The treatise on the survival of the soul after the perishing of the body, with its commentary

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The most learned of the world, Naṣīr al-Millah wa-al-Dīn, said: The master, the learned and excellent Muʼayyid al-Dawlah wa-al-Dīn, exemplar of the geometers, decreed that I should write for him something setting forth the benefit of the sages who have verified the matter concerning the survival of the human soul after the perishing of the body. I found no course but to comply with his decree, even though I am of little stock in this craft, and though whatever is set down of the hidden things of the sciences is, beside his exacting sciences (his knowledge), of little worth and of small structure. I began with premises upon which what is sought is built, and I asked of God preservation in speech and success in righteous deeds; He is the inspirer of the intellect and the patron of good: from the Beginning is He, and to Him is the return.

I say: existents divide into that which has position (waḍʻ) and that which has no position whatever. By position we mean being in one of the directions or in one of the spaces, in such a way that it is possible to point to what is so described by a sensible pointing. So all the sensibles — such as colours, sounds, scents, tastes and tangibles — and everything attached to the sensibles of their loci, their places and their magnitudes, and the things inhering in them, and whatever runs their course, whether substance or accident: these are possessors of position. And what is other than that among the universal intelligible matters, whether their individuals are sensible or not sensible, and the particulars that are separate from matters, such as the Creator, exalted be He, or the intellects or the souls, and whatever befalls them as accident or inheres in them: these are among what has no position. And every apprehender of any of the existents [has], by its apprehending, a likeness of that existent: if it apprehends by itself, a tracing of that is made in itself; and if it apprehends by the instrument, a likeness is imprinted in that instrument. An example of apprehending by the instrument is seeing, and sensation by hearing, and the rest of the sensible apprehensions. An example of apprehending without the instrument is the human being's apprehending of himself and of his own essence — a cause, I mean his body, which he apprehends by his senses. And when the sensing subject senses a thing, there is imprinted in the imagination a likeness of that thing, or a tracing, which it observes in sleep and in waking with that sensible absent, whenever it wishes. And it apprehends that likeness or tracing without any observation of its position, if it was among the possessors of position (1) — unlike sense, for sense apprehends it together with its position; and along with that it forms from it estimative notions that are not sensible, such as agreeableness and repugnance, familiarity and aversion, friendship and enmity, and other than that; and these are particular matters attaching to particulars, whether sensible or not sensible. And this imagining and estimating also belongs to the soul by cerebral instruments, and is called the internal sensations.

