Page:Eight chapters of Maimonides on ethics.djvu/63

Rh activities: the pursuit of an object or flight from it, inclination and avoidance, anger and affection, fear and courage, cruelty and compassion, love and hate, and many other similar psychic qualities. All parts of the body are subservient to these activities, as the ability of the hand to grasp, that of the foot to walk, that of the eye to see, and that of the heart to make one bold or timid. Similarily, the other members of the body, whether external or internal, are instruments of the appetitive faculty.

Reason, that faculty peculiar to man, enables him to understand, reflect, acquire knowledge of the sciences, and to discriminate between proper and improper actions. Its functions are partly practical and partly speculative (theoretical), the practical being, in turn, either mechanical or intellectual. By means of the speculative power, man knows things as they really are, and which, by their nature, are not subject to change. These are called the sciences in general. The mechanical power is that by