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    "slug": "book-of-bringing-forth-what-is-in-potency-into-act",
    "name": "Book of Bringing Forth What Is in Potency into Act"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 1,
    "slug": "complete",
    "title": "Book of Bringing Forth What Is in Potency into Act",
    "of": 1,
    "words": 24849,
    "text": "## p. 1 (leaf n7)\n\nPraise be to God, than whom there is none like, and who is powerful over all things. The First without example, and the Last without cessation; exalted and sanctified be His names. He encompasses all things, the Subtle, the Hidden in the interiors of the parts and their exteriors and what is in their midst, the Most High without limit, and the Lowest without limit. The Powerful to comprehend all things, their subtle and their dense; sanctified be His names and exalted in great exaltation. God bless our lord Muhammad and his family and his companions and grant them abundant peace. Now, before this our book several books have preceded us and several books have followed, all of them confirming what is in it and testifying to it and proving it. We have entitled our book with the greatest of titles, and we have comprised in it and in others of the books the meaning which its name requires, which is the greatest to which power has been named, namely the bringing forth of the potential water into act. Since this discourse is the end of what is in the world and what is beyond the world, we have singled it out for our book.\n\n\n## p. 2 (leaf n8)\n\nThis, and in it is the greatest benefit and the greatest return, and upon God we rely. Whoever reads a book of ours knows that we have witticisms in the books of instruction and others>... < or in mentioning instruction by composition. We must mention the first principles that are needed ٣ in every book, and we need to speak of potentiality and actuality and what they are so that the way may be clear and the measure of the return made plain, and that it may be known that there is not upon the face of the earth a book like this book of ours, nor a thousand, nor will one be composed to the end of eternity. And we speak ٦ concerning that according to that and the need for it, if God Most High wills.\nWe say: Time is one substance, and it is * without part, and “when” is like the now, and it is a genus above which is nothing. That which is temporal by time is the divisible, not time, ٩ and it is one eternal, everlasting substance. The temporal is divided into three divisions: past, departed, which has been traversed and passed by the revolution of the sun and the definition set upon it; enduring, standing in the time in which it is; and coming, future, whose arrival is expected. ١٢ These are problematic matters, yet we have expanded speech concerning them to the utmost extent.\nThat which is in potentiality is that whose existence is possible in future, coming time, like the standing of one seated and the sitting of one standing; and that which is in actuality is the existent ١٥\n\n\n## p. 3 (leaf n9)\n\nIn the present time among all generated actions such as the accustomed returning of the seated one and the standing of the standing one. And this also requires that we add a little in its clarification, and that is that the thing which is in potentiality whatever is in it is that from which it is possible that there comes [and] the thing which is in manifest actuality ٣ existing from what is in potentiality. Just as he gave you the example that silver between which and gold there is no difference except weight and yellowness > it is possible that it become gold < . So silver is in potentiality the lowest acceptance of weight until it becomes in the consistency of gold, and it has the lowest acceptance ٦ of yellowness until it is in the colour of gold, ٣ and were that not so for it in potentiality that would not come from it in actuality >not< appear. And just as fire >that< becomes air in potentiality, and air that it become water >in potentiality< , and water that it become ٩ earth in potentiality, so fire that it become earth in potentiality. Because ١ if it is in some b, and b in some j, and j in some d, then d is in some a necessarily and a in some d, this is what there is no doubt in. And likewise what comprehends the universals, ١٢ if this statement is inverted not by a logical inversion but by the inversion of opposition and contrariety, then a will be in >every< b, and b in every j, and j in every d, ١٥ necessarily in >every< w. And if you have obtained that, then this discourse has necessarily entailed ٤١٥\n\n\n## p. 4 (leaf n10)\n\nThat the cause of the becoming of the act is the existence of what is in the power, so the power is therefore the matter of the act. ٣ And since the matter was thus, it is necessarily required that we probe after that whether everything that is in the power goes out to the act or is