The Development of Metaphysics in Persia Part 2

? Even a principle of evil would seek its own self-preservation.

(b) What all things seek is good.

But self-preservation is what all things seek.

? Self-preservation is good.

But a principle of evil would seek its own self-preservation.

? A principle of evil would seek some good--which shows that it is self-contradictory.

G.o.d and His Creatures, Book II, p. 105. Rickaby's Tr.

Turning now to the remarkable socialist of ancient Persia--_Mazdak_.

This early prophet of communism appeared during the reign of a.n.u.s_h_irwan the Just (531578 A.D.), and marked another dualistic reaction against the prevailing Zarwanian doctrine[18:1]. Mazdak, like Mani, taught that the diversity of things springs from the mixture of two independent, eternal principles which he called S_h_id (Light) and Tar (Darkness). But he differs from his predecessor in holding that the fact of their mixture as well as their final separation, are quite accidental, and not at all the result of choice. Mazdak's G.o.d is endowed with sensation, and has four princ.i.p.al energies in his eternal presence--power of discrimination, memory, understanding and bliss.

These four energies have four personal manifestations who, a.s.sisted by four other persons, superintend the course of the Universe. Variety in things and men is due to the various combinations of the original principles.

[18:1] The Zarwanian doctrine prevailed in Persia in the 5th century B.C. (See Z. D. M. G., Vol. LVII, p. 562).

But the most characteristic feature of the Mazdakite teaching is its communism, which is evidently an inference from the cosmopolitan spirit of Mani's Philosophy. All men, said Mazdak, are equal; and the notion of individual property was introduced by the hostile demons whose object is to turn G.o.d's Universe into a scene of endless misery. It is chiefly this aspect of Mazdak's teaching that was most shocking to the Zoroastrian conscience, and finally brought about the destruction of his enormous following, even though the master was supposed to have miraculously made the sacred Fire talk, and bear witness to the truth of his mission.

-- III.

Retrospect.

We have seen some of the aspects of Pre-Islamic Persian thought; though, owing to our ignorance of the tendencies of Sa.s.sanide thought, and of the political, social, and intellectual conditions that determined its evolution, we have not been able fully to trace the continuity of ideas.

Nations as well as individuals, in their intellectual history, begin with the objective. Although the moral fervour of Zoroaster gave a spiritual tone to his theory of the origin of things, yet the net result of this period of Persian speculation is nothing more than a materialistic dualism. The principle of Unity as a philosophical ground of all that exists, is but dimly perceived at this stage of intellectual evolution in Persia. The controversy among the followers of Zoroaster indicates that the movement towards a monistic conception of the Universe had begun; but we have unfortunately no evidence to make a positive statement concerning the pantheistic tendencies of Pre-Islamic Persian thought. We know that in the 6{th} century A.D., Diogenes, Simplicius and other Neo-Platonic thinkers, were driven by the persecution of Justinian, to take refuge in the court of the tolerant a.n.u.s_h_irwan. This great monarch, moreover, had several works translated for him from Sanskrit and Greek, but we have no historical evidence to show how far these events actually influenced the course of Persian thought. Let us, therefore, pa.s.s on to the advent of Islam in Persia, which completely shattered the old order of things, and brought to the thinking mind the new concept of an uncompromising monotheism as well as the Greek dualism of G.o.d and matter, as distinguished from the purely Persian dualism of G.o.d and Devil.

PART II.

Greek Dualism.

CHAP. II.

THE NEO-PLATONIC ARISTOTELIANS OF PERSIA.

With the Arab conquest of Persia, a new era begins in the history of Persian thought. But the warlike sons of sandy Arabia whose swords terminated, at Nahawand, the political independence of this ancient people, could hardly touch the intellectual freedom of the converted Zoroastrian.

The political revolution brought about by the Arab conquest marks the beginning of interaction between the Aryan and the Semitic, and we find that the Persian, though he lets the surface of his life become largely semitised, quietly converts Islam to his own Aryan habits of thought. In the west the sober h.e.l.lenic intellect interpreted another Semitic religion--Christianity; and the results of interpretation in both cases are strikingly similar. In each case the aim of the interpreting intellect is to soften the extreme rigidity of an absolute law imposed on the individual from without; in one word it is an endeavour to internalise the external. This process of transformation began with the study of Greek thought which, though combined with other causes, hindered the growth of native speculation, yet marked a transition from the purely objective att.i.tude of Pre-Islamic Persian Philosophy to the subjective att.i.tude of later thinkers. It is, I believe, largely due to the influence of foreign thought that the old monistic tendency when it rea.s.serted itself about the end of the 8{th} century, a.s.sumed a much more spiritual aspect; and, in its later development, revivified and spiritualised the old Iranian dualism of Light and Darkness. The fact, therefore, that Greek thought roused into fresh life the subtle Persian intellect, and largely contributed to, and was finally a.s.similated by the general course of intellectual evolution in Persia, justifies us in briefly running over, even though at the risk of repet.i.tion, the systems of the Persian Neo-Platonists who, as such, deserve very little attention in a history of purely Persian thought.