Know that the furthest that science has reached in the question of the soul and its immateriality (tajarrud) is the setting forth of its manifest effects and its necessary properties, by which the existence of an immaterial substance is inferred as the source of these manifest faculties — just as the existence of an agent is inferred from its effect, on the pattern of the disclosure of gravitation and the rest of the physical forces from the phenomena of nature, without the reality of those forces being disclosed. This is the way of the intellect in its judging, upon the apprehension of the effect, of the existence of the agent, a decisive judgement. And this is a path which spiritual philosophy has taken in removing the veil from the face of this obscure secret since the ancient age, and it will never attain a rank above this rank, though it expend all its effort. (“They ask you concerning the spirit. Say: the spirit is of the affair of my Lord, and you have not been given of knowledge save a little.”) For that reason you see that the utmost the philosopher has brought in the treatise is that he made plain certain effects proper to the soul whose appearance is valid only from an immaterial substance from which these effects appear; and that he laid down several premises upon which the establishing of the intended conclusion is built, whose soundness the intellect judges and whose truth immediate intuition decrees without deliberation or doubt. The purport of the first premise is that the existents in their entirety divide into what has position and what has no position. The first means the thing's being in one of the directions or in one of the spaces, in such a way that what is so described falls under sensible pointing. Under this division fall matter and all the physical forces, since all of them fall under the apprehension of the external senses, for they are not separable from matter on the modern theory; and matter is a possessor of position, and what inheres in it is likewise a possessor of position, as will come in the second premise. So all that the external senses apprehend — colours, sounds, scents, tastes and tangibles, and everything attached to them of their loci, their places and their magnitudes, and the things inhering in them, and whatever runs their course, whether substance or accident — these are possessors of position. And what is other than that among the universal intelligible matters, which do not themselves fall under the action of the external senses, even if their individuals fall under sense, and to which it is not possible to point in themselves by a sensible pointing — such as the universal human being, to whom it is not possible to point by a sensible pointing, even though pointing to his individuated members is valid; and likewise the particulars separate from matters, such as the Creator, exalted be He and mighty be His name, since He is a particular whose predication of many is impossible, and is hallowed above being of the stock of matter and material things; or the intellects and the souls and whatever befalls them or inheres in them: these are among what has no position and does not fall under the apprehension of the external senses. Apprehension comes about in two kinds: by means of the instrument, and without the mediation of the instrument. And when the apprehender apprehends the existents in their entirety, then by its apprehending there occurs in the apprehender a likeness of the apprehended existent: if it apprehended by means of the instrument, the likeness is imprinted in the instrument, and if it apprehended by itself, it is imprinted in the soul. The philosopher gave as an example of the first sensation by hearing and by sight, having in view thereby the opinion of the ancients, that is, the faculty's being lodged in the instrument itself. Yet the foundation of the demonstration is not thereby impaired, once the instrument is posited as the cerebral cell itself and not the ear and the eye; for the purpose is the dividing of apprehension into two kinds — by the instrument, whether it be a cerebral cell or the ear and the eye, and without the instrument. And he gave as an example of the second, that is, of apprehension without the instrument, the human being's apprehending of himself; for this division of apprehension is not by means of the instrument, even though the sensation of the body is the cause of the occurrence of this apprehension.

Text: And when that is established, we say: the imprinting of a thing in another, or its inhering in it, may be by way of pervasion (sarayān), as with the imprinting of the form in the surface of the mirror and of blackness in the body; and it may not be so, as with the inhering of the point in the line, the line in the surface, and the surface in the body — for the point does not pervade the length of the line, nor the line the breadth of the surface, nor the surface the depth of the body. And when a thing is imprinted in a thing, or a thing inheres in a thing, by way of pervasion, in such a way that there is no distinction in sense between the inhering thing and the locus, then the sensible pointing to each one of them is the pointing to the other, since the two are not distinguished in sense. So everything that is imprinted or inheres in a possessor of position, or in which a possessor of position is imprinted or inheres, is a possessor of position. And likewise, every possessor of position that is imprinted or inheres in a thing, or in which a thing inheres — that thing too is a possessor of position (1).

Commentary: The purport of this discourse is that the imprinting of a thing in another, or its inhering in it, may be by way of pervasion, as with the imprinting of the form in the surface (1) of the mirror and of blackness in the body — for their imprinting is by way (2) of pervasion; and it may not be by way of pervasion, as with the inhering of the point in the line, the line in the surface, and the surface in the body — for the point has no pervasion in the length of the line, nor the line in the surface, nor the surface in the depth of the body. Then, when a thing is imprinted in a thing, or a thing inheres in a thing, by way of pervasion, in such a way that the distinction between the inhering thing and the locus is removed, the pointing (3) to each one of them is the pointing to the other; for otherness comes about in things by reason of the particular distinction between them, and when the distinction is removed otherness is negated. And when this has been laid down, we say: if the thing inhering in the thing, or the locus in which the thing inheres, is a possessor of position, then the inhering thing, or the locus, is likewise a possessor of position; for it is not intelligible that a thing to which it is in no wise possible to point by a sensible pointing should be inhering in a thing or a locus for a thing. So when the attribute of position is realized on the side of the inhering thing, it must needs be realized on the side of the locus; and likewise, when it is realized on the side of the locus, it must needs be realized on the side of the inhering thing — since there is no connection between what cannot in any wise fall under the apprehension of the senses and sensible pointing, and what can fall under the apprehension of the senses and pointing. In other words, what is not a possessor of position is of the stock of the immaterial, and the possessor of position is of the stock of the material. And likewise, when what has no position is imprinted in a thing, it is disclosed that that in which it is imprinted is also not a possessor of position, because the imprinting of what is not a possessor of position in a possessor of position is unintelligible (1). By this it appears that the physical forces inhering in the atoms of matter are possessors of position, on account of the possibility of sensible pointing to them, their locus being matter, which is a possessor of position — and this especially on the modern theory, which makes matter a form among the forms of the force latent in the atoms, more stable; so that upon it there is no distinction between force and matter, and no duality. By this it appears that it is not possible for the soul to be of the division of the physical forces and the interplay of those forces mechanically, as the materialist inclines to hold; because certain of the effects indicate that it is not of the class of the possessors of position.

