As an example of Ghazzali's ethical earnestness, we may quote the following from his Ihya-ul-ulum ("Revival of the religious sciences"). He refers to the habit common to all Muhammadans of ejaculating, "We take refuge in God." "By the fear of God," he says, "I do not mean a fear like that of women when their eyes swim and their hearts beat at hearing some eloquent religious discourse, which they quickly forget and turn again to frivolity. There is no real fear at all. He who fears a thing flees from it, and he who hopes for a thing strives for it, and the only fear that will save thee is the fear that forbids sinning against God and instils obedience to Him. Beware of the shallow fear of women and fools, who, when they hear of the terrors of the Lord, say lightly, 'We take refuge in God,' and at the same time continue in the very sins which will destroy them. Satan laughs at such pious ejaculations. They are like a man who should meet a lion in a desert, while there is a fortress at no great distance away, and when he sees the ravenous beast, should stand exclaiming, 'I take refuge in that fortress,' without moving a step towards it. What will such an ejaculation profit him? In the same way, merely ejaculating 'I take refuge in God' will not protect thee from the terrors of His judgment unless thou really take refuge in Him." Ghazzali's moral earnestness is equally apparent in the following extract from his work "Munqidh min uddallal" "The Deliverance from error," in which he sets himself to combat the general laxity and heretical tendencies of his time:-- "Man is composed of a body and a heart; by the word 'heart' I understand that spiritual part of him which is the seat of the knowledge of God, and not the material organ of flesh and blood which he possesses in common with the animals. Just as the body flourishes in health and decays in disease, so the heart is either spiritually sound or the prey of a malady which ends in death. "Now ignorance of God is a deadly poison, and the revolt of the passions is a disease for which the knowledge of God and obedience to Him, manifested in self-control, are the only antidote and remedy. Just as remedies for the body are only known to physicians who have studied their secret properties, so the remedies for the soul are devotional practices as defined by the prophets, the effects of which transcend reason. "The proper work of reason is to confess the truth of inspiration and its own impotence to grasp what is only revealed to the prophets; reason takes us by the hand and hands us over to the prophets, as blind men commit themselves to their guides, or as the desperately sick to their physicians. Such are the range and limits of reason; beyond prophetic truth it cannot take a step.