The Virtuous City — Al-Farabi
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آراء أهل المدينة الفاضلة
Translation/edition: Claude AI
Language: English
Read in Plato Scroll: https://plato-scroll.com/s/farabi-virtuous-city/
This file: https://plato-scroll.com/text/farabi-virtuous-city.txt
Other editions of this work:
  - Arabic text: https://plato-scroll.com/text/farabi-virtuous-city-b.txt
Sources and licences: https://plato-scroll.com/attribution.html
Numbers in [brackets] are the edition's reference loci (Stephanus, Bekker, book.line, page...). Superscript numerals refer to the Notes at the end.

Al-Farabi's Opinions of the People of the Virtuous City (Ārāʾ ahl al-madīna al-fāḍila), begun in Baghdad and finished in Damascus in 942–43: the Islamic world's answer to Plato's Republic. It climbs down from the First, through the intellects and the heavens, to matter, the human soul and the Active Intellect, prophecy and dreams, and then builds the virtuous city and its first ruler, set against the ignorant, immoral, changed and erring cities. A new translation from Friedrich Dieterici's German (Der Musterstaat, Leiden 1900), checked paragraph by paragraph against the Arabic of the Cairo edition (1906), which stands beside it; where Dieterici departs from the Arabic, the Arabic is followed. Words in square brackets are the translator's. References are to the pages of Dieterici's Arabic edition (Leiden 1895). Not yet reviewed by a scholar. Texts from Source Library's transcriptions (CC BY-SA 4.0).

## I. On the First Existent

[5] In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This is a book composed by Abu Nasr al-Farabi on the principles of the opinions of the people of the virtuous city.
[5] The First Existent is the First Cause of the existence of all the other existents. He is free of every kind of deficiency, while everything other than Him cannot be free of having some kind of deficiency in it, either one or more than one. But the First is free of all its kinds.
[5] His existence, then, is the most excellent existence and the most prior existence; there can be no existence more excellent or more prior than His. In excellence of existence He is of the highest kind, and in perfection of existence He is of the loftiest rank. For this reason non-existence cannot in any way be mixed with His existence and substance.
[5] Non-existence and the opposite occur only in what lies beneath the sphere of the Moon; and non-existence is the not-being of that whose nature is to exist.
[5] Nor can He have existence in potentiality, in any manner at all, nor is there any possibility, in any way whatever, that He should not exist. For this reason He is eternal, everlasting in existence by His substance and His essence, without needing, in order to be eternal, anything else that would sustain His permanence; rather He is sufficient by His substance for His permanence and for the perpetuity of His existence.
[5] Nor can there be any existence at all like His existence; nor, at the rank of His existence, is there any existence that could be His or be supplied to Him.
[5] He is the existent for which there can be no cause through which, or from which, or for the sake of which, its existence came about. For He is not matter, nor does His subsistence lie in matter or in any substrate at all; rather His existence is free of all matter and of every substrate.
[5] Nor does He have a form, since form can exist only in matter. If He had a form, His essence would be composed of matter and form; and if that were so, His subsistence would be through the two parts of which He is composed, and His existence would have a cause, for each of its parts is a cause of the existence of the whole. But we have laid down that He is a first cause.
[6] Nor does His existence have a purpose and an end, such that He would exist only in order to fulfil that end and that purpose; otherwise that would be in some way a cause of His existence, and He would not be a first cause. Nor did He acquire His existence from anything else prior to Him; and He is still further from having acquired it from what is beneath Him.

## II. On the Denial of a Partner to Him, Exalted Be He

[6] He is distinct in His substance from everything other than Him, and the existence that is His cannot belong to anything else besides Him. For whatever has this existence cannot differ in any way, nor be other in any way, from another thing that also has this existence; there would then not be two, but only one single essence.
[6] For if there were a difference between them, that by which they differ would be other than that in which they share. The thing by which each of them differs from the other would then be one part of what constitutes their existence, and that in which they share would be the other part. Each of them would then be divisible in its account, and each of its two parts would be a cause of the subsistence of its essence. It would then not be first; rather there would be another existent prior to it, which is the cause of its existence. And that is absurd.
[6] If, on the other hand, that other were the one in which lies that by which it differs from this one, while in this one there were nothing by which it differs from that one except as a consequence of the thing by which that one differs, then the thing by which that other differs from this one must be the existence proper to that other, while the existence of this one is common to both. The existence of that other, therefore, would be composed of two things: something proper to it, and something in which it shares with this one. So the existence of that one is not the existence of this one; rather the essence of this one is simple and undivided, while the essence of that one is divided. That one, then, has two parts by which it subsists; its existence therefore has a cause, and so its existence is below the existence of this one and more deficient than it. It is not, then, of the first rank of existence.
[6] Further, if there were, outside Him and in something else, an existence like His in species, He would not be perfect in existence. For the perfect is that outside of which no existence of the species of its existence can be found, and this holds of anything whatever. The perfect in magnitude is that outside of which no magnitude is found; the perfect in beauty is that outside of which no beauty of the species of its beauty is found; likewise the perfect in substance is that outside of which nothing of the species of its substance is found. So too with every body that is perfect: there can be nothing else of its species besides it, as with the sun, the moon, and each of the other stars. And since the First is perfect in existence, that existence cannot belong to anything else besides Him. He is therefore alone and singular in that existence; and in this respect He is one.

## III. On the Denial of an Opposite to Him

[7] Further, He cannot have an opposite. This becomes clear once it is known what “opposite” means. The opposite is distinct from the thing, so that the opposite of a thing can never be the thing itself. But not everything distinct is an opposite, nor is everything that cannot be the thing an opposite; rather the opposite is whatever, in addition, is in conflict with it, so that it is the nature of each of the two to annul and destroy the other when they come together, and the nature of each that, if it comes to exist where the other exists, it makes the other cease to exist, and is itself made to cease to exist where it is, through the existence of the other in the thing in which it had been. This holds generally of everything that can have an opposite.
[7] For if a thing is opposite to another thing in its action, but not in its other states, then only their actions are of this description; if they are opposed in their quality, their qualities are of this description; and if they are opposed in their substance, their substances are of this description.
[7] Now if the First had an opposite, He would stand to His opposite in this way. It would follow that it is the nature of each of them to perish, and that it is possible for the First to be annulled by His opposite, and this in His substance. But what can perish does not have its subsistence and permanence in its substance; rather its substance would not be sufficient for it to remain existent, nor would its substance be sufficient for it to come to be existent; this would be through something else. And what can fail to exist cannot be eternal; and that whose substance is not sufficient for its permanence or its existence has another cause, other than itself, for its existence or its permanence, and so it would not be first. Further, its existence would be only through the non-existence of its opposite; the non-existence of its opposite would then be the cause of its existence, and so it would not be the First Cause absolutely.
[8] Further, the two would necessarily have some common place that receives them both, so that by meeting in it each could annul the other: either a substrate, or a genus, or something else besides these. That would be fixed, and these two would succeed one another upon it. That, then, would be prior in existence to each of them.
[8] And if someone posits as the opposite of a thing something that is not of this description, what he posits is not an opposite, but something distinct with a kind of distinctness other than the distinctness of an opposite.
[8] We do not deny that the First may have other things distinct from Him, with a distinctness other than that of an opposite, and other than that of something that would have His existence. Hence there cannot be any existent at the rank of His existence, for two opposites are at one rank of existence. The First is therefore alone in His existence; nothing else whatever that exists shares with Him in the species of His existence. He is therefore one, and He is, besides, alone in His rank. In this respect too, then, He is one.

## IV. On the Denial of a Definition to Him, Glory Be to Him

[8] Further, He is not divisible in account into things by which He is constituted as a substance. For the account that explains what He is cannot signify any one of His parts, or its two parts, by which He would be constituted. If it were so, the parts by which He is constituted would be causes of His existence, in the way that the notions signified by the parts of a thing's definition are causes of the existence of the thing defined, and in the way that matter and form are causes of the existence of what is composed of them. That is not possible in Him, since He is first and there is no cause of His existence at all.
[9] Since He is not divisible in these ways, He is still further from being divisible into the divisions of quantity and the other kinds of division. From this it follows necessarily, too, that He has no magnitude and is not a body at all. In this respect too He is one.
[9] For one of the meanings in which “one” is said is what is not divided; everything that is not divided in some respect is one in that respect in which it is not divided. If this is in respect of its action, it is one in that respect; if in respect of its quality, it is one in respect of quality; and what is not divided in its substance is one in its substance. Hence the First is undivided in His substance.

## Va. On the Fact that His Oneness Is His Very Essence, and that He, Exalted, Is Knowing and Wise, and that He Is True, Living, and Life

[9] The existence by which He is set apart from the other existents cannot be other than that by which He exists in His essence. Therefore His being set apart from everything other than Him is His being one in His essence.
[9] For one of the meanings of unity is the proper existence by which each existent is set apart from everything else; it is by this that each existent is called one, in so far as it exists with the existence proper to it. And this meaning among the meanings of “one” is convertible with “existent”. In this way too, then, the First is one, and more entitled than any other one to the name “one” and to its meaning.
[9] Because He is not matter and has no matter in any way, He is by His substance intellect in act. For what prevents a form from being intellect and from intellecting in act is the matter in which the thing exists; when a thing does not need matter for its existence, that thing is by its substance intellect in act. That is the state of the First; He is therefore intellect in act. He is also intelligible by His substance, for what prevents a thing from being intelligible in act is likewise matter. And He is intelligible in so far as He is intellect; for that whose identity is intellect does not need, in order to be intelligible, another essence outside it to intellect it. Rather it intellects its own essence by itself, and so, by intellecting its essence, it becomes intellecting and intellect in act, and, by its essence intellecting it, intelligible in act.
[10] Likewise, in order to be intellect in act and intellecting in act, He does not need an essence that He would intellect and acquire from outside; rather He is intellect and intellecting by intellecting His own essence. For the essence that intellects is the one that is intellected, and so He is intellect in so far as He is intelligible. That He is intellect, that He is intelligible, and that He is intellecting are all one essence and one undivided substance.
[10] A human being, for example, is intelligible, but what is intelligible of him is not intelligible in act; rather it was intelligible in potentiality and then became intelligible in act after the intellect had intellected it. So what is intelligible of a human being is not what intellects, nor is the intellect in him ever what is intelligible; nor is our own intellect, in so far as it is intellect, intelligible. We are intellecting, but not because our substance is intellect; for what we intellect is not that by which we are constituted as substance. The First is not like this; rather intellect, intellecting and intelligible are in Him one meaning, one essence, and one undivided substance.

## Vb. He Is Knowing

[10] So too with His being knowing. He does not need, in order to know, another essence outside His own essence, by knowing which He would acquire excellence; nor, in order to be known, another essence that knows Him. Rather He is sufficient by His substance both to know and to be known. His knowledge of His essence is nothing other than His substance; that He knows, that He is known, and that He is knowledge are one essence and one substance.

## Vc. He Is Wise

[10] So too with His being wise. For wisdom is to intellect the most excellent things by the most excellent knowledge; and by intellecting His own essence and knowing it, He knows the most excellent of things. The most excellent knowledge is the permanent knowledge that cannot cease, and that is His knowledge of His essence.

## Vd. He Is True

[10] So too with His being true. For the true is convertible with existence, and reality too is convertible with existence; for the reality of a thing is the existence proper to it, and the most perfect existence that is its share of existence.
[11] Further, “true” is said of the intelligible by which the intellect comes upon the existent so as to correspond to it. That existent, in so far as it is intelligible, is called true; and in respect of its own essence, without being related to what intellects it, it is called existent.
[11] The First is called true in both ways together: in that the existence that is His is the most perfect existence, and in that He is an intelligible by which whoever intellects Him comes upon the existent as it exists.
[11] He does not need, in order to be true in so far as He is intelligible, another essence outside Him to intellect Him. He is also the most entitled to be called true in both ways together; and His reality is nothing other than His being true.

## Ve. He Is Living and Life

[11] So too with His being living and His being life: these two do not signify two essences but one essence. For the meaning of “living” is that it intellects the most excellent intelligible by the most excellent intellect, or knows the most excellent object of knowledge by the most excellent knowledge. Thus we are first called living when we perceive the best of perceptible things by the best perception; for we are called living when we perceive the sensibles, which are the best of the objects of knowledge, by sensation, which is the best of perceptions, and by the best of the perceiving faculties, which are the senses.
[11] Therefore that which is the most excellent intellect, when it intellects and knows the most excellent intelligibles by the most excellent knowledge, is more fitting to be living; for it intellects in so far as it is intellect. That He is intellecting, that He is intellect, that He is knowing, and that He is knowledge are in Him one meaning; and likewise that He is living and that He is life are one meaning.
[11] Further, the name “living” is sometimes transferred to what is not an animal. It is said of every existent that has reached its final perfection, and of everything that has attained such a degree of existence and perfection that there proceeds from it what it is its nature to produce, in the way that it is its nature to produce it. In this sense, since the First's existence is the most perfect existence, He is more entitled to the name “living” than anything to which the name is applied by transference.
[11] Whatever is more complete in existence, when it is known and intellected, what is intellected and known of it is more complete; for the intelligible of it in our souls corresponds to what exists of it. In accordance with its existence outside our souls, its intelligible in our souls corresponds to its existence; and if it is deficient in existence, its intelligible in our souls is a more deficient intelligible.
[12] Motion, time, the infinite, non-existence and existents like them: the intelligible of each of them in our souls is a deficient intelligible, since they are in themselves existents deficient in existence. Number, the triangle, the square and the like: their intelligibles in our souls are more perfect, because they are in themselves more perfect in existence. Therefore, in the case of the First, since He is at the utmost perfection of existence, the intelligible of Him in our souls ought likewise to be at the limit of perfection. Yet we find the matter otherwise. We must know, then, that on His side He is not hard to apprehend, since He is at the limit of perfection; but because of the weakness of the faculties of our intellects, and their entanglement with matter and non-existence, He is hard to apprehend, it is difficult for us to conceive Him, and we are too weak to intellect Him as His existence is. For the excess of His perfection dazzles us, so that we lack the strength to conceive Him completely.
[12] So it is with light. Light is the first of visible things, the most perfect and the most manifest of them; by it all other visible things become visible, and it is the cause of colours becoming visible. One would expect that the more complete and the greater it is, the more complete sight's perception of it would be. Yet we see the matter to be the opposite: the greater it is, the weaker our seeing of it. This is not because it is hidden or deficient; in itself it is at the utmost of manifestness and luminosity. But its perfection, in so far as it is light, dazzles the eyes, so that the eyes are bewildered by it.
[12] Such is the case of the First Cause, the First Intellect and the First Truth with respect to our own intellects. The deficiency of the intelligible of Him with us is not due to any deficiency in Himself, nor is our difficulty in apprehending Him due to any difficulty in His existence; rather it is because of the weakness of the faculties of our intellects that conceiving Him is difficult. So the intelligibles that are in our souls are deficient, and our conception of them is weak.
[13] This is of two kinds. One kind cannot, on account of its own essence, be conceived and intellected with a complete conception, because of the weakness of its existence and the deficiency of its essence and substance. The other kind is, on its own side, freely open to being understood and conceived completely and in the most perfect way possible; but our minds and the faculties of our intellects are prevented, by their weakness and their distance from the substance of that thing, from conceiving it completely and as it is in the perfection of its existence.
[13] Each of these two kinds stands at the far extreme of existence from the other: one at the limit of perfection, the other at the limit of deficiency.
[13] Since we are bound up with matter, and matter is the cause of our substances having become a substance remote from the First Substance, it follows that the nearer our substances come to it, the more complete, the more certain and the truer our conception of it. That is, the nearer we are to separation from matter, the more complete our conception of Him; and we become nearer to Him only by our substance becoming intellect in act. When we have separated from matter completely, the intelligible of Him in our minds becomes as perfect as it can be.

