Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/171

Rh able world, reproducing the forms of the universe and their intelligible order. In man there is only the sus ceptibility to reason, which is sustained and helped by the light of the active intellect. Man may prepare him self for this influx by removing the obstacles which prevent the union of the intellect with the human vessel destined for its reception. The stages of this process to the acquisition of mind are generally enumerated by Avicenna as four ; in this part he follows not Aristotle, but the Greek commentator. The first stage is that of the hylic or material intellect, a state of mere potentiality, like that of a child for writing, before he has ever put pen to paper. The second stage is called in hdbitu ; it is com pared to the case of a child that has learned the elements of writing, when the bare possibility is on the way to be developed, and is seen to be real. In this period of half- trained reason, it appears as happy conjecture, not yet transformed into art or science proper. When the power of writing has bssn actualised, we have a parallel to the intellectus in actit the way of science and demonstra tion is entered. And when writing has been made a permanent accomplishment, or lasting property of the subject, to be taken up at will, it corresponds to the intel lectus adeptus the complete mastery of science. The whole process may be compared to the gradual illumination of a body naturally capable of receiving light. There are, however, grades of susceptibility to the active intellect, i.e., in theological language, to communication with God and his angels. Sometimes the receptivity is so vigorous in its affinity, that without teaching it rises at one step to the vision of truth, by a certain &quot; holy force &quot; above ordinary measure. (In this way philosophy tried to account for the phenomenon of prophecy, one of the ruling ideas of Islam.) But the active intellect is not merely influential on human souls, It is the universal giver of forms in the world. In several points Avicenna endeavoured to give a ratio nale of theological dogmas, particularly of prophetic rule, of miracles, divine providence, and immortality. The permanence of individual souls he supports by arguments borrowed from those of Plato. The existence of a prophet is shown to be a corollary from a belief in God as a moral governor, and the phenomena of miracles are required to evidence the genuineness of the prophetic mission. For man, in order to his well-being and the permanence of his kind, requires in the first place a clear vision of right and truth, and must, secondly, depend upon some power capable of carrying out these discoveries of moral law. If pro vidence has so arranged that the eyelids and the hair of the eyebrows shall grow to protect the eye, much more is it needful for a prophet to arise who shall preach the truth of God s unity, prescribe laws for men, and exhort them to well-doing by the promise of recompense to come. The weal of humanity demands the revelation from God, and, to certify his office, the prophet must work miracles. Just as in ordinary states the soul influences the bodily organs, so in exalted conditions it may attain the level of those high immaterial spirits, whose energy is strong enough to permeate the whole passive world. This mystical union with the hidden universe is a mystery which the ordinary inind cannot understand. Many things then become visible as by a lightning flash in the darkness, and are apprehended by the vigorous grasp of pure intuition. But more generally the imagination throws itself on these intuitions, and presents them to the lower soul under the semblance of forms and sounds the angelic beauty which the seer beholds, and the harmonious speech which a heavenly voice seems to utter in his ear. Thus Avicenna, like his predecessors, tried to harmonise the abstract forms of philosophy with the religious faith of his nation. But his arguments are generally vitiated by the fallacy of assuming what they profess to prove. His failure is made obvious by the attack of Algazali on the tendencies and results of speculation. Upwards of 100 treatises are ascribed to Avicenna. Some of them are tracts of a few pages, others are works extending through several volumes. The best-known amongst them, and that &quot;to which Avicenna owed his European reputation, is the Canon of Medicine; an Arabic edition of it appeared at Rome 1593, and a Hebrew version at Naples in 1491. Of the Latin version there were about thirty editions, founded on the original translation by Gerard of Cremona. The 15th century has the honour of composing the great commentary on the text of the Canon, grouping around it all that theory had imagined, and all that practice had observed. Other medical works translated into Latin are the Medicamenta Cordialia, Canticum de Medicina, Tractatus de Syrupo Acetoso. Scarcely any member of the Arabian circle of the sciences, including theology, philology, mathematics, astronomy, physics, and musie^ has been left untouched by the treatises of Avicenna, many of which probably varied little, except in being commissioned by a different patron and having a different form or extent. He wroto at least one treatise on alchemy, but several others have been falsely attributed to him. His book on animals was translated by Michael Scot. His Logic, Metaphysics, Physics, De Ccelo, are treatises giving a synoptic view of Aristotelian doctrine. The Logic and Metaphysics have been printed more than once; the latter, e.g., at Venice in 1493, 1495, and 1546. Some of his shorter essays on medicine, logic, &c., take a poetical form (the poem on logic was published by Schmoelders in 1836). Two encyclopaedic treatises, dealing with philosophy, are often mentioned. The larger, Al-Shefa (Sanatio), exists nearly complete in manuscript in the Bodleian Library and elsewhere ; part of it on the De Anima appeared at Pavia (1490) as the Liber Sextus Naturalium, and the long account of Avicenna s philosophy given by Shahrastani seems to bs mainly an analysis, and in many places a reproduction, of the Al-Shefa. A shorter form of the work is known as the Al-Nedjat (Liberatio}. The Latin editions of part of these works have been modified by the corrections which the monkish editors confess that they applied. There is also a Philoso2Jhia Orientalis, mentioned by Roger Bacon, and now lost, which according to Averroes was pantheistic in tone. For Avicenna s life, see Ibn Khallikan s Biographical Dictionary, translated by Slane (,1842) ; &quot;Wustenfeld s Geschichte der Arabischcn Aerzte und Naturforscher, Gottingen, 1840 ; Abul-Pharagius, His- toria Dynastiarum. For his medicine, see Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine; and for his philosophy, see Shahrastani r Germ, transl. vol. ii. 213-332 ; Prantl, Geschichte der Logik, ii. 318-361 ; Stockl, Phil. d. Mittelalters, ii. 23-58 ; Munk, Melanges, 352-366 ; and Haneberg in the Abhandlungen der Philos.-Philolog. Class, der Bayerischen Academic, 1867. (W. W.)

 AVIENUS,, a Latin poet, who appears to have flourished in the latter half of the 4th century. Any knowledge we have of the facts of his life is derived from a Latin inscription, printed by Meyer (Anthologia Latina, 278), which has been supposed to refer to him. He is in all probability the Festus who was proconsul in Africa in 366 and following years, and in Achaia in 372. He is the author of thefollowingthe following [sic] works: 1. Descriptio Orbis Terræ, sometimes called Metaphrasis Periegeseos Dionysii, being derived from the  of that writer; 2. Ora Maritima, of which there is extant only a fragment describing the Atlantic coast, and the Mediterranean as far as Marseilles; 3. Aratea Phœnomena, and Aratea Prognostica, which are paraphrases of two works of Aratus. These poems, with the exception of the Aratea, are contained in Wernsdorf's Poëtœ Latini Minores, vol. v. pt. ii.

 AVIGLIANO, a of, in the province of , 11 miles N.N.W. of. It stands on the declivity of a hill, and contains a collegiate, several s, and a royal. A peculiar kind of produced here towards the end of the 18th century is still sought after by collectors. The surrounding country is said to produce the finest in the. A part of the town was destroyed by a land-slip in 1824. Population, 15,982.

 AVIGoSTON&quot;, the chief town of the department of Vaucluse in France, situated in a beautiful plain, on the left bank of the Ehone, not far from the entrance of the Durance. It is surrounded by its ancient crenellated walls, which are in a state of remarkable preservation, 