Supplementary Translations: Liber de causis

 

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Selections from the Arabic LIBER DE CAUSIS 24 July 2012

translated by Prof. Richard C. Taylor, Marquette University

Another Proposition < 3 >

   Every noble soul has three operations: a psychic operation, an intellectual operation and a divine operation. In its divine operation it exercises providence over nature by the power which is in it from the First Cause; in its intellectual operation it knows things by the power of the intelligence which [power] is in it; and in its psychic operation it moves the first body and all natural bodies because it is the cause of the motion of bodies and the cause of the operation of nature.

   The soul effected these operations only because it is an image of the higher power, for the First Cause originated the being of the soul through the mediation of the intelligence. For this reason the soul came to effect a divine operation. Thus, when the First Cause originated the being of soul, He fashioned it as something subject to the intelligence on which the intelligence effects its operations. Thus, for this reason the intellectual soul came to effect an intellectual operation. Since, then, the soul received the influence of the intelligence, it came to be in operation inferior to [the intelligence] in [soul's] influence on what is below it. This is because it does not have influence on things except by a motion, i.e., what is below it does not receive its operation unless [soul] move it. For this reason, then, the soul came to move bodies. For it is characteristic of soul that it give life to bodies, since it pours forth its power on them, and also <that it> guide them to the right operation. Thus it has become evident now that the soul has three operations because it has three powers: a divine power, an intellectual power and an essential power, in accordance with what we have described and made clear.

Another Proposition < 6 >

   The intelligence is a substance which is indivisible. For, if a thing is not a magnitude nor a body and does not move, then undoubtedly it is indivisible. Furthermore, every divisible is only divisible in multiplicity or in magnitude or in its motion. If, then, a thing is in this state, it is under time because it receives division only in time. But the intelligence is not in time, but rather is with eternity. So for this reason it came to be more exalted and higher than every body and every multiplicity. So if a multiplicity is found in it, it is found unified, as if it is a single thing. Thus, if the intelligence is in accordance with this description, it does not receive division at all. The proof of this is its reversion to its essence.

   I mean that it is not extended along with the extended thing such that one of its two extremities is at a distance from the other. For, when it wants knowledge of the corporeal extended thing, it is extended with it while <still> being subsistent and stably established in its state, because it is a form from which nothing escapes and bodies are not like that. The proof again that the intelligence is not a body and is indivisible is its substance and its operation, for the two are a single thing.

   The intelligence is many though the virtues coming to it from the First Cause. And, although it is many in this way, since it is what is near to the One, it came to be an unpartitioned one. The intelligence does not receive partition because it is the first thing originated by the First Cause and unity is more appropriate for it than partition.

   Thus, it has been proved true that the intelligence is a substance which is not a magnitude nor a body and does not move with any of the types of corporeal motion. For this reason it has come to be above time and with eternity, as we have made clear.

Another Proposition < 14 >

   Every knower which knows its essence reverts to its essence completely. For knowledge is only an operation. So when the knower knows its essence, it has reverted to its essence by its operation. This is so only when the knower and the known are one thing, because the knower's knowledge of its essence is from it and to it: it is from it inasmuch as it is knower and to it inasmuch as it is known. For, since the knowledge is knowledge of the knower and the knower knows its essence, then its operation reverts to its essence so that its substance also reverts to its essence. And we mean by the reversion of the substance to its essence only that it is subsistent and stable per se, not needing in its stability any other thing to make it subsist, because it is a simple substance sufficient per se.