The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan by Ibn Tufail
page 81 of 141 (57%)
page 81 of 141 (57%)
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grosser than _Fire_ and _Air_, it has the Nature of a Mean between them
all, and which has no manifest Opposition to any of the Elements, and by this means is fitted to become that Form which constitutes an Animal. And he saw that it follow'd from hence, that those _Animal Spirits_ which were of the most even Temperature, were the best dispos'd for the most perfect Life in this World, of Generation and Corruption, and that this Spirit was very near having no opposite to its Forms, and did in this respect resemble the Heavenly Bodies which have no opposite to their Forms; and was therefore the Spirit of the Animal, because it was a Mean between all the Elements, and had no absolute Tendency, either upwards or downwards; but that, if it were possible it should be plac'd in the middle Space, between the Center and the highest Bounds of the Region of Fire, and not be destroy'd, it would continue in the same place, and move neither upwards nor downwards; but if it should be locally mov'd, it would move in a round, as the Heavenly Bodies do, and if it mov'd in its place, it would be round its own Center, and that it was impossible for it to be of any other Figure but Spherical, and for that reason it is very much like to the Heavenly Bodies. ยง 71. And when he had consider'd the Properties of Animals, and could not see any one among them, concerning which he could in the least suspect that it had any Knowledge of this _necessarily self-existent Being_; but he knew that his own Essence had the Knowledge of it: He concluded from hence that he was an Animal, endu'd with a Spirit of an equal Temperature, as all the Heavenly Bodies are, and that he was of a distinct Species from the rest of Animals, and that he was created for another end, and design'd for something greater than what they were capable of. And this was enough to satisfie him of the Nobility of his Nature; namely, that his viler Part, _i.e._ the Corporeal, was most like of all to the Heavenly Substances, which are without this World of |
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