible-spiritual presentations of the Soul, next the human Spirit itself and the Active Spirit over it, and lastly the pure Spirits of the celestial spheres. By rising through successive stages from the individual and sensible, the presentation of which constitutes the material on which the Spirit operates, Man attains to the superhuman and the Divine. Now his guide in this process is Philosophy, or the knowledge of the universal, which issues from knowledge of the particular through study and reflection, aided however by the enlightening Spirit from above. Contrasted with this knowledge of the universal or the infinite,—in which Being, and becoming the object of cognition coincide,—all perception and presentation prove deceptive. Thus it is by rational knowledge, and not by religious and mystical dreaming, with the sensuous invariably clinging thereto, that the human Spirit arrives at perfection. Thinking is the highest bliss, for its very purpose is to reach all that is intelligible. But since that is the universal, the continued existence of individual human Spirits beyond this life cannot be assumed. It may be that the Soul,—which apprehends the particular in the life of sensuous-spiritual presentation, and notifies its existence in separate desires and actions,—has the faculty of continuing that existence after death, and of receiving reward or punishment; but the Spirit or the rational part of the Soul is one in all. It is only the Spirit of the entirety of Mankind, or, in other words, the one Intellect, Mind or Spirit in Humanity,—and that too in its union with the active Spirit over it,—which is eternal. This theory, which made its way into the Christendom of the Middle Ages, under the name of Averroes’ Theory, is thus found even with Ibn Baddja, if not quite distinctly conceived, at all events more clearly given than with Farabi.

6. Every man does not rise to such a height of contemplation. The greater number grope about continually in the dark; they merely see the adumbrations of things, and like shadows they will pass away. Some see the Light, it is true, and the coloured world of things, but very few indeed recognize the essence of what they have seen. It is only the latter, the blessed ones, who attain to life eternal,—in which state they themselves become Light.

But now, how does the individual man get to this stage of knowledge and blessed existence? Through action directed by reason, and the free cultivation of his intellectual powers. Action directed by reason is free action, that is, action in which there is a consciousness of purpose. If one, for instance, breaks a stone to pieces, because he has stumbled against it, he is behaving without purpose, like a child or a lower animal; but if he does this in order that others may not stumble against the stone, his action must be called manlike, and directed by reason.

In order to be able to live as a man should, and to act in a rational way, the individual man, must as far as circumstances permit, withdraw from society. The name borne by the Ethics of Ibn Baddja is “Guidance to the Solitary”. It demands self-culture. Generally, however, one may avail himself of the advantages attending social life in man, without including in the bargain its disadvantages. The wise may associate themselves in larger or smaller unions; such indeed is their duty, if they light upon one another; and then they form a State within the State. Naturally they endeavour to live in such a manner that neither physician nor judge is necessary among them. They grow up like plants in the open air, and do not stand in need of the gardener’s skill. They keep at a distance from the lower enjoyments and sentiments of the multitude. They are strangers to the movements of worldly society. And as they are friends among themselves, this life of theirs is wholly determined by Love. Then too as friends of God, who is the Truth, they find repose in union with the superhuman Spirit of Knowledge.

3. Ibn Tofail.

1. The sovereignty over Western Islam remained with the Berbers, but the Almohads speedily took the place of the Almoravids. Mohammed ibn Tumart, the founder of the new dynasty, had, from the year 1121, come forward as Mahdi. Under his successors Abu Yaaqub Yusuf (1163–1184) and Abu Yusuf Yaaqub (1184–1198), their sovereignty, which was centred in Marocco, reached its culminating point.

The Almohads brought with them a startling novelty in theology: The system of Ashari and Gazali, which till then had been branded as heretical, was adopted in the West. That meant an infusion of intellectualism into the teaching of the Faith,—a proceeding which could not be altogether satisfactory either to the adherents of the old Faith or to freethinkers, but which may have incited many to farther philosophizing. Hitherto an attitude of repudiation had been maintained towards all reasoning in matters of faith; and, even later, many politicians and philosophers were of opinion that the faith of the multitude should not be violently disturbed, nor elevated to knowledge, but that the provinces of Religion and of Philosophy should be kept scrupulously separate.

