Chapter Two — On What Should Be Set Forth in Advance Concerning the States of the Human Being

It has been established in the Highest Science (al-ʿilm al-aʿlā) that what exists in external reality is, in truth, existence (wujūd), and that anything else is purely notional (iʿtibārī). It has also been established that the world has a Maker — the Necessary Existent (wājib al-wujūd) — uniting in Himself all the attributes of perfection without any multiplicity or deficiency whatsoever; that all things rest upon Him; and that they exist through Him — exalted is He — with no independence in them at all. It has also been established that beyond the world of nature (ʿālam al-ṭabīʿa) there is another world — possessed of quantity yet without matter, free of matter's deficiencies — and it is more perfect in existence. It is called the imaginal world (ʿālam al-mithāl). Above it is yet another world, free of quantity as well; it is pure light, and of them all the most perfect in existence. These theses, then, should be granted — together with others that we shall mention in their places, such as the immateriality of the imagination (tajarrud al-khayāl) and substantial motion (al-ḥaraka al-jawhariyya). And that between the Maker — exalted is He — and the world of nature there are intermediaries in causation; and that the world of immateriality is the inner reality (bāṭin) of the imaginal world, which is in turn the inner reality of the world of nature. These, then, are matters on which some of the questions coming after Chapter Nine are built; the demonstration of all this lies outside our task in the present inquiry.

We have shown in the book (al-Iʿtibārāt) that man, insofar as he is one who attains perfection through his apprehension, has estimative (wahmī), posited (iʿtibārī) conceptions (taṣawwurāt) and assents (taṣdīqāt). And [we showed] that these multiply as his perfections multiply, and that they divide as those divide. Some of them are posited belief belonging to him insofar as he is an individual; and some are such insofar as he is situated in domestic society (al-ijtimāʿ al-manzilī) or in civil society (al-ijtimāʿ al-madanī); these then multiply as the two conditions multiply.

And [we showed] that his specific, species-proper perfections are volitional matters, and that his volitions require posited opinions — this being for the individuation (tashakhkhuṣ) of the perfection. And [we showed] that real things issue from him by means of his volitions for what he believes in the external — which is united with the external things; so by his effecting it, the external thing occurs — not what he believes, since that is posited.

And [we showed] that this estimative faculty (al-quwwa al-wahmiyya) within us manipulates and is driven, and does not by nature verify in its act. From this a property follows: when it apprehends an object of conception and does not verify it, it tampers with its definition (ḥadd) by addition and subtraction, handing its definition over to what resembles it, and to what resembles its resembler, and so on. Then, when it returns to each one of these and apprehends its specific definition — having already judged them one — it judges them to be a single thing, unconcerned with the plain, manifest plurality and difference. This, in conceptions. Close to this is its judging in assents: in its judgment it may go to the farthest extreme on the two sides of deficiency and excess. The upshot: among its properties is to judge unity in the many things and multiplicity in the one. By this means, posited matters (al-umūr al-iʿtibāriyya) and estimative opinions come to be interposed between the animal and the perfections proper to its species.

Know that upon these cognitions external effects sometimes follow — a thing on the whole evident — like the pallor of fright and the blush of shame. Other sensible effects also occur: the sick person’s joy upon knowing himself to be healthy, his health upon such knowledge, and the like. Thus between a class of attributes and states, and a class of cognitions, there are specific correlations. This, and much else of its kind on which the investigations of this book are built, becomes clear from the second discourse of the book (al-Iʿtibārāt).

And know that these acts that issue from us differ. Some are easy of occurrence, as when the act accords with a habit or a firmly rooted trait. Some are the reverse, such that their occurring, and bringing them about, is hard for a man — as when the act runs counter to a character trait — so that it requires much deliberation. And each of the two kinds divides into many degrees of strength and weakness. So let us state the cause of this.