prevented from it or possible, so that we may be upon certain knowledge of that. And we shall explain that, if God the Exalted wills. ٦ Indeed the subject which we are in the process of and need to explain is very difficult, and it behooves, O my brother - may God preserve you - <that> we probe what it is for. ٩ Indeed things are divided into two parts, and they are <either> simple or compound. So what of them is in rest, it is absolutely compound > or second compound < or compound of the compound. But as for <what> is in the first simple, it is impossible that all that is in it by power goes out to the act, not for its essence nor for its parts. As for its essence, because the simple is not finite, and what is not finite is not perishable, and when that is required, not all that is in it <by power> goes out to the act. And as for [not] for its parts, because people especially do not reach the place of the simple ١٥ And as for the compound >first < and the second compound and the compound of the compound, indeed the first compound goes out by the part from the power to the act * not by the essence, and in it is the universality\n\n\n## p. 5 (leaf n11)\n\nitself, like the sun and fire and what resembles that, for the one who manages with it a thing is able to take the good from it for what he needs of it in the thing, and its opposite, I mean soundness and corruption. As for the second compound, all that is in it potentially goes out into actuality. And the third compound > ...... ٣ < ...... > from potentiality to actuality, so know that.\nAnd it is necessary that we strike for that an example, otherwise it would be unknown. And the example of the first compound is Nature, and the example of the second compound is its first composition: heat ٦ and cold and moisture and dryness, and fire and air and earth and water. And the third composition, I mean the compound of the compound, then the three genera, I mean the animal and the stone and the plant. For all that is in Nature necessarily goes out, that which is in it potentially, ٩ into actuality.\nAnd there had been in the souls of men regarding that great doubts, and I shall clarify them and explain them. And that is that the things from which going out from potentiality to actuality is impossible or difficult ١٢ are of two kinds: either one seeks from the things what is not in them potentially, like Canopus by heat and gall-nuts and pomegranate rinds and what resembles that, and like musk by the fire-stick and indigo seed and scammony, and whence do they have that? > Or one seeks from the things ١٥ what is in them potentially but its going out into actuality is difficult < , and the expression of the aspect has already passed.\n\n\n## p. 6 (leaf n12)\n\nThe extractor of that from it. Like one who seeks the emergence of water from fire at the first attempt, for although this is for it in potentiality > impossible except that they * < performed it according to a regimen.\n٣ For the dry is in the moist [٥] and the moist is in the dry in potentiality, but by Nature and length of time and the like of that; as for it being so from the first attempt, then no.\nAnd likewise the standing one is sitting > in potentiality <, but after the time of sitting has elapsed\n٦ and its termination by the movement of the sitter to stand and the movement of volition and the like of that.\nAnd since that has become clear, then in things there is an existence of all things, but according to its existence from extraction. For fire is latent in the stone [and] does not appear, and it is for it in potentiality; so when it is struck with a steel it produces fire and appears. And likewise the wax is in the bees; and if we took a hundred thousand bees or a thousand bee-hives then pressed them and cooked them and administered them with a regimen that is not\n٩ for the honey in which is the wax, there would not emerge from it flowing wax; but when the bees are nourished with a moderate nourishment and the hives in which it dwells are made for it and the honey is produced\n١٢ and that honey is gathered, the wax emerges from it and the like of that.\nIt has become clear from this statement that the regimen according to the right intention is\n\n\n## p. 7 (leaf n13)\n\nThat which brings forth what is in the potencies of things, from what belongs to them potentially into actuality, is that which comes forth by its own nature, and that which does not come forth until it is made to come forth. For in the potencies of things there is what comes forth without a directing regimen, but Nature is the cause of the coming forth of the natural, and of the coming forth of wild herbs that are not treated by irrigation and grafting and the like; they come forth from potency to actuality by themselves and in their own time. As for other than that whose cause is the extraction by regimen of things, he contrived it thereby, and in it the things appeared