Text: It is not to be said: the imaginal forms and whatever runs their course are not possessors of position, yet they are imprinted in the imaginative faculties of the animals, which are possessors of position. For we say: they are such inasmuch as they are imprinted in possessors of position, since the pointing to their loci is a pointing to them. Rather, when the imagination apprehends them, it abstracts them from their positions, which were with them just before the abstraction, and there is found for them another position, namely the position of the part of the brain which is the locus of the imagination, inasmuch as it is in that part. And because of the loss of the positions from which they were abstracted, it is supposed that they have no position. And there is no incompatibility between a thing's being a possessor of position and the apprehending of a possessor of position — not inasmuch as it is a possessor of position, but inasmuch as it is abstracted from its first position. So then it is established that the imaginal forms are possessors of position inasmuch as they are imprinted in the imagination, even though the imagination does not apprehend them together with the previous positions that have parted from them.

Commentary: And the exposition of this discourse in an easier style is this: perhaps the impossibility of the imprinting of what has no position in what has position does not hold, if we conceive the imprinting of the imaginal forms, which have no position — since they do not fall under sensible pointing by the external senses — in the imaginative faculties of the animals, which are of the possessors of position. But the truth guides us to this: that the imaginal forms are of the possessors of position, because those forms are united in the external world with the possessor of the forms, the utmost of the matter being that the imaginative faculty abstracts them from their positions. And there is no doubt that the pointing to their loci is a pointing to those forms inhering in their loci, so that on that account they are of the possessors of position. And when the imagination abstracts them, they pass over into the locus of the imaginative faculty, which is a part of the brain on the view of the ancients, and the vesicles proper to sensation on the modern view (then). There is found for them another position, that is, the brain; so because of the loss of the positions from which they were abstracted it is supposed that they have no position — the utmost of the matter being that the primary positions were lost and other positions were found for them. So in the second state they too are possessors of position.

Text: When that is established, we say: in the rational human soul there are imprinted intelligibles that have no position; therefore it is not a possessor of position.

Commentary: Because what is not a possessor of position — such as the intelligibles, which are not abstracted from external forms but are a matter the intellect has apprehended, like the intellection of the need of the created, caused thing for the First Creating Cause — cannot be imprinted in what has position and falls under the apprehension of one sense or more.

In other words, it is not to be conceived that the body, in its corporeal attribute, or what the senses apprehend of the possessors of position, should intellect the meaning of the caused thing's dependence upon the cause. (“So it is not a body”) — because it is among the properties of body that the senses apprehend it, and it has been established that in what the senses apprehend the intelligible cannot be imprinted, since it would be a possessor of position. (“And it is not a thing inhering in a possessor of position”) — because whatever is imprinted or inheres in a possessor of position is itself also a possessor of position. (“And it is not a corporeal form”) — and this is a corollary of the foregoing, for if it is not a body it follows that it is not a corporeal form. (“Nor an accident whose nature it is to inhere in a body”) — because if it were prepared for inhering in the possessors of position, it would be of the possessors of position, on the basis of the foregoing premise, whereas the supposition is that it has been established that it is not of the possessors of position. (“Nor a bodily faculty”) — because from the bodily faculties there do not issue the soul's proper activities, whose issuing from body is impossible.

