The Awakening of the SoulIbn Tufayl, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik
ReligionIslamic
The Awakening of the Soul
Ibn Tufayl, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik
Islamic philosophy -- Early works to 1800; Philosophy, Arab -- Early works to 1800
This dress answered different ends: for in the first place it covered
his nakedness, helped to keep him warm, and then it made him so
frightful to the beasts that none of them cared to meddle with him or
come near him.
After awhile he began to make experiments with the body of the roe,
anxious to find out its composition.
He noticed, when he shut his eyes or held anything before him, he could
see nothing at all till this obstacle was removed; and so, when he put
his fingers in his ears that he could not hear till he took them out
again. From which he concluded that all his senses and actions were
liable to obstacles and impediments, upon the removal of which the same
functions returned to their former course.
Now, when he found no visible defect in the external parts of the body
of the roe, and yet at the same time perceived a universal cessation of
its motions, he began to imagine that the hurt from which the roe had
died was hidden in the inward part of the body.
Now he had observed on the bodies of wild beasts and other animals that
all their members were solid, and that there were only three cavities,
viz. the skull, the breast, and belly. He imagined, therefore, that the
part the nature of which he wanted to find out must be in one of these
cavities, and he had a strong persuasion that it was in the middlemost
of them.
And having by this way of reasoning assured himself that the disaffected
part lay in the breast, he resolved to open the breast of the roe; and,
providing himself with sharp flints and splinters of dry cane almost
like knives, he made an incision between the ribs, and, cutting through
the flesh, came to the _Diaphragm_.
When he found this tough and not easily broken, he assured himself that
such a covering must belong to that part for which he was looking out.
After great efforts he succeeded in breaking through, and the first part
he met was the lungs; and at last he found the heart, which he saw
closed with a very strong cover and fastened with strong ligaments and
guarded with a membrane.
On finding the same membrane on the inside of the ribs, and the lungs in
the same posture as on the other side which he had opened first, he
concluded the heart to be the part he looked for. When, however, he
found that the being which had dwelt there before, had left its house
before it fell to ruin, and forsaken it, the whole body seemed to him an
inconsiderable thing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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