With Gabirol the scene of Jewish intellectual activity changes from the east to the west. Prior to the middle of the tenth century the centre of Jewish learning was in Babylonia. The succession of Geonim in the Talmudical schools of Sura and Pumbadita, and particularly the great fame of Saadia, made all the other Jewish communities of the world look to Babylonia as the spiritual centre. They considered it a privilege to contribute to the support of the great eastern academies and appealed to their spiritual heads in cases of doubt in religious matters. Some of this glory was reflected also upon the neighboring countries under Mohammedan domination, Palestine, Egypt, and Kairuan or northern Africa to the west of Egypt. Thus all the men, Rabbanites as well as Karaites, whom we treated so far lived and flourished in the east in one of the four countries mentioned. Christian Europe was intellectually on a low level, and as far as scientific studies were concerned, the Jews under Christian rule were no better than their temporal rulers.

But a new era dawned for Jewish literature with the accession to power of the Umayyad caliph Abd al Rahman III, as head of Mohammedan Spain or Andalusia. He was a liberal man and a patron of learning. Hasdai ibn Shaprut, a cultured and high-minded Jew, was his trusted adviser, and like his royal patron he protected and encouraged Jewish learning, Talmudical as well as scientific. When Moses ben Enoch, a learned emissary from the Babylonian Academy, was ransomed by the Jewish community of Cordova and made the head of a Talmudical school in that city, the beginning of the end of Babylonian Jewish supremacy was at hand. Moses ben Enoch the Talmudist, Menahem ben Saruk, the grammarian and lexicographer, and Dunash ben Labrat, the poet—all three under the distinguished patronage of Hasdai ibn Shaprut—inaugurated the long line of Spanish Jewish worthies, which continued almost five centuries, constituting the golden era of Jewish literature and making of Spain the intellectual centre of all Jewry.

Solomon ibn Gabirol was not merely the first Jewish philosopher in Spain, he was the first Spanish philosopher, that is, he was the first philosophical writer in Andalusia. Ibn Badja, the first Mohammedan philosopher in Spain, was born at least a half century after Gabirol. The birth of Gabirol is generally placed in 1021 and his death in 1058, though some have put it as late as 1070.

The fate of Gabirol in the history of Jewish literature was a peculiar one. Highly celebrated as a synagogal poet in the Sephardic as well as Ashkenazic community, his fame as a great philosopher was early overshadowed by his successors, and his chief work, the "Fountain of Life," was in the course of time quite forgotten. The Arabic original was lost and there was no Hebrew translation. The Tibbonides, Judah, Samuel and Moses, who translated everything worth while in Jewish philology, science and philosophy from Arabic into Hebrew, either did not know of Gabirol's masterpiece or did not think it important enough to translate. To judge from the extant fragments of the correspondence between Samuel ibn Tibbon and Maimonides, it would seem that both were true; that is that Samuel ibn Tibbon had no access to Gabirol's "Fons VitÆ," and that if he had had such access, Maimonides would have dissuaded him from translating it. Maimonides actually tells his translator[82] that the only books worth studying are those of Aristotle and his true commentators, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Averroes. Alfarabi and Avicenna are also important, but other writings, such as those of Empedocles, Pythagoras, Hermes, Porphyry, represent a pre-Aristotelian philosophy which is obsolete, and are a waste of time. The books of Isaac Israeli on the "Elements" and on "Definitions," are no better, seeing that Israeli was only a physician and no philosopher. He is not familiar with the "Microcosmus" of Joseph ibn Zaddik, but infers from a knowledge of the man that his work is based upon the writings of the "Brothers of Purity"; and hence, we may add, not strictly Aristotelian, and not particularly important. Not a word is here said about Gabirol, apparently because Samuel ibn Tibbon had not inquired about him. But from Maimonides's judgment concerning the works of "Empedocles," we may legitimately infer that he would have been no more favorable to Gabirol; for, as we shall see, Gabirol's system is also based upon a point of view similar to that of the so-called "Empedocles." What the Tibbonides left undone was, however, partially accomplished about a half century later by the commentator and critic Shem Tob Falaquera (1225-1290). Apparently in agreement with Abraham ibn Daud that Gabirol's profuseness in his philosophic masterpiece made it possible to reduce it to a tenth part of its size, Falaquera did not find it necessary to translate the whole of the "Mekor Hayim" into Hebrew, giving us instead a translation of selected parts, which in his estimation contained the gist of Gabirol's teaching. The absence of a complete Hebrew translation of Gabirol's philosophical work meant of course that no one who did not know Arabic could have access to Gabirol's "Mekor Hayim," and this practically excluded the majority of learned Jews after the first half of the thirteenth century. But the selections of Falaquera did not seem to find many readers either, as may be inferred from the fact that so far only one single manuscript of this translation is known.