It must, however, be remembered that Greek wisdom flowed towards the Moslem east through ?arran and Syria. The Syrians took up the latest Greek speculation i.e. Neo-Platonism and transmitted to the Moslem what they believed to be the real philosophy of Aristotle. It is surprising that Mohammedan Philosophers, Arabs as well as Persians, continued wrangling over what they believed to be the real teaching of Aristotle and Plato, and it never occurred to them that for a thorough comprehension of their Philosophies, the knowledge of Greek language was absolutely necessary. So great was their ignorance that an epitomised translation of the Enneads of Plotinus was accepted as "Theology of Aristotle". It took them centuries to arrive at a clear conception of the two great masters of Greek thought; and it is doubtful whether they ever completely understood them. Avicenna is certainly clearer and more original than Al-Farabi and Ibn Maskawaih; and the Andelusian Averroes, though he is nearer to Aristotle than any of his predecessors, is yet far from a complete grasp of Aristotle's Philosophy. It would, however, be unjust to accuse them of servile imitation. The history of their speculation is one continuous attempt to wade through a hopeless ma.s.s of absurdities that careless translators of Greek Philosophy had introduced. They had largely to rethink the Philosophies of Aristotle and Plato. Their commentaries const.i.tute, so to speak, an effort at discovery, not exposition. The very circ.u.mstances which left them no time to think out independent systems of thought, point to a subtle mind, unfortunately cabined and cribbed by a heap of obstructing nonsense that patient industry had gradually to eliminate, and thus to winnow out truth from falsehood. With these preliminary remarks we proceed to consider Persian students of Greek Philosophy individually.

-- I.

Ibn Maskawaih[26:1] (d. 1030).

Pa.s.sing over the names of Sarak_h_si[26:2], Farabi who was a Turk, and the Physician Razi (d. 932 A.D.) who, true to his Persian habits of thought, looked upon light as the first creation, and admitted the eternity of matter, s.p.a.ce and time, we come to the ill.u.s.trious name of Abu 'Ali Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ya'qub, commonly known as _Ibn Maskawaih_--the treasurer of the Buwaihid Sultan 'Ad?aduddaula--one of the most eminent theistic thinkers, physicians, moralists and historians of Persia. I give below a brief account of his system from his well known work Al-Fauz al-A?g_h_ar, published in Beirut.

[26:1] Dr. Boer, in his Philosophy of Islam, gives a full account of the Philosophy of Al-Farabi and Avicenna; but his account of Ibn Maskawaih's Philosophy is restricted to the Ethical teaching of that Philosopher. I have given here his metaphysical views which are decidedly more systematic than those of Al-Farabi. Instead of repeating Avicenna's Neo-Platonism I have briefly stated what I believe to be his original contribution to the thought of his country.

[26:2] Sarak_h_si died in 899 A.D. He was a disciple of the Arabian Philosopher Al-Kindi. His works, unfortunately, have not reached us.

1. _The existence of the ultimate principle._

Here Ibn Maskawaih follows Aristotle, and reproduces his argument based on the fact of physical motion. All bodies have the inseparable property of motion which covers all forms of change, and does not proceed from the nature of bodies themselves. Motion, therefore, demands an external source or prime mover. The supposition that motion may const.i.tute the very essence of bodies, is contradicted by experience. Man, for instance, has the power of free movement; but, on the supposition, different parts of his body must continue to move even after they are severed from one another. The series of moving causes, therefore, must stop at a cause which, itself immovable, moves everything else. The immobility of the Primal cause is essential; for the supposition of motion in the Primal cause would necessitate infinite regress, which is absurd.

The immovable mover is one. A multiplicity of original movers must imply something common in their nature, so that they might be brought under the same category. It must also imply some point of difference in order to distinguish them from each other. But this partial ident.i.ty and difference necessitate composition in their respective essences; and composition, being a form of motion, cannot, as we have shown, exist in the first cause of motion. The prime mover again is eternal and immaterial. Since transition from non-existence to existence is a form of motion; and since matter is always subject to some kind of motion, it follows that a thing which is not eternal, or is, in any way, a.s.sociated with matter, must be in motion.

2. _The Knowledge of the Ultimate._

All human knowledge begins from sensations which are gradually transformed into perceptions. The earlier stages of intellection are completely conditioned by the presence of external reality. But the progress of knowledge means to be able to think without being conditioned by matter. Thought begins with matter, but its object is to gradually free itself from the primary condition of its own possibility. A higher stage, therefore, is reached in imagination--the power to reproduce and retain in the mind the copy or image of a thing without reference to the external objectivity of the thing itself. In the formation of concepts thought reaches a still higher stage in point of freedom from materiality; though the concept, in so far as it is the result of comparison and a.s.similation of percepts, cannot be regarded as having completely freed itself from the gross cause of sensations. But the fact that conception is based on perception, should not lead us to ignore the great difference between the nature of the concept and the percept. The individual (percept) is undergoing constant change which affects the character of the knowledge founded on mere perception. The knowledge of individuals, therefore, lacks the element of permanence.

