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

either alive or dead, and that which is alive is more noble than that which
is dead, and that the principle is nobler than that which is alive and that it
is therefore necessarily alive, if by ‘dead’ is understood the inanimate,
these propositions are common and true.
His assertion, however, that life can proceed from the lifeless and
knowledge from what does not possess knowledge, and that the dignity of
the First consists only in its being the principle of the universe, is false. For
if life could proceed from the lifeless, then the existent might proceed from
the non-existent, and then anything whatever might proceed from anything
whatever, and there would be no congruity between causes and effects,
either in the genus predicated analogically or in the species. 4
As to his assertion that, when the philosophers say that what is nobler
than life must be alive, it is like saying that that which is nobler than what
has hearing and seeing must have hearing and seeing: the philosophers
do not say so, for they deny that the First Principle can hear and see. And
Ghazali’s argument that, since, according to the philosophers, that which
is superior to what hears and sees . need not hear and see, then also
what is superior to the living and the knowing need not itself be alive and
possessed of knowledge and that, just as according to the philosophers
that which possesses sight can proceed from what has no sight, so it is
possible that knowledge should proceed from what has no knowledge: this
is a very sophistical and false argument.
For according to the philosophers that which has no hearing or seeing is
not absolutely superior to that which has hearing and seeing, but only
because it has a perception superior to seeing and hearing, namely
knowledge. ‘ But, since there is nothing superior to knowledge, it is not
possible that that which does not possess knowledge should be superior
to that which does, be it a principle or not. For since some of the principles
possess knowledge, others not, it is not permissible that those which do
not know should be superior to those that do, just as little as this is
possible in regard to effects which do and do not possess knowledge. And
the nobility of being a principle cannot surpass the nobility of knowledge,
unless the nobility of a principle that does not possess knowledge could
surpass the nobility of a principle that does. And the excellence of being a
principle cannot surpass the excellence of knowledge. And therefore it is
necessary that the principle which has the utmost nobility should possess
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