A Compendium on the Soul

Part 1

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AVICENA’S OFFERING to the PRINCE

«E l’anima umana la qual è colla nobiltà della potenzia ultima, cioè ragione, participa della divina natura a guisa di sempiterna Intelligenza; perocchè l’anima è tanto in quella sovrana potenzia nobilitata, e dinudata da materia, che la divina luce, come in Angiolo, raggia in quella; e però è l’uomo divino animale da’ Filosofi chiamato.»

(=Dante=, Convito, III, 2.)

STAMPERIA DI NICOLA PADERNO S. Salvatore Corte Regia, 10 VERONA, ITALIA

A COMPENDIUM ON THE SOUL,

BY Abû-'Aly al-Husayn Ibn 'Abdallah Ibn Sînâ:

TRANSLATED, FROM THE ARABIC ORIGINAL, BY EDWARD ABBOTT van DYCK,

WITH Grateful Acknowledgement of the Substantial Help OBTAINED From Dr. S. Landauer’s Concise German Translation, AND FROM James Middleton MacDonald’s Literal English Translation;

AND PRINTED AT VERONA, ITALY, in THE YEAR 1906, For the Use of Pupils and Students of Government Schools IN Cairo, Egypt.

PREFACE

Several sources out of which to draw information and seek guidance as to Ibn Sînâ’s biography and writings, and his systems of medicine and philosophy, are nowadays easily accessible to nearly every one. Among such sources the following are the best for Egyptian students:

1. Ibn Abi Uçaybi´ah’s “Tabaqât-ul-Atib-ba,” and Wuestenfeld’s “Arabische Aertzte.”

2. Ibn Khallikân’s “Wafâyât-ul-A´ayân.”

3. Brockelmann’s “Arabische Literatur.”

4. F. Mehren’s Series of Essays on Ibn Sînâ in the Periodical “Muséon” from the year 1882 and on.

5. Clément Huart’s Arabic Literature, either in the French Original or in the English Translation.

6. Carra de Vaux’s “Les Grands Philosophes: Avicenna,” Paris, Felix Alcan, 1900, pp. vii et 302.

7. T. de Boer’s “History of Philosophy in Islâm,” both in Dutch and in the English translation.

The “Offering to the Prince in the Form of a Compendium on the Soul,” of which the present Pamphlet is my attempt at an English Translation, is the least known throughout Egypt and Syria of all Ibn Sînâ’s many and able literary works: indeed I have failed, after repeated and prolonged enquiry, to come across so much as one, among my many Egyptian acquaintances, that had even heard of it.

Doctor Samuel Landauer of the University of Strassburg published both the Arabic text, and his own concise German translation, of this Research into the Faculties of the Soul, in volume 29 for the year 1875 of the Z.d.D.M.G., together with his critical notes and exhaustively erudite confrontations of the original Arabic with many Greek passages from Plato, Aristotle, Alexander Aphrodisias, and others, that Ibn Sînâ had access to, it would appear, second hand, i.e. through translations. Doctor Landauer made use also of a very rare Latin translation by Andreas Alpagus, printed at Venice in 1546; and of the Cassel second edition of Jehuda Hallévy’s religious Dialogue entitled Khusari, which is in rabbinical Hebrew, and on pages 385 to 400 of which the views of “philosophers” on the Soul are set forth, Doctor Landauer having discovered to his agreeable surprise that those 15 pages are simply a word for word excerpt from this Research by Ibn Sînâ. For the Arabic text itself, he had at his command only two manuscript copies, the one, preserved in the Library at Leyden, being very faulty; and the other, in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at Milan, being far more accurate and correct.

This text was reprinted talis qualis, but with omission of every kind of note, in 1884 at Beirût, Syria, by Khalîl Sarkîs: this reprint is very hard to find.

James Middleton MacDonald, M.A., made a studiedly literal English translation or rather a construe of it in 1884, of which he got a small number printed in pamphlet form at Beirût, and by Khalîl Sarkîs also: this English Version too is very rare, and almost unknown.