Text: (“Rather it is a substance subsisting by its own essence, separate from body and matter, attached to the body with an attachment of governance over it and of disposal from it, so as to use it as a craftsman uses his instruments; and it bestows upon the body a form by which it makes it an individual among the human individuals.”) And when the philosopher had laid down these premises, he set about mentioning the demonstrations which are the extent of the knowledge of the philosophers and the men of learning in the question of the soul's immateriality — and which, as we set forth before, are nothing but the disclosure of the truth from the appearance of its proper effects. So he mentioned several demonstrations, among them:

Text: (“How not, when all the corporeal faculties — such as the external and internal senses and others — weaken after the age of standstill, whereas it grows strong, in that its intellection becomes finer, fuller and more perfect.”)

Commentary: We mentioned in the foregoing investigations that the modern theory says that force is not separate from matter, but is latent in the atoms of matter and follows, in its activity and its weakness, upon the dissolution of matter and the diffusion of its atoms; so that whenever matter loses some of its atoms it loses a corresponding measure of its latent force. Now if the reality of the soul were of the interplay of those forces present in the atoms, as the materialist holds, it would follow, in weakness and in activity, the atoms of which the body is composed and in which the force inheres. But the matter is the contrary of that: for we see the rational human soul ascending in the degrees of perfection the more the body and its bodily faculties, such as the external and internal properties, sink down from the measure of their perfection, as in the phase of old age and decrepitude. In this phase of the lifetime, for example, a man's intellection grows strong and his apprehension is perfected. By this it appears that the rational soul is not the interplay of the forces latent in the atoms of the body.

Text: (“And those do not apprehend themselves, whereas it apprehends itself; and those do not apprehend what attaches to them.”)

Commentary: And this is a second demonstration of the soul's immateriality. Its purport is that it has become clear that knowledge and intellection and their like, among the attributes and accidents that are independent of a locus, do not subsist through a locus — since it has been established that what does not inhere in what has position is among what has no position and needs no locus in which to subsist. So the subject of intellection, I mean the soul, likewise needs no locus, since its accident, in the character of its being an accident, needs no locus; and the subject is the more entitled to have no need of one. As for the demonstration of intellection's independence of a locus: the soul apprehends its own essence by its own essence, and apprehends its instrument, and apprehends its apprehending by its own essence and by its instruments, all of this without the mediation of the instrument; so it appears that it is independent of a locus. In other words we say: it has been established that apprehension is a force higher than the motion of the nerves and the motion of the cell and its arousal; and it has been established that the apprehending force apprehends itself and what attaches to it without motion in the nerve and the cell. So it is not to be conceived that a thing should be, in its singleness, both the inhering thing and the locus.

Text: And again: the soul is imprinted with the unitary intelligibles which admit of no division in any respect, such as unity. And everything imprinted with the like of that is not susceptible of positional division; otherwise the intelligible imprinted in it would be divided by its division, for everything imprinted in what is divisible by way of pervasive inherence is divided by its division. And every body is susceptible of positional division. Therefore the soul is not a body, nor a force inhering in the body by pervasive inherence.

Commentary: And this is a third demonstration, namely that the accidents of the soul — such as the knowledge of the Cause that brought the world into being, and the intellection of the simple realities — admit of no division in any respect, like unity, which by its very position refuses division. And that knowledge and its like among the unitary intelligibles are not susceptible of division is apprehended by immediate awareness (wijdān) without the aid of demonstration. So when such an accident befalls a thing, or is imprinted in it, it is disclosed that the subject too is not susceptible of positional division, since the subject's susceptibility to division entails its accident's susceptibility to it — for everything imprinted in what is divisible by way of pervasive inherence is divided by its division. And when it is not susceptible of division, it lacks the most proper property of body, which is division and partition; and from the lack of this property it appears that it is not a body, nor a force inhering in the body by pervasive inherence, since pervasive inherence itself entails division. And when the proof has assisted us to this, that the accident of the soul — such as knowledge and the intellection of the simple realities — is not susceptible of division, we are able to answer the objection raised by some of the deniers of the soul's immateriality, that consciousness is a peculiarity of matter and that matter is perfected little by little with a slow perfecting: by saying that matter is susceptible of division into motes (habāʼāt) — indeed it is composed of small motes — so that we should then assign to each of them a knowledge or a consciousness, and the cell would have as many sensations as there are motes in it.