by regimen from potency to actuality. As for what is imagined concerning it, that the coming forth of all that is in its nature from potency to actuality is easy or is prevented: if it is according to the saying of him who said that this is prevented only because it is not grasped by partial operation, then that is one aspect. And if it is prevented only because it cannot be endured and is hidden from the senses, then this too is an aspect. And if it is for another cause, we have taught you that and performed it. As for its being because knowledge does not reach what is in Nature—knowledge reaches what is beyond Nature and extracts it, so how should it not reach Nature? We do not say that he who has no knowledge extracts what is in Nature; we say only that the perfect knower does. And if it is prevented only by its hiddenness and difficulty, then everything has a likeness and counterpart.\n\n\n## p. 8 (leaf n14)\n\nhe extracts it and makes it manifest. And if it is on account of its subtlety, the matter is thus. And whenever the matter is not thus, then the science of philosophy and the Balance is vain; and whenever that is necessary, the existence of the Balance is necessary. So know that, and draw analogies from it, and you will find it sound, if God Most High wills. ٣\nAnd since what is in > potency and < act of the discourse has become sound, then let us proceed to discourse on the substances and the principles of the sciences, one by one and singly, if God Most High wills. And in God is success, and He suffices us and is the best guardian. ٦\n•\nDiscourse on the division of things\nThings all divide into two divisions: either utterance or meaning; and the discourse which has no meaning beneath it has no benefit > in it < . And the meaning is like the substance, and the discourse on the meaning, with respect to that meaning, is like the accident. And likewise also is the definition of eloquence. ٩\nAnd the letters are twenty-eight letters; there is not in the power of Arabic the extraction of more than them into act, but rather in potency the extraction, in place of the similar letters, of > letters dissimilar < so that they may be a substitute for them on account of the tashif. And if these letters are carried in their form like alif > and baʾ < and taʾ and thaʾ and nun and yaʾ and jim and haʾ and khaʾ, and dal and dhal and what resembles that, then they only return * from the twenty-eight letters to sixteen letters. And that is because the letter alif is one, and baʾ and taʾ and thaʾ and nun and yaʾ are one second letter; and jim and haʾ and khaʾ are one third letter ١٢\nand dal and dhal are a fourth letter, and zay and raʾ are one fifth letter, ١٥\n\n\n## p. 9 (leaf n15)\n\nAs for sin and shin, they are the sixth letter; sad and dad are the seventh letter; taʾ and zaʾ are the eighth letter; ʿayn and ghayn are the ninth letter; faʾ and qaf are the tenth letter; kaf is the eleventh letter; lam is the twelfth letter; mim is the thirteenth letter; waw is the fourteenth letter; haʾ is the fifteenth letter; and waw is the sixteenth letter. If in place of each one of those similar [letters] there were placed a non-similar example, people would be safe from corruption of speech and error. This is among the things in which its versifier fell short, yet it is possible in nature and potency together. Perhaps a creation among people will be able to [show] that this is impossible to be.  As for the arrangement of language, the arranged letters indicate a noun, a verb, and a particle—this according to the people of language. As for the people of substantial discourse needing it, the arranged letters indicate, by convention, three kinds, which are: either a noun, or a word, or a saying. The noun indicates “you,” “I,” “this,” “that,” “we,” “you” (pl.), “she,” and “what” and their like; it also has connections and linkages. The connection is what joins one noun to another noun, as when you say “Zayd and Khalid,” for the waw is a connection. The linkage is that which belongs to what is joined to the noun, as when you say “with Khalid” or “to Zayd belongs property.” The word is a conjugation, which is the place of the verb that the grammarians call...\n\n\n## p. 10 (leaf n16)\n\nAs when you say: sabaha yasbahu, and qama yaqumu. And it is what was in the two times, the future and the past. We have already finished for you the discussion of that in the Logic and have established it \n٣\nand clarified it; however we have mentioned this here only because of the need for it and to connect the learner thereby to what follows it.