THE WISDOM OF THE EAST SERIES Edited by J. L. CRAXMER-BYNC. M.C. THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES The Spiritual Pliysick of Rhazes Translated from the Arabic by - ARTHUR J. ARBERRY, LittJD., F.BA. Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge John Murray, Albemarle Street, London, W, . .n Great Britain by VUde and ?*nte^ ^ome and London CONTENTS CHAP. PACE Introduction i Preface iS I Of the Excellence and Praise of Reason ... 20 II Of Suppressing and Restraining the Passion, with a Summary of the Views of Plato the Philosopher . 22 HI Summary Prolegomena to the Detailed Account of Each of the Evil Dispositions of the Soul . .35 IV Of How a Man may Discover his Own Vices . . ^36 V Of Carnel Love and Familiarity, with a Summary Account of Pleasure 38 VI Of Coscett 50 VII Of Envy 52 VIII Of Repelling Anger 59 DC Of Casting Away Mendacity 61 X Of Miserliness . 64 XI Of Repelling Excessive and Hurtful Anxiety and Worry 66 XII Of Repelling Grief ........ 68 XLTI Of Greed* 75 XTV Of Drunkenness 78 XV Of Sexual Intercourse . ' * k 81 XVI Of Excessive Fondness and Trifling, and Ritual . 85 XVTI Of Earning, Acquiring and Expending . . .88 XVm Of the Quest for Worldly Rank and Station . 93 XIX Of the Virtuous Life 101 XX Of the Fear of Death 103 Index .......... 109 EDITORIAL NOTE The object of the editor of this series is a very definite one. He desires above all things that, in their humble way, these books shall be the ambassadors of good-will and understanding between East and West, the old world of Thought, and the new of Action. He is confident that a deeper knowledge of the great ideals and lofty philo- sophy of Oriental thought may help to a revival of that true spirit of Charity which neither despises nor fears the nations of another creed and colour. J. L. CRANMER-BYNG. 50, Albemarle Street, London, W.i. INTRODUCTION Rhazes, " undoubtedly the greatest physician of the Islamic world and one of the great physicians of all time was born at Raiy, near modern Teheran, in A.D. 864, and died there in A.D. 925. As is the case with many of the most famous Arab scholars and writers, comparatively little authentic is known of the details of his life ; for the Arabs of old were curiously incurious about the private affairs of their great men of learning, it being sufficient for them to know that they had composed valuable books and carried forward the frontiers of science and letters. Rhazes (this is the latinized form of his name, which was in full Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi) is said to have come to the study of medicine somewhat late in life ; according to most authorities, he devoted his earlier years to alchemy, mathematics, philosophy and literature. One biog- rapher relates that " in his youth, he played on the lute and cultivated vocal music, but, on reaching the age of manhood, he renounced these occupations, saying that music proceeding from between mustachoes and a beard had no charms to recommend it".2 Whenever it was that he turned his mind to more serious things — a respectable authority puts this event in the thirties of Rhazes' life 3— certainly Baghdad was the city where he learned his medicine. By this time, the capital of the Abbasid Empire 1 M. Meyerhof in Legacy of Islam, p. 323. 2 Ibn Khallikan, Biographical Dictionary (transl. De Slane), HI, p. 312. 3 Ibn Abx Usaibi'a, I, p. 309. Ibn Khallikan, Joe. ext., says " over forty". I 2 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICS OF RHAZES had firmly established itself as the leading centre of learning in the known world. Successive rulers, from al-Mansur (754-75) and Harun al-Rashld (d. 809) to al-Ma'mun (813-33), had liberally endowed institutes for the study of the ancient Greek sciences ; the writings of Plato, Aristotle, Plotimis, Hippocrates, Galen, Euclid, Oribasius, Paul of Aegina and many other philosophers, mathematicians and physicians were 'trans- lated into Arabic, chiefly by the Christian Hunain ibn Ishaq (809-77) and his school. The family of Bukht-Yishu , likewise Christians, enjoyed the confidence of their Muslim masters because of their supreme skill in medicine and surgery. When Rhazes came to Baghdad he would have found there fully* equipped hospitals, well-stocked libraries, and a sound tradition of teaching and research. It is said that he studied there under a pupil of the great Hunain who was acquainted with Greek, Persian and Indian medicine 1 ; some give the name of cAlI ibn Rabban al-Tabari as his teacher, the author of a celebrated book entided The Paradise of Wisdom,2 but this is impossible because al-Tabari was dead before Rhazes came to Baghdad. Rhazes presently returned to his birthplace in order to enter the service of the local ruler, and having already achieved a wide reputation as a physician he was given charge of the new hospital there. Later he went back to Baghdad, and directed a great hospital in the capital.3 Thereafter he is stated to have travelled extensively and enjoyed the patronage of a number of royal masters. He composed a very great number of books, especially 1 Legacy of Islam, p. 323. 2 Ibn Khallikan, he. cit. 3 According to the authority quoted by Ibn Abl Usaibi'a, this was the great hospital established by the Buyid ruler cAdud al-Daula ; but Ibn Abl Usaibi'a rightly remarks that Rhazes lived long before 'Adud al-Daula, and indeed the hospital named after the latter was not completed until 978, see Ettcylopaedia of Islam, I, p. 143. INTRODUCTION 3 on medicine ; his most celebrated works being the Kitab al-Mansuri, dedicated to and named after Abu Salih al-Mansur ibn Ishaq ibn Ahmad ibn Nuh, prince of Kirman and Khurasan,1 die Kitab aLMuIuki, written in honour of 'All ibn Weh-Sudhan of Tabaristan, and the Hawl, a gigantic encyclopaedia which was unfinished at Rhazcs death and was edited by his pupils, it is said at the instance of Ibn al-Amid (d. 970), the vizier of the Buyid ruler Rukn al-Daula, who recovered the notebooks containing the rough draft from Rhazes' sister.2 Many anecdotes arc related to illustrate PJiazcs' pre-eminence as a physician. Of these, one is chosen for reproduction here ; not that one can have absolute confidence in its authenticity — for its chronology raises difficulties — but nevertheless it gives an attractive and probably accurate picture of the character of the great sage, and of his royal patrons. Another of the House of Saman, Amir Mansur b. Nuh b. Nasr, became afflicted with an ailment which grew chronic, and remained established, and the physicians were unable to cure it. So the Amir Mansur sent messengers to summon Muhammad' b. Zakariyya of Ray to treat him. Muhammad b. Zakariyya came as far as the Oxus, but when he saw it he said : " I will not embark in the boat ; God Most High saith, Do not cast yourselves into peril with your own hands ; and, again, it is surely a thing remote from wisdom voluntarily to place one's self in so hazardous a position." Ere the Amir's messenger had gone to Bukhara and returned, he had composed a treatise entitled Mansuru So when a notable arrived with a special led-horse, bringing a message intermingled with promises of reward, he handed this 1 Ibn Khallikan, m, p. 313 ; EneycL of Islam, HI, p. 256. The tradition that the book was dedicated to the Samanid ruler Abu Salih al-Mansur ibn Nuh involves an anachronism, for that prince did not come to the throne until 961, long after Rhazes* death. 2 Ibn Ab! Usaibi'a, I, p. 314. 