Part 7

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The following is the terminology of the five inward senses:

1. Common-Sense = hiss mushtarak, mutaçawwirah.

2. Vis formans, imaginatio = khayâl, muçawwirah, fantasia, takhayyul, mutakhayyilah.

3. Vis cogitativa, vis imaginativa = mufakkirah, mutakhayyilah, mutawahhimah, zânnah, mutaçarrifah, mutafakkirah, takhayyul.

4. Memory, remembering, preserving = hâfizah, mutazhakkirah, zhâkirah, zhikr.

5. Vis existimativa, opinativa = wahm, mutawahhimah, zhânnah, takhayyul, wahmiyyah.

Here follows an attempt to clear up this bewildering subject:

1. Perception, through any one or more of the five outward senses, of the outward concrete form.

2. Conception of particular notions, over and beyond the concrete form perceived.

3. Memory, which retains both outward forms perceived as well as recalls inward particular forms conceived.

4. Common-Sense, rises a step higher than the three preceding, in that it unites two or more of the products of any of the three preceding and derives from them a new conception.

5. Opining, which rises higher still and passes judgment, or comes to a definite opinion as to the truth or falsehood of conceptions formed.

In respect of memory, Ibn Sînâ in his «Kanon» of Medicine, makes a distinction. He says: «And just here is a point for scrutiny and judgment as to whether the preserving power and the power recalling (to consciousness) such notions as had been stored up by the opining power but have passed away from it, are one power or two.»

Here follows still another attempt:

1. Perception, of the Five Senses, through organs.

2. Sway of the Common-Sense, in the anterior hollow.

3. Sway of the Imaginative Power, in the middle hollow.

4. Sway of the Remembering Power, in the posterior hollow.

5. Sway of the Conjecturing Power, throughout all the brain, and alongside of the imaginative compartment.

Number 1. has been dealt with in Section Six; number 5 belongs exclusively to Man, and will be further dealt with in the next Section; the remaining three, to wit numbers 2, 3, and 4, are in all live animals, and are dealt with in this Seventh Section. The theory is beautifully clear and simple: thus, number 2 grasps and appropriates the outward form brought to it by the senses; number 3 grasps and appropriates particular conceptions; and number 4 stores them up; thus also, the one dwelling in the front hollow is not influenced by the action of the one occupying the middle or the hindermost hollow, whereas conversely each succeeding faculty has recourse to the one preceding it in order of place. This theory arose after an acquaintance with the division and arrangement of the brain into chambers had made considerable progress with the Arabs.

Those who read German should not fail to study Dr. Samuel Landauer’s erudite notes in vol. 29 for the year 1875 of the Z.d.D.M.G.

SECTION EIGHTH

=A Sketch of the Human Soul from the Starting-Point whence it sets out until the End-Point whither it reaches its Perfection.=

No doubt that the speaking (rational) species of the [genus] animal is distinguished from the non-speaking (irrational species) by a power, through which it is enabled to imagine things rational, which power is called the speaking (rational) soul; and the custom has obtained of calling it the “hylik” mind, that is to say the potential mind, thus likening it to the hyle, which is potential matter. Moreover this power is found in the whole human species; and it possesses in itself at the outset none of the mentally-grasped forms, but these arise within it after two sorts of processes: The first is through a Divine guidance, without effort of study, and without profitting from the senses, as for example the mentally-grasped self-evident axioms, like our conviction that the whole is greater than the part, and that two contradictories (contrasts) do not come together at one time in one and the same thing; so that sane-minded adults share equally in the acquisition of such forms. The second sort of process is through earning [the mental thought or truth] by reasoning process, and by array of proof and demonstration, such as the conception of logical truths, like genera, species, differentia, and properties, simple terms, and terms compounded in the various modes of compositions [of several ideas into one composite term], justly-moded syllogisms both valid and false, propositions which if moded into syllogisms lead to necessary demonstrated results, or to argumentative probable results, or to equally balanced rhetorical results, or to primary (axiomatical) sophistical results, or to impossible poetical results; and such mentally-grasped forms as the recognition of the certainty of natural realities, like hyle (primitive matter) and form, privation (non-existence) and Nature, place and time, rest and motion, bulky bodies of the sky-firmament and bulky elemental bodies, absolute universal being and absolute nothingness, generation absolute and corruption absolute, origen of things generated that are within the sky, that are within the deepest depths of mines, and that are on the earth’s crust, amongst which last-named are plant and animal, the true conception “Man” and the truth of the soul’s conception of its own self; and still further such mentally-grasped forms as the conception of ideas mathematical, amongst which are number, pure geometry, stellar geometry, harmonical or musical geometry, optical geometry; and again, further still, such ideas as the conception of divine affairs, like the knowledge of the principles of the absolute self-existent in so far as he exists per se, and of the principles consequently adhering to him, such as potentiality, power and efficiency, first cause and accounting cause, essence and accidens, genus and species, incompatibility and homogeneity, agreement and disagreement, unity and multiplicity; and, still further, the fixing of the principles of the speculative (theoretical) sciences, amongst which are the mathematical, the natural and the logical--all which cannot be attained save through this latter science; and still further, such as proving the first Creator and the first Created, the universal (generic) soul and how creation came about, the relative position of mind towards creation, and the relative position of soul towards mind, the relative position of hyle towards nature, and of forms towards the soul, the relative position of the skies, orbs, planets and all existing things towards hyle and towards form, and why and wherefore they differ so widely as they do as to forwards and backwards ([Greek: proteron kai hysteron: προτερον και ὑστερον]) of development; and the knowledge of the divine government, universal nature, primal providence, prophetic inspiration, the divine holy spirit, sublime angels, attaining to the certainty of the Creator’s being beyond all partnership and similitude [i.e. recognizing the truth that polytheism and anthropomorphism, are to be rejected]; and attaining to the knowledge of what rewards await the righteous, and what punishments impend the wicked, of the delight and the pain overtaking souls after their abandoning the bodies.