En revanche, as the French would say, the Christian Scholastics of the thirteenth century made Gabirol their own and studied him diligently. His fundamental thesis of a universal matter underlying all existence outside of God was made a bone of contention between the two dominant schools; the Dominicans, led by Thomas Aquinas, opposing this un-Aristotelian principle, the Franciscans with Duns Scotus at their head, adopting it as their own. "Ego autem redeo ad sententiam Avicembronis," is a formula in Duns Scotus's discussion of the principle of matter.[83]

The translation of Gabirol's philosophy into an accessible language, which was not considered desirable by Jews, was actually accomplished by Christians. About a century before Falaquera a complete translation into Latin was made in Toledo of Gabirol's "Fountain of Life," under the title "Fons VitÆ." This translation was made at the instance of Raymond, Archbishop of Toledo in the middle of the twelfth century, by Dominicus Gundissalinus, archdeacon of Segovia, with the assistance of a converted Jewish physician, Ibn Daud (Avendehut, Avendeath), whose name after conversion became Johannes Hispanus or Hispalensis. Unlike the Hebrew epitome of Falaquera this translation was not neglected, as is clear from the rÔle Gabirol's philosophy plays in the disputations of the schools, and from the fact that there are still extant four manuscripts of the complete translation, one of an epitome thereof, and there is evidence that a fifth manuscript existed in 1375 in the Papal library.[84] As Ibn Sina was corrupted by the Latin writers into Avicenna, and Ibn Roshd into Averroes, so Ibn Gabirol became in turn, Avencebrol, Avicembron, Avicebron; and the Scholastics who fought about his philosophy had no idea he was a Jew and celebrated as a writer of religious hymns used in the synagogue. He was regarded now as a Mohammedan, now as a Christian.

This peculiar circumstance will help us to get an inkling of the reason for the neglect of Gabirol's philosophy in the Jewish community. It is clear that a work which, like the "Fons VitÆ," made it possible for its author to be regarded as a Mohammedan or even a Christian, cannot have had the Jewish imprint very deeply stamped upon its face. Nay more, while the knowledge of its having been translated from the Arabic may have been sufficient in itself to stamp the author as a Mohammedan, there must have been additional indications for his Scholastic admirers to make them regard him as a Christian. An examination of the work lends some semblance of truth to these considerations.

Gabirol nowhere betrays his Jewishness in the "Fons VitÆ." He never quotes a Biblical verse or a Talmudic dictum. He does not make any overt attempt to reconcile his philosophical views with religious faith. The treatise is purely speculative as if religious dogma nowhere existed to block one's way or direct one's search. Abraham Ibn Daud, the author of the philosophical treatise "Emunah Ramah" (The Exalted Faith), and the predecessor of Maimonides, criticises Gabirol very severely, and that not merely because he disagrees with him in the conception of matter and finds Gabirol's reasoning devoid of cogency and logical force—many bad arguments, he says, seem in the mind of Gabirol to be equivalent to one good one—but principally because Gabirol failed to take a Jewish attitude in his philosophizing, and actually, as Ibn Daud tells us, maintains views dangerous to Judaism (below, p. 198).

This will easily account for the fact that Gabirol, celebrated as he was as a poet, was lost sight of generally as a philosopher. The matter is made clearer still if we add that his style in the "Mekor Hayim" is against him. It is devoid of all merit whether of literary beauty or of logical conciseness and brevity. It is diffuse to a degree and frequently very wearisome and tedious. One has to wade through pages upon pages of bare syllogisms, one more flimsy than another.

Finally, the point of view of Gabirol was that of a philosophy that was rapidly becoming obsolete, and Maimonides, the ground having been made ready by Ibn Daud, gave this philosophy its death-blow by substituting for it the philosophy of Aristotle.

We now understand why it is that, with few exceptions here and there, Gabirol's philosophical work was in the course of time forgotten among the Jews, though his name Avicebron as well as some of his chief doctrines were well known to the Scholastic writers. To be sure, even students of Scholastic literature had no direct access to Gabirol's treatise as it was never printed and no one knew whether there were still any manuscripts of it extant or not. The only sources of information concerning Avicebron's philosophy were Aquinas's refutations, and Duns Scotus's defence, and other second-hand references in the writings of the Scholastics. Who Avicebron was no one knew. It was not until 1819 that Amable Jourdain,[85] in tracing the history of the Latin translations of Aristotle, came to the conclusion that more must be known about the philosophy of Avicebron's "Fons VitÆ" if we intended to understand the Scholastics. In 1845 Solomon Munk discovered in the national library at Paris the epitome of Falaquera mentioned above, and comparing it with the views of Avicebron as found in the discussions of the Scholastics, made the important discovery that the mysterious Avicebron was neither a Mohammedan nor a Christian but a Jew, and none other than the famous poet Solomon ibn Gabirol. Then began a search for copies of a Latin translation, which was rewarded amply. Both Munk and Seyerlen discovered manuscript copies of the "Fons VitÆ," and now both the Hebrew epitome of Falaquera and the Latin translation of Gundissalinus are accessible in print.[86] So much for the interesting history of Gabirol. Now a word as to his views.