And in briefer expression: in the human soul things known are imprinted and it is conscious of them, and it is necessarily not susceptible of division. So the materialist's statement that consciousness is a peculiarity of matter does not hold, since the known does not admit of division; whence it appears that it is something beyond matter, matter being composed of motes and divided by them. For how can matter itself be divided while its own property, which inheres in it, is not divided? And from the assembling of multiple consciousnesses there does not result one great consciousness, nor is any one of them conscious of another; and likewise it is not to be conceived that a single consciousness should be a centre attracting multiple consciousnesses.

Text: It is not to be said: the body is described as being one, so that, along with its admitting of division, it is a locus for unity; why then is it not allowable that the soul, along with its being imprinted with unitary intelligibles, should be susceptible of division? For we say: unity is not imprinted in the body; rather the intellect describes it by unity, just as it describes it by existence or by genus. That is because unity is an intelligible matter, not among what inheres in a locus with the inherence of the accidents that exist outside the intellect; and it belongs to the intellect to describe everything it apprehends either by it or by what is opposite to it, which is multiplicity and plurality.

Commentary: The philosopher's purpose in setting forth this sophistical fancy is to block the way of objection from every side and to leave no one any doubt or misgiving in the setting forth of the truth. Intellect and truth make plain its corruptness, and for that reason we have passed over its exposition.

Text: Then we say: it is not allowable that the body, nor anything else among bodies, nor the forces inhering in bodies, should be a cause bringing the soul into existence. That is because no possessor of position may act upon anything save what stands in a position relative to it, such as the separate (the conjoined) and the adjacent and the aligned, or [what] there is between it and (and between it that) a relation. And there is no relation between the body and the soul before the soul's existence, nor between one possessor of position and what has no position, such as the soul and whatever runs its course; for that is among what is evident to the intuition of the intellect. Therefore the cause of the soul's existence is a separate existent, not a possessor of position, permanent in existence. And the existence of the bodily temperament (mizāj) is only a condition of the soul's emanating from its Originator, so that it may govern the body — on the doctrine of “Aristotle” — and of its attachment to it, if it was existent before the body, and that is on the doctrine of “Plato.” The philosopher's purpose in this discourse is to set forth that the bestower of the soul, and its cause that brings it into existence, is God, glorified and mighty and exalted.

And the statement of the proof is that if the cause of the soul were other than He, glorified and exalted, it would either be of the possessors of position or of what are not possessors of position. On the first, intuition decrees that a possessor of position exerts no effect at all unless the thing affected stands in a position relative to it, such as the conjoined, the aligned and the adjacent; and were there no particular connection between the affected and the affecting among the possessors of position — whether they be of bodies or of the forces inhering in them — causality and effect would not come about. And there is no relation between the body, which has a particular position, and the soul, which has no position, according to what was established in the foregoing premises and disclosed from its proper effects. On the second likewise there is no connection between it and what is not of the possessors of position, such as the soul and whatever runs its course, since intuition testifies that souls are distinguished one from another and that there is no connection between them. Then it was stated in the past investigations that “Plato” holds the souls to be existent before the existence of the body, while “Aristotle” holds the bodies to be a condition of their emanation from the Originator, exalted be He. On the first view the existence of the bodily temperament is a condition of the soul's attachment to it, and on the second view it is a condition of the soul's emanating to it from the Originator, exalted be He.

Text: (“And again, it is not allowable that the body, nor its temperament, should be a condition of the soul's subsistence; because the soul is what preserves and maintains the body and its temperament, by its governance and by the bringing of nourishment to it in place of what dissolves away from it. So if the body or the temperament were a condition of the soul's subsistence, circularity would follow.”) That is, the soul's subsistence would depend upon the body's existence, since the body is, on the supposition, a condition of its subsistence; while the body's subsistence depends upon the soul's existence, because the soul is what preserves and maintains it by the governing of nourishment to it in place of what dissolves away.

