A Compendium on the Soul. Avicenna
as to motion, to affirm the existence of spiritual faculties.
Whereas, in respect of Perception, because that bodies exist with this in common, viz. that they are bodies, and with this in distinction, viz. that they are repeatedly perceptive, it is quite manifest by the first (preceding) process of discrimination that perception will not ever differ from bodies through difference of their substance, but by certain powers or faculties borne within those bodies. It therefore becomes quite clear by this sort of exposition that spiritual faculties have an existence: and this is what we wished to demonstrate.
FOOTNOTES:
6. Reality of existence; or its whereabouts. Doctor S. Landauer thinks that the word ayniyyat in the text must be wrong, because nowhere throughout this section is the «Whereabout» of the mental powers so much as hinted at; whereas the burden of the whole chapter is to prove merely that such powers do exist, i.e., their inniyyat, which is a word used by Arab Logicians.
A. A Why and Wherefore moving it. Note the difference between sabab and `illah. Transcriber addition: sabab (سبب) and `illat (علّة): Sabab means the general conditions that are conducive to something occuring, whereas `illat is the reason in cause-and-effect. Traditionally, `illat is used in logic or medicine, whereas sabab would be more likely to be heard in common speech.
B. Ditto.
7. The four elements: earth, air, fire, water.
8. Here Ibn Sînâ seems to have had a rather clear premonition of Newton’s Theory of Gravitation, seven hundred years before the falling of the famous apple.
SECTION SECOND
Of the Division of the Spiritual Faculties and their Classification into Three Main Classes, and the Definition of the Soul in a General Way.
SUB-SECTION A:
It has been clearly shown by us in the foregoing that of things there are some which have one thing in common and differ in an other, in that the one in common is other than the one differed in. Then we found compound ensouled bodies—I mean possessing souls—to have agreed and differed in the properties both of their impulsion and their perception. As to impulsion, they agree and differ, in that one and all of them has in common that they move in quantity the motion of growth; and they differ, in that one sett among them moves, together with that growth, in local motions according to the will; and one other sett among them does not so move, such as plants. Likewise living beings have in common that they are both sentient and perceptive, up to a certain sort of sensuous perception; and then afterwards they differ in that one sett among them perceives, together with that sort of sensuous perception, by intellectual perception; and one other sett among them does not so perceive, such as the ass and the horse. We further found the power of impulsion to be more widely embracing than the power of perception, in that we found plants to lack the latter utterly. Hence we knew for certain that the faculty in which the animal agrees with the plant is more general than this perceptive faculty, and than the impelling faculty which is in the animal; and each one of them is more general than the speaking (rational) faculty, which belongs to man. Thus then, the spiritual faculties come forth (or stand out) before us set and ranged, in respect of the common and the peculiar, i.e., according to the general and specialC, under three classes or ranks:D
The first of which is known as the plant or vegetable power, on account of the participation therein of the animal and plant;
The second is known as the animal power;
The third, as the speaking power, or rational faculty.
Therefore, the primary parts of the soul, in contemplating it from the standpoint of its powers, are three.
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