Shem Tob ibn Falaquera, in the brief introduction which he appends to his epitome of the "Mekor Hayim" says, "It seems to me that Solomon ibn Gabirol follows in his book the views of the ancient philosophers as we find them in a book composed by Empedocles concerning the 'Five Substances.'[87] This book is based upon the principle that all spiritual substances have a spiritual matter; that the form comes from above and the matter receives it from below, i. e., that the matter is a substratum and bears the form upon it." He then adds that Aristotle attributes a similar view to his predecessors, but that this view is inconsistent with Aristotle's own thinking. For in his opinion what is material is composite and possessed of potentiality. Hence only those things have matter which are subject to generation and decay, and in general change from one state to another.

Without going into detail as to the nature of this work of Empedocles named by Falaquera as the source of Gabirol's views—expositions of these so-called Empedoclean views and fragments from Empedocles's book have been found in Arabian and Hebrew writers[88]—it is sufficient for us to know that it has nothing to do with the real Empedocles, the ancient Greek philosopher; that it was another of the many spurious writings which circulated in the middle ages under famous names of antiquity; and that like the "Theology of Aristotle," and the "Liber de Causis," mentioned in the Introduction (p. xx), it was Neo-Platonic in character.

Thus Gabirol was a Neo-Platonist. This does not mean that he did not adopt many important Aristotelian conceptions. Neo-Platonism itself could not have arisen without Aristotle. The ideas of matter and form, and potentiality and actuality, and the categories, and so on, had become the fixed elements of philosophical thinking, and no new system could do without them. In this sense Plotinus himself, the founder of Neo-Platonism, is an Aristotelian. When we speak of Gabirol as a Neo-Platonist, we mean that the essence of his system is Neo-Platonic. He is not a dualist, but a monist. God and matter are not opposed as two ultimate principles, as they are in Aristotle. Matter in Gabirol is ultimately identified with God. In this he goes even beyond Plotinus. For whereas in Plotinus matter occupies the lowest scale in the gradation of being as it flows from the One or the Good (cf. Introduction, p. xxxviii), and becomes equivalent to the non-existent, and is the cause of evil, in Gabirol matter is the underlying substance for all being from the highest to the lowest, with the one exception of the Creator himself.[89] It emanates from the essence of the Creator, forming the basis of all subsequent emanations.[90] Hence the spiritual substances of the celestial world, or, to use a more technical and more precise term—since spirit is not located in heaven or anywhere spatially—the intelligible world, have matter underlying their form.[91] In fact, matter itself is intelligible or spiritual, not corporeal.[92] Corporeality and materiality are two different things. There are various gradations of matter, to be sure; for the prime matter as it emerges from the essence of the Creator pervades all existence from highest to lowest, and the further it extends from its origin the less spiritual and the more corporeal it becomes until in the sublunar world we have in the matters of its particular objects, corporeal matter, i. e., matter affected with quantity and magnitude and figure and color.[93] Like Plotinus, Gabirol conceives of the universe as a process of a gradually descending series of existences or worlds, as the Kabbalistic writers term them; these cosmic existences radiating or flowing out of the superabundant light and goodness of the Creator. The two extremes of this graded universe are God at the one end, and the corporeal world at the other. Intermediate between these are the spiritual substances, Intelligence, Soul and Nature.[94] Man as a microcosm, a universe in little, partakes of both the corporeal and intermediate worlds, and hence may serve as a model of the constitution of the macrocosm, or great universe. His body is typical of the corporeal world, which consists of the lowest matter, viz., that which has no other form except that of corporeality, or extension, and the forms of figure, color, and so on, borne on top of the extension.[95]

Body as such is at rest and is not capable of action. To act it needs an agent. Hence it needs an agency to compose its parts and hold them together. We call this agency Nature. Man's body also grows, is nourished and propagates its kind as do plants. This likewise must have its non-corporeal cause. This we call vegetative soul. Man has also sense perception and local motion like the animals. The principle or substance causing this is the animal soul. Man also thinks and reasons and reflects. This is brought about by the rational soul. Finally, man has a still higher function than discursive thought. The latter has to search and to pass from premise to conclusion, whereas the apprehension of the intelligence takes place "without seeking, without effort, and without any other cause except its own essence, because it is full of perfection." In other words, it is immediate intellectual intuition of which Gabirol speaks here. The Intelligence is capable of this because it has in itself, constituting its essence, all the forms of existence, and knowledge means possession of the forms of the things known.

As man is typical of the universe, it follows that there are cosmic existences corresponding to the principles or powers just enumerated in man, and the relation of the latter to the former is that of the particular to the general. Hence there is a cosmic Intelligence, a cosmic soul embracing the rational, the animal and the vegetative parts, and a cosmic nature. Of these the more perfect is the cause of the less perfect; hence the order in which we named them represents the order of causation or of emanation from the prime source.