## VI. On His Greatness, Majesty and Glory, Exalted Be He

[13] So too with His greatness, majesty and glory. Greatness, majesty and glory in a thing exist only according to its perfection, whether in its substance or in an accident among its properties. Most often they are said of us only on account of the perfection of something we have in one of our accidents, such as wealth and knowledge, or in some accident of the body.
[13] And since the First's perfection surpasses every perfection, His greatness, majesty and glory surpass everything that possesses greatness and glory.
[13] His greatness and glory are the utmost limits in what He has from His substance, not in anything else outside His substance and essence. He is great in His essence and glorious in His essence, whether or not another exalts Him, whether or not another magnifies Him, whether or not another glorifies Him.
[13] Beauty, splendour and adornment in every existent consist in its existing with its most excellent existence and attaining its final perfection. Since the First's existence is the most excellent existence, His beauty exceeds the beauty of everything that has beauty, and so too His adornment and His splendour. Moreover, all of these are His in His substance and essence; and that is in Himself and through His intellecting His own essence. As for us, our beauty, adornment and splendour belong to us through our accidents, not through our essence, and through things outside us, not in our substance. But beauty and perfection in Him are nothing other than one essence; and so with the rest of these.
[14] Pleasure, joy and delight arise and are produced chiefly by perceiving the most beautiful, the most splendid and the most adorned with the most exact and complete perception. Since He is the most beautiful without limit, the most splendid and the most adorned, His perception of His own essence is the most exact perception to the utmost degree, and His knowledge of His substance is the most excellent knowledge absolutely.
[14] The pleasure that the First takes is a pleasure whose essence we do not understand and the measure of whose greatness we do not know, except by comparison and by relation to the pleasure we find when we have perceived what is, for us, most perfect and most splendid, with the most exact and complete perception, whether by sensation, by imagination, or by intellectual knowledge. In that state there comes to us a pleasure that we suppose surpasses every pleasure in greatness, and we count ourselves blessed to the utmost with what we have attained of it, even though that state of ours is short-lived and quickly passes.
[14] The relation of His knowledge and perception of the most excellent, the most beautiful and the most splendid, which is His own essence, to our knowledge and perception of what is for us most beautiful and most splendid, is the relation of His joy, pleasure and delight in Himself to the pleasure, joy and delight we attain in ourselves.
[14] And since there is no relation between our perception and His perception, nor between what we know and what He knows, nor between what is most beautiful for us and the most beautiful of His essence, or, if there is a relation, it is a slight one, there is therefore no relation between our pleasure, joy and delight in ourselves and what the First has of these; or, if there is a relation, it is a very slight one. For how can there be a relation between what is a small part and what is infinite in measure in time, or between what is very deficient and what is at the utmost of perfection?
[14] And since whatever takes more pleasure in its essence, rejoices in it more, and delights in it with a greater delight, loves its essence, loves it passionately and admires it more, it is evident that the First passionately loves His essence, loves it and admires it, in proportion. The relation of this to our passionate love for the excellence of our essence, in which we take pleasure, is as the relation of the excellence of His own essence and the perfection of His essence to our own excellence and perfection, which we admire in ourselves.
[15] Love in Him is itself the beloved; what admires in Him is what is admired; the passionate lover in Him is the passionately loved.
[15] This is the contrary of what is found in us. For what we passionately love is excellence and beauty, but what passionately loves in us is not beauty and excellence; the lover has another faculty, which does not belong to the passionately loved, and so the lover in us is not itself the passionately loved. With Him, however, the passionate lover in Him is itself the passionately loved, and love is the beloved. He is therefore the first beloved and the first object of passionate love, whether or not another loves Him, and whether or not another passionately loves Him.

## VII. On How All Existents Proceed from Him

[15] The First is that from which whatever exists has come to exist. Once the First has the existence that is His, it follows necessarily that from Him there exist all the other existents whose existence is not by human will and choice, with the kind of existence they have, part of which is witnessed by the senses and part known by demonstration.
[15] The existence of what exists from Him is only by way of an emanation of His existence for the existence of something else, and in such a way that the existence of what is other than Him emanates from His own existence. In this way the existence of what exists from Him is not in any respect a cause of Him, nor is it an end for the existence of the First, as the existence of a son, in so far as he is a son, is an end for the existence of the parents in so far as they are parents. That is, the existence that comes from Him does not confer any perfection on Him, as happens to us with most of the things that come from us: for example, by giving money to others we acquire from them honour or pleasure or some other good, so that these produce some perfection in the giver.
[15] The First's existence is not for the sake of anything else, nor do other things exist through Him in such a way that the purpose of His existence would be that all other things should exist; for then His existence would have a cause outside Him, and He would not be first. Nor, by giving existence to what is other than Him, does He attain a perfection He did not have before, beyond the perfection in which He is, as one who is generous with his wealth or with something else attains, by what he spends, pleasure or honour or rule or some other good.
[16] All these things are impossible in the First, for they would do away with His being first and His priority, and would make something else prior to Him and a cause of His existence.
[16] Rather, His existence is for the sake of His own essence; and it attaches to His substance and His existence, and follows from it, that something other than Him should exist from Him.
[16] Therefore His existence, through which existence emanates to another, is in His substance; and His existence, through which He is constituted as substance in His essence, is the very same existence through which the existence of another comes about from Him.
[16] He is not divided into two things, by one of which His essence would be constituted as substance and by the other of which something else would come about from Him, in the way that we have two things: by one of them, rationality, we are constituted as substance, and by the other, the art of writing, we write. Rather He is one essence and one substance, by which He is constituted as substance, and by that very same thing something else comes about from Him.
[16] Nor does He need, in order that the existence of something else should emanate from His existence, anything other than His essence that would be in Him, nor an accident in Him, nor a motion by which He would acquire a state He did not have, nor an instrument outside His essence: as fire, in order that vapour should come from it and from water, needs heat by which the water is turned into vapour; or as the sun, in order to heat what is around us, needs to move, so that by motion it acquires a state it did not have, and then from it, and through the state it acquired by motion, heat arises in what is around us.
[16] Or as the carpenter needs the axe and the saw, so that separation, cutting and splitting may come about from him in the wood.
[16] Nor is His existence, through which the existence of another emanates from Him, more perfect than His existence that is by His substance; nor is His existence that is by His substance more perfect than that from which the existence of another emanates. Rather the two together are one essence. Nor can there be any hindrance to Him, whether from Himself or from outside at all, that would prevent the existence of another from emanating from Him.

## VIII. On the Ranks of the Existents

[17] The existents are many, and for all their multitude they differ in rank. His substance is a substance from which every existence emanates, whatever that existence may be, perfect or deficient. His substance is also such that, when all the existents emanate from it in the order of their ranks, there comes from Him to each existent the share of existence that belongs to it, and its rank in existence.
[17] It begins with the most perfect of them in existence; then follows what is slightly less perfect; and after that the less and less perfect continue to follow, until it ends at the existent such that, if one passed beyond it to what is below it, one would pass to what cannot exist at all; and there the existents cease from existence. And because His substance is a substance from which all the existents emanate, without its being restricted to one existence rather than another, He is generous, and His generosity lies in His substance. The existents are ordered from Him, and each existent receives its share of existence according to its rank from Him; so He is just, and His justice lies in His substance, and it is not due to anything outside His substance.
[17] His substance is also such that, when the existents have come about ordered in their ranks, they are combined, linked and ordered with one another, in a combination, linkage and order through which the many things become a single whole and come to be as one thing. That through which they are linked and combined lies, for some things, in their substances, so that their substances, through which they exist, are the very things through which they are combined and linked. For other things it lies in states in them that follow upon their substances, such as love, through which human beings are linked to one another: it is a state in them, not their substances through which they exist. This too is acquired by them from the First, for it lies in the substance of the First that there should come from Him, in many of the existents, together with their substances, the states through which they are linked, combined and ordered with one another.

## IX. On the Names by Which the First, Exalted Be His Glory, Should Be Called

[17] The names by which the First should be called are the names that signify, in the existents we have, and then in the most excellent of them in our eyes, perfection and excellence of existence; but without any of those names signifying in Him the perfection and excellence that those names are customarily used to signify in the existents we have and in the most excellent of them. Rather, they signify the perfection that is proper to Him in His substance.
[18] Further, the kinds of perfection that those many names are customarily used to signify are many. But one must not think that the kinds of His perfections signified by His many names are many kinds into which the First is divided and by all of which together He is made a substance. Rather, by those many names one should signify a single substance and a single existence, not divided at all.
[18] Of the names that signify perfection and excellence in the things we have, some signify what belongs to the thing in itself, not insofar as it is related to something else outside it, such as "existent", "one" and "living"; and some signify what belongs to the thing by relation to something else outside it, such as "just" and "generous". In the things we have, these names signify an excellence and a perfection whose relation to something else outside it is a part of that perfection, so that the relation is a part of the whole of what those names signify, since that name, or that excellence and that perfection, is constituted by the relation to something else.
[18] When names of this kind are transferred and the First is called by them, we intend to signify by them the relation He has to others through the existence that has emanated from Him. We must then not make the relation a part of His perfection, nor make the perfection signified by that name be constituted by that relation. Rather, we must signify by it a substance and a perfection upon which that relation necessarily follows; and signify that the relation is constituted by that substance, and that the relation follows from what is the substance of that substance which that name signifies.

## X. On the Secondary Existents and How the Many Proceed

[19] From the First there emanates the existence of the Second. This Second is likewise a substance not embodied at all, nor is it in matter. It intellects its own essence and intellects the First, and what it intellects of its own essence is nothing other than its essence. Through what it intellects of the First, the existence of a Third follows from it; and through its being made a substance by its own proper essence, the existence of the first heaven follows from it.
[19] The Third, too, has its existence not in matter; by its substance it is an intellect, and it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its own proper essence, the existence of the sphere of the fixed stars follows from it.
[19] Through what it intellects of the First, the existence of a Fourth follows from it. This too is not in matter. It intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its own proper essence, the existence of the sphere of Saturn follows from it; and through what it intellects of the First, the existence of a Fifth follows from it. This Fifth, too, has its existence not in matter; it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its essence, the existence of the sphere of Jupiter follows from it; and through what it intellects of the First, the existence of a Sixth follows from it. This too has its existence not in matter, and it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its essence, the existence of the sphere of Mars follows from it; and through what it intellects of the First, the existence of a Seventh follows from it.
[19] This too has its existence not in matter, and it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its essence, the existence of the sphere of the Sun follows from it; and through what it intellects of the First, the existence of an Eighth follows from it. This too has its existence not in matter; it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its own proper essence, the existence of the sphere of Venus follows from it; and through what it intellects of the First, the existence of a Ninth follows from it. This too has its existence not in matter; it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its essence, the existence of the sphere of Mercury follows from it; and through what it intellects of the First, the existence of a Tenth follows from it.
[19] This too has its existence not in matter, and it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. Through that by which it is made a substance in its essence, the existence of the sphere of the Moon follows from it; and through what it intellects of the First, the existence of an Eleventh follows from it. This Eleventh, too, has its existence not in matter, and it intellects its own essence and intellects the First. But with it there comes to an end the existence whose possessor needs no matter and no substrate at all.
[20] These are the separate things, which in their substances are intellects and intelligibles. And with the sphere of the Moon there comes to an end the existence of the heavenly bodies, which are those that by their nature move in a circle.

## XI. On the Existents and the Bodies That Are With Us

[20] These existents that we have enumerated are those to which their most excellent perfections belonged in their substances from the very beginning; and with these two the existence of such things comes to an end. Those that come after these two are things whose nature it is not to exist in their most excellent perfections in their substances from the beginning. Rather, it is their nature to have first the most deficient of their modes of existence, and to begin from it and rise little by little until each species of them reaches its utmost perfection in its substance, and then in the rest of its accidents. This condition lies in the nature of this genus, without its being something introduced into it from anything else foreign to it. Of these, some are natural, some voluntary, and some composed of the natural and the voluntary. The natural among them is a preparation for the voluntary and precedes the voluntary in time, and the voluntary among them cannot exist unless the natural among them has existed before.
[20] The natural bodies among these are the elements, such as fire, air, water and earth, and what is akin to them, such as vapour, flame and the like; the minerals, such as stones and their kinds; plants; the non-rational animal; and the rational animal.

## XII. On Matter and Form

[20] Each of these is constituted of two things. One of them stands as the wood of a bed stands, and the other as the shape of the bed. What stands as the wood is the matter, or hyle; what stands as its shape is the form and configuration; and so with whatever things are akin to these two. Matter is set as a substrate so that the form may subsist through it, and the form cannot have subsistence and existence without matter. So matter exists for the sake of the form; and if no form existed, there would be no matter.
[21] The form does not exist in order that the matter may exist through it, but in order that the corporeal substance may come to be a substance in act. For every species comes to exist in act, and in its most perfect existence, only when its form has come about; and as long as its matter exists without its form, it is that species only in potency. The wood of a bed, as long as it is without the form of a bed, is a bed in potency, and it becomes a bed in act only when its form comes about in its matter. The more deficient of the thing's two existences is through its matter, and the more perfect of its two existences is through the form.
[21] The forms of these bodies are contrary to one another, and each of them can exist and can fail to exist.
[21] The matter of each of them is receptive of its form and of the contrary of that form: the form of the thing may exist in it, and may fail to exist in it; indeed the matter may exist under a form other than that one.
[21] The elements are four, and their forms are contrary to one another. The matter of each of them is receptive of the form of that element and of its contrary. The matter of each of them is common to all of them, and it is the matter both of them and of all the other bodies beneath the heavenly bodies, since everything beneath the heavenly bodies comes to be from the elements. The matters of the elements have no matters of their own; so they are the first matters, common to everything beneath the heavenly bodies. None of these is given its form from the beginning. Rather, each of the bodies is first given only its matter, through which it exists in remote potency only, not in act, since what was given to it was only its first matter. For this reason it is always striving toward the form by which it is made a substance, and it does not cease rising little by little until it attains its form, by which it exists in act.

## XIII. On the Apportioning of Ranks Between the Material Bodies and the Divine Existents

[22] The order of these existents is that the lowest of them is put first, then the more and more excellent, until it ends at the most excellent of them, than which there is nothing more excellent.
[22] The lowest of them is the common first matter; more excellent than it are the elements; then the minerals; then plants; then the non-rational animal; then the rational animal. And after the rational animal there is nothing more excellent than it.
[22] As for the existents mentioned earlier, they are ordered with the most excellent of them first, then the more and more deficient, until it ends at the most deficient of them. The most excellent and most perfect of them is the First.
[22] Of the things that come from the First, the most excellent on the whole are those that are neither bodies nor in bodies; after them come the heavenly ones. The most excellent of the separate ones among these is the Second, then the rest of them in order, until it ends at the Eleventh.
[22] The most excellent of the heavenly ones is the first heaven, then the second, then the rest of them in order, until it ends at the eleventh, which is the sphere of the Moon.
[22] The separate things after the First are ten, and the heavenly bodies in all are nine; so all of them together are nineteen.
[22] Each one of the ten is unique in its existence and its rank, and its existence cannot belong to anything other than it. For if another shared its existence with it, that other, if it is other than this one, must necessarily have something by which it differs from this one; and that by which it differs from this one would be its own proper existence; so the existence proper to that thing would not be that by which this one exists. Hence their existence would not be one existence; rather each of the two would have something proper to it.
[22] Nor can it have a contrary; for whatever has a contrary has a matter shared between it and its contrary, and none of these can have matter.
[22] Further, what falls under a species has many individuals only because the substrates of the form of that species are many. So for what has no matter, there cannot be anything else in its species besides it.
[23] Further, contraries arise only either from things whose substances are contrary, or from one thing whose states and relations in its substrate are contrary. Such are cold and heat: both come from the sun, but the sun is in two different states, of nearness and remoteness, and through its two states it produces contrary states and relations.
[23] The First cannot have a contrary; nor are His states contrary with respect to the Second, nor is His relation to the Second a contrary relation. Nor can there be contrariety in the Second, nor likewise in the Third, and so on until one reaches the Tenth.
[23] Each one of the ten intellects its own essence and intellects the First. None of them is sufficient to be excellent in existence by intellecting its own essence alone; rather, it gains complete excellence by intellecting, together with its own essence, the essence of the First Cause. And in proportion as the excellence of the First exceeds the excellence of its own essence, its joy in itself through what it intellects of the First is greater than its joy in itself when it intellects its own essence. Likewise its pleasure in itself through what it intellects of the First exceeds its pleasure through what it intellects of its own essence, in proportion as the perfection of the First exceeds the perfection of its own essence; and its admiration of itself, and its passionate love for itself, through what it intellects of the First, exceed its admiration of itself and its passionate love for itself through what it intellects of its own essence, in proportion as the splendour and beauty of the First exceed the splendour and beauty of its own essence. So it is, in its own eyes, loved first and admired first through what it intellects of the First, and secondly through what it intellects of its own essence. The First, then, in relation to these ten, is also the first beloved and the first object of passionate love.