* * * * *

My present English rendering of this Essay by Avicena on the Powers of the Soul has been made directly and finally from the Arabic Original as given in the Landauer Text, with constant consultation however of both the Landauer German translation and the MacDonald English construe: it has been made not for European scholars and Arabists but solely for pupil students in Egypt, which circumstance called in a great measure for the use of two or more nearly synonymous words where the Arabic original often has but one only. Indeed I am not ashamed to say further that in some places I have failed to follow the drift and understand the purport of Ibn Sînâ’s argument; so that in such passages I am only too conscious of how far my rendering may perhaps have wandered from the right and true sense. But the author himself declares that psychology is one of the deepest and darkest of studies; and he relates of himself in his autobiography that he had read one of Aristotle’s writings forty times over, until he had got it by heart, and yet had failed to see the point. And he goes on to tell of how it was that he one day stumbled across and then read over al-Fârâbî’s “Maqâçid Aristotle,” whereupon mental light dawned upon him as to the purport of that writing.

Those for whom I have made it now know why this my English version is often timid and wavering, nay sometimes even wordy and hazy.

* * * * *

The end of the next year’s session will in all likelihood bring with it the cessation of my connection with the Khedivial School of Law. More than this: I am getting well on in life, so that this translation will most likely be the last serious work that I shall ever perform in the service of Young Egypt. Such reflections awaken in my inmost soul all sorts of feelings and thoughts about the shortness and fleetingness of this earthly life, the happiness of childhood and youth, the darkness of the grave, and the utter despair that will surely engulf the soul at the last hours, unless--mark my words--unless the strong arm of our Heavenly Father lay hold upon this soul that is now within me, and take it off and up, to be joined unto the millions of souls of all, all those who have gone before, whither too shall follow so many, many other millions; in a word, unless GOD have mercy upon me, even as He has had mercy upon my forefathers and mothers since many generations. This hope in His mercy and grace is my ever-strengthening prop and stay, the older and feebler I get. Nor will any of those for whom I write these lines ever find a stronger or a better. And the time will very soon come when each and every one of them, however long may be his life here below, will surely need it, to save him from sinking into the black nothingness of doubt, indifference, and despair.

Part 2

EDWARD ABBOTT van DYCK.

VERONA, August, 1906.

Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen: Ein werdender wird immer dankbar sein.

FOOTNOTES:

And the Human Soul possessing the nobility of the highest power, which is Reason, participates in the Divine Nature, after the manner of an eternal Intelligence: for the Soul is ennobled and denuded of matter by that Sovereign Power in proportion as the Divine Light of Truth shines into it, as into an Angel; and Man is therefore called by the Philosophers the Divine Animal.

A mind once formed, is never suited after; One yet in growth will ever grateful be.

INTRODUCTION

In the Name of GOD, the Merciful, the Compassionate: May GOD bless our Lord Muhammad and his Kinsfolk, and give them peace. O my God facilitate [this undertaking]; and make end in good, O Thou Bounteous Being!

Abu-´Aly, Ibn Sînâ, the chief elder, learnèd and erudite leader, the precise and accurate researcher, Truth’s plea against mankind, the physician of physicians, the philosopher of Islâm, may the Most High GOD have mercy upon him, saith:--

The best of beginnings is that which is adorned with praise to the Giver of strength for praising Him; and for invoking blessing and peace upon our Lord Muhammad, His prophet and servant, and upon his good and pure offspring after him. And after this beginning, he saith further:--

Had not custom given leave to the small and low to reach up to the great and high, it would be most difficult for them ever to tread those paths in going over which they need to lay hold of their upholding arm and seek the help of their superior strength; to attain to a position in their service, and join themselves to their social circle; to pride themselves on having become connected with them, and openly declare their reliance upon them. Nay, the very bond which joins the common man to the man of élite would be severed, and the reliance of the flock upon its shepherd would cease; the frail would no longer become powerful through the strength of the mighty, nor the low-born rise through the protection and countenance of the high-born; the foolish would not be able to correct his folly and ignorance by intercourse with the prudent and wise; nor the wise draw nigh to the ignorant and foolish.

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