Tahafut_al-Tahafut-transl-Engl-van-den-Bergh

acknowledged in the case of this practice only because it is a mere actand
therefore such a demonstration can proceed only from one who has
learned the art. The kinds of statement, however, are many, some
demonstrative, others not, and since non-demonstrative statements can
be adduced without knowledge of the art, it was thought that this might be
also the case with demonstrative statements; but this is a great error. And
therefore in the spheres of the demonstrative arts, no other statement is
possible but a technical statement which only the student of this art can
bring, just as is the case with the art of geometry. Nothing therefore of
what we have said in this book is a technical demonstrative proof; they are
all non-technical statements, some of them having greater persuasion
than others, and it is in this spirit that what we have written here must be
understood. So this book of Ghazali might be best given the name of the
‘Incoherence of both parties together’.
All this in my opinion is in excess of the Holy Law, and an inquiry into
something not ordered by a religious law because human power does not
suffice for it. For not all knowledge about which the Holy Law is silent
needs to be explored and explained to the masses as being, according to
speculative thought, part of the dogmas of religion; for from this the
greatest confusion arises. One must not speak about those things
concerning which the Holy Law is silent; the masses must learn that
human understanding is not sufficient to treat these problems, and must
not go beyond what the teaching of the Holy Law explains in its texts,
since this is teaching in which all can participate and which suffices for the
attainment of their happiness. And just as the physician investigates the
measure of health which agrees most with the healthy for the preservation
of their health, and with the sick for the curing of their illness, so the Lord
of the Holy Law instructs the masses only in so far as is needed for their
acquisition of happiness. And the same thing holds in respect of the facts
of human behaviour, only the investigation of these facts in so far as the
Holy Law is silent about them is more legitimate, especially when they are
of the same genus as those about which the Law pronounces judgement.
For this reason the lawyers disagree about this kind of facts; some of
them, the Zahirites, deny the use of analogy, whereas others, the
analogists, admit it, , and this is absolutely the same thing as happens in
the sphere of knowledge, only perhaps the Zahirites are happier in the
purely intellectual sphere than in the practical.
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