## XIV. On What the Heavenly Bodies Have in Common

[23] The heavenly bodies are nine wholes in nine ranks, each whole contained by a single spherical body. The first of them contains one body only, and so it moves with a single circular motion, very swift. The second is one body containing bodies whose motion is shared: they have two motions only, and all of them share in both motions together. The third and those after it, completing the seven, each contain many bodies, which differ in the motions proper to each of them and share in other motions. The genus of all these bodies is one, but they differ in species; and in each species there can exist only one in number, which nothing else shares in that species. For nothing else of its species shares with the Sun in its existence: it is unique in its existence; and so too the Moon and the rest of the stars.
[24] These are akin to the material existents, in that they have substrates resembling the matters that underlie forms, and things in them that are like forms; and those things subsist in those substrates. Their forms, however, cannot have contraries; the substrate of each of them cannot be receptive of any form other than that one, nor can it be empty of it. And because there is no privation in any way at all in the substrates of their forms, and their forms have no privations opposed to them, their substrates do not prevent their forms from intellecting and from being intellects in their own essence.
[24] So each of these is, by its form, an intellect in act; by it, it intellects the essence of the separate one from which the existence of that body comes, and it intellects the First.
[24] Yet not all that it intellects of its own essence is intellect, for it intellects its substrate, and its substrate does not intellect. And since it does not intellect by its substrate, but only by its form, there is in it an intelligible that does not intellect. So it intellects everything by which it is made a substance and given form; that is to say, its being a substance is by a form and a substrate. By this it differs from the First and from the ten, which are free of matter and of every substrate.
[24] Man shares matter with it. It too rejoices in its essence, not only through what it intellects of its own essence, but through what it intellects of the First, and then through what it intellects of the essence of the separate one from which its existence comes. And it shares with the separate one in its passionate love for the First, and in its admiration of itself for the splendour and beauty it has gained from the First; but in all of this it falls far short of the ten.
[24] Of everything that the material things share with it, it has the noblest and most excellent. Thus of shapes it has the most excellent, the spherical; of the visible qualities, the most excellent, which is light: for some of its parts produce light, namely the stars, and some of its parts are transparent in act, since they are filled with light from themselves and from what they receive from the stars; and of motions it has the most excellent, circular motion. It shares with the ten in having been given, from its very beginning, the most excellent of that by which it is made a substance; and so too its magnitudes, its shapes, and the visible quality proper to it.

## XV. On That in Which and Toward Which the Heavenly Bodies Move, and For What They Move

[25] It differs from the ten in that the heavenly bodies could not be given, from their very beginning, that toward which they move; and that toward which they move is among the slightest and lowest of the accidents that occur in a body.
[25] That is because every body is in some "where", and the kind of "where" that belongs to this body is to be around some body: its "where" is of this kind. So it is not possible for it, as a whole, to move out of the whole of this kind.
[25] But this kind has parts, and the body that is in it has parts; and no part of this body has a better claim than another to any one part of what lies around. Rather, every part of the body must have every part of what lies around, and must not have a better claim to it at one time than at another, but at every time, always. Whenever a part of this body comes to be at some part of what lies around, it needs also to have the part that lies before it. And it cannot have both parts together at one time.
[25] So it must leave the part where it is and pass to the one before it, until it has gone through every part of what lies around. And because the part where it was has no better claim to it at one time than at another, it must have that part always; and since that part cannot be its always while remaining one in number, it becomes one in species, by being its at one time and not at another.
[25] Then it returns to one like it in species, then leaves that too for a time, then returns to a third like it, and leaves that too for a time, then returns to a fourth like it; and so it is with it forever.
[25] It is evident, then, that the positions from which it moves, through which it passes, and to which it returns, are in its relation to the body around which the heaven lies. The meaning of "relation" is that one says "this is toward this", "this is from this", and the like; for the meaning of "where" is the relation of a body to the surface of the body that fits around it.
[26] Every heavenly body is in a sphere, that is, a solid circle; and the relations of its parts to the parts of the surface of the bodies beneath it change constantly, and each of them returns in time to come to relations like those that went before.
[26] The relation of one thing to another is the lowest thing that it has, and the most remote of accidents from the substance of the thing.
[26] Each of the spheres and solid circles that has a motion of its own is either swifter or slower in motion than another, such as the sphere of Saturn and the sphere of the Moon; for the sphere of the Moon is swifter in motion than the sphere of Saturn.

## XVI. On the States in Which the Circular Motions Exist, and on the Nature They Share

[26] This difference of degree in their motions is not according to their relation to anything else; it belongs to them in themselves and essentially. The slow among them is always slow, and the swift always swift.
[26] Further, many of the heavenly bodies differ in their positions relative to the centre and to what is beneath them; and because of this difference in their positions, there attaches to each of them a property, accidentally, that it moves swiftly around the earth at times and slowly at times.
[26] This is apart from the constant swiftness of some and the constant slowness of others, as with the motion of Saturn compared with the motion of the Moon. There also attaches to them, by the relation of some to others, that they come together at times and separate at times, and that some stand to others in contrary relations. Further, they come near at times to some of what is beneath them, and move away from it at times; they are visible at times and hidden at times. These contraries attach to them not in their substances, nor in the accidents close to their substances, but in their relations.
[26] Such are rising and setting: they are two contrary relations of theirs to what is beneath them.
[27] The heavenly body is the first of the existents to which contrary things attach; and the first things in which there is contrariety are the relations of this body to what is beneath it, and the relations of these bodies to one another. These contraries are the lowest of contraries, and contrariety is a deficiency in existence. So deficiency attaches to the heavenly body in the lowest of the things that are apt to exist.
[27] All the heavenly bodies also have a common nature, and it is through it that they all move with the motion of the first body among them, a circular motion in a day and a night. For this motion does not belong to what is beneath the first heaven by compulsion, since there can be nothing in the heaven that runs its course by compulsion. Among them there is also a difference in their substances, without contrariety, such as the difference of Saturn from Jupiter, of every star from every other star, and of every sphere from every other sphere. Then, as we have said, contrariety attaches to them in their relations, and those relations and their contraries change and succeed one another upon them.
[27] So they leave one relation and pass to its contrary, then return to the one they had left, in species, not in number. Thus they have relations that recur, some returning in a longer period and some in a shorter, and states and relations that do not recur at all. And it attaches to them that a group of them have contrary relations to one single thing, as when some of them are near a thing and some far from that very same thing.

## XVII. On the Causes From Which the First Form and the First Matter Arise

[27] From the common nature that they have there follows the existence of the first matter, common to everything beneath them; from the difference of their substances, the existence of many bodies differing in substance; from the contrariety of their relations and correlations, the existence of the contrary forms; and from the change of contrary relations upon them and their succession, the change of contrary forms upon the first matter and their succession.
[27] From the occurrence of contrary relations and conflicting correlations to one single essence at one time, on the part of a group of bodies, there follows a mingling among the things that have contrary forms, and their mixtures; and from the kinds of those different mixtures there arise many species of bodies. From their correlations that recur and return there arise the things whose existence recurs and returns, some in a shorter period and some in a longer. And from those of their correlations and states that do not recur, but arise only at some one time, without having been before and without arising afterward, there arise the things that come to be and do not recur at all.

## XVIII. On the Ranks of the Material Bodies in Coming to Be

[28] First the elements come to be; then the bodies akin to them and associated with them, such as vapours and their kinds, for example clouds and winds and everything else that occurs in the air; and likewise what is akin to them around the earth and beneath it, and in water and fire.
[28] And there arise in the elements, and in each of the rest of these, powers by which they move of themselves toward things that are apt to belong to them, or to exist through them, without a mover from outside; powers by which some act on others; and powers by which some receive the action of others. Then the heavenly bodies act on them, and they act on one another; and from the combination of actions from these directions there arise many kinds of minglings and mixtures, and many proportions, differing without contrariety and differing by contrariety.
[28] From these there follows the existence of all the other bodies. First the elements mix with one another, and from this there arise many contrary bodies. Then these contraries mix, some only with one another, and some with one another and with the elements; that is a second mixing after the first, and from it there arise, again, many bodies with contrary forms.
[28] In each of these, too, there arise powers by which some act on others, powers by which they receive the action of another upon them, and powers by which they move of themselves without a mover from outside. Then the heavenly bodies act on them as well, and they act on one another; the elements act on them, and they in turn act on the elements.
[29] From the combination of these actions in different ways there arise many further mixings, by which they move far away from the elements and from the first matter. They continue to mix, one mixing after another that preceded it, the second mixing always being more composite than the one before, until bodies arise that cannot mix in such a way that another body, further from the elements than they, would arise from their mixing; and so the mixing stops.
[29] So some bodies arise from the first mixing, some from the second, some from the third, and some from the last mixing.
[29] The minerals arise from a mixing nearer to the elements and less composite, and their distance from the elements is by fewer ranks. Plants arise from a mixing more composite than theirs and further from the elements by more ranks. The non-rational animal arises from a mixing more composite than that of plants. And man alone is the one who arises from the last mixing.
[29] In each of these species there arise powers by which it moves of itself, powers by which it acts on another, and powers by which it receives the action of another upon it. As for what among them acts on another, the subjects of its action are, in sum, three: those on which it acts more, those on which it acts less, and those on which it acts equally. Likewise what receives the action of another may be a subject for three kinds of agents: for what acts on it more, for what acts on it less, and for what acts on it equally.
[29] The action of each one on each one is either by assisting it or by opposing it.
[29] Then the heavenly bodies act on each of them, along with the action of some of them on others, by assisting some and opposing others. What they assist, they assist at one time and oppose at another; and what they oppose, they oppose at one time and assist at another. So the kinds of heavenly actions are joined in them with the actions of some of them on others, and from their conjunction there arise very many further mixtures and minglings, and in each species there arise very many, very different individuals.
[30] These, then, are the causes of the existence of the natural things that are beneath the heavenly ones.

## XIX. On the Succession of Forms upon Matter

[30] In these ways their existence comes about in the first place. Once they exist, it would be their course to remain and endure. But since whatever is of this condition among the existents has its subsistence from matter and form, and the forms are contrary to one another, and every matter is such that both this form and its contrary can exist for it, each of these bodies came to have a right and a claim by virtue of its form, and a right and a claim by virtue of its matter. What is due to it by right of its form is that it remain in the existence it has; what is due to it by right of its matter is that it receive another existence, contrary to the existence it has. And since it is not possible to give both of these their due together at one time, it follows necessarily that the one is given its due at one time, so that the thing exists and remains for some period with its existence preserved, then perishes and its contrary comes into existence, and that in turn remains; and so on forever. For the existence of neither of them has a better claim than the existence of the other, nor the persistence of either a better claim than the persistence of the other, since each of them has a share of existence and persistence.
[30] Further, since one and the same matter is shared between two contraries, and the subsistence of each of the two contraries is through it, and the matter has no better claim to one of the two contraries than to the other, and it cannot be given to both of them at one time, it follows necessarily that this matter is given this contrary at some times and that contrary at other times, and that they alternate upon it.
[30] So each of the two comes to be as if it had a right held by the other: with each there is something that belongs to the other, and with the other something that belongs to it. Each of them, then, holds a right that ought to pass to each from each. Justice in this is that the matter of this one be found and given to that one, or the matter of that one be found and given to this one, and that this alternate between them. Because of the need to fulfil justice in these existents, it was not possible for a single thing to remain forever as one in number; so its persistence through all time was made to be as one in species. And for a thing to remain one in species, the individuals of that species must exist for some period and then perish, and other individuals of that species take their place; and so it goes, always after this pattern.
[31] Of these, some are elements, and some come to be from their mixture. Of those that come from their mixture, some come from a mixture of greater composition and some from a mixture of lesser composition. As for the elements, the destroying contrary of each of them is from outside only, since it has no contrary within the whole of its body. As for what comes to be from a mixture of little composition, the contraries in it are few and their powers broken and weak; for that reason the destroying contrary within it is weak in power and destroys it only by means of something from outside, so that its destroying contrary is likewise from outside. What comes from a mixture of lesser composition, then, has its destroying contraries from outside only. But in those that come from a mixture of greater composition, through the multitude of the contraries in them and of their compositions, the contrariety among the mixed things is more manifest, the powers of the contraries in them are strong, and they act upon one another together; for since they are made of dissimilar parts, nothing prevents there being contrariety in them, so that the contrary that destroys such a thing is from outside its body and from inside it together.
[31] Those bodies that are destroyed by their contrary from outside do not continually dissolve of themselves, such as stones and sand; for these two and what is of their kind dissolve only from external things. But the others, plants and animals, dissolve also from things contrary to them within. Therefore, if any of these is long-lived, its form remains for some period through something constantly replacing what dissolves from its body. That thing only takes the place of what dissolves; and nothing can replace what dissolves from its body and join itself to that body unless it strips off the form it had and puts on the form of this very body. That is, the body is nourished; and so a nutritive faculty was placed in these bodies, together with everything that assists this faculty, so that each of these bodies draws to itself something contrary to it, whose contrariety is then stripped from it; it receives it into itself and clothes it with the form in which it is itself wrapped, until over a long period this faculty gives out, and there dissolves from that body something the restoring power cannot replace with its like, and that body perishes with it. In this way it was protected against what dissolves it from within. Against what destroys it from outside, it was protected by the instruments given to it, some within it and some outside its body. So for the continuance of what continues as one in species, it needs other individuals to take the place of whatever of it perishes, standing in the place of those that have perished.
[32] This comes about in one of two ways. Either, alongside the first individuals, there are other individuals that have been brought into existence from them, so that when those first ones perish these stand in their place, and at no time is there lacking the existence of some individual of that species, whether in that place or in another. Or what succeeds the first comes to be some time after the first has perished, so that a period passes in which no individual of that species exists. So in some of them powers were placed through which their like in species comes to be, and in others they were not placed.
[32] In those in which it was not placed, the causes that bring into being a replacement for whatever of them perishes are the heavenly bodies alone, since these assist the elements in this. In that in which a power was placed through which its like in species comes to be, this happens through that power which it has, and joined to it is the action of the heavenly bodies and of the other bodies: either they give it aid, or they oppose it with an opposition that does not cancel the action of the power but produces a mixture, either one by which the action that comes from that power is brought into balance, or one that moves it a little or a great deal away from balance, to an extent that does not cancel its action. Then there comes to be what takes the place of what has perished of that species. All these things happen either for the most part, or for the lesser part, or equally. In this way the persistence of this genus of existents endures.
[33] Each of these bodies has a right and a claim by virtue of its form, and a right and a claim by virtue of its matter. What is due to it by right of its form is that it remain in the existence it has and not pass away; what is due to it by right of its matter is that it receive another existence, opposite and contrary to the existence it has. Justice is that each of the two be given its full claim; and since it is not possible to give it this at one time, it follows necessarily that this one be given its due at one time and that one at another, so that the thing exists and remains for some period with its existence preserved, then perishes and its contrary comes to be; and so forever.
[33] What preserves its existence is either a power in the body in which its form is; or a power in another body which is an instrument joined to it, serving it in the preservation of its existence; or the one charged with its preservation is some other body that rules over the thing preserved, namely the heavenly body or some other body; or this comes about through all of these together.
[33] Further, since these existents are contrary to one another, the matter of every two contraries among them is shared. The matter that belongs to this body is itself also the matter of that one, and that which belongs to that one is itself also this one's. So with each of them there is something that belongs to the other, and with the other something that belongs to it; and it is as if each, in this respect, had with each a right that ought to pass to each from each. The matter that a thing has with another is either a matter whose course is to put on that thing's very form, like a body that is nourished by another body, or a matter whose course is to put on the form of its species, not its very form, like people who succeed people who have passed away.
[33] Justice in this is that what this one holds of the matter of that one be found and given to that one, and what that one holds of the matter of this one be given by that one to this one. That by which a thing obtains its matter in full from its contrary and wrests it from it is either a power in it joined to its form in one body, and then that body is an inseparable instrument for it in this; or it is in another body, and then that is a separate instrument for it, serving it only in wresting matter from its contrary, while another power, in that body or in another, clothes it either with its very form or with the form of its species. Or it is a single power that does both things together. Or what obtains its right for it is another body in its own right, whether heavenly or otherwise. Or this comes about through all of these together.
[34] A body becomes matter for another body only either by the other giving it its own form completely, or by the other clothing it with something of its own form and lessening its dignity. And a body that becomes an instrument for another, serving another body, likewise becomes an instrument only in one of these two ways: either by its form entirely, or by the other clothing it with a little of the dignity of its own form, to an extent that does not take it out of its quiddity, as one breaks the strength of slaves and subdues them until they are humbled and serve.

