Chapter Six — That Among Human Acts There Is Mutual Crowding

Among man’s acts there is mutual interference and mutual prevention. This is close to evident, or evident: the faculty (quwwa) admits of multiplying its act through all the grades, and by that very fact what issues from the other faculty among its acts is diminished; so the act of this one comes to interfere with the act of that one.

Next we say: this entails mutual interference among their settled dispositions. For you have learned that abundance in the issuing of acts, and their repetition, brings about a settled disposition — the firmly rooted knowledge (al-ʿilm al-rāsikh) which the faculty has made ready so as to issue the act by it. And the faculty’s demand is for the act itself, not for the act in a measure that would not interfere with the acts of the other faculty. And this is manifest, for that would be an aspect other than the aspect of the act. So the faculty impels only to the measure it can bear and endure; each time, it impels simply toward the act, absolutely. As for sufficing and delimitation, they come from something other than this faculty; so by repetition a settled disposition arises absolute and unrestricted — and likewise in the other faculty; and since the two acts interfere, the two settled dispositions interfere.

A consequence of this is that there arise in man mutually repelling knowledges, some of them repelling others — such as the obligation to seek, however it be; the obligation to eat when hungry, however it be; and the obligation to be still for rest, however it be. Now knowledge of the two mutually repelling things is not possible in a single state; but knowledge of the universal proposition in detail is knowledge of its instances summarily and in potentiality. So it is possible that knowledge obtain universally of two things between whose instances there is some mutual repulsion in respect of the judgment. And let man’s state in his knowledges be thus. But when he attends to two universal knowledges of his that mutually repel in respect of some instances, it is impossible that knowledge arise from the two together. What is supposed in our case, however, is that each of the two knowledges is a firmly rooted settled disposition, permanently present to the soul; so whenever the soul attends to one of the two knowledges, that knowledge prevents its attention from turning to the other and acts as a diversion between the two; and the other faculty — which, as has been shown, delimits the acts of its possessor — supports the soul in this. In this way the soul escapes the peril of believing two contradictories.

From here it becomes apparent that there is in us something else, which apportions their acts among the faculties, delimits them, and subdues them; and you may come upon the detailed account of it in another place.

Next we say: from this there arise pleasure and pain (al-ladhdha wa-l-alam). For the two — as has been explained elsewhere — are expressions for the faculty’s attainment of what is a perfection for it, insofar as it is attainment and perfection; and for the non-attainment, in that whose nature it is to attain it. So, as for these interlocking settled dispositions we have mentioned, fixed as they are in the faculties: when one of the faculties attains something that is a perfection for it — that is, its congruent act — it takes pleasure in it. And when it is lost, that is pain. But it must be known that pleasure is the attainment of the congruent, as was said — not the repulsion of the repugnant, as is famous and accepted among people. They said: the sick man who has lost health takes pleasure in it only at its first arrival, and then there is no pleasure-taking; and so in other cases — no pleasure with stability. And therefore it has been said that the worth of a blessing is known after it departs. But this is a belief that sound experience shows to be false: whoever takes up one of his perfections of stable existence, conceives it completely, and turns his soul to its intellection, takes pleasure in it just as he takes pleasure in it at its first arrival and advent. And likewise on the side of deficiencies and the contraries of perfection. And it is known that there is no repulsion there. Moreover, a consequence of that supposition is that pleasure and pain would each be privative — the repelling of the preceding state — since, just as pleasure is found missing upon stabilization, so too is pain. And this is manifest. It would then result that each of the two is the privation of a privation, since it comes back to a hideous contradiction — each of the two being the repelling of some stable state. For if pleasure or pain were the preceding stable state, and the other — that by which it is repelled, and which includes its privation — were its opposite, then the two would turn out to be contraries, not privation-and-possession. So they would be two existential perfections of a faculty, mutually contrary — and that is impossible in a single faculty, as has been established in its place. Therefore what was sought is established.

It thereby becomes apparent that these pleasures and pains are only through the soul’s complete attention to it; so as long as the apprehension endures, the pleasure endures. Again: the stronger the apprehension, the stronger the pleasure. Again: were the faculty’s act one, with nothing to distract it, its pleasure would continue and would increase to the utmost possible. It also becomes apparent that pure pain does not exist at all — unlike pure pleasure; for pain is the privation of pleasure, so that its existence is by way of accident. This is a secret beneath which lie secrets — understand it. It also becomes apparent that there is no pleasure and no pain except through apprehension. This is attested, too, by the fact that for every pleasure, if we suppose the apprehending faculty heedless of it, we find it missing; and if we suppose it apprehending it while in reality it is not there outside, the very pleasure is found.

Next we say: the single faculty is not pained by its own act — and that is manifest from what has already been set out. Each faculty is pained only by the act of another, insofar as that involves the non-occurrence of its own act; by that it is pained. Yet for all this there must be a bond between the two: otherwise there would be an act from one disjoint thing having no contact with the act of another disjoint thing. And that is manifest; and that bond must belong to that which possesses the faculty of apprehension, for were it by something else, the very same difficulty would return. From here too it becomes apparent that among man’s faculties there is something encompassing, binding them together — as has just been said — since the perceiver in us is the bond, whether at the outset, or as that at which [the matter] terminates in the end.

It must also be known that abundance of one faculty’s act brings about the other faculty’s habituation to what corresponds to that in its own domain — with difficulty if this comes after the settled disposition has taken root, and with ease if before. And that is because of what has already been set out: the arrival of the act affects the soul and fixes a congruent form until a settled disposition arises; there is then fixed a settled disposition intermediate, as it were, whose acts are by its very nature much like the acts of the interfering faculty, imitating it. An example of this is the arrogant, swaggering man: his eating, drinking, walking, and sitting are all shaped by arrogance and swagger; the sorrowing, careworn man’s acts are sorrowful; and the lovelorn lover is lovelorn in all his acts. And from all of this it has become apparent that if the acts of different faculties issued from a single faculty, no pain would arise there — because, as has already been set out, the single faculty is not pained by its own acts.