The lowest of these emanations is the matter which sustains extension or magnitude, and with it the process ceases. This matter is no longer the source of an additional form of existence. The various qualities and attributes which inhere in this corporeal matter are caused by the spiritual substances above. For like the prototype of all generosity and goodness the First Essence or God, every one of the spiritual substances proceeding from him has the same tendency of imparting its form or forms to the substance next below it. But the forms thus bestowed are no longer the same as they are in the essence of the bestowing substance, as it depends upon the recipient what sort of form it will receive. An inferior receiving substance will receive a superior form in an inferior way. That is, the form which in the substance above the one in question is contained in a spiritual and unitary manner, will be transformed in the substance below it into something less spiritual, less unified, and more nearly corporeal, i. e., visible and tangible. Hence the visible and tangible, and in general the sensible qualities of particular things in the sublunar world, are in reality descended from a line of spiritual ancestors in the forms of the simple substances, Intelligence, Soul and Nature. But it is their distance from the prime source, which increases with every transmission of influence, together with the cruder nature of the receiving substance, that makes the resulting forms corporeal and sensible. The matter may be made clear if we use the analogy of light, which is invisible as long as it is in air because it penetrates it, but becomes visible when it comes in contact with a gross body which it cannot penetrate. It then remains on the surface condensed, and becomes visible to the senses.

We thus see that the higher substance acts upon the lower and contains all that is found in the latter, though in a more perfect and simple manner. The lower substances flow from the higher and yet the latter are not diminished in their essence and power.[96]

That ordinary material objects are composed of matter and form is admitted and we need not now prove it, as we have already discussed the subject in the Introduction, where we gave an outline of the Aristotelian philosophy. The principle peculiar to Gabirol is that not merely the material objects of the sublunar world, but that the intelligible or spiritual substances also are composed of matter and form.[97] Whenever two things have something in common and something in which they differ, that which they have in common is the matter, that in which they differ is the form. Two things absolutely simple must be prime to each other, i. e., they must have nothing in common, for if they have anything in common they have everything in common, and they are no longer two things but one. Hence a spiritual substance must be composite, for it must have something by which it differs from a corporeal substance, and something, viz., substantiality, which it has in common with it. In the same way the intelligible substances, Intelligence and Soul, have their substantiality in common, and they differ in form. Hence they are composed of matter and form, and the matter must be the same in all the intelligible substances; for their differences are due to their forms, hence if their matters also differed, they would have to differ in form, but matter as such has no form. Hence matter in itself is everywhere the same.

As the Intelligence is the highest existence next to God, and is composed of matter and form, these are respectively the universal matter and universal form, embracing all subsequent matters and forms.[98] Hence the Intelligence in knowing itself knows everything, as everything is contained in it. And as it is prior to everything and the cause of everything it has an immediate knowledge of all things without effort or searching.

But what is the origin of universal matter and universal form which, in constituting Intelligence, are the fundamental principles of all existence?[99] The answer is they come from the First Essence, God. Unity comes before duality or plurality, and there is no true unity except in God. Whatever issues from him is ipso facto, as a product which is not God, affected with duality. Matter and Form is this duality. Their union is necessary and real, and it is only in thought that we can keep them apart. In reality they form a unit, their union varying in perfection according as they are nearer or further away from their origin. Hence the union is closest in Intelligence, the first divine emanation, and least close in corporeal objects of the sublunar world, where plurality is the order of the day.

This process by which universal matter and form issue from God may be called creation.[100] But we must conceive of it on the analogy of water flowing from a fountain in continued and uninterrupted succession. The only difference is that the emanation from God takes place without motion and without time.

The union of universal form and universal matter must be thought of as a stamping of the form upon the matter. Matter has in itself no actual or definable existence. It serves merely as a tabula rasa, as a potential background, as an empty receptacle, as a reflecting mirror for form to be written, filled out, impressed or reflected therein or upon. Hence we may view God as the spectator, universal matter as the mirror, and universal form as the reflection of the spectator in the glass. God himself does not enter the glass, only his reflection is outlined therein. And as matter and form are really the whole world, it would follow that the universe is a reflection of God, though God remains in himself and does not enter the world with his essence.

We may also picture to ourselves this impression of form upon matter on the analogy of speech. The speaker's words impress ideas upon the soul of the listener. So God speaks and his Word or Will impresses form upon matter. The world is created by the Word or the Will[101] of God.

In all these similes matter appears as something external to God, upon which he impresses form. But this is not strictly true, since matter has no real existence without form, and has never so existed. The existence of matter and form is simultaneous, and both come from God, matter from his essence, form from his attribute, or his Wisdom, or his Word, or his Will. And yet in God, who is a perfect unity, essence and attribute are one. It is the Will of God, not God himself, that must be regarded as the spectator, whose outline is reflected in the mirror of matter in the above simile. It is the Will of God that writes form upon the chart of matter, and thereby produces a world. It is in virtue of the Will that God is said to be in everything.