(“And when the soul has emanated from its Originator upon the body, or has become attached to it — on whichever of the two doctrines it may be — there no longer remains for the body, nor for anything that attaches to it, any effect of causality nor any effect of conditionality in the soul's existence nor in its subsistence. So the loss of the body, or the severing of the relation between it and the soul, in no way harms the soul; and the soul remains existent, permanent with the permanence of its Originator and its Bestower, on account of the necessity of the caused thing's existence together with the existence of its cause, and the impossibility of its detachment from it. And that is what was sought.”)

Commentary: The investigations of the treatise were three pillars. The first is the establishing of the immateriality of the rational soul; the second, the establishing that the Originator of the soul is God, exalted be He; the third, the establishing of its subsistence after the perishing of the body. And this discourse is the heading of the third matter, with a simple proof. Its exposition is that it has been established that the bestower of the soul upon the body is God, exalted be His station. So on the two doctrines — that is, the doctrine of “Plato” and the doctrine of “Aristotle” — there no longer remains for the body, nor for anything that attaches to it, any effect of causality or effect of conditionality, because its bestower is God, exalted be He. And likewise there no longer remains for it any effect in the subsistence of the soul either, because it was not a cause in the soul's existence, and so is not a cause in its subsistence. So the loss of the body and the severing of the relation between it and the soul does not harm the soul; and since its cause is an everlasting cause, the caused thing too subsists by the subsistence of its cause, permanently, because the existence of the cause entails the existence of its caused thing, and its detachment from it is impossible.

Text (“And in another way we say: every matter that is in one of the things potentially and then comes forth into act — it is necessary that that thing in which that matter was should be subsisting at the time of that matter's coming forth into act, so that the coming forth from potency into act may be valid. And if that thing passes away at the time of that matter's coming forth from potency into act, then the matter which was in it potentially would not be coming forth from it into act ( what is other than a sperm-drop (1) ) ( as in the sperm-drop of ) the human being: for humanity is in its matter potentially, and the existence of that matter is necessary at the time of its becoming a human being in act; else that human being would not be from that sperm-drop. And the form of the sperm-drop (nuṭfah), since it was not subsisting at the time of the coming forth of the human form into act, the human form was not in that form potentially; rather the joining of the two in that matter was impossible, and for that reason, when this came forth into act in its matter, that passed away in it. And when this premise is established, we say: were passing-away allowable of it, the passing-away would be in it in the state of potential existence; and when it came forth into act it would be necessary that the soul, together with its passing away, should be existent — and this is absurd. Therefore it is established that passing-away is not allowable of it.”)

