Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

258 • The Making of Islamic Scienceeighth treats of the soul of animals and the pe rceptive faculties, andsays that the soul of man does not die through the death of his bodybut that it is a spiritual substance for which annihilation is impossible.The subdivisions are seven: The first is medicine, whose end isthe knowledge of the principles of the human body and its conditionsof health and illness, their causes and symptoms, so that illness maybe expelled and health preserved. The second, judicial astrology,which conjectures from the aspects and configuration of the starsthe conditions which will be found in the world and in the Stateand the consequences of dates of births and of years. The third isphysiognomy, which infers character from the external appearance.The fourth is dream-interpretation, which infers what the soulhas witnessed of the world of the occult from dream images, forthe imaginative faculty imagines this symbolically. The fifth is thetelesmatical art, that is the combination of celestial virtues with someearthly so as to constitute a power which can perform marvelous actsin the earthly world. The sixth is the art of incantation, which is themixing of the virtues of earthly substances to produce marvelousthings from them. The seventh is alchemy, whose aim is to changethe properties of minerals so that finally gold and silver are producedby a kind of magic. And there is no need to be opposed to any ofthese sciences by reason of the Divine Law; we dissent from thephilosophers in all these sciences in regard to four points only.I say:As to his enumeration of the eight kinds of physical science, thisis exact according to the doctrine of Aristotle. But his enumerationof the subdivisions is not correct. Medicine is not one of the naturalsciences, but is a practical science which takes its principles fromphysical science; for physical science is theoretical and medicineis practical, and when we study a problem common to theoreticalscience and practical we can regard it from two points of view; forinstance, in our study of health and illness the student of physicsobserves health and nature as kinds of natural existents, whereasthe physician studies them with the intention of preserving the one,health, and keeping down the other, illness. Neither does judicialastrology belong to physical science; it is only a prognostication offuture events, and is of the same type as augury and vaticination.