\n\nSince the matter of the name and the word and what they are and their existence in the \n٦\nsound state that is needed has become clear, we shall now speak concerning the sentence. * I say: this speech itself is divided into divisions such as command, prohibition, request, wish, and the like; and there is no utility in our knowledge of it, I mean according to the philosophers. The sentence may also be divided into \n٩\n> the subject and the predicate, and as for < the predicate * it is that in which the greatest utility lies. The sentence is either the joining of a name with a verb or a name with a name, as when you say “Zayd walks,” or as when you say “Zayd is striking,” or “Zayd is the servant of Jaʿfar.” This is the predicate in which occurs \n١٢\nthe whole utility, * and it is that which admits truth and falsehood and in which are buried the wonders of speech, both the impossible and the true. Whoever does not master the certainty of reports and compare some of them with others \n٩\nis stripped of the science of the philosophers and of philosophy; so know that. We have already mentioned enough of that in the books of Logic and have informed you \n١٥\nhow to know the true report from the false and have established it there. We mention here only what has already passed from potentiality to actuality and what may also pass.\n\n\n## p. 11 (leaf n17)\n\nThen we also speak about poetry and rhetorical eloquence, though there is no benefit in our sciences therein, but it is useful in other places for the arrangement of the letters themselves <......> ٣ the precious great science, I mean the science of music and the science of the additional letters in speech, and the voiced >and< that which has no sound, and the quiescent >and< the extended, and all this is left to the grammarians in the known places by declension, for they have mastered that to the utmost degree of mastery, except that we speak of it according to the need for it. ٦ As for the matter of music, we have already mentioned in these our books a book containing a marvellous thing which no one among men has produced the like of; we have fully treated therein the small and the great of what is in the Work. And we mention here something of it that may serve as a way for learning what is needed therein. ٩ That is that the letters of prolongation and softness are three, and they are that upon which the melody and striking revolve, because music is only an equating between the sound by the note >and< the striking of the string in its time and the manner of its sound part by part. And the three are: alif, waw and yaʾ. As for ١٢ the added letters, they are ten in number, and they are: alif, lam, yaʾ, waw, mim, taʾ, nun, sin, hamza and haʾ, and they are gathered in two words so that three may not be forgotten, and they are your saying: al-yawma tansahu, ١٥ so the hamza, lam, yaʾ, waw, mim, taʾ, nun, sin, alif and haʾ are ten that are added in all speech, and the structure of spoken speech entirely rests upon three patterns: triliteral, like your saying\n\n\n## p. 12 (leaf n18)\n\nA camel, and a quadriliteral like your saying jaʿfar, and a quinqueliteral like your saying jaʿfarash, and for every genus among these genera there are species whose mention is needed because of our need of them in the science of music; and we shall mention after them what is needed for that, one by one and bit by bit, if God the Exalted wills.\nAs for the triliteral, it is divided according to its nature into twelve divisions, and they are: either a verb with a moved ʿayn like your saying malis, or a verb with a quiescent ʿayn like your saying buʿd, or a faʿal like your saying jamal, or a fuʿul like your saying mulk, or a faʿal like your saying juradh, or a fuʿul like your saying sabuʿ, or a faʿal like your saying daraba. [......] this is from the verb and nothing of the nouns has come upon its measure, and as for fuʿul it is not pronounced. That is in the triliteral.\nAs for the quadriliteral, it is divided into five species, and they are: either faʿlal like your saying jaʿfar, or fiʿlil like your saying zibriij, or fuʿlul like your saying khubruj, or fiʿlil like your saying dirham, or fiʿlil like your saying qatar: this is in the quadriliteral.\n\n\n## p. 13 (leaf n19)\n\nAs for the five-lettered [word], it is divided into four divisions. And the meaning of four divisions and others is only from the necessity and the leading Nature * to the technical term * or what led to it, so know it. And it is < the emergence > of some of what is in potential, I mean what exists in ٣ Nature, because not > * every > thing that is in potential is grasped by the particular Nature ١١ nor is it guided to it.\nAnd the five-lettered is according to four likenesses, which are: according to faʿlal like jakhmarash ٦ and according to faʿlal like khazaʿbal, and according to faʿlal like jardakhal, and according to faʿlal like qaddaʿmal. So this is what is in the composition of the sound letters.