Book Three, chapter 12

1Chapter 12

2And know, O investigator, that the work brings out what is hidden in the sciences, and by it doubts are resolved, for when knowledge of what is sought is attained, doubts are resolved. And for that reason Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus mentioned, at the beginning of his commentary on the second treatise of the Book of the Metaphysics of Aristotle, when he mentioned what befell Anūshirwān, king of the Persians, with Mazdak, who had contrived a stratagem by which it would be made to appear that he was a prophet,

3and that was by his setting up a fire-temple and making beneath it a place which he built with a fine construction out of things on which fire has no effect at all, such as talc and the like among the stones prepared for that. And he would put a man into that place, and he himself would stand with whomever he wished facing the fire and would address the fire, and it would address him as he addressed it and answer him according to what he wished; and it was the person who was speaking, not the fire.

4When Anūshirwān heard this, he found it strange, and his astonishment brought him to the point that he wished to investigate it. So he demanded of him that he show him that, and he stood him beside himself. When he heard the speech from the fire he was perplexed; then he aimed an arrow towards the place of the speech, and the arrow struck that man hidden beneath the grating. Then the perplexity ceased and the doubt was resolved, and it became clear to him that that speech had not belonged to the fire.

5Abū Bishr did not mention this in the way I have mentioned it; rather, I saw it related in full in the Reports of India. So be sparing, O reader, with what I have mentioned to you, and be trustworthy over it, and be, at [as is] expected of you in restraining the soul from passion. And fear the station of your Lord the Exalted, and make your passion [directed] toward His presence. For the passion of the soul is the withdrawal of the soul toward the beloved and its inclination toward it with its whole [being]. If its beloved and its object of ardent love is toward the holy divine presence and the lordly providence, then the passion is praiseworthy; and if it is toward the perishing bodies, then it is a blameworthy aim,

6because the way of passion is the way of love. And love is divided: of it is a love of [reading uncertain: istīmāl] and veneration, like the love of God the Exalted and the love of fathers and teachers; and of it is a love of tenderness, like the love of children; and of it is a love of benefit, like the love of people at large and of the other things from which benefit is obtained.

7And when love is excessive it is called ardent love and passion; and passion, when it is for other than God, is the worst object of worship that was ever worshipped. May God the Exalted illuminate your heart toward what pleases Him, with an expansion from Him toward knowledge of Him. And with this, guard yourself against the common people and the ignorant among the elite, and do not acquaint any one of them with a secret of your secrets, for they are worse than ravening beasts, and they are the killers of the prophets.

8And I mention to you what I saw of Abū Bishr Mattā in the commentary on the first treatise of the Book of Metaphysics of Aristotle, where he mentioned the riddles, at Aristotle's saying: 'It is incumbent upon us to study the matter of the laws and the riddles.' Abū Bishr said: The extent of the power of custom and its greatness becomes clear from the matter of the laws, and from them one infers the power of custom, for we have become accustomed to proverbs and fables from our childhood.

9Then he said: The riddles that are in the laws, when they are considered from the side of demonstration, are like fables, because no demonstration stands for them, rather [it stands] for their contrary; and when they are considered from the side of the aims of those who laid them down, they are found to be noble, and their great benefit is found in this: if they were removed, how would the ravening of the beasts be — and they are the majority of those in the world, rather all of them except the rare exception — until they destroy tillage and offspring and annihilate the intellect!

10And if it is incumbent upon us to thank a father who begot us, how much more fittingly ought we to thank those who laid down the riddles, by which is the survival of our life and the preservation of our intellects, together with the existence of the sustaining cause for us.

11And that is, O reader, that in natural bodies there is a certain power by which they remain preserving their forms and their actions, not shifting from that nor exchanging it, for a certain period, with a particularity for each one of them. The naturalists call this power the sustaining cause, and by it is the persistence of bodies: they do not fall apart, nor [word uncertain: tatahayya'a], nor turn to lime, for a certain period, but remain in their state and their continuity. And it is what is expressed among them by 'nature'.

12And nature, may God honour you, is among the things whose knowledge is necessary. Its definition is that it is a first principle, by essence, for every soul and plant [that is] essential [sense uncertain]; like the stone, for example: when it falls downward, it does not fall because of its being a body, since the other bodies differ from it in that; so it is by a meaning [by which it] differs from fire, which extends upward. That meaning, then, is a principle for this kind of motion, and it is called nature. And motion itself is sometimes called nature: one says 'the nature of the stone is falling'; and one sometimes says 'the nature of the element' and 'the essential forms'.

13And the physicians apply the name of nature to the temperament, to the innate heat, to the configurations of the members, to the motions and to the soul, and each one of these has a definition. In reality it is an equivocal name, said of the living, of what is proper to a thing, of the humours, of the world, of heaven, and of the power which the Creator, mighty and majestic, made a cause for the effecting of generation and corruption and of motion and rest in every moving and resting thing.

14For that reason the ancients defined it as the beginning of motion and rest. And the Philosopher also defined it as a corporeal form, and [said] that it comes to be in the body through the mediation of the sphere between it and the soul. And Plato also defined it, saying that nature is a natural substance that makes firm the crafting of things. And Galen defined it with a technical definition, and said that it is heat innate, sustaining the body, warding off corruption from it according to the measure of its power, and it is for it the right ordering of nourishment and of other things. And Empedocles said of nature: a simple substance having one form, that is, it receives the forms form by form, that is, a form after the passing away of a form, and does not receive them together. And he also said: nature has in it the power of life, except that it is the form of life, just as the boy is a craftsman of all the crafts potentially, and when he goes out into whichever of them he goes out into and is trained in it, he is a craftsman actually.

15We have only presented you with these rare gifts so that this may be a cause of the kindling of your knowledge, so that you may be one who keeps in mind the causes of things. For the sage Empedocles said that the causes of the substances are four: a cause that is neither by potentiality nor by act but above both; a cause potentially whose effect is actually; a cause actually whose effect is potentially; and a cause actually whose effect is actually. These, then, are the causes of the substances, as when we say: the Will, the intellect, the soul, nature and the element.

16So the Will is, in relation to God, potentially, and in relation to the intellect, actually; and the intellect is, in relation to the Will, potentially, and in relation to the soul, actually; and the soul is, in relation to the intellect, potentially, and in relation to nature, actually; and nature is, in relation to the soul, potentially, and in relation to the element, actually. So each one of these substances is a cause for what is above it potentially and for what is beneath it actually, and an effect for what is above it actually and for what is beneath it potentially; and it pours forth the excellences upon what is beneath it and receives them from what is above it, an outpouring after an outpouring and a receiving after a receiving.

17And they have four other causes, intermediate between the accidental and the substantial, and these are the causes of the purposes; and they are inquiry, ascent [reading uncertain: al-ruqī, ascent, or al-ruqā, incantations], love, and that which acts from its own essence. So inquiry is for the spiritual things which nature has not seen to manifesting [sense uncertain]; ascent is for the artificial and natural things; and love and that which acts from its own essence are for both together. And all of them go back to love. And God the Exalted is the Giver of the complete outpouring to all things, first and last, glory be to Him, and may He be exalted.

18And since we have reached this end, let us make that the end of this book.