The Almohads were interested in questions of theology, but yet Abu Yaaqub and his successors manifested, as far as political conditions permitted, such an appreciation of secular knowledge, that philosophy was enabled to enjoy a brief period of prosperity at their court.

2. We find Abu Bekr Mohammed ibn Abdalmalik ibn Tofail al-Qaisi (Abubacer) in the position of Vizir and Body-Physician to Abu Yaaqub, after holding an appointment as Secretary in Granada. His place of birth was the small Andalusian town of Guadix, and he died in Marocco, the seat of Government, in the year 1185. The life that lies between appears to have been by no means eventful. He was fonder of books than of men, and in his sovereign’s great library he gathered, by reading, much information which he required for his art, or which met his ardent thirst for knowledge. He was the dilettante of the philosophers of the West, and was more given to contemplative enjoyment than scientific work. Rarely did he set himself to write. We need not perhaps put absolute faith in his assertion that he could have fundamentally improved the Ptolemaic system. Many Arabs made a like assertion, without carrying it into effect.

Of Ibn Tofail’s poetic ventures, one or two poems have been preserved to us. But his principal endeavour, like that of Ibn Sina, was to combine Greek Science and Oriental Wisdom into a modern view of the world. That was to him a personal concern, just as it was to Ibn Baddja. He too occupied his mind with the relation of the individual man to Society and its prejudices. But he went farther: Ibn Baddja, as a rule made out the individual thinker or a small association of independent thinkers, as constituting a State within the State,—a copy, as it were, of the great total, or a model for happier times: Ibn Tofail on the other hand, turned to consider the original.

3. He states the case clearly, in his work “Hai ibn Yaqzan”. The scenery is contributed by two islands, on one of which he sets human society with its conventions, and on the other an individual man, who is being developed naturally. This society as a whole is governed by lower impulses, subjected only to some measure of outward restraint by a grossly sensuous religion. But out of this society two men, called Salaman and Asal (Absal, cf. IV, 4 § 7), rise to rational knowledge and control of their desires. Accommodating himself to the popular religion, the first, who is of a practical turn of mind, contrives to rule the people; but the second, being of speculative disposition and mystic leanings, wanders off to the island which lay opposite, and which he imagines to be uninhabited,—there to devote himself to study and ascetic discipline.

On that island, however, our Hai ibn Yaqzan,—i.e. ‘the Active one, the son of the Vigilant’,—had been trained into a perfect philosopher. Cast upon the island when a child, or else brought into existence there by spontaneous generation, he had been suckled by a gazelle, and then had been in the course of time left, like a Robinson Crusoe, and that entirely, to his own resources. Yet he had secured a material existence, and farther, by observation and reflection, had acquired a knowledge of Nature, the heavens, God, and his own inner being, until after seven times seven years he had attained to that which is highest, viz., the Sufi vision of God, the state of ecstasy. In this situation he was found by Asal. After they had come to understand each other,—for at first Hai was still without speech,—it was found that the philosophy of the one and the religion of the other were two forms of the same truth, except that in the first form it was somewhat less veiled. But when Hai came to know that on the opposite island an entire people continued in darkness and error, he resolved to proceed thither and reveal the truth to them. Here, however, he was brought to learn by experience that the multitude were incapable of a pure apprehension of the truth, and that Mohammed had acted wisely in giving the people sensuous forms instead of full light. After this result therefore he repaired again with his friend Asal to the uninhabited island, to serve God in spirit and in truth till the hour of death.

4. Ibn Tofail has devoted by far the largest portion of his romance to the course of Hai’s development; but he cannot certainly have thought that the individual man, left to himself, is able, with the resources of Nature alone and without the help of society, to advance so far as Hai did. And yet his conception is perhaps rather more historical, than certain views which have been entertained since his day, e.g. by some of the Rationalists of the 18th century. Many little touches in his work shew that Hai was intended to represent humanity as it stands outside of revelation. That which is accomplished in him, is the development of Indian, Persian and Greek wisdom. One or two hints pointing in that direction, but which cannot be farther followed out here, may help to lend probability to this view. Thus it is significant, to begin with, that Hai lives on the island of Ceylon, the climate of which was held to be such as to render spontaneous generation possible, where also, according to the legend, Adam, the first man, had been created, and where the Indian king came to the Wise Man. Then Hai’s first religious sentiment of wonder, after he had struggled up out of the primary, animal stage, through shame and curiosity, is elicited by fire, which has been discovered by him,—a circumstance which recalls to us the Persian religion. And his farther speculations are borrowed from Greco-Arabic Philosophy.