4 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES Mansurt to him, saying : "lam this book, and by this book thou canst attain thine object, so that there is no need of me." When the book reached the Amir he was in grievous suffering wherefore he sent a thousand dinars and one of his own private horses, saying : ^ Strive to move him by all these kind attentions, but, if they prove fruidess, bind his hands and feet, place him in the boat, and fetch him across." So, just as the Arnir had commanded, they urgently entreated Muhammad b. Zakariyya, but to no purpose. Then they bound his hands and feet, placed him in the boat, and, when they had ferried him across the river, released him. Then they brought the led-horse, fully caparisoned, before him, and he mounted in the best of humours, and set out for Bukhara. And when they enquired of him, saying, " We feared to bring thee across the water lest thou shouldst cherish enmity against us, but thou didst not so, nor do we see thee vexed in heart," he replied : " I know that every year several thousand persons cross the Oxus without being drowned, and that I too should probably not be drowned ; still, it was possible that I might perish, and if this had happened they would have continued till the Resurrection to say, A foolish fellow was Muhammad b. Zakariyya, in that, of his own free will, he embarked in a boat and so was* drowned. But when they bound me, I escaped all danger of censure ; for then they would say, They bound the poor fellow's hands and feet, so that he was drowned. Thus should I have been excused, not blamed, in case of my being drowned." When they reached Bukhara, he saw the Amir and began to treat him, exerting his powers to the utmost, but without relief to the patient. One day he came in before the Amir and said : " 'To-morrow I am going to try another method of treatment, but for the carrying out of it you wOi have to sacrifice such-and-such a horse and such- and-such a mule," the two being both animals of note, so that in one night they had gone forty parasangs. So next day he took the Amir to the hot bath of Ju-yi-Muliyan, outside the palace, leaving that horse and mule ready equipped and tighdy girt in the charge of his own servant ; while of the King's retinue and attendants he suffered not one to enter the bath. Then INTRODUCTION 5 he brought the King into the middle of the hot hath, and poured over him warm water, after which he prepared a draught and gave it to him to drink* And he kept him there till such time as the humours in his joints were matured. Then he himself went out and put on his clothes, and, taking a knife in his hand, came in, and stood for a while reviling the King saying : " Thou didst order me to be bound and cast into the boat, and didst conspire against my life. If I do not destroy thee as a punish- ment for this, I am not Muhammad b. Zakariyy* " The Amir was furious, sprang from his place, and, partly from anger, partly from fear of the knife and dread of death, rose to his feet. When Muhammad b. Zakariyya saw the Amir on his feet he turned round and went out from the bath, and he and his servant mounted, the one the horse, the- other the mule, and turned their faces towards the Oxus. At the time of the second prayer they crossed the river, and halted nowhere till they reached Merv. When Muhammad b. Zakariyya reached Merv, he alighted, and wrote a letter to the Amir, saying : " May the life of the King be prolonged in health of body and effective command ! According to agreement this servant treated his master, doing all that was possible. There was, however, an extreme weakness in the natural caloric, and the treatment of the disease by ordinary means would have been a pro- tracted affair. I therefore abandoned it, and carried you to the hot bath for psychical treatment, and administered a draught, and left you so long as to bring about a maturity of the humours. Then I angered the King, so that an increase in the natural caloric was pro- duced, and it gained strength until those humours, already softened, were dissolved. But henceforth it is not expedient that a meeting should take place between myself and the King." Now after the Amir had risen to his feet and Muhammad b, Zakariyya had gone out, the Amir sat down and at once fainted. When he came to himself he went forth from the bath and called to his servants, saying, "Where has the physician gone?" They answered, "He came out from the bath, and mounted the horse, while his attendant mounted the mule, and went off." 6 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICE OF RHAZES Tien the Amir knew what object he had in view. So he came forth on his own feet from the hot bath ; and tidings of this ran through the city, and his servants and retainers and people rejoiced gready, and gave alms, and offered sacrifices, and held high festival. But they could not find the physician, seek him as they might. And on the seventh day Muhammad b. Zakariyya's servant arrived, riding the horse and leading the mule, and presented the letter. The Amir . read it, and was astonished, and excused him, and sent him a horse, and a robe of honour, and equipment, and a cloak, and arms, and a turban, and a male slave, and a handmaiden ; and further commanded that there should be assigned to him in Ray from the settled estates a yearly allowance of two thousand dinars and two hundred ass-loads of corn. These marks of honour he forwarded to him by the hand of a trusty messenger, together with his apologies. So the Amir com- pletely regained his health, and Muhammad b. Zakariyya attained his object,1 It would be attractive to conjecture that the Spiritual Physick, which was certainly composed for, the same ruler as the Mattsiirt, was written as a result of this encounter, to explain in greater detail the scientific principles underlying the psychological treat- ment which Rhazes had adopted with such complete success. All our sources agree that in his later years Rhazes was smitten by cataract, and became quite blind. When he was urged to submit to cupping, he is said to have replied, " No, I have seen the world so long that I am tired of it/5 2 Con- firmatory evidence of his failing sight is furnished by Rhazes' autobiography, to which reference will presently be made. The spirit in which he faced death is illustrated by some verses he is reported to have composed in his old age.3 1 NizamI, Chahar Maqaia (transl. E. G. Browne), pp. 115-18. * Al-Qifti, p. 179. 3 Ibn Abi Usaibi'a, I, p. 315. INTRODUCTION 7 Truly I know not— and decay Hath laid his hand upon my heart, And whispered to mc that the day Approaches, when I must depart— I know not whither I shall roam, Or where the spirit, having sped From this its wasted fleshly home, Will after dwell, when I am dead. Rhazes is described as a man with a " great, scaly head generous and gracious in his dealings with others, and most :ompassionate towards the poor, whom he treated free of charge and even maintained out of his own purse. His lectures were thronged by students, and arranged in such a fashion that several junior and senior lecturers dealt with any inquiries which they were competent to answer, only referring to him matters which passed their range of knowledge.1 . The foregoing is the sum of what we are told about Rhazes by Arab and Persian biographers, apart from monumental lists of the titles of his books. A fortunate chanceias preserved for us a little tract in which he set about in his later days to justify the manner of life he had lived, and the direction of his studies ; and from these pages we are able to reconstruct a far clearer image of the man than anything these unsatisfying sources can supply.2 Rhazes' medical writings were highly prized in the Middle Ages, alike by Muslims, Jews and Christians, and were accepted as the basis for modern research. His HawT was translated into Latin under the title Continens by the Sicilian Jew Faraj ibn Salim (Farragut) in 1279 ; the gigantic version was printed in 1 Al-Qifri, p. 179. 2 AUSxrat al-fahaftya (ed. P. Kraus) : see selections from this work quoted at the end of the preface. 