Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/152

 and it seems certain that al-Kindi's development was very largely influenced by the Theology of Aristotle, a work which he evidently esteemed very greatly. The relation between Alexander Aphr. and Plotinus, whose teaching appeared in the Theology, may be described as being that Alexander's teaching contained all the germs of neo-Platonism, whilst Plotinus shows the neo-Platonic system fully worked out. As first presented this system must have seemed fully consistent with the teaching of the Qur'an, indeed it would appear as complementary to it. In man was an animal soul which he shared with the lower creation, but added to it was a rational soul or spirit which proceeded directly from God and was immortal because it was not dependent on the body. The possible conclusions which proved to be inconsistent with the teachings of revelation were not as yet fully worked out.

We need not linger over al-Kindi's logical teaching which carried on and corrected Arabic study of the Aristotelian logic. This was not a mere side issue, it is true, although logic did not play so important a part in Arabic education as it did in Syriac. In Syriac it was the basis of all that we should regard as the humanities, but in Arabic this position was taken by the study of grammar, which was developed on rather fresh and independent lines, though slightly modified by the study of logic in later times. Still, so long as the Muslim world had any claim to be regarded as fostering philosophical studies, and to