But what is this will of God as distinguished from God himself, since in God there can be no duality of any kind? Gabirol's answer is not clear or satisfactory. The will, he says, is identical with God if we consider it apart from its activity; considered as active it is different from the divine essence. Exactly to describe it is impossible, but the following is an approximation. It is a divine power producing matter and form, binding them together, pervading them throughout their extent above and below, as the soul pervades the body, and moving and ordering everything.

God himself, or the First Essence, can be known only through the Will as pervading everything, i. e., through his effects in the world. And in this way too only his existence can be known but not his essence as he is in himself, because God is above everything and infinite. The soul may know Intelligence because though the latter is above the soul there is some similarity between them. But the First Essence has no similarity to Intelligence, therefore no intelligence can know it.

There is a kind of mystic knowledge by which man may come in touch with the spiritual substances and rise even to universal matter, which is above Intelligence. "If you wish to form a picture of these substances," the master says to the disciple in the "Fons VitÆ," "you must raise your intellect to the last intelligible, you must purify it from all sordid sensibility, free it from the captivity of nature and approach with the force of your intelligence to the last limit of intelligible substance that it is possible for you to comprehend, until you are entirely divorced from sensible substance and lose all knowledge thereof. Then you will embrace, so to speak, the whole corporeal world in your being, and will place it in one corner of your soul. When you have done this you will understand the insignificance of the sensible in comparison with the greatness of the intelligible. Then the spiritual substances will be before your eyes, comprehending you and superior to you, and you will see your own being as though you were those substances. Sometimes it will seem to you that you are a part of them by reason of your connection with corporeal substance; and sometimes you will think you are all of them, and that there is no difference between you and them, on account of the union of your being with their being, and the attachment of your form to their forms." The pupil assures the teacher that he has followed this advice and seen the whole corporeal world floating in the spiritual substances as a small boat in the sea, or a bird in the air. "When you have raised yourself to the first universal matter," replies the teacher, "and illumined its shadow, you will see there the wonder of wonders. Pursue this therefore diligently and with love, because this is the purpose of the existence of the human soul, and in this is great delight and extreme happiness."[102]

But Gabirol does not promise a knowledge of the Most High even through this royal road of ecstasy, unless we suppose that in the promise of seeing in universal matter the wonder of all wonders there may be a covert allusion to a glimpse of the deepest secret of all, the essence of God.

All knowledge is according to Gabirol embraced in the following three topics, (1) Matter and Form, (2) the Active Word or Will, (3) the First Essence or God. By far the larger part of the "Fons VitÆ" is devoted to the first subject. Only brief hints are given of the second and third, and Gabirol refers us to a special work of his on the Will, which he says he wrote. There is no trace of any such treatise. At any rate it is clear from the little that is contained on the Divine Will in the "Fons VitÆ" that the Will forms an important element in Gabirol's philosophy. This is the more remarkable because it is not an essential element in Neo-Platonism, upon which Gabirol's system is based. Nay, the doctrine of a divine will scarcely has any place in the form of emanation taught by Plotinus. The cosmic process is conceived there as necessary and impersonal. And but for the introduction of the Will in the "Fons VitÆ" we should be forced to understand Gabirol in the same way. The difficulty in Neo-Platonism is that God is at the same time transcendent and, through his powers or emanations, immanent in the world. God is above all being and at the same time is the cause of and pervades all existence. Gabirol must have felt not merely this purely philosophical difficulty, but as a Jew, Pantheism as well as impersonalism must have been objectionable to him. Hence he mitigates both by introducing the divine will as mediating between God and the world. This brings God in closer and more personal touch with his creation. The cosmic process is not a necessary and impersonal flow or radiation but a voluntary activity having a purpose. The solution is unsatisfactory, as all such solutions are bound to be, because it introduces as many difficulties as it solves. The nature of this divine Will is ambiguous. If it is God's will, and God is the One in whom there can be no distinctions, we have only a new word, and nothing is solved. If on human analogy we are inclined to take the will seriously, we are endangering God's unity. This dilemma Gabirol does not succeed in removing. His system still has a strong flavor of Pantheism, and moreover his identification of the Will of God with the Wisdom and the Word of God, and his hypostatization of the latter as in a sense a being distinct from God, reminds us strongly of Philo's Logos, which became the Logos of Christianity, the second person in the Trinity. This is the reason why William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris in the thirteenth century, regarded Avicebron as a Christian. And these same reasons were no doubt adequate to estrange Jewish readers, as Abraham ibn Daud expressly tells us about himself, though his terms are general (see above, p. 62).