The statement of the proof is that if there is in the essence of a thing a preparedness for a matter's coming forth from potency into act — such as the preparedness of the human being's growth from the sperm-drop, and the ripening of the fruit from the tree, or the preparedness for the appearance of the effects of the external and internal senses from the brain — then this thing, that is, the locus, must needs subsist at the time of that matter's coming forth from potency into act and from sheer preparedness into existence. And this is beyond doubt by an intuition of the intellect; for if the matter of the sperm-drop, or of the tree, or the brain, were not subsisting at the time of that matter's coming forth from potency and preparedness into act, the human being and the fruit and the effects of the senses would not appear in the world of existence. And whatever of the parts of the locus, or of its accidents, ceases to be and passes away at the coming forth of the matter into act — from this it is disclosed that the thing coming forth into act was not in that part or that accident: as with the passing away of the form of the sperm-drop and of the original matter of the fruit in the growth of the human being and the ripening of the fruit; rather the joining of the two forms in one matter was impossible. Accordingly, if the rational soul were susceptible of passing away, its subsistence at the time of the coming forth of the passing-away into act would be entailed; and passing-away and subsistence are two contraries that do not come together in one locus and at one moment. And when he had laid down the premise and ordered the proof upon it, he set about repelling the two objections that may perhaps be directed against him. He set forth the first of them in his words: (« So if it is said: on this reckoning, passing-away would not be allowable of any existent at all »), on the ground that sense and observation establish the passing away of many of the existents, while this proof embraces them too; since if the preparedness for passing away in the perishable existents comes forth into act, the subsistence of the possessor of that preparedness is entailed by this proof at the time of the matter's passage from potency into act — and passing-away and subsistence are two contraries that do not come together! And he repelled it in his words: (“We say: passing-away is allowable of every possible existent that inheres in a locus and in whose locus there is the potency of that existent's ceasing to be from it. So when its ceasing to be comes forth into act, the locus is subsisting together with that ceasing to be — as with the form of the sperm-drop, which ceases to be from its matter while that matter, together with its ceasing to be, is existent. And by this proof nothing of the existents ceases to be save what inheres in a locus, such as the form and the accidents, and what is composed of these and of other things, such as the body, which ceases to be by one of its two parts, namely the form.”) By this discourse the philosopher restricted passing-away to a possible existent inhering in a locus, such as the forms and the accidents, the locus being prepared to subsist together with the passing away of that inhering thing and its ceasing from it — as with the form of the sperm-drop, which passes away while the matter of the sperm-drop subsists. And passing-away, on his view, is restricted among the existents to what inheres in a locus, of the forms and the accidents, and to what is composed of them, such as the body in the character of its corporeality, which passes away by the passing away of its form, which is one of its two parts. And he set forth the second of the objections in his words: (“So if it is said: were the soul composed of an inhering thing and a locus, like the body, non-existence would be allowable of it”), and repelled it in his words: (“We say: non-existence is not allowable of the part which is the locus, and by the soul we mean that part and not what inheres in it. For the soul, as has been established, is a thing in which many forms are imprinted, in such a way that they come to be in it and pass away from it, while it does not cease to be by their ceasing to be. And when it is established that the soul is not a form for the body, nor an accident inhering in it, nor composed of an inhering thing and a locus, it is established that passing-away is not allowable of it.”)

The purport of this discourse, in utmost brevity, is that if the soul were composed of an inhering thing and a locus, like the body composed of the inhering form and the matter in which the form inheres, the body's subsistence being by these two parts, the objection would hold. But the soul is not composed of the two in such a way that its subsistence is by them, as with the body. That is because we see that many forms come to be in it and pass away from it, while it, along with that coming to be and passing away, remains subsisting and fixed. So the soul is the locus in which the forms come to be and from which they pass away. And when it is established that the soul is not a form for the body, nor an accident inhering in it, nor composed of an inhering thing and a locus, then passing-away is not allowable of it. (This is what came to me at the time, with the heart preoccupied, of what I rely upon from the discourse of the men of learning in this chapter; and God knows best the reality of the case

— Notes —

[32] (1) This property — that is, the imagination's apprehending of matters without need of position — is what distinguishes the internal senses from the external.

[34] (And the original copy is thus, and the wording, that is, his saying “so every possessor of position,” etc.

[34] (1) The wording is perhaps superfluous.

[35] (1) It may be claimed that the form in the mirror is a delimited light, and so admits of the delimiting pointing, unlike what is outside the mirror, for that is an undelimited light and refuses the delimiting pointing. H. N.

[35] (2) And the like of that may be claimed of life, and indeed of the spirit, and it may be claimed that it refuses the delimiting pointing. H. N.

[35] (3) The delimiting pointing is among the necessary concomitants of the possessors of position. As for the non-delimiting pointing, such as the pointing to the air fixed in space, it does not confine the thing pointed to within a direction proper to it, nor does it indicate that the thing pointed to is a possessor of position. H. N.

[36] * (1) There is room for reflection in this, inasmuch as diffused light and the rest of the disseminated forces refuse the delimiting pointing, which is among the concomitants of the possessors of position. H. N.

[44] (1) The wording of the original was according to what we have set down.