Page:The philosophy and theology of Averroes.djvu/254

 by imagination or repetition of verses, that is, it is known that it is of quite a different kind from the poetry of Arabic speaking people, whether the language be acquired and learned, as is the case with non-Arabs, or it be the mother-tongue, as it is with the Arabs themselves. The first reason is the most weighty one. If it be asked how can it be known that the laws which contain both knowledge and precepts about deeds are of divine origin, so much so that they deserve the name of the word of God, we would say also that this also can be known in many ways. First, a knowledge of the laws cannot be acquired except after a knowledge of God, and of human happiness and misery; and the acts by which this happiness can be acquired, as charity and goodness and the works which divert men from happiness and produce eternal misery, such as evil and wickedness. Again the knowledge of human happiness and misery requires a knowledge of the soul and its substance, and whether it has eternal happiness or not