Gabirol is also the author of an ethical work which he composed in 1045. Though of little importance philosophically, or perhaps because of this, the "Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh" (Improvement of the Qualities of the Soul) fared much better than its more important companion, the "Mekor Hayim." Not only did it have the privilege of a Hebrew translation at the hands of the father of translators, Judah ibn Tibbon, but the original Arabic itself is still extant and was recently published with an English translation by Stephen S. Wise (1901).[103] The Hebrew translation also had the good fortune of being reprinted several times. This is due to the fact that the "Tikkun Middot ha-Nefesh" is a popular work, dealing with morals, and does not go into metaphysical questions. It is full of Biblical citations, which stamps it as Jewish; and there are also in it quotations from Arabic writers serving to illustrate the argument and lending variety and interest to the style.

The larger question of the aim of human life is touched on in the "Fons VitÆ." We are told there that the ultimate aim of man's existence is that the soul should unite with the upper world to which it belongs.[104] The particular human soul is according to Gabirol a part, though not in a physical sense, of the cosmic soul, which is one of the universal spiritual substances (see above, p. 66). Hence its own real existence is spiritual and eternal, and independent of the body. Its entrance into the body obscures its spiritual vision, though it does not lose all touch with the higher world from which it came. The senses and the data of sense perception are not an end in themselves; they are only a means for the soul through them to recall the higher knowledge which was its own in its spiritual existence, and thereby win its return to the intelligible world. Man's duty therefore in this world is to strive to attain this higher life for his soul. This is brought about by means of knowledge and practice. This knowledge has to do with knowing all things as they really are, and particularly the intelligible substances and the Prime Essence. Practice signifies to keep away as far as possible from things of sense, which are foreign to the soul and might injure it. What more particularly the things are which are beneficial to the soul, and what are injurious, we learn from Gabirol's ethical treatise. Man's soul has a higher and a lower nature. The higher power is the reason or rational soul, the lower is the animal or vegetative soul; and man's business is to see that the reason rules over the lower nature.

Gabirol does not give us any test by which we can tell whether a given act or feeling belongs to the lower or higher nature except to say that the appetites are diseases of the body which must be cured; that they do not belong to the rational soul, and to satisfy them is not the attainment of a good. Gabirol's method of treating virtue and vice, or rather the virtues and the vices, is to relate them to the five senses and the four humors in man, which in turn correspond to the four elements, fire, air, water, earth, and the four primitive qualities, hot, cold, moist, dry. This division of the elements, the humors, the qualities and the senses was a commonplace of the physiological and medical science of the time. We have met it in Isaac Israeli (see above, p. 3), and it goes back to Aristotle and Galen and Hippocrates. The originality, though a queer one to be sure, of Gabirol is to bring the ethical qualities of man into relation with all these. The approximations are forced in every instance and often ludicrous. Instead of attempting to give a psychological analysis of the qualities in question, he lays stress on their physical basis in one of the five senses, as we shall see presently.

The great world, we are told, was created out of the four elements, and similarly man, the microcosm, also consists of four natures corresponding to the elements. Thus the four humors, upon the harmonious combination of which the health of man's body depends, viz., blood, phlegm, black gall, and red gall, correspond respectively to air, water, earth, fire. Man is endowed besides with five senses. If he is wise he will use his senses properly and in the right measure, like a skilful physician who calculates carefully what proportion of each drug should be prescribed.

The sense of sight is the noblest of the senses, and is related to the body as the sun to the world. The philosophers have a wonderful saying concerning the eye that there are spiritual tints in the soul which are visible in the movements of the eyelids—pride and haughtiness, humility and meekness. Accordingly the ethical qualities due to the sense of sight are pride, meekness, modesty and impudence, besides the subordinate qualities derived from these.

Pride is common in a person of a warm disposition in whom the red gall predominates. Many wise men exhibit this quality out of place, fools adopt it until they are mastered by it, and it is prevalent in youth. It may be useful when it keeps a man away from vice and unworthy things, inspiring him to rise to nobility of character and the service of God. But generally it is useless and leads to many evils, especially if it causes one to be self-opinionated, refusing to seek the advice of anyone. When a man sees this quality gaining mastery over him, he should consider the origin and end of existing things. When he sees that all things are destined to pass away, and himself likewise, his pride will change to humility.

Meekness is closer to virtue than the quality mentioned before, because he who possesses it withholds his desire from seeking gratification. It is a quality manifested by the prophets and leads to honor. "The fruits of lowliness," a philosopher has said, "are love and tranquillity." Contentment is of a kind with meekness. The greatest riches are contentment and patience. He who esteems his rank but lightly enhances man's estimation of his dignity. A wise man has said, "Be humble without cringing, and manly without being arrogant. Arrogance is a wilderness and haughtiness a taking refuge therein, and altogether a going astray."

Modesty is connected with humility but is superior to it, for it is a sister of reason, and reason, as everybody knows, is the most important quality, which separates man from beast and brings him near to the angels. You never see a modest person without sense, or a person of good sense who is not modest. A man must be modest not only before others but also to himself. Modesty and faithfulness, it is said, are closely related, and the one cannot be had truly without the other.

