Ibn Sina - A Compendium on the Soul
Avicena's offering to the Prince
Translated from the Arabic original by Edward Abbott van Dyck.
A rare work of the illustrious Transoxanian polymath, Ibn Sina (""Avicena""/""Avicenna"", as he is known in Europe). Islamic philosophy, imbued as it is with theology, distinguishes more clearly than Aristotelianism the difference between essence and existence. Avicena's metaphysical works demonstrate that he leaned more toward a philosophical comprehension of metaphysics than one grounded in theology. In his Compendium on the Soul, he prioritises Universal Science (Being-as-such and First Philosophy) over theology. The philosophy of Avicena, particularly that part relating to metaphysics, owes much to Aristotle and to Al-Farabi. The search for a truly definitive Islamic philosophy can be seen in what is left to us of Avicena's works.
English, bookmarked, facsimile PDF eBook, 12 Megabytes, 94 pages
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A
COMPENDIUM
ON THE
SOUL,
BY
Abu-‘Aliy al-Husayn Ibn ‘Abdallah Ibn Sina:
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 Mac Donald's Literal English Translation;
and
P R I N T E D
AT
VERONA, ITALY, in THE YEAR 1906,
For the Use of Pupils and Students of Government Schools
IN
Cairo, Egypt
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TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
Several sources out of which to draw information and seek guidance as to Ibn Sina'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 “Tabaqat-ul-Atiba”, and Wuestenfeld's “Arabische Aertzte.”
2. Ibn Khallikan's “Wafayat-ul-A’ayan.”
3. Brockelmann's “Arabische Literatur.”
4. F. Mehren's Series of Essays on Ibn Sina in the Periodical “Muséon,” from the year 1882 and on.
5. Clement Huart’s Arabic Literature, either in the French Original or in the English Translation.
6. Carra de Vaux's “Les Grands Philosophes: Avicenna,” Paris, Félix Alcan, 1900, pp. vii et 302.
7. T. de Boer's “History of Philosophy in Islam,” 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 Sina'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. 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 Sina 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 Jehuua Hallévy's religious Dialogue entitled Khusari, which is in rabbinical Hebrew, and on pages 385 to 400 of which the views “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 Sina. 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 Beirut, Syria, by Khalil Sarkis: this reprint is very hard to find.
James Middleton Mac Donald, 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 Beirut, and by Khalil Sarkis 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 Mac Donald 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 Sina'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-Farabi’s “Maqaçid 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 Khedival 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 herebelow, will surely need it, to save him from sinking into the black nothingness of doubt, indifference, and despair.
EDWAKD ABBOTT van DYCK,
Verona, August, 1906.
Wer fertig ist, dem ist nichts recht zu machen;
Ein werdender wird immer dankbar sein.
[Lustige Person, in Goethe's Faust]
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CONTENTS
Preface, p. 7
Introduction, p. 13
Section:
1. To Establish the Existence of Spiritual Faculties, the Detailed Analysis of which I have undertaken, p. 21
2. Of the Division of the Spiritual Faculties and their Classification into Three Main Classes, and the Definition of the Soul in a General Way, p. 25
3. To Establish that not One of the Faculties of the Soul Originates out of a Combination (Blending) of the Elements, but on the contrary Comes upon Them from Outside, p. 31
4. Specification of the Vegetable (Plant) Powers, and Mention of the Need there is for Each One of Them, p. 37
5. Specification of the Animal Powers, and Mention of the Need there is for Each One of Them, p. 43
6. Treating in Detail of the Five Senses, and of How they perceive, p. 51
7. Dealing in Detail with the Inward Senses, (and the Motion-Promoting Powers), p. 61
8. A Sketch of the Human Soul from the Starting-Point whence it sets out until the End-Point whither it reaches its Perfection, p. 69
9. The Proofs of the Essentiality of the Soul, and of Its Independence of Body in its Structure are set forth in pursuance of the Method of Logicians, p. 79
10. To Establish that there is a Mental Essence, Distinct from Bodies, which stands towards Human Souls in the stead of Light toward Sight, and in the stead of a Source or Fountain; and To Establish that Souls, if they leave the Bodies, unite therewith, p. 89
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QUOTES:
Section 3, p. 26:
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.
Section 4, p. 37-38:
Souled bodies, I mean having souls, if considered from the side of their vegetable powers, are found to have in common the getting of nourishment, and to differ in growth and generation (reproduction of offspring); since among nourishment-taking beings, there are such as do not grow, for example a living individual that has reached full growth and the period of stand-still, or that has declined therefrom through withering. Yet every growing thing gets nourishment. Again, among nutriment-taking beings there are such as do not propagate, as seeds that are not yet harvest-ripe, and an animal that has not yet reached puberty. Nevertheless, every propagating thing has inevitably passed through a preceding stage of nutrition...Hence the vegetable powers are three:
1. the nutritive; 2. the growth promoting; and 3. the propagating.
Section 6, p. 58:
As to the media (intermediaries) between the feeling powers and the felt forms, they are themselves devoid of the forms of sensibles; otherwise it would not be possible for them to be media, since their own forms – if they had any – would then so engage the apposite power as to divert it from perceiving any other forms.
Section 8, p. 69:
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 hylé, which is potential matter.
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