8 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES its entirety five times between 1488 and 1542. The Kitab al-Mamurx (" Liber Almansoris tbe companion of the present work) and Kitab al-Mtiltlhi (" Liber Regius ") were also pub- lished in Latin and cherished by medieval physicians as among their most precious works of reference. His monograph On Smallpox and Measles was printed in various translations some forty times between 1498 and 1866, and has been praised by modern doctors for its clinical accuracy,1 With the possible exception of Avicenna and Averroes, whose influence was in any case philosophical rather than scientific, no man so powerfully affected the course of learning in the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance as Rhazes. It is scarcely surprising that Chaucer's Doctor of Physic should have included him in his impressive list of authorities. Well know he the old Esculapius, And Dioscorides, and eke Rufos ; Old Hippocras, Hali, and Gallien ; Serapion, Rasis, and Avicen ; Averrois, Damascene, and Constantin ; Bernard, and Gatisden, and Gilbertin. His philosophical writings were never so widely known, chiefly because they were condemned as heretical by almost all Muslim opinion. Even the illustrious Abu Raihan al-BIrum, the historian of India and broad-minded investigator of Indian philosophy and religion, added his voice to the general chorus of disapproval. Though he wrote a catalogue of Rhazes' works extant in his day, amounting to 184 items, and confessed that in his youth he was carried away by his enthusiasm for study to the point of reading Rhazes' Metaphysica, he roundly condemned him for dabbling in freethought, and even spoke of his blindness *M. Meyerhof, op. c\Ut he. clU INTRODUCTION 9 as a Divine retribution.1 Ibn Hazm, who composed a massive work on sects and heresies, singled out Rliazes for particular rejection.2 So much for the orthodox ; even the Ismailis, renegades that they were, disowned his pliilosophical teaching, and Nasir-i Khusrau the poet 3 and Hamid al-DIn al-Kirmanl the theologian 4 applied themselves energetically to refuting him. Orthodox and unorthodox were alike shocked most of all by PJiazes' book On Prophecy — which, needless to say, has not survived — in which he seems to have maintained the thesis that reason is superior to inspiration, a view naturally intolerable to any devout Muslim. The Spiritual Physick, which is here offered in the first trans- lation to be made into any language, belongs rather to the realm of popular ethics than to that of high philosophy ; yet it enables us to obtain a clear view of the background of Rhazes' thought, and even to glimpse those dangerous propositions which brought down on his head the execrations of die faithful. The book is preserved in several manuscripts, and was first studied in modern times by the Dutch orientalist De Boer.5 The editio princeps was published in 1939 by the late Paul Kraus,6 a most able and promising scholar, a victim of Nazi persecution, who committed suicide at Cairo during the recent war. His premature death was a severe blow to learning : the present translation is put out as a small tribute to his memory. Rhazes, as the list of his writings suggests, and the Spiritual 1 Al-Birunl, Risala (ed. P. Kraus), pp. 3-5. 2 Ibn Hazm, al-Fasl fi 'l-mital, I, pp. 24-33. 3 Nasir-i Khusrau, Zad al-mttsqfirin, pp. 72 ft. 4 Al-KirmanI, al-Aqwal al-dhahabiya, quoted by P. Kraus in his edition ofRhazes. 5 De Boer, De " Mcdicina Mentis " van Arts Razu 6 At Cairo, under the title Rliagetisis (Razis) Opera Philosophica, PP. 1-96. 10 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES Physick and Autobiography (among other works) amply prove, was thoroughly at home with the books of the Greek philo- sophers and physicians. He wrote for instance a commentary on Plato's TimaeuS)1 an epitome of Aristotle's writings on logic,2 a refutation of Porphyry,3 and epitomes of Hippocrates' Aphorisms 4 and of the medical works of Galen and Plutarch.5 He was familiar besides with Oribasius, Aetius and Paul of Aegina, and was unquestionably well grounded in the entire canon of Greek works translated by Hunain ibn Ishaq and his school. His studies of Arabic literature are attested not only by the admirable fluency and eloquence with which he uses the language, but also by the apt poetical quotations which flavour his discourse ; the present book contains an anecdote which proves his familiarity with the mentality and technical vocabu- lary of the Arab grammarians. He writes like a master, and his style has the unmistakable ring of a man confident in the supremacy of his own reason and erudition. His spirit of rational inquiry is entirely Greek ; his Persian blood is proved by his fondness for anecdote, besides innumerable little nuances of thought and expression. His attitude of tolerant agnosticism anticipates the more celebrated outlook of another Persian scientist who in modern times has achieved universal fame and popularity— Omar Khayyam. In the Autobiography Rhazes rejects the " early life " of Socrates— the inaccurate legend that he refused all pleasures, eschewed all human intercourse, and lived in a barrel in the wilderness— but approves of his " later life " when he is said to have married, begat children, and even taken up arms against the enemy. In that essay, as in the Spiritual Physick, he revolts 1 No. 107 in al-Blruni's list. 2 No. 91 in al-Birunl. 3 No. 128 in d-BMnL 4 No. 112 in al-BIrunl. 5 Nos. 108-11, 113 in al-Birunl. INTRODUCTION II against the unreasonable austerities of monks and anchorites, and takes the view that God is far too compassionate to impose upon human beings burdens heavier than they can bear. Regarding the immortality of the soul he appears to reserve judgment, though he quotes freely Plato's opinion and outlines the psycho- logical analysis of die Tituacus. His theory of pleasure — that it consists of a return to the state of nature — is based on die Phikbus. When he writes on the fear of deadi, we seem to catch many echoes of the Epicurean teaching which Lucretius im- mortalized in a famous passage of the Dc Natura Rcrwtu Rhazcs' general attitude might be summed up as one of intellectual hedonism ; though its origins in classical philosophy are obvious, it reflects very characteristically the oudook of the cultured Persian gendeman, constandy down the ages informing Iranian thought and life. The Spiritual Physick appears therefore as the product of a curiously perfect blend of two civilizations, expressed in the language of a third ; an admirable synthesis of science and meta- physics, shaped in the mind of a master physician and given verbal form by a master of language. It is scarcely an exaggera- tion to say that the book is unique in Arabic literature. The author hardly betrays himself as a Muslim, though his name Muhammad proves him so to have been ; otherwise he would have done as all other Arabs did who wrote on ethics, elaborating liis discourse with quotations from the Koran and the sayings of the Prophet, and only introducing the views of Greek thinkers where they appeared to accord with sound Islamic teaching. Avicenna was much more orthodox ; he even wrote commen- taries on parts of the Koran. Rhazes5 God is a very rational and reasonable God, a God, we flight almost say, with a sense of humour, an eminendy Persian Goi When we lay down this book, we feel that we have ' B of **hZ* vtt^SlC^ ot . , because ^ faio^^ a«^^° \Ieae6ceo.t ous aCCO«» t. » *c ? Hs attend v INTRODUCTION 13 it is irrational in its appeal, much along the same lines as in the Spiritual Physick. Then he tunas to the problem of pain. Since wc have laid it down as the foundation of our case that our Lord and Ruler is kindly and compassionate towards us and regards us with loving care, it follows from this that He hates that any pain should befall us ; it also, follows that whatever happens to us not of our own earning and choosing but due to some necessity of nature, is to be regarded as inevitable. It therefore behoves us not to pain any sentient creature whatsoever, unless it deserves to be pained, or unless it be to avert from it still greater pain. Rhazes follows up the implications of this conclusion by con- demning blood sports except when practised against carnivorous beasts such as lions, tigers and wolves ; at the same time he urges the annihilation of snakes, scorpions and other noisome creatures that have no discoverable beneficial use or property. From the animal kingdom he turns back to man. Since it is prohibited by the verdict of reason and justice alike for any man to inflict pain upon another, it follows from this that he should not inflict pain upon himself either. Many things come under this general observation as being rejected by the arbitrament of reason — for instance, the Indian way of propitiating God by burning the body arid casting it down upon sharp spikes, or the Manichean practice of self-mutilation to overcome the sexual urge, excessive fasting, and defiling oneself by washing in urine. The same heading also includes — though at a much lower level — the monasticism and hermit-life taken up by some Christians, and the fashion followed by many Muslims of spending their whole time at mosque, declining to earn their living, and contenting themselves with litde and unappetizing food and rough, uncomfortable clothes. v The practice of austerity is obviously easier for those not accustomed to luxury from birth than for the children of rich parents ; the latter cannot be required to compete with the former in this respect on a basis of equality. 