Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/269

 intellect, the  ' aql hayyulani, which is the seat of latent and potential faculties upon which the Agent operates. In all the earlier systems this passive intellect was regarded as purely individual and as operated on by the emanation of the universal Agent, but Ibn Rushd regarded the passive intellect also as but a portion of a universal soul and as individual only in so far as temporarily occupying an individual body. Even the passive powers are part of a universal force animating the whole of nature. This is the doctrine of pampsychism, which exercised so strong an attraction for many of the mediæval scholastics, and has its adherents at the present day; thus James (Principles of Psychology, p. 346) says: "I confess that the moment I become metaphysical and try to define the more, I find the notion of some sort of an anima mundi thinking in all of us to be a more promising hypothesis, in spite of all its difficulties, than that of a lot of absolutely individual souls." Ibn Rushd regards Alexander of Aphrodisias as mistaken in supposing that the passive intellect is a mere disposition; it is in us, but belongs to something outside; it is not engendered, it is incorruptible, and so in a sense resembles the Agent Intellect. This doctrine is the very opposite to what is commonly described as materialism, which represents the mind as merely a form of energy produced by the activity of the neural functions. The activity of brain and nerves, according to Ibn Rushd, are due to the presence of an external force; not only, as Aristotle teaches,