The impudent man is disliked by God and by man, even if he be wise and learned. If one has this quality it is the duty of his friend and associate to break him of it by reproving him. It is of value only when used in defence of the Torah and in behalf of God and the truth.

Space will not permit us to treat in detail of the other senses and the virtues and vices depending upon them, but we shall indicate briefly Gabirol's method of relating the ethical qualities to the physical senses.

Thus the sense of hearing, which is next in importance to sight has as its qualities hate, love, mercy and cruelty. It takes some fine insight, he says, to see the connection of these qualities with the sense of hearing, but the intelligent and discerning reader will find this hint sufficient. I hope he will not blame me, Gabirol continues, if I do not bring together all the reasons and the scriptural passages to prove this, for human flesh is weak, especially in my case on account of my vexatious experiences and disappointments. We find in the Bible love associated with hearing: "Hear, O Israel ... and thou shalt love the Lord thy God" (Deut. 6, 4). Hate follows hearing in the phrase: "When Esau heard the words of his father ... and Esau hated Jacob" (Gen. 27, 34-41). Mercy is related to hearing in Exod. (22, 26), "And I will hear for I am merciful." Finally cruelty is to refuse to listen, as we find in the case of Pharaoh (Ex. 9, 12), "And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them."

In a similar manner Gabirol proves that the sense of smell has four qualities, anger, favor, envy, wide-awakeness; the sense of taste, the four qualities, joy, sorrow, regret, calmness; while liberality, niggardliness, courage and cowardice are related to the sense of touch.

The relation of the ethical qualities to the senses, humors, elements and primitive physical qualities is exhibited in the following table, as it appears in the Arabic text of the "Aslah al-Ahlak," the original title of Gabirol's ethical work.

Among Gabirol's religious poems there is one which interests us particularly because it bears traces of the philosophy of the "Fons VitÆ." It is the most important of his hymns and is found in the prayer-book of the Sephardic ritual for the Day of Atonement. "The Royal Crown," as the poem is entitled, is an appeal to God for mercy and forgiveness, and is based upon the contrast between the greatness of God and the insignificance of man. The first part is therefore devoted to a poetical description of God's attributes and the wonders of the cosmic system, as conceived in the astronomical science of the day. A few quotations will give us an idea of the style and character of the hymn and its relation to the "Fons VitÆ."

"Thine are the mysteries, which neither fancy nor imagination can comprehend; and the life, over which dissolution hath no power. Thine is the Throne exalted above all height; and the habitation concealed in the eminence of its recess. Thine is the existence, from the shadow of whose light sprung every existing thing; of which we said, under its protecting shadow shall we live....

"Thou art One, the first of every number, and the foundation of all structure. Thou art One, and in the mystery of the Unity all the wise in heart are astonished; for they cannot define it. Thou art One, and thy Unity can neither be lessened nor augmented; for nothing is there wanting or superfluous. Thou art One, but not such a one as is estimated or numbered; for neither plurality, nor change, form, nor physical attribute, nor name expressive of thy quality, can reach thee...."

In the same way he treats God's other attributes, existent, living, great, mighty. Then he continues:

"Thou art light, and the eyes of every pure soul shall see thee; for the clouds of iniquity alone hide thee from her sight.... Thou art most high, and the eye of the intellect desireth and longeth for thee; but it can only see a part, it cannot see the whole of thy greatness....

"Thou art God, who by thy Divinity supportest all things formed; and upholdest all creatures by thy Unity. Thou art God, and there is no distinction between thy godhead, unity, eternity or existence; for all is one mystery; and although each of these attributes is variously named, yet the whole point to one end.

"Thou art wise, and wisdom, which is the fountain of life, floweth from thee; and compared with thy wisdom, the knowledge of all mankind is folly. Thou art wise; and didst exist prior to all the most ancient things; and wisdom was reared by thee. Thou art wise; and hast not learned aught from another, nor acquired thy wisdom from anyone else. Thou art wise; and from thy wisdom thou didst cause to emanate a ready will, an agent and artist as it were, to draw existence out of non-existence, as light proceeds from the eye. Thou drawest from the source of light without a vessel, and producest everything without a tool."

Then follows a description of the constitution of the sublunar world, the terrestrial sphere consisting of part earth, part water, and being surrounded by the successive spheres of air and fire. Then follow in order the spheres of the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the spheres of the fixed stars, and the outermost sphere embracing all and giving to the entire heaven the diurnal motion from east to west. He then continues:

"Who can understand thy tremendous mysteries, when thou didst exalt above the ninth orb, the sphere of the Intelligence; that is the inner temple; for the tenth shall be holy to the Lord. This is the sphere which is exalted above all the highest, and which no imagination can reach; and there is the hiding-place, wherein is the canopy for thy glory....