The affinity to Ibn Sina’s Hai, which Ibn Tofail himself indicates, is clear: Only, the figure of Hai in this case presents a more human appearance. With Ibn Sina the character of Hai represents the Superhuman Spirit, but the hero of Ibn Tofail’s romance seems to be the personification of the natural Spirit of Mankind illuminated from above; and that Spirit must be in accordance with the Prophet-Soul of Mohammed when rightly understood, whose utterances are to be interpreted allegorically.

Ibn Tofail has thus arrived at the same result as his Eastern predecessors. Religion must still be kept up for the ordinary man, because he cannot go beyond it. It is only a few who rise to an understanding of religious symbols; and very rarely indeed does any one attain to the unrestrained contemplation of the highest reality. This last truth he accentuates with the greatest emphasis. Even if we do find in Hai the representative of human nature, we cannot gainsay this truth; for the representation given sets forth the supreme perfection of Man as consisting in submerging his own self in the World-Spirit, in the most lonely quietude, and withdrawn from all that is sensuous.

It is true that this condition is attained only in mature age, in which, besides, a human friend has been met with; and attention to what is material, and to the arts and sciences, forms the natural preliminary stage of spiritual perfection. Thus Ibn Tofail is permitted to look back without regret or shame upon his life spent at court.

5. We have already met frequently with the philosophical views, which Hai developed in his seven life-periods. But even his practical behaviour is specially considered by Ibn Tofail. Sufi exercises, as they are still observed among the religious orders of the East, and as they had been recommended even by Plato and the Neo-Platonists, have taken the place of the observances of religious worship enjoined by the Muslim Law. And Hai forms for himself in the seventh period of his life a system of Ethics which has a Pythagorean appearance.

Hai has set before him as the aim of his action,—to seek for the One in all things and to unite himself to the absolute and the self-existing. He sees in fact all Nature striving to reach this Highest Being. He is far above the view that everything on the earth exists for the sake of Man. Animals and plants likewise live for themselves and for God; and thus he is not permitted to deal capriciously with them. He now restricts his bodily wants to what is absolutely necessary. Ripe fruits are preferred by him, the seeds of which he piously consigns to the soil, taking anxious precaution that no kind may die out through his avidity. And only in extreme need does he touch animal food, in which case he seeks in like manner to spare the species. ‘Enough for life, not enough for sleep’ is his motto.

That has reference to his bodily attitude towards the earthly; but the living principle binds him to the heavens, and, like the heavens, he strives to be useful to his surroundings, and to keep his own life pure. He therefore tends the plants and protects the animals about him, in order that his island may become a paradise. He pays scrupulous attention to the cleanliness of his person and his clothing, and endeavours to give a harmonious turn to all his movements, in conformity with those of the heavenly bodies.

In this way he is gradually rendered capable of elevating his own self above earth and heaven to the pure Spirit. That is the condition of ecstasy, which no thought, no word, no image has ever been able to comprehend or express.

4. Ibn Roshd.

1. Abu-l-Walid Mohammed ibn Akhmed ibn Mohammed ibn Roshd (Averroes) was born at Cordova, of a family of lawyers, in the year 1126. There too he made himself master of the learned culture of his time. In 1153 he is said to have been presented to the prince Abu Yaaqub by Ibn Tofail; and we possess a report of that occurrence, full of character. After the introductory phrases of politeness the prince asked him: “What is the opinion of philosophers about the heavens? Are they eternal, or have they been brought into existence?” Ibn Roshd cautiously replied that he had not given attention to philosophy. Thereupon the prince commenced to discuss the subject with Ibn Tofail, and, to the astonishment of the listener, shewed that he was acquainted with Aristotle, Plato, and the philosophers and theologians of Islam. Then Ibn Roshd also spoke out freely, and won the favour of his high-placed master. His lot was fixed: He was destined to interpret Aristotle, as no one before him had done, that mankind might be put in complete and genuine possession of science.

