Chapter Ten: On the Meaning of the Concupiscible Faculty; and Chapter Eleven: Showing That There Is Only One Soul in a Single Human Being

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[17] Chapter Ten

On the meaning of the appetitive power

This power belongs properly to the liver and the kidneys. Whether the body be of great size or small (1), the stomach follows it. And the sense of hunger comes to man by means of a wholesome black-bile humour (khilṭ sawdāwī) that pours into the mouth of the stomach from the spleen through a passage existing (3) between the two, and it moves (3) the stomach to seek food. So if the body be large, the stomach in proportion to it and the passage wide, the sensation of the pain of hunger is dominant; and if the matter be the reverse, then the reverse; and if it be middling, then the like of that. The same is to be said of the meaning of the liver as well, and of the width of its channels. As for those of insipid phlegm, what prevails in their food is the acrid and the sharp; and those over whose stomach dryness has prevailed crave sweets and oils. Measure the rest by this fashion

[18] Chapter Eleven

On showing that there is in one man only (4) one soul

So we say: the rational soul is nothing but that to which each one of mankind points

— Notes —

[18] 1 ) In the original: ṣaghīr.

[18] 3 ) There is no need for the word mawjūd.

[18] 3 ) In the original: fa-yatruk.

[18] 4 ) Omitted in the original: illā.