Book Four, chapter 5

1Chapter 5

2By perseverance, may God strengthen you, and by discipline in sleep and waking, these people attained what they attained of the apprehension of the two lofty results, after mastering the ten sciences, of which five are such that knowledge of them is necessary for the founders of laws, and five are such that knowledge of them is necessary for the philosopher.

3(1) The first of them is the science of agriculture, herding and navigation; it is what is needed at the very outset for the founding of cities and their good cultivation. In it there must be prior acquaintance and antecedent knowledge, and the books on that have been composed.

4(2) Then the science of leading armies, the stratagems of wars, the training of riding beasts, farriery and falconry. (3) Then civil science, and it is that which governs the parts of the city, such as grammar, language, letters, the principles [of law], the inheritance shares, knowledge of the ordinances of that religious community and jurisprudence in them, and writing in its kinds; and under it [comes] the craft of drawing up deeds. Into this discipline enters all that is in use by convention in cities which some religious community founds.

5(4) Then the polities in their totality; that is, among them is a general one, such as the governing of cities all together; among them one intermediate between the general and the particular, such as the governing of some city by what is proper to it; among them one lower in its intermediacy, such as the governing of the household; and among them a particular one, such as a man's governing of himself. (5) Then ethical science, and the books on it are composed.

6(6) Then the science of the mathematical [sciences] in their totality, and they are four kinds. The first of them is number, and of it are commercial transactions, algebra and the inheritance shares. The second of them is geometry, and of it is theoretical and practical, and under it are surveying and mensuration, the lifting of weights, the making of mangonels, hydraulic and pneumatic devices, burning mirrors and optics. The third of them is the stars, and under it are geometry, the configuration [of the heavens], the equation [of the planets] and judgement, and under it the square [sense uncertain]. And its fourth is music, and under it are rhythm and prosody.

7(7) Then the science of logic; eight books encompass it, and the First Sage has guided us by them and illuminated our insights. (8) Then the science of medicine in its entirety, as knowledge, such as knowledge of its universals, and as practice, such as operating in it; and under this division are pharmacy and the craft of the hand, in surgeries and treatment of the eye.

8(9) Then natural science; a number of books which the Sage composed comprise it, and after him men undertook their commentary and went deep into that to the utmost they could. The first of them is the Book of the Hearing, then the Book of the Heaven and the World, then the Book of Generation and Corruption, then the Book of the Upper Impressions, then the Book of Minerals, then the Book of Plants, then the Book of Animals, then the Book of the Soul, then the Book of Sense and the Sensible, then the Book of Health and Sickness, then the Book of the Local Motion of Animals. These books: whoever has surveyed them and encompassed in knowledge the understanding of them has encompassed in knowledge natural science in the most complete way possible.

9(10) Then the science of what is after nature; the Sage comprised it in thirteen treatises, in which he brought the one who studies them to what is desired, and made him attain hope and the beloved.

10And rightly, O reader, were these two results the results of these sciences, for none perceives them, nor encompasses them, nor deduces them (and consider my saying 'deduces them') except one who has acquired these sciences in their truth and their genuineness, and he is the perfect philosopher.

11So perhaps you, O reader, will awaken from the sleep of heedlessness, so that you may witness what the first sages witnessed of divine visions and spiritual things heard, and there may issue from you what issued from them, so that you become an agent in your world, bringing about wondrous effects through attaining likeness to God according to human capacity. And toward this allusion [points] His saying, Mighty and Majestic: "I am placing upon the earth a vicegerent."

12And recall what Abū Bishr Mattā ibn Yūnus mentioned in the Commentary on the Eighth [Book] of Aristotle's Metaphysics: that Thābit ibn Qurra said to a man who was disputing with him [reading uncertain: nāqa'ahu] about arithmetic, and who had said to him that God the Exalted is able to do all things — Thābit said to him: "Then is God able to make the total of five multiplied by five less than twenty-five, or more than it?" And he silenced him, and he found no answer for him.

13So toward this perception let your passionate love and your taking of delight be [directed], for it is the praiseworthy passionate love, since passionate love, its definition is excessive love; and of it there is what is praiseworthy and blameworthy. The praiseworthy is when his love and his watchfulness for himself do not grow much, so that his First Beloved, Who pours forth the good things, is before his eyes; and the blameworthy is excess of love in bodily appetites, in shaped forms and in venereal pleasures.