He was, besides, a jurist and a physician. We find him in 1169 in the position of judge in Seville, and shortly afterwards in Cordova. Abu Yaakub, now Caliph, nominates him his Body-Physician in the year 1182; but, a short time after, he is again judge in his native city, as his father and grandfather had been. Circumstances, however, change for the worse. Philosophers are pronounced accursed, and their writings are committed to the flames. In his old age Ibn Roshd is banished by Abu Yusuf to Elisana (Lucena, near Cordova), but yet he dies in Marocco the capital, on the 10th December, 1198.

2. It was upon Aristotle that his activity was concentrated. All that he could procure of that philosopher’s works, or about them, he subjected to diligent study and careful comparison. Writings of the Greeks, which are now lost either entirely or in part, were still known to Ibn Roshd in translated form. He goes critically and systematically to work: He paraphrases Aristotle and he interprets him, now with comparative brevity, and anon in greater detail, both in moderate-sized and in bulky commentaries. He thus merits the name of “the Commentator”, which also is assigned to him in Dante’s “Commedia” [19]. It looks as if the Philosophy of the Muslims had been fated in him to come to an understanding of Aristotle, just that it might then expire, after that end had been attained. Aristotle for him is the supremely perfect man, the greatest thinker, the philosopher who was in possession of an infallible truth. New discoveries in Astronomy, Art or Physics could make no alteration in that respect. Of course it is possible to misunderstand Aristotle: Ibn Roshd himself came to have a different and better understanding of many a point which he took from the works of Farabi and Ibn Sina; but yet he lived continually in the belief that Aristotle, when rightly understood, corresponds to the highest knowledge which is attainable by man. In the eternal revolution of worldly events Aristotle has reached a height which it is impossible to transcend. Men who have come after him are frequently put to the cost of much trouble and reflection to deduce the views which readily disclosed themselves to the first master. Gradually, however, all doubt and contradiction are reduced to silence, for Aristotle is one who is more than man, destined as it were by Providence to illustrate how far the human race is capable of advancing in its approximation to the World-Spirit. As being the sublimest incarnation of the Spirit of Mankind, Ibn Roshd would like to call his master the ‘Divine’ Teacher.

It will be shewn by what follows, that even in the instance of Ibn Roshd, unmeasured admiration for Aristotle did not suffice to bring about a perfect comprehension of his thoughts. He allows no opportunity to pass of doing battle with Ibn Sina, and, upon occasion, he parts company with Farabi and Ibn Baddja,—men to whom he owes a great deal. He carps at all his predecessors, in a far more disagreeable fashion than Aristotle did in the case of his teacher Plato. And yet he himself is far from having got beyond the interpretation of Neo-Platonic expositors and the misconceptions of Syrian and Arab translators. Frequently he follows even the superficial Themistius in opposition to the judicious Alexander of Aphrodisias, or else he tries to combine their views.

3. Ibn Roshd is above all a fanatical admirer of the Aristotelian Logic. Without it one cannot be happy, and it is a pity that Plato and Socrates were ignorant of it! The happiness of men is measured by the degree of their logical attainments. With the discernment of a critic he recognizes Porphyry’s “Isagoge” as superfluous, but he still counts the “Rhetoric” and the “Poetics” as forming part of the Organon. And then the oddest misapprehensions are met with. For example, Tragedy and Comedy are turned into Panegyrics and Lampoons; poetical probability has to be content with signifying either truth capable of demonstration, or deceptive appearance; recognition on the stage (ἀναγνώρισις) becomes Apodictic judgment, and so on. Of course he has absolutely no conception of the Greek world; and that is venial, for he could not have had any notion of it. And yet we do not readily excuse one who has been so severe a critic of others.

Like his predecessors, Ibn Roshd lays especial emphasis upon Grammar, as far as it is common to all languages. This common principle, and therefore the universal one, Aristotle, he thinks, keeps always before him in his Hermeneutics, and even in the Rhetoric. Accordingly the Arab philosopher is also bound to adhere to it, although in illustrating universal rules he may take his examples from the Arabic language and literature. But it is universal rules which form his object, for science is the knowledge of the universal.