\nAs for the mute letters which have no sound > ...... < they are ٩ sixteen letters, which are: ʿayn, ghayn, nun, taʾ, mim, qaf, dhal, zay, jim, dad, taʾ, waw, lam, zaʾ, and alif. So this is all that is needed for it in sound ١٢\n\n\n## p. 14 (leaf n20)\n\n+ occurring in the first + the third which are the likes of the notes, and they are divided into two parts, meaning the hamza, the waw, and the ya. That is because some of them are called the small ones, and some of them are called the large ones, for the fatha is a small alif, and the alif itself, meaning the Meccan hamza, is a large alif, and the damma is a small waw, and the waw itself is a large waw. And the kasra is a small ya, and the ya itself is a large ya. And the notes are only the composition of these six letters by the entry of the other letters that have no sound and those that have a slight sound in them + built upon the weight of transformation, and we have mentioned some good ways of it in a separate book of ours. It is not possible for anyone to know music except after knowledge of prosody, morphology, knowledge of notes and rhythm, knowledge of poetry and its making, and acquaintance with the aerial measures. And all these tools cannot bear mention in this our book. But after we have mentioned the letters, the names, the words, the saying and the report, and what we have mentioned of that to which speech has led us from the science of music for approximation, we shall proceed to the statement of what follows that, one by one, from potency to act, after we mention the indication upon .b. .t. .t. .t. for us as mention only. For we have composed a separate epistle on the placement of the letters; were it to meet with agreement at some time, it would have sufficed the people in place of corruption of writing and other things and would have taught them the speech of the birds.\n\n\n## p. 15 (leaf n21)\n\nIf it is speech and the creaking of the pulley and the grinding of the millstone and all sounds, and they are great, from which every language is understood, it is called the Epistle of A B T T, so seek it, for it is among the rare books of mine. And my master — may the blessings of God be upon him — used to love it and prolong the gaze upon it for its beauty, for it is wondrous and strange; from it we understand the motion of every moving thing and the utterance of every sound, either with a meaning beneath it or without meaning, like the roar of the lion and the barking of the dog and the neighing of beasts and the like of that, because all of that proceeds from potentiality to actuality as we mentioned in the Book of the Result > * since it was < the root of the letters and their structure for the derivation of the Natures from them. And they are A B T T up to seven hundred letters at the limit of perfection. And since we have come to what we promised, let us return to the discourse on Nature and what proceeds in it from potentiality to actuality, if God the Exalted wills. The discourse on Nature and its generation of the genera and what is above them and below them. Discourse of the Encompassing Sphere to the Center. Indeed Nature is existent from the doublings of the qualities by motion and rest, and the beginning of its doublings is the blending of quantity with it. Thus Nature is four things.\n\n\n## p. 16 (leaf n22)\n\nBeginning: motion and rest with quality and quantity; this is the substance of Nature.\nWhen it thus becomes, there distill from it four things only: heat and cold,\n٣ dryness and moisture, the first simple mothers. Then motion and rest\nand quality encompass those mothers, and quantity after their conjunction, so that there also arises from them all\nexisting things from the luminous sphere down to all three genera, namely\n٦ animals, plants and the Stone, and each one of them was in an eternal way.\nAnd that () because the spheres and the zodiacal signs bestow upon the elements their Natures and their matters and perfect them,\nso that from them arise increase and decrease.\n٩ We say concerning that: when the hot planets descend in the hot\nzodiacal signs, dryness is coupled with heat [and] there arises from them the blazing of fires and the increase\n\n\n## p. 17 (leaf n23)\n\nAnd the deficiency in its matter and the dryness of the season — which is called the qayz — and the dryness of the trees and plants and the desiccation of things and their fever and the agitation of the yellow bile in the bodies ٣ and the abundance of the agitations of the fires through burning and what resembles that, and the combustion of the colours ٣ and the swarthiness of the small ones who are in the wombs and their blackness and the deficiency of the waters and the freezing of the lands and the waters and the blowing of the pestilential scorching winds and the variegated ones like the red wind and the yellow wind and the blazing of the sea and the coagulation of the noble stones like sulphur and the sapphire and what ٦ resembles that.