14 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OP RHAZES But the boundary which cannot be transgressed is that they should refrain from such pleasures as may not be attained save by perpetrating cruelty and murder-— in short, all those things that provoke the wrath of God and are forbidden by the verdict of reason and justice. This is what Rhazes calls the " upper limit " of discipline which he holds to be obligatory for all men to respect ; to keep above the 14 lower limit5' is equally important. This means that a man should eat such food as will not harm him - or make him ill, while not exceeding this to partake of such delicious and appetising dishes as are desired for the mere gratification of pleasure and greed, and not to allay hunger ; that he should wear such clothes as his skin can tolerate without discomfort, not hankering after fine and flowery raiment ; and that he should seek such a dwelling-place as may shelter him from excessive heat and cold, not going beyond this to look for magnificent residences painted up in fine colours and lavishly ornamented ; unless indeed he possesses such ample means that he can afford to maintain this style without injustice or aggression towards others and without exerting himself unduly to earn the wherewithal- Such are the two extremes within which it behoves the philosopher to confine himself. Since the Creator is Omniscient and All-Just, since He is absolute knowledge and justice and mercy, and since He is our Creator and Ruler and we are His creatures and subjects ; whereas that servant is most beloved by his master who the most closely follows his master's lead and example, it follows that the creature nearest to God's favour is he who is the most knowing, the justest, the most merciful and compassionate. This indeed is what the philosophers meant when they said that the purpose of philosophy was " to make oneself like to God, to the greatest extent -possible to man." 1 That is the sum total of the philosophic life. 1 A quotation from Plato, Tlieaeteltts, 176 b. INTRODUCTION 15 Rhazes refers his readers to the Spiritual Physick for a detailed explanation of his argument ; then he concludes his defence as Mows. Now that we have explained what we desired to set forth in this place, we will go back to set out^what we have to say in reply to our critics ; declaring that by God's help and assistance we have up to this very day in no way conducted ourselves in a manner meriting our expulsion from the tide of philosopher. For only those men deserve to have their names expunged from the roll of philosophy who have fallen short in both branches of philosophy — the theoretical and the practical — together, either through ignorance of what a philosopher should know, or out of failure to conduct their lives as a philosopher ought. We, God be praised and thanked for His assistance and guidance, are innocent of such failure. To take theory : if we possessed only so much strength of knowledge as was necessary to compose this present book, that alone would suffice to prevent our name from being expunged from the roll of philosophy ; not to mention our other writings [Rhazes here adds a considerable list of tides] which amount in all to approximately two hundred items, reckoning in books, pamphlets and essays, down to the time of making this present pamphlet ; writings which cover all branches of philosophy, physical and metaphysical alike. As for mathematics, I freely concede that I have only looked into this subject to the extent that was abso- lutely indispensable, not wasting my time upon refinements ; of set purpose, not out of incapacity for the study. If any man wishes to have my excuse on this head, I make bold to assert that the right course is in fact that which I have followed, not the one adopted by some so-called philosophers who fritter away their whole lives indulging in geometrical superfluities. If therefore the . amount of knowledge I possess is not sufficient for me to deserve the name of philosopher, I should very much like to know who of my contemporaries is so qualified. Now as to the practical side : by God's help and succour I have never in all my life transgressed the twain limits which I have defined, 16 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICS OF RHAZES nor- have I committed any act so far as I am aware that would justify my conduct being called unphilosophical. I have never kept the ruler's company in the way of bearing arms or undertaking the control of affairs ; my service has been confined to that of a physician and a courtier charged with two responsibilities— to treat and restore him when he was sick, and when he was well to win his confidence and offer him counsel ; and in counselling him, let God be my witness, I have only advised such actions as I hoped would prove beneficial both to him and to his subjects. I have never been observed to be greedy to amass wealth, or to be extravagant in spending it ; I have not been forward to quarrel and dispute with my fellows, or to oppress them— on the contrary, it is well known that I have always acted in the very opposite manner, to the point of sacrificing many of my own rights for the sake of others. As for my habits of eating and drinking, and my , amusements, those who have observed me frequently will be aware that I have never been guilty of excess or extravagance in these, any more than in regard to my clothes, my mount, my servants and handmaidens. My love and passion for knowledge, and my labours to acquire the same, are familiar to all who have kept my company or seen me at my studies ; from my youth up to this very time, I have not ceased to devote myself to this object. If ever I have come upon a book I have not read, or heard tell of a man I have not met, I have not turned aside to any engagement whatever— even though it has been to my great loss— before mastering that book or learning all that man knew. So great in fact have been my endeavours and endurance, that in a single year I have written as many as 20,000 pages in a script as minute as that used for amulets. I was engaged fifteen years upon my great compendium, working night and day, until my sight began to fail and the nerves of my hand were paralysed, so that at the present time I am prevented from reading and writing ; even so I do not give up these occupations so far as I am able, but always enlist the help of someone to read and write for me. If the amount of my accomplishments in all these matters is still regarded by my critics as disqualifying me from occupying the rank INTRODUCTION 17 of a philosopher in practice, and if their conception of the purpose of following the philosophic life is other than what we have described, let them state their charge against us, either verbally or in writing. Then, if they can prove superior knowledge, we will accept their verdict ; on the other hand, if we can establish any error or weakness in their case, we will refute it Or let me be lenient with them ; let me acknowledge that I have been wanting on the practical side ; yet what have they to say on the side of theory ? If they find me deficient in this respect too, they only have to state their case and we will examine it ; if they are right, we will submit, and if they are wrong, we will reject their charge. But if they do not hold me inadequate on the theoretical side, the best they can do is to profit of my theory, and pay no heed to my personal conduct, remembering what the poet has said : Practise what I have preached ; and if there be In what I practised some deficiency, Yet thou canst profit of my theory, And my shortcomings will not injure thee. PREFACE God give the Prince perfect happiness and complete bliss.