Two reasons combined to raise the fame of Averroës among the Latins, and to inspire them with a high curiosity regarding his works. He was known to have devoted his life to the study and exposition of Aristotle; then, as for many ages, the idol of the Christian schools. His philosophy was further understood to embody the strangest and most daring speculations regarding the origin of the universe and the nature of the soul. For these he had suffered severely at the hands of the Moslem orthodox. They had proscribed his works and compelled him to leave his employment and pass the most precious years of his life in exile. These common impressions regarding Averroës were in the main correct. His labours had appeared in three forms; a paraphrase, and a lesser and greater commentary on the books of Aristotle, and the philosophy which these writings contained was undoubtedly Manichæan, if not in a measure Pantheistic. Like that of all the Arabian philosophers, to whose teaching Averroës gave its final and most characteristic form, this doctrine was really Greek: the Aristotelic scheme of the universe as it had been conceived anew by Porphyry of Alexandria. At the foundation lay a mighty Duality: that of the opposing powers of Good and Evil. With the notion of exalting Him above the possibility of blame, God, the Centre of the Universe, about whom all revolves, was declared to be the Absolute and unconditional Being; while over against Him was set Matter, also eternal, from which, in its stubborn resistance to the Divine Will, all evil had arisen. Any direct action of Deity upon matter could not be thought of; so the interval between them was conceived of as occupied by several Emanations proceeding from God, among which we may notice those of the Divine Wisdom and the Divine Power. This Wisdom was said to be impersonal; one common to all intelligent creatures; the Light that lighteneth every man that cometh into the world. This Power was regarded as supreme, seated high above the spheres, and, through the _Primum Mobile_, entering into touch with matter and deriving its force downward from one heavenly circle to another till it reaches earth itself. The origin of created beings was a problem which received much attention from Averroës. His ideas on this subject will be seen when we come to speak of the important digression he wrote under the title of _Quaestiones Nicolai Peripatetici_.[154] In every man he perceived the existence of a passive intellect or reason, in relation to which the other Heavenly Intelligence, or Divine Wisdom, presented itself to him as the Active Reason: that in whose motions Thought was always accompanied by Power. The one was Impersonal and Eternal, the other individual and perishable, yet Averroës taught that a close relation subsisted between them, and a consequent sympathy and attraction, in which the passive intelligence strove to unite itself with the active and thus achieve eternity and immortality.[155]