That the forms thus impressed on the common sense in sleep are intermediate between corporeal and spiritual is proved by the fact that they are different from the corporeal forms of things seen in the waking state. The latter are obscure and covered up, whereas those seen in sleep are finer, more spiritual and brighter. Proof of this is that a person sees himself in sleep endowed with wings and flying between heaven and earth. He sees the heavens opening and someone speaking to him out of the heaven, and so on. There would be no sense in all this if these phenomena had no spiritual meaning, for they are contrary to nature. But we know that they have real significance if interpreted by a really thoughtful person. The prophets also in wishing to separate themselves from mankind and impress the latter with their qualities, showed them spiritual forms of similar kind, which were preternatural. Hence all who believe in prophecy admit that dreams are a part of prophecy. Now these intermediate forms which are impressed upon the common sense in sleep are turned over by it to the phantasy and by the latter to the memory. When the person awakes, he recovers the forms from the memory just as they were deposited there by the phantasy. He then consults his thinking power; and if this is spiritual and pure, the Intelligence endows him with its light and splendor and reveals to him the spiritual forms signified by the visions seen in sleep. He is then able to interpret the dream correctly. But if his powers of thought are not so good and are obscured by coverings, he cannot properly remove the husk from the kernel in the forms seen in sleep, is not able to penetrate to the true spirituality beneath, and his interpretation is erroneous. This explanation does not really explain, but it is noteworthy as the first Jewish attempt to reduce prophecy to a psychological phenomenon, which was carried further by subsequent writers until it received its definitive form for the middle ages in Maimonides and Levi ben Gerson. To sum up, Israeli is an eclectic. There is no system of Jewish philosophy to be found in his writings. He had no such ambitions. He combines Aristotelian logic, physics and psychology with Neo-Platonic metaphysics, and puts on the surface a veneer of theistic creationism. His merit is chiefly that of a pioneer in directing the attention of Jews to the science and philosophy of the Greeks, albeit in Arab dress. There is no trace yet of the Kalam in his writings except in his allusions to the atomic theory and the denial of reward and punishment of animals. CHAPTER II DAVID BEN MERWAN AL MUKAMMAS