— Mention having been made in the presence of the Prince (God give him long life !) of a treatise I compiled upon the reform- ation of the character, that had been required of me by certain of my brethren in Baghdad during my sojourn there, my Lord the Prince (may God assist him !) commanded me to compose a book that should contain the chief points of this subject, to be as brief and concise as possible, and to entitle it the Spiritual Physick ; that it might be a companion to the Liber Ahnansoris 1 (whose purpose is the Bodily Physick) and correspond there- with ; for he estimated (God prolong his power !) that if it were joined to the other, general profit would be the result, as comprehending both the soul and the flesh. I therefore applied myself to this task, and promoted it before all my other occupations ; and I pray that God may so assist me, that I shall please my Lord the Prince and win his favour and approval I have divided this book into twenty chapters, as follows : ' (i) Of the Excellence and Praise of Reason. (a) Of Suppressing and Restraining the Passion, with a Summary of the Views of Plato the Philosopher. (3) Summary Prolegomena to the Detailed Account of Each of the Evil Dispositions of the Soul. (4) Of How a Man may Discover his Own Vices, (5) Of Repelling Carnal Love and Familiarity, with a Summary Account of Pleasure. 1 Kitab ahMansun, sec Introduction, pp. 3, 8. 18 PREFACE *9 (6) Of Repelling Conceit (7) Of Repelling Envy. (8) Of Repelling Excessive and Hurtful Anger. (9) Of Casting Away Mendacity. , (10) Of Casting Away Miserliness. (11) Of Repelling Excessive and Hurtful Anxiety andWorry. (12) Of Dismissing Grief. (13) Of Repelling Greed. (14) Of Repelling Habitual Drunkenness. (15) Of Repelling Addiction to Sexual Intercourse. (16) Of Repelling Excessive Fondness, Trifling, and Ritual. (17) Of the Amount of Earning, Acquiring, and Expending. (18) Of Repelling the Strife and Struggle in Quest of Worldly Rank and Station, and the Difference between the Counsel of Passion and "Reason. (19) Of the Virtuous Life. (20) Of the Fear of Death. The discrepancy between the wording of the chapter headings as given here, and that found in the body of the text, reflects the author's inconsistency in the original Arabic, CHAPTER I Of the Excellence and Praise of Reason The Creator (Exalted be His Name) gave and bestowed upon us Reason to the end that we might thereby attain and achieve every advantage, that lies within the nature of such as us to attain and achieve, in this world and the next. It is God's greatest blessing to us, and there is nothing that surpasses it in procuring our advantage and profit. By Reason we are pre- ferred above the irrational beasts, so that we rule over them and manage them, subjecting and controlling them in ways profitable alike to us and diem. By Reason we reach all that raises us up, and sweetens and beautifies our life, and through it we obtain our purpose and desire. For by Reason we have comprehended the manufacture and use of ships, so that we have reached unto distant lands divided from us by the seas ; by it we have achieved medicine with its many uses to the body, and all the other arts that yield us. profit By Reason we have comprehended matters obscure and remote, things that were secret and liidden from us ; by it we have learned the shape of the earth and the sky, the dimension of the sun, moon and other stars, their distances and motions ; by it we have achieved even the know- ledge of the Almighty, our Creator, the most majestic of all that we have sought to reach and our most profitable attainment. In short, Reason is the thing without which our state would be the state of wild beasts, of children and lunatics ; it is the thing whereby we picture our intellectual acts before they become manifest to the senses, so that we see them exacdy as though we 20 OE THE EXCELLENCE AND PRAISE OF REASON 21 had sensed them, then we represent these pictures in our sensual acts so that they correspond exactly with what we have repre- sented and imagined. Since this is its worth and place, its value and significance, it behoves us not to bring it down from its high rank or in any way to degrade it, neither to make it the governed seeing that it is the governor, or the controlled seeing that it is the con- troller, or the subject seeing that it is the sovereign ; rather must we consult it in all matters, respecting it and relying upon it always, conducting our affairs as it dictates and bringing them to a stop when it so commands. We must not give Passion the mastery over it, for Passion is the blemish of Reason, cloud- ing it and diverting it from its proper path and right purpose, preventing the reasonable man from finding the true guidance and the ultimate salvation of all his affairs. Nay, but we must discipline and subject our Passion, driving and compelling it to obey the every dictate of Reason. If we do thus, our Reason will become absolutely clear and will illuminate us with all its light, bringing us to the achievement of all that we desire to attain ; and we shall be happy in God's free gift and grace of it. CHAPTER H Of Suppressing and Restraining the Passion, with a Summary of the Views of Plato the Philosopher Now following on this we will proceed to speak about Spiritual Physick, the goal of which is the reformation of the soul's character ; and we propose to be extremely concise, going straight forward to deal with those points, principles and ideas which are the foundations of this entire object. We state that our intention in prefixing our views on Reason and Passion was because we considered this to be as it were the starting-point of our whole purpose ; we shall now follow it up with a discussion of the most important and loftiest fundamentals of this matter. The loftiest and most important of these fundamentals, and that most helpful in reaching our object in the present book, is the suppression of passion, the opposing of natural inclinations in most circumstances, and the gradual training of the soul to that end. For this is the first point of superiority of man over the beasts— I mean the faculty of will, and the release of action after deliberation. This is because the beasts are undisciplined, and do whatever their natural inclinations dictate, acting without restraint or deliberation. You will not find that any undis- ciplined animal will refrain from defecating, or from seizing upon its food whenever it is there at hand and it feels the need of it, in the way you find a man leaving that on one side and compelling his inclinations to obedience at the dictate of various intellectual ideas ; on the contrary, the beasts act exactly as their instincts urge, without restraint or conscious choice. This degree of superiority over the beasts, in the way of rein- 22 OF SUPPRESSING THE PASSION 23 ing the natural impulses, belongs pretty well to the majority of men, even if it be as a result of training and education. It is general and universal, and may readily be observed on all hands, and in fact every child is accustomed to it and is brought up accordingly ; the point requires no labouring. At the same time there is a great difference and a wide range of variety between the different peoples in this respect. However, to reach the highest summit of this virtue attainable by human nature is scarcely open to any but the supreme philosopher ; such a man must be accounted as superior to the common run of humanity, as mankind as a whole excels the beasts in reining the natural instincts and controlling the passion. From this we realize that .whosoever desires to adorn himself with this ornament, and to perfect this virtue in his soul, is upon a hard and difficult quest ; he needs to acclimatize himself to controlling and opposing and wrestling with his passion. And because diere is a great difference and a wide range of variety between men as regards their temperaments, the acquisition of certain virtues rather than others and the getting rid of certain vices rather than others will prove a harder or an easier task for some men rather than the rest. Now I will begin by mentioning how this virtue may be acquired — I mean the suppression and opposing of the passion — seeing that it is die loftiest and most important of these virtues, and its position relative to this entire purpose is similar to that of die element which immediately succeeds the origin. Passion and instinct are always inciting and urging and pressing us to follow after present pleasures and to choose them without reflection or deliberation upon the possible consequence, even though tliis may involve pain hereafter and prevent us from attaining a pleasure many times greater than that immediately experienced. This is because they, our passion and instinct, 24 * THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES see nothing else but the actual state in which they happen to be, and only seek to get rid of the pain that hurts them at that very moment. In this way a child suffering from ophthalmia will rub its eyes and eat dates and play in the sun. It therefore behoves the intelligent man to restrain and suppress his passion and instinct, and not to let them have their way except after careful and prudent consideration of what they may bring in their train ; he will represent this to himself and weigh the matter accurately, and then he will follow the course of greater advan- tage. This he will do, lest he should suffer pain where he supposed he would experience pleasure, and lose where he thought he would gain. If in the course of such representation and balancing he should be seized by any doubt, he will not give his appetite free play, but will continue to restrain and suppress it ; for he cannot be sure that in gratifying his appetite he will not involve himself in evil consequences very many times more painful and distressing than the labour of resolutely suppressing it. Prudence clearly dictates that he should deny such a lust. Again, if the two discomforts — that of suppression, and that consequent upon gratification — seem exactly balanced, he will still continue to suppress his appetite ; for the immediate bitter- ness is easier and simpler to taste than that which he must inevitably expect to swallow in the great majority of cases. Nor is this enough. He ought further to suppress his passion in many circumstances even when he foresees no disagreeable consequence of indulgence, and that in order to train and discipline his soul to endure and become accustomed to such denial (for then it will be far less difficult to do so when the- consequences are bad), as much as to prevent his lusts getting control of him and dominating him. The lusts in any case have sufficient hold, in the ordinary way of nature and human dis- position, without needing to be reinforced by habit as well, so OF SUPPRESSING THE PASSION 25 that a man will find himself in a situation where he cannot resist them at all. You must know also that those who persistently indulge and gratify their appetites ultimately reach a stage where they no longer have any enjoyment of them, and still are unahle to give them up. For instance, those who are forever having intercourse with women, or drinking, or Hstenirig to music — though these are the strongest and deepest-rooted of all the lusts — do not enjoy these indulgences so much as men who do not incessantly gratify them ; for these passions become for them exacdy the same as any other passion with other men — that is to say, they become commonplace and habitual. Nevertheless it is not within their power to leave off these pursuits because they have turned into something of the nature of a necessity of life for them, instead of being a luxury and a relisL They are in conse- quence affected adversely in their religious life as well as then- mundane situation, so that they are compelled to employ all kinds of shifts, and to acquire money by risking their lives and precipitating themselves into any sort of danger. In the end they find they are miserable where they expected to be happy, that they are sorrowful where they expected to rejoice, that they are pained where they expected to experience pleasure. So what difference is there between them and the man who deliber- ately sets out to destroy himself? They are exacdy like animals duped by the bait laid for them in the snares ; when they arrive in the trap, they neither obtain what they had been duped with nor arc they able to escape from what they have fallen into. This dicn will suffice as to the amount the appetites should be suppressed : they may only be indulged where it is known that the consequence will not involve a man in pain and temporal loss equivalent to die pleasure thereby obtained— much less discomfort superior to and exceeding the pleasure that is 26 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES momentarily experienced. This is the view and assertion and recommendation even of those philosophers who have- not considered the soul to have an independent existence, but to decay and perish with the body in which it is lodged. As for those who hold that the soul has an individual identity of its own, and that it uses the body as it would an instrument or an implement, not perishing simultaneously with it, they rise far, far beyond the mere reining df the instincts, and combating and opposing the passions. They despise and revile exceedingly those who allow themselves to be led by and who incline after their lower nature, considering them to be no better than beasts. They believe that by following and indulging their passion, by inclining after and loving their appetites, by regretting anything they may miss, and inflicting pain on animals in order to secure and satisfy their lusts, these men will experience, after the soul has left the body, pain and regret and sorrow for the evil conse- quences of their actions alike abundant and prolonged. These philosophers can put forward the very physique of , man to prove that he is not equipped to occupy himself with pleasures and lusts, seeing how deficient he is in this respect compared with the irrational animals, but rather to use his powers of thought and deliberation. For a single wild beast experiences more pleasure in eating and having intercourse than a multitude of men can possibly achieve ; while as for its capacity for casting care and thought aside, and enjoying life simply and wholly, that is a state of affairs no man can ever rival. This is because that is the animal's entire be-all and end-all ; we may observe that a beast at the very moment of its slaughter will still go on eating and drinking with complete absorption. They further argue that if the gratification of the appetites and the indulgence of the calls of nature had been the nobler part, man would never have been made so deficient in this respect or been I OF SUPPRESSING THE PASSION 27 more meanly endowed than the animals. The very fact that man is so deficient — in spite of his heing the noblest of mortal animals — in his share of these things, whereas he possesses such an ample portion of deliberation and reflection, is enough to teach us that it is nobler to utilize and improve the reason, and not to be slave and lackey of the calls of nature. Moreover, they say, if the advantage lay in gratifying carnal pleasure and lust, die creature furnished by nature to that end would be nobler than that not so equipped. . By such a standard the bull and the ass would be superior not only to man, but also to the immortal beings, and to God Himself, Who is without carnal pleasure and lust. It may be (they go on) that certain undisciplined men unused to reflect and deliberate upon such matters will not agree with us that the beasts enjoy greater pleasure than men. Those who argue thus may quote against us such an instance as that of