Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/114

 M. FRIEDL^INDER, THE GUIDE, ETC., OF MAIMONIDES. 103 sent things not previously perceived by the senses, which his intellect will have been perfect enough to comprehend. Maimo- nides's view seems to come to this, that prophecy does not differ essentially from ordinary intellection : perception is the result of a divine influence, and prophecy is that state of intellec- tion in which the preliminary se??se-perception is more or less dis- pensed with ; in a word, when the divine influence, by acting immediately on the perfect intellect, is represented by the perfect imagination, without the intermediary of the faulty and defective senses. Attributes are, according to Maimonides, utterly inapplicable to God. This assertion he proves by classifying attributes gene- rally, and by showing that each and every class is irrelevant when applied to God. His classification is based on the lines of Aristotle's ten Categories, but Maimonides does not slavishly follow his philosophical master. 1 Essential Attributes. Non-Essential (1) Including all the essence, genus and differentia, Man is a rational animal. (Substance.) (2) Including only part of essence, Man is rational, or Man is an animal. Quality. Quantity. Passiveness. Relation. Place. Time. Property. Position. Action. Quality. Relation. Action. { In this scheme I have followed Dr. Friedlaender's identification of Aristotle's categories, and, though this classification of Maimo- nides's is not altogether satisfactory, it appears to meet some of the modern objections to Aristotle's arrangement by distinctly combining the last nine categories as non-essential. These attri- butes are all inapplicable to God ; we cannot even predicate His essence, we can only assert that He exists. No definition of God is possible per genus et differential^, since these are the causes of the existence of anything so defined, and God is the final cause. Even Unity is inadmissible as an accident to God ; God is One, but does not possess the attribute of Unity. To say in the usual meaning of the term that God is One, is to imply that His essence is susceptible of quantity ; but, as metaphysics is forced to em- ploy inadequate language, in order to assert that God does not include a plurality, we declare that He is One. Hence, since only negative attributes are admissible, and since these are infinite in number, there is no possibility of obtaining a knowledge of the true essence of God. Yet, paradoxically enough, Maimonides 1 i. c. 52.