## XX. On the Parts of the Human Soul and Its Faculties

[34] When the human being comes to be, the first thing to arise in him is the faculty by which he is nourished, which is the nutritive faculty. After that comes the faculty by which he senses what is tangible, such as heat and cold, and the others: those by which he senses tastes, smells, sounds, and colours and all visible things, such as rays of light. Along with the senses there arises in him, through them, an appetition toward what he senses, so that he desires it or dislikes it. Then after that another faculty arises in him, by which he retains the impressions of sensibles in his soul after they have gone from the observation of the senses. This is the imaginative faculty. It combines sensibles with one another and separates them from one another in various combinations and separations, some false and some true; and joined to it is an appetition toward what it imagines.
[34] Then after that the rational faculty arises in him, by which it is possible for him to intellect the intelligibles, by which he distinguishes between the noble and the base, and by which he acquires the arts and the sciences. Joined to it also is an appetition toward what he intellects.
[35] Of the nutritive faculty there is one ruling faculty, and there are faculties that are its subsidiaries and servants. The ruling nutritive faculty is, among the organs of the body, in the mouth. The subsidiaries and servants are dispersed in the other organs, and each subsidiary and serving faculty is in some one of the other organs of the body.
[35] The ruling one among them is by nature the governor of the other faculties; the other faculties imitate it and model their actions on what is by nature the aim of their ruler, which is in the heart.
[35] This is like the stomach, the liver and the spleen, the organs that serve these, the organs that serve these servants, and those that serve these in turn. The liver is an organ that both rules and is ruled: it is ruled by the heart, and it rules the gall bladder, the kidney and organs like them. The bladder serves the kidney, the kidney serves the liver, and the liver serves the heart; and all the other organs are found to be after this manner.
[35] The sensory faculty has a ruler and subsidiaries. Its subsidiaries are these five senses known to all, dispersed in the two eyes, the two ears and the rest. Each of these five perceives a sensation peculiar to it. The ruling one among them is the one in which everything that all five perceive is gathered. It is as if these five were heralds of that one, and as if they were bearers of reports, each charged with one kind of report and with the reports of one region of the realm; and the ruling one is like the king, with whom the reports of the regions of his realm are gathered from his reporters. The ruling one of these, too, is in the heart.
[35] The imaginative faculty has no subsidiaries dispersed in other organs; rather it is one, and it too is in the heart. It retains the sensibles after they have gone from sense, and it is by nature a judge over the sensibles and has command over them: it separates some of them from others and combines some with others in various combinations, some of which happen to agree with what was sensed and some to differ from the sensed.
[35] As for the rational faculty, it has no subsidiaries and no servants of its own kind in the other organs; rather its rule is over the other faculties, the imaginative among them. It is the ruler over the ruling member of every genus in which there is a ruler and a ruled: it is the ruler of the imaginative faculty, the ruler of the ruling sensory faculty, and the ruler of the ruling nutritive faculty.
[36] The appetitive faculty, which is the one that longs for a thing or dislikes it, is a ruler and has servants. This faculty is the one through which will comes about; for will is an appetition toward what has been apprehended, or away from it, whether by sense, by imagination, or by the rational faculty, together with a judgement about it that it should be taken or left.
[36] Appetition may be toward knowing something, or toward doing something, either with the whole body or with some organ of it. Appetition comes about only through the ruling appetitive faculty, while actions by the body come about through faculties that serve the appetitive faculty; these are dispersed in organs prepared for those actions to come about through them. Some of them are nerves, and some are muscles running through the organs by which come about the actions toward which animal and man have appetition. Those organs are such as the two hands, the two feet, and the other organs that can be moved by will. These faculties in organs such as these are all bodily instruments, serving the ruling appetitive faculties in the heart.
[36] Knowledge of a thing may come through the rational faculty, or through the imaginative, or through sensation. When appetition is toward knowing something whose nature is to be apprehended by the rational faculty, the action by which what is longed for is attained is a certain other faculty within the rational faculty, namely the cogitative faculty, through which come thought, deliberation, reflection and inference. When appetition is toward knowing something apprehended by sensation, that by which it is attained is an action compounded of a bodily action and a psychic action, as with a thing we long to see: this comes about by raising the eyelids and by turning our eyes to face the thing we long to see. If the thing is far off, we walk toward it; if there is a barrier before it, we remove that barrier with our hands. All these are bodily actions, while the sensing itself is a psychic action. And so likewise with the other senses.
[37] When one longs to imagine something, this is attained in several ways. One is an action of the imaginative faculty, such as imagining a thing that is hoped for and expected, or imagining something past, or wishing for something that the imaginative faculty composes. The second is what comes to the imaginative faculty from the sensation of something, so that it comes to imagine something about it, that it is to be feared or hoped for; or what comes to it from the action of the rational faculty. These, then, are the faculties of the soul.

## XXI. On How These Faculties and Parts Become One Soul

[37] The ruling nutritive faculty is something like matter for the ruling sensory faculty, and the sensory is a form in the nutritive. The ruling sensory faculty is something like matter for the imaginative, and the imaginative is a form in the ruling sensory. The ruling imaginative faculty is matter for the ruling rational faculty, and the rational is a form in the imaginative and is not matter for any other faculties; it is thus the form of every form that preceded it. As for the appetitive faculty, it follows upon the ruling sensory, the imaginative and the rational, in the way that heat in fire follows upon that by which fire is constituted as a substance.
[37] The heart, then, is the ruling organ which no other organ of the body rules. Next to it is the brain, for it too is a ruling organ, but its rule is not primary rule; it is secondary rule. For it is ruled by the heart and rules the other organs: it serves the heart in its own person, and the other organs serve it according to what is by nature the heart's purpose. This is like the steward of a man's house: he serves the man in his own person, and the rest of the household serve him according to what is the man's purpose, in both respects. It is as if he succeeds him, stands in his place, deputises for him, and acts for him in what the ruler cannot attend to himself. It is the brain that has charge of serving the heart in the noble ones among its actions.
[37] Among these: the heart is the source of the innate heat. From it the heat spreads into the other organs, and from it they draw their supply, through what spreads into them from it of the innate animal spirit in the pulsing vessels; and through the heat with which the heart supplies them the innate heat is kept preserved in the organs. The brain is what tempers the heat that is to pass to it from the heart, so that the heat that reaches each organ is tempered and suited to it. This is the first of the brain's actions, and the first and most general service it renders to the organs.
[38] Among these, too: the nerves are of two kinds. One kind are instruments for the subsidiaries of the ruling sensory faculty in the heart, so that each of them senses the sensation peculiar to it; the other are instruments of the organs that serve the appetitive faculty in the heart, through which they are able to move with voluntary motion. The brain serves the heart by supplying the nerves of sense with what preserves their powers, by which the subsidiaries are able to sense, keeping these powers intact for them. The brain also serves the heart by supplying the nerves of voluntary motion with what preserves their powers, by which the instrumental organs are able to perform the voluntary motion with which they serve the appetitive faculty in the heart.
[38] For many of these nerves have their roots, from which they draw what preserves their powers, in the brain itself, and many of them have their roots in the spinal cord, which runs on from it; the spinal cord is joined at its top to the brain, so that the brain supplies them with the spinal cord sharing with it in the supply.
[38] Among these, too: the imagining of the imaginative faculty takes place only when the heat of the heart is of a definite measure; likewise the thinking of the rational faculty takes place only when its heat is of a certain kind of measure; and likewise its retaining and recollecting of a thing.
[38] So the brain also serves the heart by bringing its heat to the balance at which its imagining is good, to the balance at which its thinking and deliberation are good, and to the balance at which its retention and recollection are good. With one part of itself it tempers what makes imagining sound, with another part what makes thinking sound, and with a third part what makes retention and recollection sound.
[38] This is because the heart, being the source of the innate heat, could not have the heat in it made anything but strong and excessive, so that there might be a surplus of it to overflow into the other organs, and so that it should not fall short; and it was not so in itself except for an end in the heart. This being so, its heat that passes to the organs had to be tempered, while its heat in itself is not at the balance at which its own proper actions are good. For this reason the brain was made by nature cold and moist, even to the touch, relative to the other organs, and a psychic power was placed in it by which the heat of the heart is brought to a definite, determined balance.
[39] The nerves of sense and of motion, being earthy by nature and quick to take on dryness, needed to remain moist, with a suppleness that lends itself to stretching and contracting. The nerves of sense needed, in addition, the innate spirit in which there is nothing smoky at all; and the innate spirit that travels through the parts of the brain is of this condition.
[39] Since the heart is excessively hot and fiery, the roots of these nerves, through which they draw the supply that preserves their powers, were not placed in the heart, lest dryness come quickly upon them so that they dissolve and their powers and actions fail. Their roots were placed in the brain and in the spinal cord, since these two are very moist, so that from each of them a moisture might pass into the nerves that keeps them supple and by which their psychic powers are preserved.
[39] Some nerves need the moisture that passes into them to be watery and fine, with no viscosity at all, and others need some viscosity in it. Those that need a fine wateriness without viscosity had their roots placed in the brain; those that need, in addition, that their moisture be viscous had their roots placed in the spinal cord; and those that need their moisture to be scant had their roots placed at the bottom of the vertebral column and in the coccyx.
[39] After the brain comes the liver, after it the spleen, and after that the organs of generation. Every faculty in an organ whose nature is to perform a bodily action, by which some body separates from that organ and passes to another, necessarily requires either that the other be joined to the first, as many nerves are joined to the brain and many to the spinal cord, or that it have a path and channel joined to that organ, in which that body runs; and that faculty is either serving it or ruling it, as with the mouth, the lung, the kidney, the liver, the spleen and others. And whenever a faculty needs, or it is its nature, to perform a psychic action upon another, it then follows necessarily that there be a bodily channel between the two, as with the action of the brain upon the heart. The first of the organs to be formed is the heart, then the brain, then the liver, then the spleen, and then the other organs follow them.

## XXIb. The Organs of Generation

[40] The organs of generation are the last of them all in their action, and their rule in the body is slight, as appears from the action of the two testicles and their preserving the male heat and the male spirit that flow down from the heart in the male animal that has testicles.
[40] The faculty by which generation comes about is partly ruling and partly serving. The ruling part is in the heart, and the serving part in the organs of generation. The faculty by which generation comes about is twofold: one prepares the matter from which the animal that has this faculty comes to be; the other gives the form of that species of animal and moves the matter until there comes to it the form that belongs to that species. The faculty that prepares the matter is the faculty of the female, and the one that gives the form is the faculty of the male.
[40] For the female is female by the faculty by which she prepares the matter, and the male is male by the faculty that gives that matter the form of the species to which that faculty belongs. The organ that serves the heart in giving the matter of the animal is the womb; and what serves it in giving the form, whether in man or in other animals, is the organ that produces the semen. For when the semen reaches the womb of the female and meets there blood that the womb has prepared to receive the form of a human being, the semen gives that blood a power by which it moves until there arise from that blood the organs of a human being and the form of each organ, and in short the form of a human being. The blood prepared in the womb is the matter of the human being, and the semen is what moves that matter until the form arises in it.
[40] The semen stands to the blood prepared in the womb as rennet stands to the milk that curdles from it. Just as rennet is the agent of the curdling in the milk, yet is neither a part of what curdles nor its matter, so the semen is neither a part of what curdles in the womb nor its matter.
[41] The embryo comes to be from the semen as curds come to be from rennet, and it comes to be from the blood of the womb as curds come to be from fresh milk, and a ewer from copper. What produces the semen in the human being are the vessels in which the semen is found, namely the veins beneath the skin of the pubes, the two testicles lending them some assistance in this. These veins open into the channel in the penis, so that the semen flows from those veins into the channel of the penis and runs along that channel until it is poured into the womb, and gives the blood there the beginning of a power by which it changes until the organs arise from it, with the form of each organ and the form of the whole body.
[41] The semen is an instrument of the male. Of instruments, some are joined to the one who uses them and some are separate from him, as with the physician. The hand is an instrument of the physician with which he treats; the lancet is an instrument of his with which he treats; and the medicine is an instrument of his with which he treats. The medicine is a separate instrument: the physician is joined to it only while he makes it, prepares it and gives it a power by which it moves the body of the sick person toward health. When that power has arisen in it, he puts it into the inside of the sick person's body, for example, and it moves his body toward health while the physician who put it there is absent, or dead, for example. Such, likewise, is the standing of the semen.
[41] The lancet does its work only through being joined to the physician who uses it, and the hand is more closely joined to him than the lancet. The medicine, however, acts by the power that is in it without the physician being joined to it. So too the semen: it is an instrument of the male generative faculty, and it acts while separate. The vessels of the semen and the two testicles are instruments of generation joined to the body.
[41] The veins that are the instruments of the semen stand to the ruling faculty in the heart as the physician's hand, with which he works the medicine and gives it a moving power by which it brings the sick person's body to health. For those veins, which the heart uses by nature, are instruments for the semen's being given the power by which it moves the blood prepared in the womb toward the form of that species of animal. When the blood has received from the semen the power by which it moves toward the form, the first thing to be formed is the heart; and once it is formed, the formation of the other organs waits upon whatever faculties happen to arise in the heart.
[42] If there arises in it, together with the nutritive faculty, the faculty by which matter is prepared, the other organs are formed as the organs of a female; if there arises in it the faculty that gives the form, the other organs are formed as the organs of a male. From the former arise the generative organs of the female, and from the latter the generative organs of the male. Then the remaining faculties of the soul arise in the female after the pattern in which they are in the male.
[42] These two faculties, the male and the female, are separated in man into two individuals; but in many plants they are completely joined in one individual, as in many plants that come from seed. The plant gives the matter, which is the seed, and with it gives at the same time a power by which it moves toward the form; for in the seed there is a readiness to receive the form and a power by which it moves toward the form. What gave it the readiness to receive the form is the female faculty, and what gave it a principle by which it moves toward the form is the male faculty. Among animals too there are some whose course is of this kind. And there are also some in which the female faculty is complete, and joined to it is a deficient male faculty which does its work up to a certain extent and then gives out, so that it needs a helper from outside: such as the animal that lays wind-eggs, and such as many kinds of fish, which lay their eggs and leave them, and their males follow them and cast a moisture on them; any egg touched by some of that moisture yields an animal, and any not touched by it spoils.
[42] With man it is not so. Rather, these two faculties are distinct in two individuals, each of whom has organs peculiar to it, namely the well-known organs; the other organs are common to both. Likewise they share all the faculties of the soul except these two. Of the organs they share, those in the male are hotter; and those of them whose action is motion and moving are stronger in the male in motion and in moving.
[43] As for the affections of the soul: those of them that incline toward strength, such as anger and harshness, are weaker in the female and stronger in the male; and those of the affections that incline toward weakness, such as tenderness and compassion, are stronger in the female. Yet nothing prevents there being among human males one in whom the affections are like those in females, and among females one in whom they are like those in males. In these respects females and males differ in man; but in the sensory faculty, the imaginative and the rational they do not differ.
[43] From external things there arise the impressions of the sensibles in the sensory faculties that are subsidiaries. Then the sensibles of different genera, apprehended by the various kinds of the five senses, are gathered in the ruling sensory faculty; and from the sensibles present in these faculties there arise the impressions of the imaginables in the imaginative faculty. There they remain preserved after they have gone from the direct contact of the senses, and it exercises command over them: at times it separates some of them from others, and it combines some with others in many kinds of combination without limit, some false and some true.

## XXII. On the rational faculty: how it intellects, and what the cause of that is

[43] It remains after that for the impressions of the kinds of intelligibles to be inscribed in the rational faculty. Of the intelligibles whose nature is to be inscribed in the rational faculty, some are intelligibles that are in their substances intellects in act and intelligibles in act; these are the things free of matter. Others are intelligibles that are not by their substances intelligible in act, such as stones and plants, and in general everything that is a body or is in a body possessing matter, and matter itself, and every thing that subsists through it. For these are neither intellects in act nor intelligibles in act.
[44] As for the human intellect, which comes to a person by nature at the beginning of his existence, it is a certain disposition in a matter prepared to receive the impressions of the intelligibles. So it is in potency an intellect, and a material intellect; and it is also in potency intelligible. The other things that are in matter, or are matter, or possess matter, are not intellects, either in act or in potency; but they are intelligibles in potency and can become intelligibles in act. There is not in their substances what suffices for them to become intelligibles in act of themselves; nor is there in the rational faculty, nor in what nature has given, what suffices for it to become an intellect in act of itself. Rather, in order to become an intellect in act it needs something else that brings it from potency to act. It becomes an intellect in act only when the intelligibles come to be in it; and the intelligibles that are in potency become intelligibles in act when they come to be intellected by the intellect in act. They too need something else that brings them out of potency and makes them be in act.
[44] The agent that brings them from potency to act is a certain essence whose substance is a certain intellect in act, separate from matter. For that intellect gives the material intellect, which is an intellect in potency, something like the light that the sun gives to sight, because it stands to the material intellect as the sun stands to sight. Sight is a faculty and a certain disposition in matter; before anything is seen by it, it is sight in potency, and colours, before they are seen, are visible and seeable in potency.
[44] There is not in the substance of the visual faculty that is in the eye what suffices for it to become sight in act, nor in the substances of colours what suffices for them to become seen and visible in act. Rather, the sun gives sight a light by which it is illuminated, and gives the colours a light by which they are illuminated. Through the light it has acquired from the sun, sight becomes seeing in act and sighted in act; and through that light the colours become seen and visible in act, after they had been seen and visible only in potency.
[44] In the same way this intellect that is in act provides the material intellect with something that it inscribes in it, and that thing stands to the material intellect as light stands to sight. And just as sight, by light itself, sees the light that is the cause of its seeing, and by that very light sees the sun that is the cause of the light, and sees the things that are visible in potency so that they become visible in act, so too the material intellect: by that thing which stands to it as light to sight, it intellects that thing itself; and by it the material intellect intellects the intellect in act that is the cause of that thing's being inscribed in the material intellect; and by it the things that were intelligible in potency become intelligible in act, and the material intellect too becomes an intellect in act after having been an intellect in potency. The action of this separate intellect on the material intellect resembles the action of the sun on sight; for that reason it is called the Active Intellect. Its rank among the separate things that were mentioned, below the First Cause, is the tenth rank. And the material intellect is called the passive intellect.
[45] When there comes to be in the rational faculty, from the Active Intellect, that thing which stands to it as light stands to sight, then out of the sensibles preserved in the imaginative faculty there come to be intelligibles in the rational faculty. These are the first intelligibles, which are common to all people, such as that the whole is greater than the part, and that magnitudes equal to one and the same thing are equal to one another.
[45] The common first intelligibles are of three kinds. One kind is first principles of theoretical geometry. Another kind is first principles by which one comes to know the fine and the base in what it is the nature of a human being to do. Another kind is first principles used to know the states of the existents that it is not the nature of human beings to make, together with their principles and their ranks, such as the heavens, the First Cause and the other principles, and what it is the nature of those principles to bring about.

