of their Works. Those who are now alive, are, either such as are still
advancing forwards, or else such as have left off, without attaining to
perfection; if there are any other, I know nothing of them.

As to those Works of _Alpharabius_ which are extant, they are most of
them _Logick_. There are a great many things very dubious in his
Philosophical Works; for in his _Méllatolphadélah_, i.e. _The most
excellent Sect_, he asserts expressly, _that the Souls of Wicked Men
shall suffer everlasting Punishment_; and yet says as positively in his
Politicks that they shall be dissolv'd and annihilated, and that the
Souls of the Perfect shall remain for ever. And then in his _Ethicks_,
speaking concerning the Happiness of Man, he says, _that it is only in
this Life_, and then adds, _that whatsoever People talk of besides, is
meer Whimsy and old Wives Fables_. A principle, which if believ'd would
make all Men despair of the Mercy of God, and puts the Good and Evil
both upon the same Level, in that it makes annihilation the common end
to them both. This is an Error not to be pardon'd by any means, or made
amends for. Besides all this, he had a mean Opinion of the Gift of
Prophecy, and said that in his Judgment it did belong to the _faculty of
Imagination_, and that he prefer'd Philosophy before it; with a great
many other things of the like nature, not necessary to be mention'd
here.

As for the Books of _Aristotle, Avicenna_'s Exposition of them in his
_Alshepha_ [i.e. _Health_] supplies their Room, for he trod in the same
steps and was of the same Sect. In the beginning of that Book, says,
that the _Truth_ was in his opinion different from what he had there
deliver'd, that he had written that Book according to the Philosophy of
the _Peripateticks_; but those that would know the _Truth_ clearly, and
without Obscurity, he refers to his Book, _Of the Eastern Philosophy_.