Further, this power which conceives these ideas does at times gain from sense forms mental, imaginative, and innate in (instinctive to) itself; and in such a case it does this in that it lays before itself the forms that are in the conceiving power and in the remembering (preserving) power, by employing the imaginative and the conjecturing power, and then contemplates them, and finds them to have participated in some forms and to have differed in some other forms; and finds some amongst the forms that are in these powers to be essential, and others to be accidental. And as to their participation in forms, it is like the participation of the form Richard and an ass, in the conceiver’s mind, in the idea of Life; and the differing of the two in the idea of speaking (rational), and non-speaking (brute). As to the essential form, it is e.g. like the life that is in them both; as for the accidental, it is e.g. like their blackness and whiteness. So that if we find the two aforesaid on this wise--i.e., as stated,--[the mind] makes each one of these essential and accidental, participated and peculiar forms, one universal mental form singly and alone, and thus through this working-over process, it gets at mental genera, species, differentia, properties, accidens; then it combines these single notions into particular combinations; then into syllogistic argumentative combinations and deduces from them corollaries from the results--all which it gets through the service of the animal powers, with the help of universal mind, after the manner that we shall set forth later on, and through the intermediary of such necessary self-evident mental axioms as it has been endowed with.

Moreover this power, although it derives help from the sensuous power when getting out single mental forms from the sensuous forms, yet it does not need the sensuous power for conceiving these ideas (notions) within itself and for setting up syllogisms out of them, neither when affirming, nor when conceiving the two dicta [of abstraction & generalization], as we shall afterwards explain. And to whatever extent it derives sensuous corollaries, for which there shall be need, through the said working-over process, yet it dispenses with the employment of the sensuous powers, nay it is even sufficient for and in itself, for the carrying on of all its manifold activities. And just as the sensuous powers perceive solely and wholly through an assimilation of that which is felt, so also do the mental powers perceive solely through and wholly through an assimilation of the mentally-grasped; and this assimilation is the abstraction of the form from matter, and the adhering to it; only that the feeling power does not get the sensuous form through willed motion and voluntary action on its part, but through the arrival of the very thing felt unto it, either by chance or through the intermediary of the motion-promoting power, and laying bare of the forms unto it (abstraction) through the help of the media that connect the forms with it; whereas, in the case of the mental power, (Reason Understanding) this process is otherwise; for by and through itself it at times does itself perform the abstraction (laying bare) of the form from matter as often as it wills, and then clings unto it. And for this reason it is said that the sentient power is more or less passive in its conception [or, that the feeling power is after a fashion acted upon when it conceives], and that the mental (understanding) power is active; nay rather it is said, for this reason, that the sentient power cannot do without instruments (organs), and has in itself no efficiency; and how is it possible to apply such a statement (proposition) to the mental (understanding) power?

The mind (Understanding, Reason) is in fact and deed wholly and solely nothing else than the forms of mentally-grasped things, if these be arrayed in the very mind potentially, and through it they are brought out to effective action; and hence it is said that the mind is in fact and deed at once both understanding and understood. Amongst the properties of the understanding power is this, that it unifies the many and multiplies the one through analysis and synthesis. As to multiplication, it is such as the analysis of one man into essence, body, nourishment-getting, animal, speaking (rational). As to unification of the many, it is such as the composition (synthesis) of this one man out of essence, body, animal, speaking (rational) into one notion which is mankind (human being).