## XXIII. On the difference between will and choice, and on happiness

[45] When these intelligibles come to a human being, there arises in him by nature reflection, deliberation, remembrance and a longing for discovery, and an inclination toward some of what he has intellected and a longing for it, and toward some of what he discovers, or else an aversion to it. Inclination toward what one has apprehended is, in general, will. If it arises from sensation or imagination, it is called by the general name, which is 'will'. If it arises from deliberation, or from reasoning in general, it is called 'choice', and this is found in the human being alone. Inclination arising from sensation or imagination is found in the other animals as well. The attainment of the first intelligibles is man's first perfection; and these intelligibles were given to him only so that he might use them to arrive at his final perfection.
[46] That final perfection is happiness. It is that the human soul should reach such perfection in existence that it no longer needs matter for its subsistence: that it should come to be among the things free of bodies and among the substances separate from matter, and remain in that state for ever and always; except that its rank is below the rank of the Active Intellect. It attains this only through certain voluntary actions, some of them actions of thought and some of them bodily actions,
[46] and not by just any actions, but by certain definite and measured actions that proceed from certain definite and measured dispositions and states of character. For among voluntary actions there are some that hinder happiness.
[46] Happiness is the good sought for its own sake. It is never sought, at any time, in order to obtain something else through it, and there is nothing beyond it, greater than it, that a human being could obtain. The voluntary actions that are useful for reaching happiness are the fine actions; and the dispositions and states of character from which these actions proceed are the virtues. These are goods not for their own sake; they are goods only for the sake of happiness. The actions that hinder happiness are the evils, namely the base actions; and the dispositions and states of character from which these actions come are the deficiencies, the vices and the base traits.

## XXIIIa. The faculties and their service

[46] The nutritive faculty in the human being was made only to serve the body; the sensory and the imaginative faculties were made to serve the body and to serve the rational faculty. The service of these three to the body goes back to the service of the rational faculty, since the rational faculty subsists in the first place through the body. The rational faculty is partly practical and partly theoretical. The practical was made to serve the theoretical; the theoretical was made not to serve anything else, but so that through it one may arrive at happiness. All of these are joined to the appetitive faculty. The appetitive faculty serves the sensory, serves the imaginative and serves the rational; and the serving, apprehending faculties cannot fully perform their service and their work except through the appetitive faculty. For sensation, imagination and deliberation are not sufficient for acting unless there is joined to them a longing for what has been sensed, imagined, or deliberated upon and known; for will is to incline, by the appetitive faculty, toward what has been apprehended.
[47] So when happiness is known by the theoretical faculty and set up as a goal, and is longed for by the appetitive faculty, and the deliberative faculty discovers what ought to be done to attain it with the help of the imaginative faculty and the senses, and then those actions are done by the instruments of the appetitive faculty, the actions of the human being are all good and fine. But when happiness is not known, or is known but not set up as a goal that is longed for, and instead something else is set up as the goal and is longed for by the appetitive faculty, and the deliberative faculty discovers what ought to be done to attain it with the help of the senses and the imagination, and then those actions are done by the instruments of the appetitive faculty, the actions of that human being are all not fine.

## XXIV. On the cause of dreams

[47] The imaginative faculty is intermediate between the sensory and the rational faculty. When the subsidiaries of the sensory faculty are all sensing in act and performing their actions, the imaginative faculty is acted upon by them, occupied with the sensibles that the senses bring to it and inscribe in it. It is also occupied with serving the rational faculty and with supplying the appetitive faculty.
[47] But when the sensory, the appetitive and the rational faculties are in their first perfections, so that they are not performing their actions, as happens in the state of sleep, the imaginative faculty is left on its own, free of the impressions of sensibles that the senses continually renew in it, and released from the service of the rational and the appetitive faculties. It then turns to the impressions of sensibles that it finds preserved and remaining with it, and works on them by combining some with others and separating some from others. Besides preserving the impressions of sensibles and combining them with one another, it has a third action, which is imitation; for it alone among all the faculties of the soul has the power to imitate the sensible things that remain preserved in it.
[48] Sometimes it imitates the sensibles of the five senses by combining the preserved sensibles that imitate them; sometimes it imitates the intelligibles; sometimes it imitates the nutritive faculty; and sometimes it imitates the appetitive faculty. It also imitates the temperament in which it finds the body. When it finds the body's temperament moist, it imitates moistness by combining the sensibles that imitate moistness, such as waters and swimming in them; when the body's temperament is dry, it imitates the dryness of the body by the sensibles whose nature is to imitate dryness. In the same way it imitates the heat and the coldness of the body, if at some time it happens that its temperament is hot or cold.
[48] Since this faculty is a disposition and a form in the body, it is possible that, when the body is in some temperament, the body should produce that temperament in it. But since it is a psychic faculty, its reception of the temperament that the body produces in it is according to what it is in its own nature to receive, not according to the way it is in the nature of bodies to receive temperaments. For when a moist body produces moistness in some body, the body acted upon receives the moistness and becomes moist like the first. But when moistness acts on this faculty, or moistness is brought near to it, it does not become moist; rather it receives that moistness by the sensibles that imitate it. In the same way, when the rational faculty receives moistness, it receives only the quiddity of moistness, by intellecting it, and not moistness itself. So too this faculty: when something acts on it, it receives that from the agent according to what it is in its substance and its preparedness to receive.
[49] Whatever thing acts on it, if it is in its substance to receive that thing, and if moreover it is in its substance to receive it as it was presented to it, it receives it in two ways: one, by receiving it as it is and as it was presented to it; the other, by imitating that thing by the sensibles whose nature is to imitate it. And if it is [not] in its substance to receive the thing as it is, it receives it by imitating that thing by such sensibles as it happens to find with it whose nature is to imitate that thing; for it does not belong to it to receive intelligibles as intelligibles. When the rational faculty gives it the intelligibles that have come to be with it, it does not receive them as they are in the rational faculty, but imitates them by the sensibles that imitate them. And when the body gives it the temperament that it happens to have at some time, it receives that temperament by such sensibles as happen to be with it whose nature is to imitate that temperament.
[49] When it is given something whose nature is to be sensed, it sometimes receives it as it was given, and sometimes imitates that sensible by other sensibles that imitate it. And when it finds the appetitive faculty in a proximate preparedness for some quality, such as anger or desire, or for certain actions in general, it imitates the appetitive faculty, and the actions are set in motion whose nature is to proceed from that state which is found in the appetitive faculty, prepared at that time to receive them. In such a case the subsidiary faculties sometimes rouse the serving organs to perform in reality the actions that are usually performed by those organs when those actions are in the appetitive faculty. So by this action the imaginative faculty sometimes resembles one who is jesting, and sometimes resembles a dead man. Nor is it only in this way.
[49] Rather, when the body's temperament is such that some affection in the appetitive faculty usually follows upon it, the imaginative faculty imitates that temperament by the actions of the appetitive faculty that arise from that affection; and this before that affection has come about, so that the organs in which the faculty serving the appetitive faculty resides rise up toward those actions in reality. For instance, when the body's temperament becomes one upon which the desire for intercourse usually follows in the appetitive faculty, it imitates that temperament by the acts of intercourse, and the organs of this act rise up in preparation for the act of intercourse, not from a desire present at that time, but because the imaginative faculty imitates the desire by the acts of that desire. And so with the other affections.
[50] So too a person sometimes rises from his sleep and strikes another, or rises and flees, without anything having come upon him from outside; what the imaginative faculty imitates of that thing takes the place of that thing, as if it had occurred in reality. It also imitates the rational faculty, by imitating the intelligibles that have come to be in it by the things whose nature is to imitate intelligibles. It imitates the intelligibles that are in the utmost perfection, such as the First Cause, the things separate from matter, and the heavens, by the most excellent and most perfect sensibles, such as things beautiful to look at; and it imitates deficient intelligibles by the meanest and most deficient sensibles, such as things ugly to look at. And in the same way it imitates those by the other sensibles that are pleasant to look at.

## XXIVa. The Active Intellect, the rational faculty and the imaginative faculty

[50] Since the Active Intellect is the cause by which the intelligibles that are in potency become intelligibles in act, and by which what is intellect in potency becomes intellect in act; and since that whose way it is to become an intellect in act is the rational faculty; and since the rational faculty is of two kinds, a theoretical kind and a practical kind, the practical being that whose nature is to do the particulars, present and future, and the theoretical that whose nature is to intellect the intelligibles whose nature is to be known; and since the imaginative faculty is connected with both kinds of the rational faculty:
[50] therefore what the rational faculty receives from the Active Intellect, that thing which stands to it as light stands to sight, sometimes overflows from it onto the imaginative faculty. The Active Intellect then has a certain action on the imaginative faculty: it sometimes gives it the intelligibles whose nature is to come to be in the theoretical rational faculty, and sometimes the sensible particulars whose nature is to come to be in the practical rational faculty. The imaginative faculty receives the intelligibles by the sensibles that it composes to imitate them; and it receives the particulars sometimes by imagining them as they are, and sometimes by imitating them by other sensibles. These particulars are what it is the nature of the practical rational faculty to work out by deliberation.
[51] Some of them are present and some will come to be in the future. But what comes to the imaginative faculty of all these comes without the mediation of deliberation; and for this reason it comes to have, in these things, what [is otherwise had only] after being worked out by deliberation. So from what the Active Intellect gives the imaginative faculty of particulars there come dreams and true visions; and from what it gives it of intelligibles, which it receives by taking their imitations in their place, there come divinations concerning divine things.
[51] All of these may occur in sleep, and they may occur in waking; but those that occur in waking are few, and in the fewest of people. Of those that occur in sleep, most are particulars; intelligibles are few.

## XXV. On revelation and the seeing of the angel

[51] That is because, when the imaginative faculty in some human being is very strong and perfect, so that the sensibles that come to it from outside do not take hold of it so as to absorb it entirely, nor does the rational faculty take it wholly into its service, but there remains in it, while it is occupied with these two, a great surplus with which it also performs its own proper actions, and its state when occupied with these two in time of waking is like its state when released from them in time of sleep, then much of what the Active Intellect gives it, the imaginative faculty imagines by imitating it with visible sensibles. Those imagined things then return and are inscribed in the sensory faculty. When their impressions come to be in the common sense, the visual faculty is acted upon by those impressions, and they are inscribed in it. From what is in the visual faculty there come to be impressions of them in the illuminated air that is in contact with sight and traversed by the ray of sight. When those impressions are in the air, what is in the air returns and is inscribed anew in the visual faculty in the eye, and that is reflected back to the common sense and to the imaginative faculty. And because all of these are connected one with another, what the Active Intellect has given of this becomes visible to this human being. When the sensibles by which the imaginative faculty has imitated those things happen to be of the utmost beauty and perfection, the one who sees that says that God has a great and wondrous majesty; and he sees wondrous things, nothing of which can possibly exist among the other existents.
[52] It is not impossible that a human being, when his imaginative faculty reaches the utmost perfection, should receive in his waking from the Active Intellect the present and future particulars, or the sensibles that imitate them, and should receive the imitations of the separate intelligibles and of the other noble existents, and see them. Then, by what he has received of the intelligibles, he has prophecy concerning divine things. This is the most perfect rank to which the imaginative faculty attains, and the most perfect rank that a human being reaches by his imaginative faculty. Below this is the one who sees all of these, some in his waking and some in his sleep, and the one who imagines all these things in his soul but does not see them with his eyes. Below this is the one who sees all of these in his sleep only.
[52] The statements by which these people express [what they have received] are imitative statements, symbols, riddles, substitutions and similes. These people differ from one another greatly. Some receive the particulars and see them in waking only, and do not receive the intelligibles; some receive the intelligibles and see them in waking, and do not receive the particulars; some receive some of them and see them, but not others; some see something in their waking and do not receive some of these in their sleep; some receive nothing in their waking, but receive whatever they receive in their sleep only; [some] receive the particulars in their sleep and do not receive the intelligibles; some receive something of these and something of those; and some receive something of the particulars only, and this is how most are found. People also excel one another in this. All of these are aids to the rational faculty.
[53] Accidents may befall by which a person's temperament changes, so that he becomes prepared by it to receive some of these from the Active Intellect, sometimes in time of waking and sometimes in sleep. In some this remains for a long time; in others it lasts until a certain time and then passes away. Accidents may also befall a person by which his temperament is corrupted and his imaginings are corrupted, so that he sees things of the kind that the imaginative faculty composes in those ways, which have no existence and are not imitations of anything existent. These are the bilious, the mad and their like.

## XXVI. On man's need for association and mutual assistance

[53] Every human being is so constituted by nature that, for his subsistence and for reaching the most excellent of his perfections, he needs many things that he cannot provide all by himself alone; rather he needs people, each of whom provides him with something of what he needs. And each one stands to each one in this relation. For that reason a human being cannot attain the perfection for whose sake his natural constitution was given to him except through the associations of many people who assist one another, each providing for each something of what he needs for his subsistence, so that from what the whole community provides, each one gathers everything he needs for his subsistence and for reaching perfection. For this reason human individuals became many and settled in the inhabited part of the earth, and from them human associations arose.
[53] Some of these are perfect and some are not perfect. The perfect are three: great, middle and small. The great is the association of all the communities in the inhabited world; the middle is the association of a nation in a part of the inhabited world; and the small is the association of the people of a city in a part of the dwelling-place of a nation.
[53] The imperfect are the people of a village, the association of the people of a quarter, then the association in a street, then the association in a household; and the smallest of them is the household. The quarter and the village both belong to the people of the city; but the village belongs to the city as its servant, while the quarter belongs to the city as a part of it. The street is a part of the quarter, and the household a part of the street; the city is a part of the dwelling-place of a nation, and the nation is a part of the whole of the people of the inhabited world.
[54] The most excellent good and the utmost perfection are attained first through the city, not through an association less complete than it. Since it is the nature of the good in truth to be attained by choice and will, and likewise evils come about only by will and choice, it is possible for a city to be established for mutual assistance in reaching some ends that are evils.
[54] Therefore not every city is one in which happiness can be attained. The city in which association aims at mutual assistance in the things by which happiness is attained in truth is the virtuous city; the association by which people assist one another in attaining happiness is the virtuous association; and the nation all of whose cities assist one another in what leads to happiness is the virtuous nation. Likewise, the virtuous inhabited world comes about only when the nations in it assist one another in reaching happiness.
[54] The virtuous city resembles the complete and healthy body, all of whose organs assist one another to complete the life of the animal and to preserve it in it.
[54] And just as in the body the organs differ and are of unequal excellence in their natural constitution and their faculties, and among them there is one ruling organ, the heart, and organs whose ranks are close to that ruler, in each of which a faculty has been placed by nature by which it performs its action in pursuit of what is by nature the aim of that ruling organ; and other organs have faculties that perform their actions according to the aims of those between which and the ruler there is no intermediary, and these are in the second rank; and other organs perform their actions according to the aim of those that are in this second rank; and so on, until one comes to organs that serve and do not rule at all:
[54] so too the city: its parts differ in natural constitution and are of unequal excellence in their dispositions. In it there is one human being who is the ruler, and others whose ranks are close to the ruler, each of whom has a disposition and a state of character by which he performs an action that follows what that ruler intends; these are the holders of the first ranks. Below these are people who perform actions according to the aims of these, and they are in the second rank. Below these again are those who perform actions according to the aims of these. And so the parts of the city are ranked, until one comes to others who perform their actions according to the aims [of those above them]; these are the ones who serve and are not served, who are in the lowest of the ranks and are the lowest of all.
[55] But the organs of the body are natural, and their dispositions are natural faculties; whereas the parts of the city, although they are natural, the dispositions and states of character by which they perform their actions for the city are not natural but voluntary. The parts of the city are indeed endowed by nature with natural constitutions of unequal excellence, by which one human being is fit for one thing rather than another; yet they are not parts of the city by the natural constitutions they have alone, but by the voluntary states of character that they acquire, namely the arts and what resembles them. For the counterparts, in the parts of the city, of the faculties that belong by nature to the organs of the body are voluntary states of character and dispositions.

