On that island, however, our Hai ibn Yaqzan,—i.e. ‘the Active one, the son of the Vigilant’,—had been trained into a perfect philosopher. Cast upon the island when a child, or else brought into existence there by spontaneous generation, he had been suckled by a gazelle, and then had been in the course of time left, like a Robinson Crusoe, and that entirely, to his own resources. Yet he had secured a material existence, and farther, by observation and reflection, had acquired a knowledge of Nature, the heavens, God, and his own inner being, until after seven times seven years he had attained to that which is highest, viz., the Sufi vision of God, the state of ecstasy. In this situation he was found by Asal. After they had come to understand each other,—for at first Hai was still without speech,—it was found that the philosophy of the one and the religion of the other were two forms of the same truth, except that in the first form it was somewhat less veiled. But when Hai came to know that on the opposite island an entire people continued in darkness and error, he resolved to proceed thither and reveal the truth to them. Here, however, he was brought to learn by experience that the multitude were incapable of a pure apprehension of the truth, and that Mohammed had acted wisely in giving the people sensuous forms instead of full light. After this result therefore he repaired again with his friend Asal to the uninhabited island, to serve God in spirit and in truth till the hour of death. 4. Ibn Tofail has devoted by far the largest portion of his romance to the course of Hai’s development; but he cannot certainly have thought that the individual man, left to himself, is able, with the resources of Nature alone and without the help of society, to advance so far as Hai did. And yet his conception is perhaps rather more historical, than certain views which have been entertained since his day, e.g. by some of the Rationalists of the 18th century. Many little touches in his work shew that Hai was intended to represent humanity as it stands outside of revelation. That which is accomplished in him, is the development of Indian, Persian and Greek wisdom. One or two hints pointing in that direction, but which cannot be farther followed out here, may help to lend probability to this view. Thus it is significant, to begin with, that Hai lives on the island of Ceylon, the climate of which was held to be such as to render spontaneous generation possible, where also, according to the legend, Adam, the first man, had been created, and where the Indian king came to the Wise Man. Then Hai’s first religious sentiment of wonder, after he had struggled up out of the primary, animal stage, through shame and curiosity, is elicited by fire, which has been discovered by him,—a circumstance which recalls to us the Persian religion. And his farther speculations are borrowed from Greco-Arabic Philosophy.