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

terms of the conclusion are present in his mind the middle
term which connects the two terms of the conclusion occurs
to him. And in this matter people are different; there are
those who understand by themselves, those who understand
when the slightest hint is given to them, and those who,
being instructed, understand only after much trouble; and
while on the one hand it may be assumed that incapacity to
understand can reach such a degree that a man does not
understand anything at all and has, although instructed, no
disposition whatever to grasp the intelligibles, it may on the
other hand be assumed that his capacity and proficiency
may be so great as to arrive at a comprehension of all the
intelligibles or the majority of them in the shortest and
quickest time. And this difference exists quantitatively over
all or certain problems, and qualitatively so that there is an
excellence in quickness and easiness, and the
understanding of a holy and pure soul may reach through its
acuteness all intelligibles in the shortest time possible; and
this is the soul of a prophet, who possesses a miraculous
speculative faculty and so far as the intelligibles are
concerned is not in need of a teacher; but it is as if he
learned by himself, and he it is who is described by the
words ‘the oil ofwhich would well-nigh give light though no
fire were in contact with it, light upon light’. ‘
Thirdly: in respect to a practical psychological faculty
which can reach such a pitch as to influence and subject the
things of nature: for instance, when our soul imagines
something the limbs and the potencies in these limbs obey it
and move in the required direction which we imagine, so that
when a man imagines something sweet of taste the corners
of his mouth begin to water, and the potency which brings
forth the saliva from the places where it is springs- into
action, and when coitus is imagined the copulative potency
springs into action, and the penis extends;z indeed, when a
man walks on a plank between two walls over an empty
space, his imagination is stirred by the possibility of falling
and his body is impressed by this imagination and in fact he
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