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Moses as a Legislator (Preface to 'Antiquities')
Solomon's Wisdom ('Antiquities')

Alexander's Conquest of Palestine (same)

The Greek Version of the Hebrew Scriptures (same)
The Death of James, the Brother of our Lord (same)
Preface to the Jewish Wars'

Agrippa's Appeal to the Jews (Jewish Wars')

Josephus's Surrender to the Romans (same)

The Destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem (same)

The Hebrew Faith, Worship, and Laws (Treatise Against
Apion')

Origin of the Asamonean or Maccabæan Revolt (Antiq-
uities')

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Umbricius's Farewell to Rome (Third Satire)
Terrors of Conscience (Thirteenth Satire)

Parental Influence (Fourteenth Satire)

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IBN SÎNÂ

(AVICENNA)

(980-1037)

BY THOMAS DAVIDSON

BU ALI AL 'HUSAIN ABDALLAH IBN SÎNÂ, known to the Western world as Avicenna, the greatest of Eastern Muslim philoso

phers and physicians, was born A. D. 980 at Afshena, near Kharmaithan, in the province of Bokhara. His father, a Persian, was for a time governor of Kharmaithan, but later settled at Bokhara, where Ibn Sînâ, an extremely precocious child, was reared with great care. At the age of ten he knew the Koran by heart, and had studied law and grammar. The elements of philosophy he learnt from a private tutor, Abu Abdallah Natili. While still a mere boy he went to the famous school of Bagdad, where he studied successively mathematics, physics, logic, metaphysics, and finally-under a Christianmedicine. At the age of seventeen he had already gained such a reputation that he was called to the sick-bed of Nu'h ibn Mansûr, King of Bokhara. Having effected a cure, he was richly rewarded by the King, and allowed free access to the palace library, which enabled him to satisfy his thirst for knowledge. The library having been burnt up some time after, he was accused of setting it on fire in order to obtain a monopoly of knowledge. At the age of twentytwo, having lost both his patron and his father, and being unpopular in Bokhara, he left that city and wandered about for several years, finally settling at Jorjân, where, having been presented with a house, he opened a school and gave lectures. At the same time he began to write his great medical work, the 'Kanûn' (Canon). Becoming uncomfortable at Jorjân, he removed to Hamadân (Ecbatana), whose king, Shems ed-Daula, made him wasîr. In this position he again became unpopular, possibly on account of his opinions; so much so that the soldiers seized him, and but for the strenuous intervention of the King would have put him to death. Having remained in laborious retirement for some time, he was recalled to court as physician to the crown prince. Here he composed his great philosophic cyclopædia, the Shefâ.> His life at this time was very characteristic, being divided between study, teaching, and reveling. Every evening he gave a lecture, followed by an orgy continued far into the night. Shems ed-Daula having died, Ibn Sînâ fell into disfavor with his

successor through entering into correspondence with his enemy the Prince of Ispahan, and was imprisoned in a fortress for several years. Finally escaping from this, he fled to Ispahan, where he became attached to the person of the prince, accompanying him on his various expeditions. Having resumed his double, wasteful life, he soon wore out his body, whose condition he aggravated by the use of drastic medicines. Feeling himself at last beyond remedies, he repented, distributed alms, and died at Hamadân a good Muslim, in July 1037, at the age of fifty-seven. He left a brief biography of himself. A longer one was written by his pupil Jorjâni.

Ibn Sînâ was a complex, versatile character, leading a double life, -that of the patient, profound student and thinker, and that of the sensual worldling,—and perishing in the attempt to combine the two. He seems a combination of Bacon, Bruno, and Goethe, with the best and worst traits of all three. He appears among the mighty in Dante's Limbo.

WORKS. His literary activity was prodigious. He wrote over a hundred treatises, covering all branches of knowledge, and in such a masterly way as fairly to deserve his title, the Supreme Teacher (Sheikh ar-raïs). His chief productions are:-(i.) The Kanûn,' a medical work of enormous bulk, dealing with man as part of the organism of the world, and comprising all the medical knowledge of the time. It was translated into Latin in the twelfth century, and into Hebrew in the thirteenth; and was for several hundred years the chief medical authority in the civilized world. (ii.) The 'Shefâ› (Healing), an encyclopædia of philosophic sciences in eighteen volumes. The subjects are distributed under four heads: (1) Logic, (2) Physics, (3) Mathematics, (4) Metaphysics. This work, in the original, exists almost entire in the Bodleian Library, but it is little known as a whole. Parts of it were translated into Latin in the twelfth century, and into Hebrew in the thirteenth, and exercised a powerful influence on the schoolmen, as well as on Arab and Hebrew thinkers. In 1495, 1500, and 1508 there appeared at Venice a collection of these, including (1) Logic, (2) Sufficiency, (Physics!) (3) On Heaven and Earth, (4) On the Soul, (5) On Animals, (6) On Intelligences, (7) On Intelligences, (by Al Fârâbî!) (8) On Metaphysics. Other portions of the 'Shefâ' have appeared at different times under different titles. (iii.) The 'Najâh,' an abridgment of the Shefâ,' omitting the mathematical part. (iv.) On Oriental Philosophy,' that is, mysticism; a work frequently referred to by Western Arab writers and by Roger Bacon, but now lost. (v.) A poem, 'On the Soul,' translated by Hammer-Purgstall in the Vienna Zeitschrift für Kunst, 1837. There exists no complete edition of Ibn Sînâ's works, and no complete bibliography; nor is there any exhaustive monograph on him.

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