Besides, in Ibn Maskawaih’s opinion, the Religious Law when rightly apprehended, pre-eminently accords with an Ethics of Benevolence. Religion is a moral training for the people. Its prescriptions, with regard to the worship of God in common and the pilgrimage to Mecca for instance, have plainly in view the cultivation of the love of one’s neighbour in the widest acceptation.
In certain special points Ibn Maskawaih has not been successful in combining harmoniously the ethical doctrines of the Greeks,—which he incorporates in his Scheme,—either with one another or with the Law of Islam. That however we pass over; and in any case we ought not only to praise in general terms his attempt to give a system of Ethics which should be free from the casuistry of the Moralists and the asceticism of the Sufis, but also to recognize in the execution of his design the good sense of a man of wide culture.
4. Ibn Sina.
1. Abu Ali al-Hosain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina (Avicenna) was born at Efshene in the neighbourhood of Bokhara, in the year 980, of a family connected with the public service. He received his secular and religious education at home, where Persian and anti-Muslim traditions were still full of life and vigour. Then the youth, precocious alike [[132]]in body and in mind, studied philosophy and medicine in Bokhara. He was seventeen years old when he had the good fortune to cure the prince, Nukh ibn Mansur, and to obtain the privilege of access to his library. From that time forward he was his own teacher, in scientific research and in practice, and proved able to turn to account the life and culture of his time. He kept continually venturing his fortunes in the political working of the smaller States: Probably he could never have submitted to a great prince, any more than to a teacher in Science. He wandered on from court to court, at one time employed in State-Administration, at another as a teacher and author, until he became vizir of Shems Addaula in Hamadan. After the death of this prince he was consigned to prison by his son, for some months. He then proceeded farther afield, to the court of Ala Addaula in Ispahan. And at last, having returned to Hamadan, which Ala Addaula had conquered, he died there in 1037, at the age of 57; and there his grave is pointed out to this day.
2. The notion that Ibn Sina pushed on beyond Farabi and reached a purer Aristotelianism, is perhaps the greatest error which has found a footing in the history of Muslim Philosophy. What did this our man of the world in reality care for Aristotle? It was not his concern to commit himself wholly to the spirit of any system. He took what was to his liking, wherever he found it, but he had a preference for the shallow paraphrases of Themistius. Thus he became the great philosopher of accommodation in the East, and the true forerunner of compendium-writers for the whole world. He knew how to group with skill his material, collected as it was from every quarter, [[133]]and to present it in an intelligible form, although not without sophistry. Every moment of his life was fully employed. In the daytime he attended to State affairs or gave instruction to his pupils: the evening was devoted to the social enjoyments of friendship and love; and many a night found him engaged in composition, pen in hand, and goblet within reach lest he should fall asleep. Time and circumstances determined the direction of this activity. If at the prince’s court he had the requisite leisure, and a library at hand, he wrote his Canon of Medicine or the great Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. While travelling, he composed epitomes and smaller works. In prison he wrote poems and pious meditations, but always in a pleasing form; in fact his smaller mystical writings have a poetic charm about them. When commissioned to do so, he put even Science, Logic and Medicine into verse,—a practice which came more and more into vogue from the tenth century onwards. Add to this that he wrote Persian and Arabic at will, and you get the picture of a most accomplished man. His life was superabundantly rich both in work and in enjoyment. In geniality, of course he was inferior to his older compatriot, the poet Firdausi (940–1020), and in scientific talent to his contemporary Beruni (v. [infra § 9]), men still of importance in our eyes. Ibn Sina, however, was the true expression of his time; and upon this fact have been founded his great influence and historic position. He did not, like Farabi, withdraw from common life to become immersed in the commentators of Aristotle, but he blended in himself Greek science and Oriental wisdom. Enough commentaries, he thought, had already been written on the ancient authors: it was now [[134]]time for men to construct a philosophy of their own,—in other words, to give a modern form to the ancient doctrines.
3. In Medicine Ibn Sina gives diligent endeavour to produce a systematic account of that science, but here he proves by no means an exact logician. He assigns a large place, at least theoretically, to Experience, and describes in detail the conditions under which alone, for example, the efficacy of remedies can be ascertained. But the philosophical principles which are involved in Medicine, must be taken over in the form of lemmas from Philosophy itself.
Philosophy proper is divided into Logic, Physics and Metaphysics. In its entirety it embraces the science of all Existence as such, and of the principles of all the separate sciences, whereby, as far as is humanly possible, the Soul which is devoted to philosophy, attains the highest perfection. Now Existence is either spiritual, when it is the subject of Metaphysics, or corporeal, when it is discussed in Physics, or intellectual, when it forms the theme of Logic. The subjects of Physics can neither exist, nor be thought of as existing, without Matter. The Metaphysical, however is quite devoid of Matter; while the Logical is an abstraction from the Material. The Logical has a certain likeness to the Mathematical, in so far as the subjects of Mathematics may also be abstractions from matter. But yet the Mathematical always remains capable of being represented and constructed, while on the other hand the Logical, as such, has its existence only in the intellect, as, for instance, Identity, Unity and Plurality, Universality and Particularity, Essentiality and Contingency, and so on. Consequently Logic [[135]]is the Science of the Determinate Forms of Thought.
In the more detailed treatment of his subject Ibn Sina conforms entirely to Farabi’s Logic. This agreement would perhaps be more apparent to us, if the logical works of his predecessor were extant in a more complete form. He frequently lays stress on the defectiveness of the intellectual constitution in man, which is urgently in need of a logical rule. Just as the physiognomist infers from the external features the character of the nature within, so the logician is called upon to derive from known premises that which is unknown. How easy it is for the errors of appearance and desire to insinuate themselves into a process of that kind! A struggle with Sense is required in order that the life of representation may be elevated to the pure truth of the Reason, through which any knowledge of a necessary kind is gained. The divinely-inspired man, but he alone, can dispense with Logic, precisely as the Bedouin is independent of an Arabic Grammar.
The question of Universals is also treated in a manner similar to that which is adopted by Farabi. Prior to any plurality, every thing has an existence in the Mind of God and of the Angels (the Sphere-Spirits); then as material form it enters upon plurality, to be raised finally in the intellect of man to the universality of the Idea. Now just as Aristotle has distinguished between First Substance (Individual) and Second Substance (cogitable as a Universal), so Ibn Sina similarly makes a distinction between First and Second Notion or Intention (Maʻnâ, intentio). The First is referred to the things themselves, the Second to the disposition of our own thought.