The universal (concept), on the other hand, is not affected by the law of change. Individuals change; the universal remains intact. It is the essence of matter to submit to the law of change: the freer a thing is from matter, the less liable it is to change. G.o.d, therefore, being absolutely free from matter, is absolutely changeless; and it is His complete freedom from materiality that makes our conception of Him difficult or impossible. The object of all philosophical training is to develop the power of "ideation" or contemplation on pure concepts, in order that constant practice might make possible the conception of the absolutely immaterial.

3. _How the one creates the many._

In this connection it is necessary, for the sake of clearness, to divide Ibn Maskawaih's investigations into two parts:--

(a) _That the ultimate agent or cause created the Universe out of nothing._ Materialists, he says, hold the eternity of matter, and attribute form to the creative activity of G.o.d. It is, however, admitted that when matter pa.s.ses from one form into another form, the previous form becomes absolutely non-existent. For if it does not become absolutely non-existent, it must either pa.s.s off into some other body, or continue to exist in the same body. The first alternative is contradicted by every day experience. If we transform a ball of wax into a solid square, the original rotundity of the ball does not pa.s.s off into some other body. The second alternative is also impossible; for it would necessitate the conclusion that two contradictory forms e.g.

circularity and length, can exist in the same body. It, therefore, follows that the original form pa.s.ses into absolute non-existence, when the new form comes into being. This argument proves conclusively that attributes i.e., form, color, etc., come into being from pure nothing.

In order to understand that the substance is also non-eternal like the attribute, we should grasp the truth of the following propositions:--

1. The a.n.a.lysis of matter results in a number of different elements, the diversity of which is reduced to one simple element.

2. Form and matter are inseparable: no change in matter can annihilate form.

From these two propositions, Ibn Maskawaih concludes that the substance had a beginning in time. Matter like form must have begun to exist; since the eternity of matter necessitates the eternity of form which, as we have seen, cannot be regarded as eternal.

(b) _The process of creation._ What is the cause of this immense diversity which meets us on all sides? How could the many be created by one? When, says the Philosopher, one cause produces a number of different effects, their multiplicity may depend on any of the following reasons:--

1. The cause may have various powers. Man, for instance, being a combination of various elements and powers, may be the cause of various actions.

2. The cause may use various means to produce a variety of effects.

3. The cause may work upon a variety of material.

None of these propositions can be true of the nature of the ultimate cause--G.o.d. That he possesses various powers, distinct from one another, is manifestly absurd; since his nature does not admit of composition. If he is supposed to have employed different means to produce diversity, who is the creator of these means? If these means are due to the creative agency of some cause other than the ultimate cause, there would be a plurality of ultimate causes. If, on the other hand, the Ultimate Cause himself created these means, he must have required other means to create these means. The third proposition is also inadmissible as a conception of the creative act. The many cannot flow from the causal action of one agent. It, therefore, follows that we have only one way out of the difficulty--that the ultimate cause created only one thing which led to the creation of another. Ibn Maskawaih here enumerates the usual Neo-Platonic emanations gradually growing grosser and grosser until we reach the primordial elements, which combine and recombine to evolve higher and higher forms of life. S_h_ibli thus sums up Ibn Maskawaih's theory of evolution[33:1]:--

"The combination of primary substances produced the mineral kingdom, the lowest form of life. A higher stage of evolution is reached in the vegetable kingdom. The first to appear is spontaneous gra.s.s; then plants and various kinds of trees, some of which touch the border-land of animal kingdom, in so far as they manifest certain animal characteristics. Intermediary between the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom there is a certain form of life which is neither animal nor vegetable, but shares the characteristics of both (e.g. coral). The first step beyond this intermediary stage of life, is the development of the power of movement, and the sense of touch in tiny worms which crawl upon the earth. The sense of touch, owing to the process of differentiation, develops other forms of sense, until we reach the plane of higher animals in which intelligence begins to manifest itself in an ascending scale. Humanity is touched in the ape which undergoes further development, and gradually develops erect stature and power of understanding similar to man. Here animality ends and humanity begins".

[33:1] Maulana S_h_ibli 'Ilm al-Kalam, p. 141. (Haidarabad).

4. _The soul._

In order to understand whether the soul has an independent existence, we should examine the nature of human knowledge. It is the essential property of matter that it cannot a.s.sume two different forms simultaneously. To transform a silver spoon into a silver gla.s.s, it is necessary that the spoon-form as such, should cease to exist. This property is common to all bodies, and a body that lacks it cannot be regarded as a body. Now when we examine the nature of perception, we see that there is a principle in man which, in so far as it is able to know more than one thing at a time, can a.s.sume, so to say, many different forms simultaneously. This principle cannot be matter, since it lacks the fundamental property of matter. The essence of the soul consists in the power of perceiving a number of objects at one and the same moment of time. But it may be objected that the soul-principle may be either material in its essence, or a function of matter. There are, however, reasons to show that the soul cannot be a function of matter.