## XXVII. On the ruling organ

[55] Just as the ruling organ in the body is by nature the most perfect and most complete of its organs, in itself and in what is proper to it, and has the most excellent share in everything in which another organ shares with it; and below it there are other organs that rule what is below them, their rule being below the rule of the first and under the rule of the first, so that they rule and are ruled: so too the ruler of the city is the most perfect of the parts of the city in what is proper to him, and has the most excellent share in everything he shares with another; and below him are people who are ruled by him and who rule others.
[55] And just as the heart comes to be first, and is then the cause of the coming to be of the other organs of the body, and the cause of their acquiring their faculties and of their being ordered in their ranks, and when one of them is disordered it is the heart that supplies what removes that disorder from it: so too the ruler of this city must come to be first, and then be the cause of the city and its parts coming to be, and the cause of the voluntary states of character belonging to its parts coming about and of their being ordered in their ranks; and if one part of it is disordered, it is he who supplies it with what removes its disorder.
[56] And just as the organs close to the ruling organ perform, of the natural actions that accord with the aim of the first ruler by nature, those that are noblest, and the organs below them perform actions lower than that in nobility, until one comes to the organs that perform the meanest of actions: so too the parts that are close in rule to the ruler of the city perform the noblest of the voluntary actions, and those below them perform what is lower than that in nobility, until one comes to the parts that perform the meanest of actions.
[56] The meanness of actions is sometimes due to the meanness of their subject matter, even though the actions are of great use, like the action of the bladder and the action of the lower intestines in the body; sometimes it is due to their little use; and sometimes it is because they are very easy. So it is in the city; and so it is with every whole whose parts are by nature combined, ordered and bound together: it has a ruler whose relation to the other parts is this relation.
[56] This is also the condition of the existents. For the relation of the First Cause to the other existents is like the relation of the king of the virtuous city to its other parts. The things free of matter are close to the First; below them are the heavenly bodies, and below the heavenly bodies the material bodies. All of these follow the example of the First Cause, aim at it and pursue it, and every existent does this according to its power. But they pursue the aim in ranks: the lowest pursues the aim of what is a little above it, and that pursues the aim of what is above it, and likewise the third has as its aim what is above it, until one comes to those between which and the First there is no intermediary at all. In this order all the existents pursue the aim of the First Cause. Those that were given from the outset everything by which they exist have been made from the outset to follow the example and intention of the First, and so they have come to be in the high ranks. Those that were not given from the outset everything by which they exist have been given a power by which they move toward what they may expect to attain, and in this they pursue what is the aim of the First.
[57] So too must the virtuous city be: all its parts must, in their actions, follow the example of the intention of its first ruler, according to their order.

## XXVIIb. Rulership and the intellect

[57] The ruler of the virtuous city cannot be just any human being, because rulership comes about through two things: first, that he be prepared for it by inborn constitution and nature; second, by a voluntary disposition and state of character. As for the rulership that falls to one who is by nature prepared for it: not every art is one by which one can rule; rather most arts are arts by which one serves in the city, and most natural constitutions are constitutions for service. Among the arts there are arts by which one rules and by which one also serves other arts; and among them there are arts by which one only serves and does not rule at all.
[57] So too the art of ruling the virtuous city cannot be just any art whatever, nor just any state of character whatever. For just as the first ruler in a genus cannot be ruled by anything of that genus, as with the ruler of the organs, which is the one over which no other organ can be ruler, and so with every ruler in general: so the first ruler of the virtuous city must have an art that cannot be used to serve at all, and that no other art can rule at all; rather his art must be an art toward whose aim all the arts tend, an aim intended in all the actions of the virtuous city.
[57] That human being must be a human being whom no human being rules at all. Such a human being is one who has been perfected and has become intellect and intelligible in act; whose imaginative faculty has been perfected by nature to the utmost perfection in the way we have described; in whom this faculty is prepared by nature to receive from the Active Intellect, either in time of waking or in time of sleep, the particulars, either in themselves or by what imitates them, and then the intelligibles by what imitates them; and whose passive intellect has been perfected by all the intelligibles, so that nothing of them remains hidden from him, and has become an intellect in act.
[57] For any human being whose passive intellect has been perfected by all the intelligibles has become intellect in act and intelligible in act, and what is intellected of him has become that which intellects. There then comes to him a certain intellect in act whose rank is above the passive intellect, more complete, more separate from matter and closer to the Active Intellect. It is called the acquired intellect, and it becomes intermediate between the passive intellect and the Active Intellect, with nothing else between it and the Active Intellect. So the passive intellect is like matter and substrate for the acquired intellect, and the acquired intellect is like matter and substrate for the Active Intellect; and the rational faculty, which is a natural disposition, is a matter that serves as substrate for the passive intellect, which is an intellect in act.
[58] The first rank by which a human being is a human being is that there should come to be in him the natural disposition that is receptive and prepared to become an intellect in act; and this is common to all. Between it and the Active Intellect there are two ranks: that the passive intellect should come to be in act, and that the acquired intellect should come to be. So between this human being, who has reached this point from the first rank of humanity, and the Active Intellect there are two ranks.
[58] When the perfected passive intellect and the natural disposition are made one thing, in the way that what is composed of matter and form is one thing, and when this human being is taken as having a human form, namely the passive intellect that has come to be in act, then between him and the Active Intellect there is only one rank. And when the natural disposition is made the matter of the passive intellect that has become an intellect in act, and the passive intellect the matter of the acquired, and the acquired the matter of the Active Intellect, and the whole of this is taken as one thing, then this human being is the human being in whom the Active Intellect has come to dwell.
[58] When this comes about in both parts of his rational faculty, the theoretical and the practical, and then in his imaginative faculty, this human being is the one who receives revelation; and God, mighty and majestic, gives him revelation through the mediation of the Active Intellect. What flows from God, blessed and exalted, to the Active Intellect, the Active Intellect causes to flow to his passive intellect through the mediation of the acquired intellect, and then to his imaginative faculty. By what flows from it to his passive intellect he is a wise man, a philosopher, and one perfect in intellection; and by what flows from it to his imaginative faculty he is a prophet, warning of what will be and telling of the particulars that are now, through an existence in which he intellects the divine.
[59] This human being is in the most perfect rank of humanity and in the highest degree of happiness; his soul is perfect, united with the Active Intellect in the way we have described. This human being is the one who knows every action by which happiness can be reached. This is the first condition of the ruler. Then, besides that, he must have the power, by his tongue, to represent well in speech everything that he knows, and the power to guide well to happiness and to the actions by which happiness is reached; and, besides that, he must have sound firmness of body for carrying out the actions concerned with particulars.

## XXVIII. On the Qualities of the Ruler of the Virtuous City

[59] This, then, is the ruler over whom no other human being rules at all. He is the imam; he is the first ruler of the virtuous city, the ruler of the virtuous nation, and the ruler of the whole inhabited part of the earth. This condition can belong only to one in whom twelve qualities are united by nature, qualities with which he was innately endowed.
[59] The first is that he be complete in his organs, their powers well suited to the organs for the actions that are theirs to perform, so that whenever he sets about an action with one of his organs, he accomplishes it with ease.
[59] Next, that he be by nature good at understanding and conceiving everything that is said to him, so that he receives it with his understanding as the speaker intends it and as the matter is in itself.
[59] Next, that he retain well what he understands, what he sees, what he hears and what he perceives; in short, that he scarcely forgets anything.
[59] Next, that he be quick of perception and sharp-witted, so that when he sees the slightest indication of a thing, he perceives it in the way the indication points.
[59] Next, that he be good in expression, his tongue serving him to make plain, completely, everything he has in mind.
[59] Next, that he love instruction and learning and submit to it, receiving it easily, so that the toil of instruction does not pain him and the exertion it brings him does not trouble him.
[59] Next, that he not be greedy for food, drink and sexual intercourse; that he by nature avoid play and hate the pleasures that arise from these things.
[60] Next, that he love truthfulness and those who are truthful, and hate falsehood and those who are false.
[60] Next, that he be great of soul and a lover of honour; that his soul by nature be too great for everything disgraceful, and that his soul by nature rise to what is highest.
[60] Next, that dirham and dinar and the other goods of this world be of little account to him.
[60] Next, that he by nature love justice and the just, and hate injustice and oppression and those who practise them; that he give fair measure, both from his own people and from others, and urge it; that he give redress to anyone on whom injustice has fallen; and that he be favourable to everything he sees as good and beautiful.
[60] Next, that he be just, not hard to lead, neither refractory nor obstinate when he is called to justice, but hard to lead when he is called to injustice and to what is base.
[60] Next, that he be strong in resolve upon what he sees ought to be done, bold and daring in it, neither fearful nor weak of soul.
[60] The union of all these in a single human being is difficult; for that reason one who is born with this nature is found only one at a time, and he is among the rarest of men. If such a one is found in the virtuous city, and after he has grown up those six conditions mentioned before are present in him, or five of them, apart from the prophetic warning that comes by way of the imaginative faculty, he is the ruler. If it happens that no one like him is found at some time, the laws and customs that this ruler and his like laid down, if they have succeeded one another in the city, are taken up and made fixed.
[60] The second ruler, who succeeds the first, is one in whom those conditions have been united from his birth and his boyhood, and in whom, after he has grown up, there are six conditions. The first is that he be wise. The second, that he be learned, preserving the laws, customs and ways of conduct that the first [rulers] established for the city, following them fully in all his actions. The third, that he be good at deriving [rulings] in matters for which no law has been preserved from the forebears, and that in what he derives he follow in the footsteps of the first imams. The fourth, that he have good deliberation and the power to derive what needs to be known at any given time concerning present matters and the events that arise, of a kind the first [rulers] did not deal with, aiming in what he derives at the well-being of the city.
[61] The fifth, that he be good at guiding, by speech, to the laws of the first [rulers] and to those he has derived after them in which he followed in their footsteps.
[61] The sixth, that he have firmness of body in undertaking the works of war; that is, that he possess the art of war, both the subordinate and the ruling.
[61] If no single human being is found in whom these conditions are united, but two are found, one of them wise and the other possessing the remaining conditions, the two of them are the rulers in this city. If these are scattered among a group, wisdom in one, the second in one, the third in one, the fourth in one, the fifth in one and the sixth in one, and they are in harmony with one another, they are the virtuous rulers. Whenever it happens at some time that wisdom is not part of the rulership, though the other conditions are in it, the virtuous city remains without a king; the ruler who manages the affairs of this city is not a king, and the city is exposed to destruction. And if it does not happen that a wise man is found to be joined to him, the city will not last long before it perishes.

## XXIX. On the Opposites of the Virtuous City

[61] The virtuous city is opposed by the ignorant city, the immoral city, the changed city and the erring city. It is opposed also, among individual people, by the weeds of the cities.
[61] The ignorant city is the one whose people have not known happiness, nor has it ever occurred to them; if they are guided to it, they neither take it up nor believe in it. Of good things they know only some of those that are thought, in outward appearance, to be goods, among the things that are thought to be the ends in life: health of body, wealth, the enjoyment of pleasures, being left free to follow one's desire, and being honoured and esteemed. Each of these is happiness for the people of ignorance, and the greatest and most complete happiness is the combination of them all. Their opposites are misery: afflictions of the body, poverty, not enjoying pleasures, not being left free to follow one's desire, and not being honoured.
[62] It is divided into a number of cities. Among them is the necessary city: the one whose people aim at limiting themselves to what is necessary for sustaining their bodies, in food, drink, clothing, dwelling and sexual intercourse, and at cooperating to obtain these.
[62] The city of exchange is the one whose people aim at cooperating to attain wealth and riches, not in order to use wealth for anything else, but because wealth is for them the end in life.
[62] The city of baseness and wretchedness is the one whose people aim at the enjoyment of pleasure in food, drink and sexual intercourse, in short pleasure in what is sensed and imagined, and at preferring jest and play in every way and of every kind.
[62] The city of honour is the one whose people aim at cooperating to become honoured, praised, spoken of and famous among the nations, glorified and esteemed in word and deed, possessed of grandeur and splendour, whether in the eyes of others or among themselves, each according to the measure of his love for this or the measure of what he is able to attain of it.
[62] The city of domination is the one whose people aim at being the conquerors of others and at resisting being conquered by others, their striving being only for the pleasure that comes to them from conquest.
[62] The collective city is the one whose people aim at being free, each of them doing what he wishes, his desire restrained in nothing at all.
[62] The kings of the ignorant [cities] correspond to their cities: each of them manages the city over which he has power only in order to obtain his own desire and inclination. The aims of the ignorant that can be made ends are those we have just enumerated.
[62] The immoral city is the one whose opinions are the virtuous opinions: it knows happiness, God, mighty and glorious, the secondaries, the Active Intellect, and everything that the people of the virtuous city should know and believe; but the actions of its people are the actions of the people of the ignorant cities.
[63] The changed city is the one whose opinions and actions were in former times the opinions and actions of the virtuous city, but it has been changed: other opinions have entered it, and its actions have turned into other actions.
[63] The erring city is the one that believes in a happiness after this life, but has altered this; it holds corrupt opinions about God, mighty and glorious, about the secondaries and about the Active Intellect, opinions that are not sound even if they are taken as representations and imaginings of them. Its first ruler is one who made it appear that he receives revelation without its being so, and in this he has used misrepresentations, deceptions and delusions. The kings of these cities are opposed to the kings of the virtuous cities, their rulerships are opposed to the virtuous rulerships, and so too are all the others in them.

## XXIXb. The People of the Virtuous City and Their Souls

[63] The kings of the virtuous cities who succeed one another in different times, one after another, are all as one soul, and as though they were one king who remains for all time. Likewise, if a number of them happen to exist at one time, whether in one city or in many cities, their group is as one king and their souls as one soul.
[63] Likewise the people of each rank in it: when they succeed one another in different times, they are all as one soul that remains for all time. And likewise, if at one time there is a group of people of one rank, whether they are in one city or in many cities, their souls are as one soul, whether that rank is a rank of rule or a rank of service.
[63] The people of the virtuous city have things in common which they know and do, and other things, of knowledge and of action, that belong specifically to each rank and to each one of them. Each one comes within the bounds of happiness only through these two: through what is common to him and to others together, and through what belongs specifically to the people of the rank to which he belongs. When each of them does that, those actions of his give him a good and virtuous disposition of soul; and the more he persists in them, the stronger and more excellent that disposition of his becomes, and its strength and excellence increase. In the same way, persistence in the good actions of the art of writing gives a man excellence in the art of writing; and the more he persists in those actions, the stronger and more excellent becomes the art through which those actions come about, its strength and excellence increasing by the repetition of its actions. The pleasure that follows that disposition of soul becomes greater, the man's delight in himself because of it becomes greater, and his love for it grows stronger.
[64] Such is the state of the actions through which happiness is attained. The more of them there are, the more they are repeated and the more a man persists in them, the stronger, more excellent and more perfect they make the soul whose nature it is to become happy, until it reaches such a bound of perfection that it no longer needs matter and comes to be free of it. Then it does not perish when matter perishes, nor, when it remains, does it need matter.
[64] When it comes to be separate from matter and incorporeal, the accidents that befall bodies insofar as they are bodies are removed from it, so that it cannot be said of it that it moves or that it is at rest. One must then speak of it in the terms that befit what is not a body. Whatever comes into a man's mind of the things by which a body is described insofar as it is a body must be denied of the separate souls, and their state must be understood accordingly; to conceive it is difficult and unaccustomed. Likewise, by their separation from bodies, everything that used to attach to them and befall them is removed from them.
[64] Since among these souls that have separated there are souls that were in different matters, and since it is evident that the dispositions of the soul follow the temperaments of bodies, some more and some less, each disposition of the soul being as the temperament of the body in which it was requires, their dispositions must necessarily differ, because of the difference that was in them. And since the differences of bodies go on without definite limit, the differences of souls also go on without definite limit.