a long who, having triumphed over an opposing foe, thence- forward sits at his amusement, and summons together and dis- plays all his pomp and circumstance, so that he achieves the ultimate limit of what a man may reach. " What they ask, " is the pleasure of a beast in comparison with the pleasure of such a man ? Can so great a pleasure be measured or related with any other ? " Those who speak in this fashion should realize that the perfection or imperfection of such pleasures must not be judged by comparing one pleasure with another, but in relation to the need felt for such a pleasure. Consider the case of a man who requires 1,000 dinars to put his affairs in order : if he is given 999, that will not completely restore his position for him. On die other hand suppose a man needs a single dinar : his situation will be perfecdy amended by obtaining that one dinar. Yet the former has been given many times more than the latter, and still his state is not completely restored. When c 28 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES a beast has enjoyed full satisfaction of the call of its instincts, its pleasure therein is perfect and complete ; it feels no pain or hurt at missing a still greater gratification because such an idea never occurs to its mind at all. Yet in any case the beast always experiences the superior pleasure ; for" there is no man who can ever attain all his hopes and desires, since his soul being endowed with the faculties of reflection, deliberation, and imagination of what he yet lacks, and it being in its nature always to consider that the state enjoyed by another is bound to be superior, never under any circumstances is it free from yearning and gazing after what it does not itself possess, and from being fearful and anxious lest it lose what it has possessed ; its pleasure and desire are therefore always in a state of imperfect realization. If any man should possess half the world, his soul would still wrestle with him to acquire the remainder, and would be anxious and fearful of losing hold of as much as it has already gotten ; and if he possessed the entire world, nevertheless he would yearn for perpetual well-being and immortality, and his soul would gaze after the knowledge of all the mysteries of heaven and earth. One day, as I have heard tell, someone spoke in the presence of a great-souled king of the splendid and immortal joys of Paradise, whereupon the king remarked, " Such bliss seems to me wholly bitter and wearisome, when I reflect that if I were granted it, I should be in the position of one on whom a favour and a kind- ness had been conferred.". How could such a man ever know perfect pleasure and enjoyment of his lot ? And who is there that rejoices within himself, save only the beasts and those who live like beasts ? So the poet says : Can any man be truly blest, Save him immortally possessed Of fortune, who has scarce a care And never goes to bed with fear ? OF SUPPRESSING THE PASSION 29 This sect of philosophers soar beyond the mere reining and opposing of passion, even beyond the contempt and mortifi- cation thereof, unto a matter exceedingly sublime. They partake of a bare subsistence of food and drink ; they acquire not wcaldi or lands or houses ; and some advance so far in this opinion that they go apart from other men, and withdraw into waste places. Such are the arguments they put forward in support of their views regarding the things that are present and seen. As for their reasonings about the state of the soul after it has left the body, to speak of this would take us far beyond the scope of the present book, alike in loftiness, length and breadth : in loftiness, because this involves research into the nature of the soul, the purpose of its association with and separa- tion from the body, and its state after it has gone out of it ; in length, because each of these several branches of research requires its own interpretation and explanation, to an extent many times the discourse contained in this book ; and in breadth, because the purpose of such researches is the salvation of the soul after it has left the body, though it is true that the discourse involves a major consideration of the reformation of character. Still, there will be no harm in giving a very brief account of these matters, widiout however involving ourselves in an argument for or against their opinions ; what we have particularly in view are diosc ideas which we think will assist and enable us to fulfil the purpose of our present book. Plato, the chief and greatest of the philosophers, held that there arc three souls in every man. The first he called the rational and divine soul, the second the choleric and animal, and die diird die vegetative, incremental and appetitive soul. The animal and vegetative souls were created for the sake of the rational soul. The vegetative soul was made in order to feed die body, which is as it were the instrument and implement 30 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES of the rational soul ; for the body is not of an eternal, indis- soluble substance, but its substance is fluid and soluble, and every soluble object only survives by leaving behind it something to replace that element which is dissolved. The choleric soul's function is to be of assistance to the rational soul in suppressing the appetitive soul and in preventing it from preoccupying the rational soul with its manifold desires so that it is incapable of using its reason. If the rational soul employed its reason com- pletely, this would mean that it would be delivered from the body in which it is enmeshed. These two souls — the vegetative and the choleric — possess in Plato's view no special substance that survives the corruption of the body, such as that which belongs to the rational soul. On the contrary one of them, the. choleric, is the entire temperament of the heart, while the other, the appetitive, is the entire temperament of the liver. As for the temperament of the brain, this he said is the first instrument and implement used by the rational soul. Man is fed and derives his increase and growth from the liver, his heat and pulse-movement from the heart, his sensation, voluntary movement, imagination, thought and memory from . the brain. It is not the case that this is part of its peculiar property and temperament ; it belongs rather to the essence dwelling within it and using it after the manner of an instrument or implement. However, it is the most intimate of all the instruments and implements associated with this agent. Plato taught that men should labour by means of corporeal physick (which is the well-known variety) as well as spiritual physick (which is persuasion through arguments and proofs) to equilibrate the actions of the several souls so that they may neither fail nor exceed what is desired of them. Failure in the vegetative soul consists in not supplying food, growth and OF SUPPRESSING THE PASSION 31 increase of the quantity and quality required by the whole body ; its excess is when it surpasses and transgresses that limit so that the body is furnished with an abundance beyond its needs, and plunges into all kinds of pleasures and desires. Failure in the choleric soul consists in not having the fervour, pride and courage to enable it to rein and vanquish the appetitive soul at such times as it feels desire, so as to come between it and its desires ; its excess is when it is possessed of so much arrogance and love of domination that it seeks to overcome all other men and the entire animal kingdom, and has no other ambition but supremacy and domination — such a state of soul as affected Alexander the Great. Failure in the rational soul is recognized when it does not occur to it to wonder and marvel at this world of ours, to meditate upon it with interest, curiosity and a passion- ate desire to discover all that it contains, and above all to in- vestigate the body in which it dwells and its form and fate after death. Truly, if a man does not wonder and marvel at our world, if he is not moved to astonishment at its form, and if his soul does not gaze after the knowledge of