my trust was all in Aristotle and in myself. Sharpening therefore in silence the sword of his wrath, he overruled my legal rights by a higher exercise of equity and reduced me, as you see, to themiserable condition of a pure spirit. Here among heathen ghosts I pine and loiter eternally, a shadow reflecting life and no longer living, vainly revolving my thoughts, because in my thoughts I trusted, and missing all the warm and solid pleasures of Paradise, because I had hoped to win them without blinding my intellect, or suffering old fables to delude me.
The Spirit of a Stranger Still Living on Earth: Is it not some consolation to consider that if you were not able to deceive Allah, Allah was not able to deceive you?
Avicenna: Small consolation. Pride of intellect is the sour refuge of those who have nothing else to be proud of. Strong as my soul was in other virtues, and generous my blood, intellect prevailed too much in me, dashed my respect for my vital powers, and killed the confidence they should have bred; it overcame the illusions necessary to a creature, and caused me to see all things too much as God sees them.
The Stranger: A rare fault in a philosopher.
Avicenna: May Allah impute it to me for humility and not for blasphemy, but I never wished to resemble him. Yes, I know what you are about to say. The divine part in us, though small, is the most precious, and we should live as far as we may in the eternal. Far be it from me to deny that, or any other maxim of Aristotle; especially now, when that exiguous element in myself is all that is left of me. But, frankly, I pine for the rest. Are not even the souls of your friends the Christians, wretchedly as they are accustomed to live, waiting now in their forlorn heaven for the last day, when they shall return to their bodies, and feel again that they are men and not angels? Intellect, being divine, comes into our tents through the door; it is a guest and a stranger to our blood. Its language is foreign to us, and painfully as we may try to learn it, we always speak it ill. How often have I laughed at Arabs pluming themselves in Persian, and at Persians blasphemously corrupting the syllables of the Koran which they thought to recite; for few, like me, are perfect masters of both tongues. And do you suppose Allah does not smile at our rustic accent when we venture to think? But there are other tricks of ours which he does not
