Page:The philosophy and theology of Averroes.djvu/25

 which leads to the perfect knowledge of God. Such an action is the extreme limit of ignorance and of remoteness from God.

If, by studying these books, a man has been led astray and gone wrong on account of some natural defect, bad training of the mind, inordinate passion, or the want of a teacher who might explain to him the true significance of things, by all or some of these causes, we ought not on this account to prevent one fit to study these things from doing so. For such harm is not innate in man, but is only an accident of training.

It is not right that a drug which is medically useful by its nature should be discarded because it may prove harmful by accident. The Prophet told a man whose brother was suffering with diarrhea to treat him with honey. But this only increased the ailment. On his complaining, the Prophet said: "God was right and thy brother's stomach was wrong."

We would even say that a man who