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. 71. And when he had consider'd the Properties of Animals, and could
not see any one among them, concerning which he could in the least
suspect that it had any Knowledge of this _necessarily self-existent
Being_; but he knew that his own Essence had the Knowledge of it: He
concluded from hence that he was an Animal, endu'd with a Spirit of an
equal Temperature, as all the Heavenly Bodies are, and that he was of a
distinct Species from the rest of Animals, and that he was created for
another end, and design'd for something greater than what they were
capable of. And this was enough to satisfie him of the Nobility of his
Nature; namely, that his viler Part, _i.e._ the Corporeal, was most like
of all to the Heavenly Substances, which are without this World of
Generation and Corruption, and free from all accidents that cause any
Defect, Change or Alteration: And that his noble Part, _viz._, that by
which he attain'd the Knowledge of the _necessarily self-existent
Being_, was something Heroical and Divine, not subject to Change or
Dissolution, nor capable of being describ'd by any of the Properties or
Attributes of Bodies: Not to be apprehended by any of the Senses, or by
the Imagination; nor to be known by the means of any other Instrument
but it self alone, and that it attains the Knowledge of it self by it
self, and was at once the Knower the Knowledge, and the Thing known, the
Faculty and the Object. Neither was there any difference between any of
these because _Diversity_ and _Separation_ are Properties and Adjuncts
of Bodies; but _Body_ was no way concern'd here, nor any Property or
Adjunct of _Body_.
Sec. 72. Having apprehended the manner by which the being like the Heavenly
Bodies, was peculiar to him above all other kinds of Animals whatever;
he perceiv'd that it was a Duty necessarily incumbent upon him to
resemble them, and imitate their Actions, and endeavour to the utmost to
become like them: He perceiv'd also that in respect: of his nobler Part,
by which he had attain'd the Knowledge of that _necessarily self
existent Being_, he did in some measure resemble it, because he was
separated from the Attributes of Bodies, as the _necessarily
self-existent Being_ is separated from them. He saw also that it was his
Duty to endeavour to make himself Master of the Properties of that Being
by all possible means, and put on his Qualities, and imitate his
Actions, and labour in the doing his Will, and resign himself wholly to
him, and submit to his Dispensations heartily and unfeignedly, so as to
rejoice in him, tho' he should lay Afflictions upon his Body, and hurt,
or totally destroy it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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