## XXX. On the Union of Souls with One Another

[64] When one group passes away, their bodies perishing and their souls set free and made happy, and other people succeed them in their rank after them, take their place and do their actions, then, when these too pass away and are gone, they too come in happiness to the ranks of those who passed before, and each is united with what resembles it in species, quantity and quality. Since they are not bodies, their coming together, however great it grows, does not crowd one another for place, for they are not in places at all; so their meeting and their union with one another are not in the manner found among bodies. And the more the similar separate souls multiply and unite with one another, and this in the manner in which an intelligible unites with an intelligible, the greater and more intense the pleasure of each of them becomes. And whenever those who come after them join them, the pleasure of those who have now joined increases through meeting those who passed before, and the pleasures of those who passed before increase through the union of those who join them; for each soul intellects its own essence and intellects the like of its essence many times over, so that the quality of what it intellects increases.
[65] The increase of those who meet there is like the increase in the power of the art of writing through the writer's persistence in the actions of writing: the joining of one to another, in the increase of each, takes the place of the succession of the writer's actions through which his writing increases in power and excellence. And since those who join one another go on without limit, the increase of the powers and pleasures of each single one goes on without limit through the course of time. Such is the state of every group that passes away.

## XXXI. On the Arts and the Kinds of Happiness

[65] The kinds of happiness differ in excellence in three ways: in species, in quantity and in quality. This resembles the way the arts here differ in excellence. Arts differ in excellence in species in that they are arts different in species, one more excellent than another, as weaving and the cloth trade, perfumery and sweeping, dancing and jurisprudence, or wisdom and rhetoric. In these ways the arts whose species differ differ in excellence.
[65] Among practitioners of arts of one species, [difference] in quantity is when, for example, of two scribes one has knowledge of more of the parts of the art of writing, and the other has mastered fewer of its parts. For this art is made up of the combination of knowledge of something of language, something of rhetoric, something of good penmanship and something of arithmetic. One of them may have mastered of these, say, good penmanship and something of rhetoric; another, language, something of rhetoric and good penmanship; and another, all four. Difference in excellence in quality is when two have mastered the very same parts of writing, but one of them is stronger in what he has mastered and more knowledgeable. This is difference in excellence in quality.
[66] The kinds of happiness differ in excellence in these ways too. As for the people of the other cities, since their actions are bad, they give them bad dispositions of soul, just as the actions of writing, when they are bad and not as writing ought to be, give a man a bad and defective writing, and the more of those actions he does, the more defective his art becomes. So too the bad actions among the actions of the other cities give their souls bad and defective dispositions, and the more any one of them persists in those actions, the more defective his disposition of soul becomes. Their souls thus become sick, and for that reason they may take pleasure in the dispositions they acquire through those actions. Just as those sick in body, such as many who have fever, because of the corruption of their temperament take pleasure in tastes that are not of a kind to give pleasure, are pained by things that are of a kind to be pleasant, and do not perceive the taste of sweet things that are of a kind to be pleasant, so those sick in soul, through the corruption of their imagination, which they have acquired by will and by habit, take pleasure in bad dispositions and bad actions, and are pained by beautiful and virtuous things, or do not imagine them at all.
[66] And just as among the sick there are some who do not perceive their illness, and some who even think they are healthy, their opinion of this growing so strong that they do not listen at all to what a physician says, so whoever among the sick of soul does not perceive his sickness, and even thinks that he is virtuous and sound of soul, does not listen at all to what a guide, a teacher or a corrector says.

## XXXII. On the People of These Cities

[67] As for the people of the ignorant cities, their souls remain unperfected and of necessity need matter for their subsistence, since no true impression of any of the first intelligibles has been traced in them at all. When the matter through which they subsisted perishes, the powers whose nature it was to sustain what has perished perish too, and the powers whose nature it is to sustain what remains remain. If this too perishes and dissolves into something else, what remains becomes a kind of form for that thing into which the remaining matter dissolved. And each time thereafter that this too happens to dissolve into something, what remains becomes a kind of form for that thing into which it dissolved, until it dissolves into the elements; then the last remainder becomes a form of the elements.
[67] After that, its fate depends on what happens to come to be from those parts of the elements into which these dissolved.
[67] If those parts happen to mix in a mixture from which a human being comes to be, it becomes once more a disposition in a human being; and if they happen to mix in a mixture from which another species of animal, or something that is not an animal, comes to be, it becomes once more a form for that thing. These are the ones who perish and pass into nothingness, after the manner of cattle, beasts of prey and vipers.
[67] As for the people of the [immoral] city: the dispositions of soul which they acquired from the opinions of their forebears free their souls from matter; but the bad dispositions of soul which they acquired from base actions are joined to the first dispositions, trouble them and oppose them. From the opposition of these to those, great pain comes upon the soul; and those dispositions oppose these, so that from those too great pain comes upon these. From the two, two great pains are combined for the soul.
[67] These dispositions acquired from the actions of ignorance are in truth followed by great pain in the rational part of the soul; the rational part does not perceive their pain only because it is occupied with what the senses bring to it. When it is alone, apart from the senses, it perceives the pain that follows these dispositions; and [this state] frees it from matter and sets it apart from the senses and from all the things that come upon it from outside. So a man in grief, when the senses bring him what occupies him, is not pained by what grieves him and does not perceive it, until, when he is alone apart from the senses, the pain returns to him.
[68] Likewise a sick man in pain, when he is occupied with things, either suffers less from the pain of the illness or does not perceive the pain at all; and when he is alone, apart from the things that occupy him, he perceives the pain, or the pain returns to him. So too the rational part: as long as it is occupied with what the senses bring to it, it does not perceive the pain of the bad dispositions joined to it, until, when it is completely alone apart from the senses, it perceives the pain, and the pain of these dispositions becomes evident to it. It then remains for all time in great pain. If one of the people of that city who is of his rank is joined to him, the pain of each of them is increased by his companion; for since those who join one another go on without limit, the increases of their pain go on without limit through the course of time. This is the misery opposed to happiness.
[68] As for the people of the erring cities: the one who led them astray and turned them aside from happiness for the sake of one of the aims of the people of ignorance, while he himself knew happiness, is one of the people of the immoral cities; he alone, and not the people of the city, is miserable. The people of the city themselves perish and pass away, after the manner of what the state of the people of ignorance comes to.
[68] As for the people of the changed cities: the one who changed the matter for them and turned them aside, if he is one of the people of the immoral cities, he alone is miserable; the others perish and pass away, like the people of ignorance. So too with everyone who has turned aside from happiness through oversight and error.
[68] As for those of the people of the virtuous city who are compelled and forced into the actions of ignorance: since one who is forced to do something is pained by what he does of it, his persisting in what he was coerced into does not give him a disposition of soul opposed to the virtuous dispositions, such as would trouble that state of his until his standing became the standing of the people of the immoral cities. For that reason the actions he was compelled to do do not harm him. The virtuous man incurs this only when the one who has power over him is one of the people of the cities opposed to the virtuous city, and he is forced to live in the dwellings of those who are opposed to it.

## XXXIII. On the Things Common to the People of the Virtuous City

[69] The common things that all the people of the virtuous city ought to know are several. The first is knowledge of the First Cause and of everything by which He is described.
[69] Then the things separate from matter, and what each of them is described by in the attributes and the rank proper to it, until one comes, among the separate things, to the Active Intellect; and the action of each of them.
[69] Then the heavenly substances, and what each of them is described by.
[69] Then the natural bodies beneath them: how they come to be and pass away; and that what takes place among them takes place with firmness, precision, providence, justice and wisdom, and that there is in them no neglect, no deficiency and no injustice in any way at all.
[69] Then the coming-to-be of man, how the powers of the soul arise, and how the Active Intellect pours light upon it so that the first intelligibles, will and choice come about.
[69] Then the first ruler, and how revelation comes about.
[69] Then the rulers who ought to succeed him when he is not present at some time.
[69] Then the virtuous city and its people, and the happiness to which their souls come;
[69] and the cities opposed to it;
[69] and what their souls come to after death, some of them to happiness and some to nothingness.
[69] Then the virtuous nations and the nations opposed to them.
[69] These things are known in one of two ways: either they are impressed in their souls as they exist, or they are impressed in them through correspondence and representation, that is, there arise in their souls likenesses of them that imitate them.
[69] The wise men of the virtuous city are those who know these things through demonstrations and through the insight of their own souls. Those who come next to the wise men know them as they exist through the insight of the wise men, following them, assenting to them and trusting them. The rest of them know them through likenesses that imitate them, because there is no disposition in their minds for understanding them as they exist, whether by nature or by habit.
[70] Both are kinds of knowledge, but that of the wise man is without doubt the more excellent. Of those who know them through likenesses that imitate them, some know them through likenesses close to them, some through likenesses a little more remote, some through likenesses more remote than those, and some through likenesses very remote.
[70] These things are imitated for each nation and for the people of each city through the likenesses that are best known to them, the better known before the less. What is best known may differ among the nations, either for the most part or in some part; so these things are imitated for each nation by things other than those by which they are imitated for another nation.
[70] For this reason there can be virtuous nations and virtuous cities whose religions differ, while they all aim at one and the same happiness and at the very same purposes.

## XXXIIIb. Demonstration and Likeness

[70] When these common things are known through their demonstrations, there can be no place in them for contradiction by argument at all, neither by way of sophistry nor for one who understands them badly; for then what the objector contradicts is not the truth of the matter in itself, but the falsehood that he himself has understood in the matter.
[70] But when they are known through the likenesses that imitate them, their likenesses may contain places for contradiction: in some there are fewer places for contradiction and in some more; in some they are more evident and in some more hidden. And it is not impossible that among those who have known those things through imitating likenesses there should be some who light upon the places for contradiction in those likenesses and come to a halt there. These are of several classes.
[70] One class are those who seek guidance. Whenever something appears false to one of these, he is raised to another likeness closer to the truth, in which there is not that contradiction. If he is satisfied with it, he is left there. If that too appears false to him, he is raised to another rank; if he is satisfied with it, he is left there. And whenever a likeness at any rank appears false to him, he is raised above it. If all the likenesses appear false to him and he has in him the capacity to grasp [the truth], he is made to know the truth and is placed in the rank of those who follow the wise on their authority. If he is not satisfied with that and longs for wisdom, at the end of it he will know wisdom.
[71] Another class are those who have certain aims of ignorance, such as honour, wealth, pleasure in property and the like, and who see that the laws of the virtuous city forbid them. Such a one sets about the opinions of the virtuous city and seeks to show them all to be false, whether they are likenesses of the truth or what is presented to him of them is the truth itself.
[71] The likenesses he shows to be false in two ways: one through the places for contradiction in them, the other through sophistry and misrepresentation. The truth itself he shows to be false through sophistry and misrepresentation. All this so that nothing may stand in the way of his ignorant and base aim. These ought not to be made parts of the virtuous city.
[71] Another class find all the likenesses false because of the places for contradiction in them; and because, besides, they are of poor understanding, they also go astray from the places of truth in the likenesses, so that even what has no place for contradiction in it at all appears false to them.
[71] When they are raised to the level of the truth so that they may know it, their poor understanding leads them astray from it, so that they imagine the truth other than it is; and they think, further, that what they have conceived is what is claimed to be the truth.
[71] When that proves false to them, they think that what has proved false is the truth that is claimed to be the truth, and not what they themselves understood. Hence it occurs to them that there is no truth at all; that the one who is thought to have been guided to the truth is deluded; and that the one who is said to guide to the truth is a deceiver and an impostor, seeking by what he says leadership or something else.
[71] Some of these are brought by this to perplexity. To others of them it glimmers, as a thing glimmers from afar or as a man imagines something in sleep, that the truth exists, and that it stands apart from the one who would grasp it, for reasons he sees are not within his reach; so he sets about showing false what he has grasped, and does not then count it as truth. Then he knows, or thinks, that he has grasped the truth.

## XXXIV. On the Opinions of the People of the Ignorant and Erring Cities

[71] The ignorant and erring cities arise only when religion is built upon certain ancient corrupt opinions.
[72] One of these is that some people said: We see that the existents we observe are opposed to one another, and that each of them seeks the destruction of the other. We see that each of them, when it comes into existence, has been given along with its existence something by which it preserves its existence from destruction; something by which it repels from itself the action of its opposite and guards itself against its opposite; something by which it destroys its opposite and makes from it a body like itself in species; and something by which it is able to make use of all other things for what is useful to its best existence and to the continuance of its existence.
[72] To many of them has been given that by which each overcomes everything that resists it. Each opposite has been put in this state toward every opposite and toward everything other than itself, so that we imagine that each of them is the one intended to be granted, alone and to the exclusion of the others, the best existence. For that reason it has been given everything by which it destroys whatever is harmful to it and of no use to it, and has been given that by which it makes use of whatever is useful to it for its best existence.
[72] For we see many animals spring upon many of the rest and seek to corrupt and destroy them without gaining from this any evident benefit, as though each had been so made by nature that no existent other than itself should be in the world, or as though the existence of everything other than itself were harmful to it, in that it takes the existence of another to be harmful to it even if nothing else came from that other except that it exists.
[72] Further, each of the two, if it does not aim at that, seeks to enslave the other for what benefits it. Every species has been put in this state toward every species, and in many of them every individual toward every individual of its species.
[72] Then these existents have been made to overcome one another and to fight one another. The one that most overpowers the others is the most complete in existence; and the victor always either destroys some, because it is in its nature that the existence of that thing is a deficiency and a harm to its own existence, or makes use of some and enslaves them, because it sees in that thing that its existence is for its own sake. And one sees things proceeding without order, and sees the ranks of existents not preserved.
[72] And one sees things befall each one without its deserving what befalls it in its existence, things that have no existence of their own. This and the like is what appears in the existents that we observe and know.
[73] Then some said after this: This state is the nature of existents, and this is their innate constitution; and what natural bodies do by their natures is what animals that choose ought to do by their choices and their wills, and those that deliberate, by their deliberation.
[73] For that reason they held that cities ought to be overcoming one another and fighting one another, with no ranks among them, no order, and no desert that belongs to one rather than another, whether for honour or for anything else; that each human being should keep to himself alone every good there is for him, seeking to overcome others in every good he obtains; and that the human being who most overpowers everything that opposes him is the happiest. Many of the opinions of ignorance in the cities then arise from these.
[73] Some held that there is no kinship and no bond, neither by nature nor by will; that each human being ought to diminish every other human being, and each one shun every other one; that two should not bind themselves together except under necessity, nor unite except in need; and that their coming together, in whatever they come together for, should be such that one of them is the conqueror and the other the conquered. If they are compelled by something coming from outside to come together and unite, this should last only as long as the need, and as long as what comes from outside compels them to it; when it ceases, they ought to shun one another and separate. This is the disease of beasts of prey among human opinions.
[73] Others, when they saw that the solitary man cannot provide everything he needs without having helpers and assistants, each of whom provides him with something of what he needs, held that there should be association. Some of them held that this ought to be by compulsion: that the one who needs helpers should subdue a people and enslave them, then through them subdue others and enslave them too; and that his helper ought not to be his equal, but one subdued by him. For example, the strongest of them in body and arms subdues one man; when that one has been subdued by him, he subdues through him another man or a group; then through those he subdues others, until helpers are gathered to him in due order. When they are gathered to him, he makes them instruments, using them for whatever he desires.
[74] Others held that there is here a bond, mutual love and concord, but they differed over that through which the bond comes about. Some held that sharing in birth from one parent is the bond, and that through it come association, concord, mutual love and mutual support in overcoming others and in resisting being overcome by others.
[74] For separation and mutual aversion come from the difference of fathers; sharing in the more particular and nearer parent requires a stronger bond, and in what is more general a weaker bond, until it reaches such generality and remoteness that the bond is cut off altogether and becomes mutual aversion. Then, in the face of a necessity coming from outside, such as an evil that befalls them, they cannot manage to repel it except by the coming together of many groups.
[74] Some held that the bond is through sharing in procreation: that is, that the male children of this group beget offspring from the female children of those, and the male children of those from the female children of these. That is intermarriage.
[74] Some held that the bond is through sharing in the first ruler, who first gathered them and governed them, so that through him they prevailed and obtained some good among the goods of ignorance.
[74] Some held that the bond is through oaths, alliance and covenant concerning what each human being gives of himself, so that he does not shun the rest nor forsake them, and their hands are one in overcoming others and in warding off from themselves others' overcoming them.
[74] Others held that the bond is through likeness of character and of natural dispositions, and through sharing in language and tongue, and that difference in these makes for separation. This holds for every nation: they ought to be akin among themselves and averse to those other than themselves, for nations differ from one another only by these three.
[74] Others held that the bond is through sharing a dwelling, then sharing in residences; that the most particular is sharing in the dwelling, then sharing in the street, then sharing in the quarter. For that reason they show solidarity with the neighbour, for the neighbour is the one who shares in the street and in the quarter; then comes sharing in the city, then sharing in the region in which the city lies.
[74] There are also things here which it is thought ought to form a partial bond among a small group, among a few, or between two. Among them are long companionship; sharing in food that is eaten and drink that is drunk; sharing in the crafts; sharing in an evil that befalls them, especially when the kind of evil is one and they meet, for each is a consolation to the other; sharing in some pleasure; and sharing in places where one is not safe, [where] each needs the other, as in keeping company on a journey.

