The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn YokdhanIbn Tufayl, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik
Islamic
The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan
Ibn Tufayl, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Malik
Islamic philosophy -- Early works to 1800
Sec. 57. Thus his Contemplation this Way, brought him to the same
Conclusion it did the other Way. So that doubting concerning the
Eternity of the World, and its Existence _de novo_, did him no harm at
all. For it was plain to him both ways, that there was a Being, which
was not Body, nor join'd to Body, nor separated from it; nor within it,
nor without it; because Conjunction and Separation, and being within any
thing, or without it, are all properties of Body, from which that Being
is altogether abstracted. And because all Bodies stand in need of a Form
to be added to their Matter, as not being able to subsist without it,
nor exist really; and the Form it self cannot exist, but by this
Voluntary Agent, it appear'd to him that all things ow'd their Existence
to this Agent; and that none of them could subsist, but through him: and
consequently, that he was the Cause, and they the Effects, (whether they
were newly created after a Privation, or whether they had no Beginning,
in respect of him, 'twas all one) and Creatures whose Existence depended
upon that Being; and that without his Continuance they could not
continue, nor exist without his Existing, nor have been eternal without
his being Eternal; but that he was essentially independent of them, and
free from them. And how should it be otherwise, when it is demonstrated,
that his Power and Might are infinite, and that all Bodies, and
whatsoever belongs to them are finite? Consequently, that the whole
World, and whatsoever was in it, the Heavens, the Earth, the Stars, and
whatsoever was between them above them, or beneath them, was all his
Work and Creation, and posterior to him in Nature, if not in Time. As,
if you take any Body whatsoever in your Hand, and then move your Hand,
the Body will without doubt follow the Motion of your Hand, with such a
Motion as shall be posterior to it in Nature, tho' not in Time, because
they both began together: So all this World is caus'd and created by
this Agent out of Time, _Whose Command is, when he would have any thing
done, BE, and it is_.
Sec. 58. And when he perceiv'd that all things which did exist were his
Workmanship, he look'd them over again, considering attentively the
Power of the Efficient, and admiring the Wonderfulness of the
Workmanship, and such accurate Wisdom, and subtil Knowledge. And there
appear'd to him in the most minute Creatures (much more in the greater)
such Footsteps of Wisdom, and Wonders of the Work of Creation, that he
was swallow'd up with Admiration, and fully assur'd that these things
could not proceed from any other, than a Voluntary Agent of infinite
Perfection, nay, that was above all Perfection; such an one, to whom the
Weight of the least Atom was not unknown, whether in Heaven or Earth;
no, nor any other thing, whether lesser or greater than it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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