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

the body, and if the body were the condition for the existence of the soul,
the soul would not have created it or formed it. z This creative soul is most
apparent in the animals which do not procreate, but it is also evident in the
animals which do. And just as we know that the soul is something added
to the natural warmth, since it is not of the nature of warmth qua warmth to
produce well-ordered intelligible acts, so we know that the warmth which is
in the seeds does not suffice to create and to form. And the philosophers
do not disagree about the fact that there are in the elements souls creating
each species of animals, plants, and minerals that exists, and that each of
them needs a directing principle and preserving powers for it to come into
existence and remain. And these souls are either like intermediaries
between the souls of the heavenly bodies and the souls in the sensible
bodies of the sublunary world, and then no doubt they have absolute
dominion over these latter souls and these bodies, and from here arises
the belief in the Jinn, ‘ or these souls themselves are attached to the
bodies which they create according to a resemblance which exists
between them, and when the bodies decay they return to their spiritual
matter and to the subtle imperceptible bodies.
And there are none of the old philosophers who do not acknowledge
these souls, and they only disagree as to whether they are identical with
the souls in our bodies or of another kind. And as to those who accept a
bestower of forms, they regard these powers as a separate intellect; but
this theory is not found in any of the old philosophers, but only in some
philosophers of Islam, because it belongs to their principles that the
separate principles do not change their matters by transformation in
respect of substance and primarily, for the cause of change is the opposite
of the thing changed. s This question is one of the most difficult in
philosophy, and the best explanation that can be given of this problem is
that the material intellect thinks an infinite number of things in one single
intelligible, and that it judges these things in a universal judgement, and
that that which forms its essence is absolutely immaterial . b Therefore
Aristotle praises Anaxagoras’ for having made intellect, namely an
immaterial form, the prime mover, and for this reason it does not suffer
any action from anything, for the cause of passivity is matter and in this
respect the passive potencies are in the same position as the active, for it
is the passive potencies possessing matters which accept definite things.
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