14And it has been said that passionate love is the union of the soul of the lover with the soul of his beloved, from an affinity between them in the first disposition. And passionate love may come about from a cause that comes from affinity and much 'blackness', and that is the eye that keeps constantly to the person, until love spreads between them. And love may be from one of the two, and he is called a lover, while his beloved does not love him.

15And here I am, mentioning its principles. So we say that the causes are present in the natures of souls, and the reasons are outside them; and that the embodied souls, since they are of three kinds, animal, vegetative and rational: when the vegetative is strong in him, appetitive matters prevail over it, such as foods and drinks; and if the animal prevails, its passionate love is toward overpowering, subjugation and vengeance; and if the rational soul prevails, it loves passionately the virtues and the branches of knowledge. And all that is in the first disposition.

16That is because every human being must have one of the planets gain mastery over him at the root of his nativity. If the one that has mastery over him is the Moon and Venus and Saturn, then what prevails over his nature is the appetitive power, toward foods and drinks and marriages. And if it is Mars and the Sun and Venus, then what prevails over him is sexual intercourse and marriages. And if the one that has mastery over him is the Sun and Mars, then what prevails over his nature is the appetite of anger and vengeance and the love of leadership. And if the one that has mastery over him is the Sun and Mercury, his passionate love is for the branches of knowledge, the acquisition of the virtues, and justice. And when that comes to him, it leads him to what prevails in his nature.

17So the beginning of passionate love and its first [stage] is much looking and the black of the eye, that is, the constancy of that. Then that is like a seed that has been sown, or a branch that has been planted, or a drop of semen that has fallen into the womb, and the glances are in the position of a material that pours down to there, and it increases and grows. Then the lover's wish is drawing near to and being close to that person, until he loves him [pronoun ambiguous: the beloved the lover, or the lover the beloved], and being alone with him and being near him become easy for him. And when it comes about, embracing and kissing become easy for him, until their souls mingle. So this is the cause of the passionate love of bodies and of the mingling of love between them.

18And if the constant attachment belongs to the rational soul, it loves passionately what is of its own kind, such as the branches of knowledge, the virtues and the lasting pleasures; and love of this kind is the virtue of the rational soul, and the other two divisions are vice. And by the like of this mutual passionate love and affinity the soul of the one who gazes, with persistence of looking, becomes united with what it has fallen upon, and turns it toward corruption.

19And Plato has mentioned in the Book of the Soul that those with dry, black-bilious temperaments and [word uncertain: al-ḥāqqa] eyes are of severe harm and corruption to what they fall upon and find beautiful; and he likened them to the dry animal that is in the dry, parched lands and the iron mountains, since it corrupts what is near it, and it may corrupt, by looking, whoever looks at it and sees it, when he comes upon them. So likewise the one who gazes, because of the corruption of his temperament and the corruption of his soul and the greatness of his envy, destroys what he has seen and found beautiful, and inclines it toward the side of corruption.

20And for that reason the Lawgiver set what counters it, his saying: 'Why did you not invoke blessing?', and that was a glory for him [sense uncertain]. And it also has, besides that, a celestial aptitude in the first disposition; and it may be inherited from a temperament and an aptitude. And the people have mentioned it under generation and begetting, since the foundation of the science of natures lies in generation and begetting.

21And know, may God illumine your insight, that the organs by which begetting is completed are two one of which gives the matter from which comes to be the animal that has that power, and the other gives the form of that species of animal and moves the matter until that form is completed by it. So the power that gives the matter is the power of the female, and that which gives the form is the power of the male; for the female is female by the power through which the matter is prepared, and the male is male by the power that gives that matter the form of that species which has that power.

22And the organ that serves the heart in preparing the matter in the female is the womb, and that which serves it in giving the form is the organ of the male, and in it is the semen. And the semen, when it reaches the womb and meets there blood which the womb has prepared for receiving the form of the human being, the semen gives that blood a power by which it moves until there come to be from that blood the organs of the human being and the form of each organ, and in sum the form of the human being.

23So the blood prepared in the womb is the matter of the human being, and the semen is the mover of that matter until the form comes about in it. And the position of the semen with respect to the blood prepared in the womb is the position of the rennet by which milk curdles: the rennet is the agent of the curdling, and it is neither a part of what is curdled nor matter. Likewise the semen is neither a part of what curdles in the womb nor matter. And the embryo comes to be from the semen as curdled milk comes to be from the rennet, and it comes to be from the blood of the womb as the ewer comes to be from the copper.

