IV. THE NEO-PLATONIC ARISTOTELIANS OF THE EAST.
1. Kindi.[1]
1. Kindi is related in various ways to the Mutazilite Dialecticians and the Neo-Pythagorean Natural-Philosophers of his time, and we might therefore have dealt with him among the latter, even before Razi (v. [III, 1, § 5]). But yet tradition with one accord represents him as the first Peripatetic in Islam. What justification exists for this traditionary view will be seen in what follows, so far as an inference can be drawn from the few and imperfectly-preserved writings of this philosopher which have come down to us.
Abu Yaqub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (i.e. of the tribe of Kinda) was of Arabian origin, and therefore was called the “Arabian” philosopher, to distinguish him from the numerous non-Arab associates of his, who had taken to the study of secular wisdom. He traced his genealogy to the old Kinda princes, although whether he was entitled to do so we need not seek to decide. The South-Arabian tribe of Kinda was [[98]]in any case farther advanced in outward civilization than other tribes. Many Kindite families too had for long been settlers in Iraq (Babylonia); and there, in the town of Kufa, of which his father was governor, our philosopher was born, probably in the beginning of the ninth century. He received his education, it would appear, partly in Basra, and thereafter in Bagdad, and therefore in the headquarters of the culture of his time. Here he came to put a higher value upon Persian civilization and Greek wisdom than upon old Arab virtue and the Muslim faith. He maintained even,—no doubt, following others—, that Kakhtan, the ancestor of the South-Arabians was a brother of Yaunan’s, from whom the Greeks were descended. It was possible to make an observation of that kind in Bagdad at the Abbasid court, for there they knew of no nationality, and regarded the ancient Greeks with admiration.
It is not known how long Kindi remained at court, or what position he held there. He is mentioned as a translator of Greek works into Arabic, and is said to have revised and improved translations made by others, for example, in the case of the so-called “Theology of Aristotle”. Numerous servants and disciples, whose names have been handed down to us, were probably set to this work under his supervision. Farther, he may have rendered services to the court in the capacity of astrologer or physician, and perhaps even in the administration of the revenues. But in later years he was dismissed, when he with others was made to suffer from the restoration of orthodoxy under Mutawakkil (847–861); and his library was for a long time confiscated. As regards personal character, tradition reproaches him with having been niggardly,—a stigma, [[99]]however, which appears to have rested upon many other literary men and lovers of books.
The year of Kindi’s death is as little known as that of his birth. He appears thus to have been out of court-favour when he died, or at least to have been in a subordinate position. It is strange that Masudi (v. [II, 4 § 4]), who had a great regard for him, is utterly silent on this point; but it seems in the highest degree probable from one of his astrological treatises that he was still alive subsequent to the year 870. The expiry of some petty astronomical cycle was imminent at that date, and this was being utilized by the Karmatites for the overthrow of the reigning family. In this matter, however, Kindi was loyal enough to make out the prolongation, for about 450 years, of the State’s existence, menaced though it was by a planetary conjunction. His princely patron might well be satisfied; and history conformed to the time predicted, to within half-a-century.[2]
2. Kindi was a man of extraordinary erudition, a Polyhistor: he had absorbed the whole learning and culture of his time. But although he may have set down and communicated observations of his own as a geographer, a historian of civilization and a physician, he was in no respect a creative genius. His theological views bear a Mutazilite stamp. He wrote specially on Man’s power of action, and the time of its appearance, i.e. whether it was before the act or whether it was synchronous with the act. The righteousness and the unity of God he expressly emphasized. In opposition [[100]]to the theory,—known at that time as Indian or Brahmanic,—that Reason is the sole and sufficient source of knowledge, he defended prophecy, while yet he sought to bring it into harmony with reason. His acquaintance with various systems of religion impelled him to compare them together, and he found as a common element in them all the belief that the world was the work of a First Cause, One and Eternal, for whom our knowledge furnishes us with no more precise designation. It is however the duty of the discerning to recognize this First Cause as divine; and God himself has shewn them the way thereto, and has sent them ambassadors to bear witness for him, who are instructed to promise everlasting bliss to the obedient, and to threaten corresponding punishment to those who do not obey.
3. Kindi’s actual philosophy, like that of his contemporaries, consists, first and especially, of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, in which Neo-Platonism and Neo-Pythagoreanism merge into one another. According to him no one can be a philosopher without studying Mathematics. Fanciful play upon letters and numbers is frequently met with in his writings. Mathematics he also applied to Medicine in his theory of the compound remedies. In fact he based the efficacy of these remedies, like the effect of music, upon geometrical proportion. It is here a matter of the proportionality of the sensible qualities, warm, cold, dry and moist. If a remedy has to be warm in the first degree, it must possess double the warmth of the equable mixture,—in the second degree, four times as much, and so on. Kindi seems to have entrusted the decision of this point to Sense, particularly to the sense of Taste, so that in him [[101]]we might have a hint of the proportional relation existing between stimulus and sensation. Yet that view, though quite original, was with him a mere piece of mathematical play. However, Cardan, a philosopher of the Renaissance, on the ground of this doctrine, reckoned him among the twelve most subtle-minded thinkers.