\n\nAnd when the scorching planets are in the hot zodiacal signs and what adjoins them is moist in all, — I mean that the scorching ones which are among the planets ٩\n\n\n## p. 18 (leaf n24)\n\nhot moist, and that which is in the zodiacal signs hot moist — ١٤ — thereupon the time and the blood are balanced, the trees are kindled, the world and the winds become clear, the time becomes good and the colours shine brightly ٣ and the conditions of the cattle and the lands improve, the animals fatten and the winds are balanced. And according to the measure of the balance of the two heats and the two moistures is their balance, and according to the measure of their departure from balance, whether in heat or in moisture, is the departure. ٦ Thereupon the time of spring comes to be, and its emergence from potentiality to actuality, and the balance of foods and other than that. The statement concerning this is like the statement concerning the first, exactly.\nAnd if the cold dry stars are in cold dry zodiacal signs, from them arises the time of autumn and the blowing of the melancholic winds and the dominance of black bile in the bodies of animals and the drying of the earth and its hardness and the congelation of the waters and their conversion to earthiness and the blowing of the pestilential desiccating winds and the abundance of large cattle like mountains.\n\n\n## p. 19 (leaf n25)\n\nAnd the elephants and the buffaloes and what resembles that. And the statement concerning that is like the statement concerning what preceded, so know that, if God Most High wills.\nAnd if the cold moist planets are in the cold moist zodiacal signs ٣, the season of winter and cold and the stirring of the cold winds and the seas and the inversion of what is in their bellies to their exteriors arises from them on account of the position * of the predominance of wind and the increase in the substance of water * and its existence in the places which * the air leaves and draws near to them, and the softness of the lands * and the stability of things and their dissolution and their transformation from their element to the second being and the like of that in compatibility according to what preceded. So this is in the proportion of the Natures ١٥ with the planets and the hot and cold and moist and dry zodiacal signs ٩. So if contrariety occurs in them also, then like that, and it is four aspects also. And it is that the hot dry planets descend to the cold moist zodiacal signs in\n\n\n## p. 20 (leaf n26)\n\nor its middle or its end, then that is at that time the existence of things opposing by dominance. As for if the planets dominant in the Nature were for the zodiacal signs, there would be from them the existence of thunderbolts and the abundance of lightnings and thunders and winds with little rain and abundance of dew and what resembles that. And if the zodiacal signs were dominant in the Nature, there would be from them abundance of rains and the moderation of the blowing of winds and scarcity of lightnings and thunders and thunderbolts and abundance of earthquakes and the like of that. And if they balanced each other, the time would be most moderate of what is from moderation, and at that time there would be the appearance of wonders in the world due to the extremity of the moderation and the equivalence of the Natures in quantity and quality, so quality for the hot and the cold and the moist and the dry, and quantity the equivalence of the measures lest one of them be dominant over the other.\n\n\n## p. 21 (leaf n27)\n\nAnd if the hot moist planets are descending in the cold dry zodiacal signs, this approximates in the world, so it was like the time of the philosophers and the derivation of the sciences and the like of that. But this time did not equal that time because the addition to ٣ the heat in the first is dryness, so it is stronger for the world, and in this state the heat is mixed with moisture so it is weak (٥). And the first is the time of the prophets who are the most perfect of the forms of men, so know that. ٦ As for the occurrence of thunder and lightning ١٦ and winds and earthquakes and rains and what follows that of these events, they are all following the four secondary Natures: ٩ As for the dew, it is from the succession of vapour. And vapour is divided into two divisions: moist vapour and dry vapour. So the hot moist vapour, when it ascends to the upper, congeals. So if its moisture is abundant it returns inverted and rain comes from it, and that dew does not dissolve entirely. And if the moisture is less and the air is cold the water congeals, and according to ١٢ the measure of its abundance and scarcity is what its large and small become, > I mean < according to the measure of the intensity\n\n\n## p. 22 (leaf n28)\n\nits transformation in the air and the cold that is in the air. And if the heat and moisture are balanced\nand the air <...> congelation into a dense cloud without rain. This is the dew and the hail.\n٣\nAs for the hail and its elongation at certain times, when the winds become numerous\nthe hail elongates and changes from its shape due to the change of the prevailing wind in it, and this occurs\nrarely. As for its roundness, it is due to the scarcity of the differing winds upon it.