24And that which forms the semen in the human being is the vessels in which the semen is found, and they are the veins beneath the skin of the pubis, and the two testicles assist them in that with some assistance. And these veins pass through to the duct that is in the penis, so it flows from those veins into the duct of the penis and runs from that duct until it is poured into the womb, and it gives the blood that is in it a principle and a power by which it changes until the organs and their form come about. And the semen, its instrument is the male organ.

25And instruments: some of them are separate and some of them are in contact, as with the physician. For the hand is the instrument of the physician; it treats, like the lancet, and it is in contact. And the medicine is a separate instrument; the physician is in contact with it only at the time when he makes and prepares it and gives it a power acquired through regimen, by which the body of the sick man is moved towards health. Then, when that power has come about, he casts it into the interior of the sick man, and then it moves his body towards health, and the physician who cast it, whether he be living or dead, is [reading uncertain: in contact]. And likewise the semen.

26And the lancet is an instrument that does not do its work except through contact with the physician who uses it, and the hand is more strongly in contact with him than the lancet. As for the medicine, it acts by the power that is in it without the physician being in contact with it. And likewise the semen: it is an instrument for the male and the generative power, separate as the medicine is separate. As for the vessels of the semen and the two testicles, they are an instrument for generation in contact with the body, like the contact of the physician's hand.

27And know that maleness is an active power in plants and animals. Maleness in animals is found in one individual and femaleness in another individual, while maleness and femaleness in plants are found together in it, joined completely in one individual, as with many of the plants that come to be from seeds. For the plant gives the matter, which is the seeds, and gives together with that the reception of the form and a power by which it moves towards the form as well. So that which gave the preparedness for receiving the form is the female power, and that which gave a principle by which it moves towards the form is the male power.

28And there may be found in animals that whose way is this; and there is also found in them the power of femaleness complete, and joined to it some deficient male power that does its work up to a certain extent and then [reading uncertain: falls short], so that it needs some helper from outside, like that which lays eggs by the wind, like many kinds of fish that lay and sow their eggs, and their males come upon them and cast moisture upon them; and whichever egg some of that moisture reaches, an animal comes from it, and whatever it does not reach is corrupted. Man is not so; rather, these two powers are distinguished in him in two individuals, each of whom has members proper to it, and these are the members known for it; and in the rest of the members the two share, and likewise they share in all the powers of the soul, except these two, I mean the womb and the testicles.

29And whatever of the members they share in, it is hotter in the male; and whatever has motion and moving as its action, it is stronger in motion and moving in the male. And as for the accidents of the soul: whatever of them inclines to strength, such as anger and pride, is stronger in the male and weaker in the female; and whatever of the accidents inclines to weakness, such as mercy, compassion and tenderness, is stronger in the female and weaker in the male.

30Yet that does not prevent there being among the males of mankind one in whom are found accidents resembling what is in females, and among the females one in whom are found accidents resembling maleness. By these, then, maleness and femaleness are distinguished in man.

31And it has been said that the wisdom in the splitting of all seeds is that the split has a sign in it; that is, the one half is set apart for maleness and the second half is set apart for femaleness, and every seed has this description. Do you not see that sesame is two parts, and wheat and barley are likewise pairs, and the acorn and the walnut and all seeds are divided into two parts? In this there is wisdom; otherwise, what use would there be in its division?

32And it has been said that the division in man is in this state, because half of him inclines to cold and half of him to heat; so the female power is found in that by which it is acted upon by the male, but it does not suffice by itself for generation except through another individual who aids it in that. And each of the two is acted upon toward its companion, because of what there is in it also of maleness in the female, since she too is divided into two halves; so each half is acted upon toward its companion, and between the two is generated that whose coming-to-be is sought.

33And do not think, may God the Exalted guard you from hateful things, that what we have brought you of these wisdoms and spiritual subtleties is a riddle against you and a veiling of what is sought; rather, it is an explanation, a clarification and an uncovering of the secrets of the people, buried under thousands of riddles. We have brought you in this book [some] of their words, and we have fetched for you every newly acquired and inherited thing of theirs. So be, in concealing it, as is thought of you; and how often I repeat this to you! And here I return to our aim, aimed at first and last.