Chapter Fourteen: Showing the Properties of the Human Soul

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that is inward is able to apprehend (idrāk) the sensible after its absence, yet still with the matter that discloses it — such as the common sense and the imagination and the rest. As for the intellect (ʻaql), it apprehends things stripped bare of matter (hayūlā), and renders what is material immaterial by abstracting it from its individuating marks — as with Suqrāṭ and Aflāṭūn, whom it abstracts and apprehends under the form of humanity [25] stripped of matter. And if such is its act upon the things that have matter, how much more so upon the things immaterial in their very essence, when material things do not blind its insight? That is to say, it apprehends souls (nufūs) and the separate intellects, and even the Creator, exalted be He, for He, exalted, shows Himself to those possessed of (1) pure intellects. And these items of knowledge that have been mentioned are apprehended either through ascetic discipline (riyāḍah) and striving and the purifying of the thoughts and the cleansing of the minds — as with the prophets, the apostles, the perfect solitaries (2), the renunciants and the devout — or through the composition of premises, syllogisms and demonstrations. And to these Awghrīs pointed when he said: “The gazing of intellects, as it ought to be, is either from the pure intellect or from the science of the verifying sages.”

Chapter Fourteen

On setting forth the properties peculiar to the human soul (al-nafs al-insānīyah)

The first of these is wonder, which is that a man should see something or think [26] upon some art whose cause he does not know, so that there arises in his soul a particular state called wonder; and when that state becomes very great it is called astonishment and perplexity.

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As for laughter, its cause is that when a man senses something pleasurable there arises in him a certain particular state in his soul, so that the pores of the body and of the liver slacken and loosen, and a vapour is driven out of them (1) toward the face; then it spreads until the mouth opens and laughter occurs.

As for the cause of weeping, it is that when a man feels a dire need, the abundant heat folds inward, the blood of the heart and of the brain is compressed (2), and the moisture that lies in the pasture of the brain within the eyelids is driven toward the eye; and when the eyelids close, the said moisture runs down.

As for shame: when a man thinks that his companion has become aware of some ugly thing he has done, or of an unseemly word he has spoken, shame overtakes him at once; and thereafter he emboldens himself, as though he had committed no great sin, and so the heat spreads outward again and his face reddens [27] on account of the rarefaction of his flesh by that blood which follows the heat in being drawn in and driven out by motion.

But in fear the shame grows great until despair of self-emboldening (3) sets in; and so the heat returns inward and the blood returns with it, and the colour of those whom this state befalls turns livid (4).

As for modesty, its cause is that when a man resolves upon a thing he desires to do, and that thing is reprehensible in people's eyes, he falls short of doing it, even though they have no way of reproaching him (5) for it.

— Notes —

[24] 1) In the original: li-awliyāh.

[24] 2) That is, “al-mutawaḥḥidīn”.

[25] 1) In the original: minhum.

[25] 3) In the original: wa-yanḍaghiṭ.

[25] 3) In the original: al-tashjīʻ.

[25] 4) In the original: wa-yakmun.

[25] 5) In the original: tankītih.