Logic smooths the path for the ascent of our cognition from sensuous particularity to pure rational truth. The multitude will always live in the sensuous element, groping about in error. Defective mental parts and poor education, and depraved habits to boot, prevent them from making any advance. But still it must be within the power of some to arrive at a knowledge of truth. The eagle looks the sun in the face, for if no being could look at him, Nature would have made something in vain. Whatever shines there is meant to be seen; and so whatever exists is meant to be known, were it only by one single man. Now truth exists; and the love for it which fills our hearts would have been all in vain, if we could not approach it. Ibn Roshd thinks that he has come to know the truth in the case of many things, and even that he has been able to discover absolute Truth. He would not, with Lessing, have cared to resign himself to a mere search for it.

Truth, in fact, has been given him in Aristotle; and from that standpoint he looks down upon Muslim theology. Certainly he recognizes that religion has a truth of its own, but theology is repugnant to him. It wants to prove what cannot be proved in this way. Revelation, as contained in the Koran,—according to the teaching of Ibn Roshd and others, and similarly of Spinoza in later times,—does not aim at making men learned, but at making them better. Not knowledge, but obedience or moral practice is the aim of the lawgiver, who knows that human welfare can only be realized in society.

4. That which especially distinguishes Ibn Roshd from those who preceded him, and in particular from Ibn Sina, is the unequivocal mode in which he conceives of the world as an eternal process of ‘becoming’. The world as a whole is an eternally necessary unity, without any possibility of non-existence or of different existence. Matter and Form can only be separated in thought. Forms do not wander like ghosts through dull Matter, but are contained in it after the manner of germs. The Material Forms, in the guise of natural forces, operate in an eternal process of generation, never separated from matter, but yet deserving to be called divine. Absolute origination or extinction there is none, for all happening is a transition from potentiality to actuality, and from actuality back to potentiality, in which process like is ever generated by like and by that alone.

But there is a graded order in the world of Being. The material or substantial Form stands midway between mere Accident and pure (or separate) Form. Substantial Forms also exhibit varieties of degree,—intermediate conditions between potentiality and actuality. And, finally, the whole system of Forms, from the nethermost hylic Form up to the Divine Essence, the original Form of the whole, constitutes one compact structure rising tier upon tier.

Now the eternal process of Becoming, within the given System, presupposes an eternal movement, and that again an eternal Mover. If the world had had an origin, we might have reasoned from it to another and a similarly originated corporeal world, which had produced it, and so on without end. If again it had been a ‘possible’ entity, we might have inferred a ‘possible’ entity out of which it had proceeded, and so on ad infinitum. And according to Ibn Roshd, it is only the hypothesis of a world moved as a unity and of eternal necessity, that yields us the possibility of inferring a Being, separate from the world, yet eternally moving it, who in his continually producing that movement and maintaining the fair order of the All, may legitimately be called the Author of the world, and who in the Spirits that move the Spheres,—for every separate kind of movement demands its separate principle,—possesses agents to give effect to his activity.

The essence of the First Mover, or of God, as well as of the Sphere-Spirits, is found by Ibn Roshd in Thought, in which unity of Being is given him. Thought which is identical with its object is the sole positive definition of the Divine Essence; but Being and Unity absolutely synchronize with such Thought. In other words, Being and Unity are not annexed to the Essence, but are given only in Thought, just like all universals. Thought produces everywhere the general in the particular. It is true that the universal as a disposition is operative in things, but the universal qua universal exists in the understanding alone. Or, in possibility (or potentiality) it exists in things, but it exists actually in the understanding,—that is, it has more Being,—a higher kind of existence,—in the understanding than in things.

If now the question is asked,—‘Does Divine Thought take in merely the general, or does it take in the particular too?’, Ibn Roshd replies, ‘It does not directly take in either the one or the other, for the Divine Essence transcends both of them. Divine Thought produces the All and embraces the All. God is the principle, the original Form, and the final aim of all things. He is the order of the world, the reconciliation of all opposites, the All itself in its highest mode of existence.’ It follows of course from this theory, that there can be no talk of a Divine Providence in the ordinary sense of the term.