all that it contains, if he is not concerned or interested to discover what his state will be after death, liis portion of reason is that of the beasts — nay, of bats and fishes and worthless things that never think or reflect. Excess in the rational soul is proved when a man is so swayed and overmastered by the consideration of such things as these that the appetitive soul cannot obtain the food and sleep and so fordi to keep the body fit, or in sufficient quantity to maintain the temperament of the brain in a healthy state. Such a man is forever seeking and probing and striving to the utmost of his powers, supposing that lie will attain and realize these matters in a shorter time than that which is absolutely necessary for their achievement. The result is that the temperament of the whole body is upset, so that he falls a prey to depression and 32 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICfc OF RHAZES melancholia, and he misses his entire quest through supposing that he could quickly master it. Plato held that the period which has been appointed for the survival of this dissoluble and corruptible body, in a state the rational soul can make use of to procure the needs of its salvation after it leaves the body— the period that is from the time a man is born until he grows old and withers— is adequate for the fulfil- ment of every man, even the stupidest ; provided he never gives up thinking and speculating and gazing after the matters we have mentioned as proper to the rational soul, and provided he des- pises this body and the physical world altogether, and loathes and detests it, being aware that the sentient soul, so long as it is attached to any part of it, continues to pass through states deleterious and painful because generation and corruption are forever succeeding each other in the body ; provided further that he does not hate but rather yearns to depart out of the body and to be liberated from it. He believed that when the time comes for the sentient soul to leave the body in which it is lodged, if it has acquired and believed firmly in these ideas it will pass immediately into its own world, and will not desire to be attached to any particle of the body thereafter ; it will remain living and reasoning eternally, free from pain, and rejoicing in its place of abode. For life and reason belong to it of its own essence ; freedom from pain will be the consequence of its removal from generation and corruption ; it will rejoice in its own world and place of abiding because it has been liberated from association with the body and existence in the physical world. But if the soul leaves the body without having acquired these ideas and without having recognized the true nature of the physical world, but rather still yearning after it and eager to exist therein, it will not leave its present dwelling-place but will continue to be linked with some portion of it ; it will not cease OF SUPPRESSING THE PASSION 33 —because of the succession of generation and corruption within the body in which it is lodged— to suffer continual and redupli- cated pains, and cares multitudinous and afflicting. Such in brief are the views of Plato, and of Socrates the Divine Hermit before him. Besides all this, there is neither any purely mundane view whatsoever that does not necessitate some reining of passion and appetite, or that gives them free head and rope altogether. To rein and suppress the passion is an obligation according to every opinion, in the view of every reasoning man, and according to every religion. Therefore let the reasoning man observe these ideals with the eye of his reason, and keep them before his attention and in his mind ; and even if he should not achieve the highest rank and level of this order described in the present book, let him at least cling hold of the meanest level. That is the view of those who advocate the reining of the passion to the extent that will not involve mundane loss in this present life ; for if he tastes some bitterness and unpleasantness at the beginning of his career through reining and suppressing his passion, this will presendy be followed by a consequent sweetness and a pleasure in which he may rejoice with great joy and gladness ; while the labour he endures in wrestling with his passion and suppressing his appetites will grow easier by habit, especially if this be effected gradually — by accustoming himself to the discipline and leading on his soul gendy, first to deny trifling appetites and to forgo a litdc of its desires at the requirement of reason and judgment, and then to seek after furdicr discipline until it becomes associated with liis character and habit. In tins way his appetitive soul will become submissive and will grow accustomed to being subject to his rational soul. So the process will continue to develop ; and the discipline will be reinforced by the joy he has in the results yielded by this 34 THE SPIRITUAL PHYSICK OF RHAZES reining of his passion, and the profit he has of his judgment and reason and of controlling his affairs by them ; by the praise men lavish upon him, and their evident desire to emulate his achievement. CHAPTER m Summary Prolegomena to the Detailed Account of Each of the Evil Dispositions of the Soul Now that we have laid level the foundations for that part of our discourse which is to follow, and have mentioned the most important principles as constituting an adequate capital and reserve on which to draw, we will proceed to describe the various evil dispositions of the soul, and the gende means of reforming them, to serve as an analogy and an example for what we have not attempted to set forth. We shall withal endeavour to be as brief and concise as possible in speaking of these vices ; for we have already established the chief cause and principal reason, from which we shall derive and on which we shall build all the divers treatments necessary for the reformation of any particular evil characteristic. Indeed, if we should not single out even one of these for special consideration, but leave them all aside without any individual mention, ample resources would be available for putting them to right by keeping in mind and holding fast to our first principle. For all these dispositions are die result of obeying the call of passion and yielding to the per- suasion of the appetite : to rein and guard these twain will effectively prevent being seized and moulded by therrL But in any case we intend to state as much on this subject as we consider needful and necessary to assist in fulfilling the purpose of our present book. And God be our help in this. 35 CHAPTER IV Of How a Man may Discover his Own Vices Inasmuch as it is impossible for any of us to deny his passion, because of the affection he has for his own self and the approval and admiration he feels for his own actions, or to look upon his own character and way of life with the pure and single eye of reason, it can scarcely fall to any man to have a clear view of his vices and reprehensible habits. Since the knowledge of this is denied him, he will hardly depart out of any vice, seeing' that he is not even aware of it ; much less will he think it disgraceful and endeavour to be rid of it. He must therefore rely in this matter upon an intelligent man who is his frequent associate and constant companion. He will ask and implore and insist upon his informing him of what- ever he knows of his vices, making him understand that in that way he will be doing what he most desires and what will have the greatest effect on him. He will tell him that he is immensely obliged and infinitely grateful to him for such a kindness. He will beg him not to be shy of him, or blandish him, and will tell him bluntly that if he is easy on him, or dilatory in informing him of anything, he will have done him an injury and deceived him, and will deserve his severe reproaches. When his supervisor begins to inform him, and to tell him what he sees and discovers about him, he must not exhibit any sorrow or sense of disgrace ; on the contrary he must appear to rejoice at what he hears and to be eager for more. If he observes 3