After these came others, who still advanc'd further, and made nearer approaches to the Truth; among whom there was one that had a sharper Wit, or truer notions of things than _Avenpace_, but he was too much taken up with Worldly Business, and Died before he had time to open the Treasury of his Knowledge, so that most of those pieces of his which are extant, are imperfect; particularly his Book _about the Soul_) and his _Tedbiro 'lmotawahhid,_ i.e. _How a Man ought to manage himself that leads a Solitary Life_ So are his _Logicks_ and _Physicks_. Those Pieces of his which are compleat, are only short Tracts and some occasional Letters. Nay, in his Epistle concerning the _UNION_, he himself confesses that he had wrote nothing compleat, where he says, _That it would require a great deal of trouble and pains to express that clearly which he had undertaken to prove_; and, _that the method which he had made use of in explaining himself, was not in many places so exact as it might have been_; and, _that he design'd, if he had time, to alter it_. So much for _Avenpace_, I for my part never saw him, and as for his Contemporaries, they were far inferiour to him, nor did I ever see any of their Works. Those who are now alive, are, either such as are still advancing forwards, or else such as have left off, without attaining to perfection; if there are any other, I know nothing of them. As to those Works of _Alpharabius_ which are extant, they are most of them _Logick_. There are a great many things very dubious in his Philosophical Works; for in his _Mellatolphadelah_, i.e. _The most excellent Sect_, he asserts expressly, _that the Souls of Wicked Men shall suffer everlasting Punishment_; and yet says as positively in his Politicks that they shall be dissolv'd and annihilated, and that the Souls of the Perfect shall remain for ever. And then in his _Ethicks_, speaking concerning the Happiness of Man, he says, _that it is only in this Life_, and then adds, _that whatsoever People talk of besides, is meer Whimsy and old Wives Fables_. A principle, which if believ'd would make all Men despair of the Mercy of God, and puts the Good and Evil both upon the same Level, in that it makes annihilation the common end to them both. This is an Error not to be pardon'd by any means, or made amends for. Besides all this, he had a mean Opinion of the Gift of Prophecy, and said that in his Judgment it did belong to the _faculty of Imagination_, and that he prefer'd Philosophy before it; with a great many other things of the like nature, not necessary to be mention'd here.