Khorassan produced another celebrated adept at the end of the tenth, or, according to an alternative opinion, about the middle of the eleventh century. This was the illustrious Ebn Sina, commonly called Avicenna, who was born at Bacara, the principal city of that province of Persia. The exact date of his birth has been fixed, but in the absence of sufficient authority, at the year 980. He is equally celebrated for the multiplicity of his literary works and for his adventurous life. At an early age he had made unusual progress in mathematics, and his gifted mind soon penetrated the mysteries of transcendental philosophy. He was only sixteen when he passed from the preparatory sciences to that of medicine, in which he succeeded with the same celerity; and great is the sagacity attributed to him in the knowledge of diseases. He is praised in particular for having discovered that the illness of the King of Gordia’s nephew was occasioned by an amorous passion which he had carefully concealed, and for the stratagem by which he discovered the object of the young man’s affections. His credit as a physician and philosopher became so great that the Sultan Magdal Doulet determined to place him at the head of his affairs, and appointed him to the distinguished position of Grand Vizier; but, notwithstanding the religion of Mohammed, which Avicenna professed, he drank so freely, and his intemperance led to so much immorality and disorder, that he was deprived of his dignities in the State, and died in comparative obscurity at the age of fifty-six. He was buried at Hamadan, a city of Persia, which was the ancient Ecbatana. Though his history gave rise to the saying that he was a philosopher devoid of wisdom, and a physician without health, the Arabs long believed that he commanded spirits, and was served by the Jinn. As he sought the philosophic stone, several oriental peoples affirm him to be still alive, dwelling in splendid state, invested with spiritual powers, and enjoying in an unknown retreat the sublime nectar of perpetual life and the rejuvenating qualities of the _aurum potabile_. Six or seven treatises on Hermetic philosophy are ascribed to Avicenna; some of them are undoubtedly spurious. There is a treatise on the “Congelation of the Stone” and a _Tractatulus de Alchimia_, which may be found in the first volumes of the _Ars Aurifera_, Basle, 1610. In 1572 the _Ars Chimica_ was printed at Berne. Two Hermetic tracts are also attributed to Avicenna by the compilers of the _Theatrum Chimicum_, and an octavo volume _Porta Elementorum_, appeared under his name at Basle during the third quarter of the sixteenth century. The grimoires and magical rituals frequently appeal to Avicenna as the authority for their supernatural secrets.