Chapter Seven: Showing the Difference Between Individual Human Beings by Way of the Three Faculties Proper to Human Individuals, Beginning with the Difference by Way of the Rational Faculty

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they be composed of genus and differentia; and since they are simple and not composite, difference among them by nature is barred. And when that is barred, the unity of nature is necessary — and that is the thing sought

And we say: were they divergent by the differentiae, divergence would necessarily follow in the definition of individual human beings; and that is absurd, because the definition of man without qualification is “rational animal”. And since the definition entails one single thing (1) in all of them, the nature must be one

[11] Chapter Seven

On showing the divergence among individual human beings from the side of the three powers (2) proper to human individuals; and the first of that is the divergence from the side of the rational power

We say: man has three powers (quwā) present in him: the rational (nāṭiqah), the irascible (ghaḍabīyah) and the appetitive (shahwānīyah). By the rational power there exist apprehension (idrāk), discrimination (3) and intellection (taʻaqqul). And this is of two kinds: one of them natural, the other acquired. The natural is as when we say: two (4) is the half of four; the whole is greater than its part; one body is not in two places at one instant; and the like of these. As for the acquired, it is of two divisions: the first, the intellectual and the transmitted sciences; the second, the sciences of the crafts. Few among mankind encompass the two of them completely; many lack the two we have mentioned; some attain the first and lack the second; and some are the reverse

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[12] The degrees of learning, though they be many, are confined to three: the first is he who is skilled in all branches of learning, and this one is rare; the second is he who lacks (1) them all, and these are many; the third are those who are skilled in some and incapable of some, and these too are many. So we see a man who expounds sundry books in private yet before the crowd is incapable (2) of composing the meanest epistle; and we see other folk the reverse of what we have mentioned; and some who know books in private yet are incapable of reading a single section when the crowd presses about them

Then among people there is he who grasps knowledge swiftly and forgetting does not overtake him (3), or overtakes him only after a long stretch — and this one is rare; and among them is he who is the reverse of what we have mentioned; and a people who grasp (4) swiftly and forget swiftly; and others who grasp slowly and forget slowly. These last two are middling (5), but the latter is the more to be preferred, since it is found in the people of striving (jihād) (6)

And among people there is he who understands what he learns as he ought, and a people who are not so. The first sort either are able to add [13] to what they acquire, or are not able to do so. And those of the second division either do not comprehend what they have received, or comprehend a little of it, and contrary to what they received. This last division is a disease whose treatment is difficult, indeed beyond reach

— Notes —

[13] 1 ) In the original: amr wāḥid.

[13] 2 ) In the original: al-thalāthah.

[13] 3 ) In the original: wa-al-tamayyuz.

[13] 4 ) In the original: al-ithnayn.

[14] 1 ) He intends ʻādim.

[14] 2 ) Omitted in the original: yaʻjiz.

[14] 3 ) In the original: wa-lā yudrik.

[14] 4 ) That is, “they grasp at knowledge”.

[14] 5 ) In the original: wa-hādhayn al-amrayn mutawassiṭayn.

[14] 6 ) That is, “the people of diligent effort” (ahl al-ijtihād).