## XXXV. On Justice

[75] They said: if groups are distinguished from one another by one of these bonds — tribe from tribe, city from city, alliance from alliance, or nation from nation — they are like individuals distinguished one from another; for there is no difference between each individual being distinguished from every other and one group being distinguished from another. After that, they must contend with one another for mastery and fall upon one another. The things over which they contend are safety, honour, wealth and pleasures, and everything by which these are reached. Each group should seek to strip the other of all it has of these and take it for itself, and each stands toward the other in this condition. The group that overcomes the other in this is the one that wins, the one that is envied, and the happy one.
[75] These things are what is in nature, whether in the nature of each human being or in the nature of each group, and they follow from what the natures of natural existents are. What is in nature, then, is what is just.
[75] Justice, then, is mutual conquest, and justice is that whichever of them happens to prevail should subdue the other. The one subdued is either deprived, by being overcome, of the safety of his body, perishing and being destroyed, so that the conqueror alone remains in existence; or he is overcome against his will and remains abased and enslaved: the conquering group enslaves him, and he does what is most useful to the conqueror for obtaining the good over which the victor prevailed, and for keeping it. The enslavement of the conquered by the conqueror is therefore also part of justice, and that the conquered should do what is most useful to the conqueror is also justice. All these together are natural justice, and they are virtue; and these acts are the virtuous acts. When the goods have been obtained by the conquering group, whoever was of greater service in winning those goods should be given more of them, and whoever was of less service, less. If the goods they won were honour, the one of greater service is given more honour; if they were wealth, he is given more; and likewise with the rest. This too, in their view, is natural justice.
[76] They said: as for the other things that are called justice — such as what obtains in buying and selling, the returning of deposits, refraining from taking by force and from oppression, and the like — whoever practises them practises them at first only out of fear and weakness, and under a necessity that comes upon him from outside.
[76] That is, it is as if there were two individuals or two groups, each equal to the other in strength, who take turns in subduing each other. This goes on a long time between them; each suffers bitterly, and they come to a state that they cannot bear. Then they come together and deal fairly with one another, and each cedes to the other some share of what they were contending over, while its marks remain; and each stipulates to the other that he will not try to take away what is in his hands except on conditions, which they agree upon. From this arise the conditions laid down in buying and selling, and, close to them, the honours, then mutual assistance, and other things of that kind.
[76] But this happens only when each is weak in relation to the other and each fears the other. So long as each stands to the other in this state, they should be partners; but when one of them becomes stronger than the other, he should break the condition and seek domination. Or else something comes upon the two of them from outside which there is no way to repel except by partnership and by abandoning mutual conquest, and so they become partners for as long as that lasts. Or each of them has an aim in something he wishes to win, and sees that he cannot reach it except with the other's help and partnership, and so they abandon mutual conquest between them for as long as that lasts, and help one another.
[76] When, for these reasons, a balance has come about among the factions, and time has drawn on in this way, and someone grows up in it who does not know how it first began, he supposes that justice is this which now exists, and does not know that it is fear and weakness; and so he is deceived in what he practises of it. For whoever practises these things is either weak, or afraid that the like of what arises in his own soul — the desire to do it — will befall him from another.

## XXXVI. On Humility

[77] As for humility, it consists in saying that a god governs the world; that spiritual beings govern and oversee all actions; in the practice of glorifying the god, of prayers, praises and sanctifications; and in saying that if a man does these things, gives up many of the goods that are longed for in this life, and persists in this, he will be compensated for it and repaid with great goods which he will reach after his death; while if he holds to none of these things and takes the goods in his lifetime, he will be punished for it after his death with great evils that he will meet in the hereafter.
[77] For all these are kinds of tricks and wiles, used against some people and for others. They are tricks and snares for one who is unable to win these goods by assault and open force; a wile with which one schemes who has no power to take them openly and to assault with his hands and his weapons without disguise; and an aid to frightening and subduing people, so that they leave all or some of these goods and others may win them.
[77] So it is with one who is unable to take them openly or to win them by conquest. For one who holds to these things is supposed not to be eager for the goods, and good is thought of him; people rely on him, and do not beware of him, guard against him or suspect him. Rather, his aim is hidden, and his way of life is described as godly, so that his dress and outward form are the form of one who wants none of these goods for himself. This becomes a reason for his being honoured, magnified and looked to for every other good; souls submit to him and love him, and do not object to his following his own desire in everything; rather, everything ugly he does seems fine to all. By this he comes to win, over all of them, honours, positions of rule, wealth and pleasures, and to attain the good. These things, then, were instituted only for this.
[78] Just as the hunting of wild beasts is sometimes by force and open attack and sometimes by stealth and cunning, so winning these goods is sometimes by open pursuit and sometimes by stealth; and they are hunted by making a man suppose, outwardly, that one's aim is something other than what one's aim really is, so that he does not beware, guard himself or resist, and one obtains it with ease.
[78] So whoever holds to these things and persists in them, if he does so only in order to reach the thing for whose sake they were instituted — that is, outward compliance with them so as to win one or all of those goods — is envied by people and held by them to be a man of certainty, wisdom, knowledge and understanding, and is held in high esteem among them, magnified and praised.
[78] But if he does it for its own sake, and not to obtain these goods by it, he is held by people to be deceived, deluded, wretched, foolish, without intelligence, ignorant of his own interest, contemptible, of no worth, and blameworthy. Yet many people make a show of praising him, in mockery of him; some encourage him in it for their own sake, so that he will not compete with them for any of the goods but will leave them, and they may be left in abundance to the one who encourages him and to others; some praise his way and his creed for fear that one who does not follow his way may strip them of what they have; and still others praise him and envy him because they too are deluded, as he is.
[78] These and the like are the views of ignorance that have fallen into the souls of many people from the things observed in existents. And when they have obtained the goods they won, these must be preserved, kept lasting, supplied and increased; for if this is not done with them, they run out.
[78] Some of them held that they should always, all of them together, seek to conquer others; whenever they have conquered one group, they move on to another. Others hold that they should supply these goods both from themselves and from others, and preserve and manage them: from themselves, as by buying, selling, exchange and the like; from others, by conquest. Others held that they should be increased in both ways together.
[78] Others held to this by dividing themselves into two parts: one part increases those goods and supplies them from among themselves by transactions, and one part conquers others for them. So they become two groups, each alone in charge of one thing, the one of conquest and the other of voluntary transaction. Some of them held that the transacting group among them is their females and the conquering group their males; and when one of them is too weak for conquest, he is placed among those who transact, and if he is fit neither for this nor for that, he is made a supernumerary.
[79] Others held that the transacting group should be other people, besides those whom they conquer and enslave, so that these would be the ones charged, in their own form, with guarding the goods that are won, and with supplying and increasing them.
[79] Others said that mutual conquest among existents takes place only between different species; as for those that fall under a single species, the species is their bond, on account of which they should be at peace with one another. Humanity, then, is the bond for human beings, and they should be at peace with one another through their humanity, and then conquer others in whatever of the other species they can profit from, and leave what they cannot profit from. Whatever is of no use and is harmful, they overcome and do away with; and whatever is not harmful, they leave alone.
[79] They said: if this is so, then the goods that by their nature are acquired by some people from others should be acquired by voluntary transactions, while those that by their nature are acquired and obtained from the other species should be acquired by conquest, since the others have no reason and so cannot engage in voluntary transactions. This, they said, is what is natural for man.
[79] As for the man who conquers, insofar as he conquers he is not natural. Therefore, if there must be here a nation or a group that departs from what is natural for man and seeks to conquer the other groups for goods, the natural nation and group is compelled to have people among them who devote themselves solely to repelling such people, should they come upon them seeking to conquer them, and to conquering them for the right of these people, if those others have seized it. So every group comes to have two powers in it: a power by which it conquers and repels, and a power by which it transacts. The power by which it repels is not one it has as doing this of its own will, but through being compelled to it by what comes upon it from outside. These people hold the contrary of what those others hold: those hold that peace comes only from something arriving from outside, while these hold that conquest comes only from something arriving from outside. From this arises this view which belongs to the peaceful cities.

## XXXVII. On the Ignorant Cities

[80] Among the ignorant cities are the necessary city, the city of exchange, the base city, the city of honour, and the collective city. In the others, apart from the collective city, the aim of the inhabitants is a single kind of end; the collective city has many aims, for the aims of all the cities are gathered in it.
[80] As for the conquest and defence to which the peaceful cities are compelled, it lies either in the whole body of them or in one particular group, so that the people of the city are two groups: a group in which there is the power of conquest and defence, and a group in which there is not. By these means they keep lasting the goods that are theirs.
[80] This group among the people of ignorance is sound of soul, while the first are evil of soul, because they hold that conquest is the good, and this in two ways, by open force and by stealth: whoever of them is able to use open force does so, and if he is unable, then he uses deceit, fraud, hypocrisy, false show and sophistry.
[80] Others believed that there is a happiness and a perfection which a man reaches after his death and in the other life, and that there are virtues and acts that are truly virtuous, which he does in order to attain happiness after death by them.
[80] They considered, and found that what they observe in natural existents is something they cannot deny or reject; and they supposed that if they granted that all of it is natural, as it is observed, this would entail what the people of ignorance supposed. So they saw fit to say that the natural existents observed in this condition have another existence, other than the existence observed today; that this existence they have today is not natural to them, but is contrary to that existence which is their natural existence; and that one must aim by will, and work, at abolishing this existence, so that that existence which is the natural perfection may come about. For this existence is the obstacle to perfection, and when it is abolished, perfection comes about after its abolition.
[81] Others hold that existents do have their existence today, but that other things have been joined and mixed with them which have corrupted them, hindered them from their actions, and made many of them other than in their true form; so that, for instance, what is not a man is supposed to be a man, and what is a man not to be a man; what is a man's action is supposed not to be his action, and what is not his action to be his action. Thus man at this time does not do what it is his nature to do, and does what it is not his nature to do; he thinks many things true that are not so, and many things impossible without their being so.
[81] On both views alike, the abolition of this observed existence is thought right, so that that other existence may come about. For man is one of the natural existents, and the existence he now has is not his natural existence; rather, his natural existence is another existence, other than this; this which he now has is contrary to that existence and an obstacle to it; and the existence that man has today is something not natural.
[81] Some held that the joining of the soul to the body is not natural, and that man is the soul; that the body's joining to it corrupts it and alters its actions; that the vices arise from it only because the body is joined to it; that its perfection and virtue is to be freed from the body; that in its happiness it has no need of a body, nor does it need a body in order to attain happiness, nor the things outside the body, such as wealth, neighbours, friends and fellow citizens; and that it is bodily existence that makes necessary the civic associations and all the other external things. Therefore they held that this bodily existence should be cast off.
[81] Others held that the body is natural to man, and held that it is the affections of the soul that are not natural to man, and that the complete virtue by which happiness is attained is the abolition and mortification of the affections.
[82] Some held this of all the affections, such as anger, appetite and the like, because they held that these are the causes of preferring those things that are supposed goods, namely honour, wealth and pleasures; that the preference for conquest comes only through anger and the irascible faculty; and that mutual estrangement and aversion come about through this. Therefore they held that all of them should be abolished. Some held this of appetite, anger and what is akin to them, and that virtue and perfection is their abolition.
[82] Some held this of affections other than these, such as jealousy, avarice and the like. And so some held that what bestows natural existence is other than what bestows the existence we now have, and that the cause from which appetite, anger and the other affections of the soul were produced is contrary to that which bestowed the rational part. On this account some of them posited two contrary agents, like Empedocles; and some made the cause of this the contrariety of the matters, like Parmenides in his exoteric views, and others among the natural philosophers.
[82] There are other views besides these, such as what is related of many of the ancients: “Die by will, and you will live by nature.” For they hold that death is of two kinds, natural death and voluntary death. By voluntary death they mean the abolition of the affections of the soul, appetite and anger; by natural death, the separation of the soul from the body; and by natural life they mean perfection and happiness. This is according to the view of those who held that the affections of the soul, appetite and anger, are in man by compulsion.
[82] The views of the ancients that we have mentioned are corrupt. From them branched other views, from which religions spread in many of the erring cities.
[82] Others, when they observed in the states of natural existents what we recounted at first — that they have different and contrary existences, and exist at one time and not at another — and the rest of what we said, held that the existents that are now sensed or intellected do not have defined substances, and that none of them has a nature proper to it such that its substance is that nature alone and nothing else; rather, the substance of each of them is infinitely many things. Take man, for example: what is understood from this word is something of undefined substance.
[83] Its substance, and what is understood from it, is rather infinitely many things; only, what we have now sensed of its substance is this sensible, and what we have intellected of it is this which we claim to intellect of it today. Yet it may be that it is something other than this intelligible and other than this sensible.
[83] So too with every thing that is not now existent: its substance is not only this which is intellected from its word, but this and something else besides, which we have not sensed or intellected, and which, had it been put in the place of this which now exists, we would have sensed or intellected. But what has come to exist is this.
[83] And if someone does not say that the nature of what is understood from each word is not this which is intellected now but other, infinite things, but says instead that it is this, and that it may be other than this, something we have not intellected, it makes no difference.
[83] For what is admissible and possible, if it is posited as existing, entails nothing impossible. So too with everything of which we hold that nothing other than it is admissible, or nothing other than it is possible: it may be otherwise. And what follows by necessity from multiplying, for example, three by three is not the existence of nine; rather, that is not its substance, but what arises from it might be some other number, or whatever else happens among the other existents that are not numbers, or something else that we have not sensed or intellected. Indeed, there may be infinitely many sensibles and intelligibles that have not yet been sensed or intellected, or have not come to exist so as to be sensed or intellected.
[83] So too with whatever follows from something: it does not follow because the substance of that thing requires it, but because it happened so, and because an agent outside that thing brought the other into being in its presence, or at the time of its coming to be, or upon one of its states. For each existent's having come to be now as it exists is either by chance, or because an agent from outside brought it into existence.
[83] It would have been possible for something other than what we intellect today to have come about in place of what is understood from the word “man”; but that agent willed to make, from among those things he was able to make, this intelligible, so that we sense and understand nothing of it except this one aspect.
[84] This is of the same kind as the view of one who holds that, for anything we intellect today, its contrary and its contradictory may be the truth; except that it has happened to be more firmly settled for us to fix in our imaginings that the true and right is this present one. [On this view] we hold that what is understood from the word “man” may be something other than what is understood from it today, and infinitely many things, each of which is the nature of this understood essence.
[84] And if those things, together with this present intelligible, were one thing in number, then the intelligible today would not be one thing in number, and what is intellected from the word “man” would be nothing other than this present intelligible. But if they are not one in number but many, differing in their definitions, then the name “man” is said of them by equivocation.
[84] And if, besides, they are among the things that can appear in existence together, they would be like the things of which the name ʿayn is said today, and there would also be things infinite in number existing together.
[84] But if they are among the things that cannot exist together, but succeed one another, then they are contrary, or opposed in general. And if they are opposed, whether infinite or finite, it follows that for everything of which we hold that nothing other than it, nor its contradictory, is admissible, its contradictory, or its contrary, or its opposite in general, may also be true, either in place of it or together with its contrary. From this it follows that no statement that is made is true at all, and that everything that is said is true, and that there is nothing impossible in existence at all.
[84] For if something is posited as the nature of something, it may be other than what is understood from its word today; and the nature of something may be among what we do not know — what it is — among the things that can come to exist and be sensed or intellected and become understood, though it is not intellected by us today.
[84] And that of which we do not now know what it is may be its contrary or its opposite in general; so that what is impossible for us may possibly not be impossible. By this view and what is akin to it, wisdom is abolished, and what is imprinted in souls is made into impossible things held as true; for it makes all things capable of having, in their substance, opposed existences and existences without end in their substances and accidents, and makes nothing impossible at all.