"O Lord! who can come near thy understanding, when thou didst place on high above the sphere of the Intelligence the Throne of thy glory, where is the glorious dwelling of the hiding-place; there also is the mystery and the foundation (matter); so far the intellect may reach and no further; for above this art thou greatly exalted upon thy mighty throne, where no man may come up to thee....

"Who can comprehend thy power, when thou didst create from the splendor of thy glory a pure lustre? From the rock of rocks was it hewn, and dug from the hollow of the cave. Thou also didst bestow on it the spirit of wisdom, and didst call it soul. Thou didst form it hewn from the flames of intellectual fire, so that its spirit burneth as fire within it. Thou didst send it forth to the body to serve and guard it; it is as fire in the midst of it, and yet doth not consume it; for from the fire of the soul the body was created, and called into existence from nothing, because the Lord descended thereto in fire."

Here we see the Intelligence spoken of as standing above the heavenly spheres. This clearly represents the cosmic Intelligence as a creation of God, "which is exalted above all the highest," hence the first product of God's light. And yet the Throne of Glory is said to be placed even above the sphere of the Intelligence. He speaks of it as the mystery and the foundation (Yesod), beyond which the intellect cannot reach. This is apparently a contradiction, but becomes clear when we learn what is meant by the Throne of Glory, and by "foundation." In the "Fons VitÆ" Gabirol tells us that matter receives form from the First Essence through the medium of the Will, which latter therefore, as it bestows form upon matter, sits in it and rests upon it. And hence, he says, matter is as it were the stool (cathedra) of the One. The word "yesod" (foundation) which Gabirol applies in the "Keter Malkut" (Royal Crown) to the Throne of Glory is the same that Falaquera uses for matter throughout in his epitome of the "Mekor Hayim." Hence it is clear that the Throne of Glory which is above the Intelligence is nothing else than Gabirol's matter. And we know from the "Fons VitÆ" that matter is really prior to Intelligence as it exists in the knowledge of God, but that in reality it never was, as a creation, without form; and that with form it constitutes the Intelligence. Finally there is also a reference in the poem to the will as emanating from God's wisdom, and like an "agent and artist drawing existence out of non-existence as light proceeds from the eye." The process of creation is thus compared with the radiation of light in the sentence just quoted, and likewise in the following: "Thou drawest from the source of light without a vessel, and producest everything without a tool."

We do not know whether Gabirol wrote any commentaries on the Bible—none are extant, nor are there any references to such works—but from his exegetical attempts in his ethical work discussed above (p. 71 ff.) and from citations by Abraham ibn Ezra of Gabirol's explanations of certain passages in Scripture, we gather that like Philo of Alexandria before him and Maimonides and a host of philosophical commentators after him, he used the allegorical method to reconcile his philosophical views with the Bible, and read the former into the latter.[105]

Thus we are told that Eden represents the presence of God, the garden planted in Eden stands for the angelic beings or, according to another interpretation, for the world of sense. By the river which flows out of Eden is meant prime matter which issues from the essence of God according to the "Fons VitÆ." The four divisions of the river are the four elements; Adam is the rational soul, Eve, as the Hebrew name indicates, the animal soul, and the serpent is the vegetative or appetitive soul. The serpent entices Adam to eat of the forbidden tree. This means that when the lower soul succeeds in controlling the reason, the result is evil and sin, and man is driven out of the Garden, i. e., is excluded from his angelic purity and becomes a corporeal being.

It is clear from all this that Gabirol's omission of all reference to Jewish dogma in the "Fons VitÆ" was purely methodological. Philosophy, and religion or theology should be kept apart in a purely philosophical work. Apologetics or harmonization has its rights, but it is a different department of study, and should be treated by itself, or in connection with exegesis of the Bible.

While it is true that Gabirol's influence on subsequent Jewish philosophy is slight—at most we find it in Moses and Abraham ibn Ezra, Abraham ibn Daud and Joseph ibn Zaddik—traces of his ideas are met with in the mysticism of the Kabbala. Gabirol's "Fons VitÆ" is a peculiar combination of logical formalism with mystic obscurity, or profundity, according to one's point of view. The latter did not appeal to pure rationalists like Ibn Daud or Maimonides, and the former seemed unconvincing, as it was employed in a lost cause. For Neo-Platonism was giving way to Aristotelianism, which was adopted by Maimonides and made the authoritative and standard philosophy. It was different with the Kabbala. Those who were responsible for its spread in the thirteenth century must have been attracted by the seemingly esoteric character of a philosophy which sees the invisible in the visible, the spiritual in the corporeal, and the reflection of the unknowable God in everything. There are certain details also which are common to both, such as the analogies of irradiation of light or flowing of water used to represent the process of creation, the position of the Will, the existence of matter in spiritual beings, and so on, though some of these ideas are common to all Neo-Platonic systems, and the Kabbala may have had access to the same sources as Gabirol.