\n٦\nAs for the cause of lightning, it is the collision of the great cloud-masses one with another,\nso that some of them strike fire from others like the striking of fire between two stones.\nThunder also occurs from this, because lightning exists <existing> with thunder,\n٩\nand thunder exists with the existence of lightning; neither of them is without the other. Lightning is seen\nat certain times while thunder is not heard, and thunder is heard while lightning\nis not seen. As for the seeing of lightning and the absence of thunder, it is due to the distance of the interval and the weakness of the sound,\n١٢\nbecause the striking is also consequent upon the essential subtlety. When the vapor from which\nthe dew arises is hot and combustible <17> its striking increases by the subtlety <of the essential>\nand the weakness of the sound, so that because of the distance of the interval it is not heard. As for the occurrence of thunder without lightning\n١٥\nit is because the accumulation of the dew one part upon another prevents the arrival of the light to the earth of the world;\nso know this and draw analogies from it.\nIn this place we need to mention the falling of the stars. That is\nthat when the hot vapor ascends and rises to the greatest place possible for that heat\n\n\n## p. 23 (leaf n29)\n\nthat it may ascend to it and its farthest limit and its moisture has thickened and it has become good from the emission of its heat for that moisture; the moisture was reversed returning so that fire was kindled with the air, a blaze between the heat and the air, a consuming fire for that moisture which is in it, so that from it came what is called the Planets. The pure Arabs forbid the place of the contraction of the Planets, [and we shall explain some of this in another place, if God wills]. So you find in that place pieces resembling chalk — the blue one of them — cast about, and it is found, and it is a beneficial medicine for removing whiteness from the eyes of animals when used as kohl, and for other things whose place is not this. As for the Planets, they are not dissolved and do not depart from their places from their centres, otherwise the bond would be corrupted. Rather, often the vapour increases so that from that there occurs in the atmosphere a terrible matter indicating the ruin of countries. And the increase of the vapour <.....> and this statement is almost contradictory to philosophy in our saying that the vapour increases and decreases, but here its measure is balanced. So you find it, if God wills. As for the winds, they contend with the Natures between the air and what passes through it of that, such as its passage over the cold mountains and the mines of hot sulphurs and the like of that.\n\n\n## p. 24 (leaf n30)\n\nAs for the cold, its greater part, meaning heat, overcomes it; and as for the hot, its lesser part, meaning moisture, overcomes it. And according to the amount of the matter is its strength and its duration from it. So know that, you will find it, if God Most High wills.\n٣\nAs for what is attributed to the thunderbolt, it is its facing one of two things:\neither the upper fiery part faces something that has drawn support for the reception of combustion,\n٦ or that <........>. So at the moment of its facing — and the meaning of its facing is its equaling\nand aligning with it — the burning of the burning mirror in the eye of the sun and the flask — for man\ncontinues to adjust it until it faces the placed light which it is possible\n٩ from it> for the ray to reflect upon the burning — so at the moment of its facing, fire is kindled\nfrom it, yet there is no fire in the place. Likewise what is between the astrolabe mirror and the entry\nof the sun’s point into the two apertures of its target, he continues to adjust until the two oppositions occur\n١٢ so the sun burns it from place to place. So if you know that, the conception of the facing between the air and the burned by the thunderbolt is easy for you. So know that and measure upon it\nyour matter its share, if God Most High wills.\n\n\n## p. 25 (leaf n31)\n\nAnd the tremors are also from the effect of the striking, because the tremor occurs only from the sound. For the places that have no resistance, the sound pierces them more and is confined in them; then if something repels it from the bodies, it uproots it and carries it away. And the strongest ٣ of the winds and thunders is upon their removal from their places and their displacement from their locations, and they are the tremors.\nLikewise, what is called the inversion of the earth, some people have attributed it to ٦ the tremors, and this ١٩ is an error, because the subsidence is nearer to the earthquake. And we say how that is, and what resembles it, not by synonymous names upon a single meaning.\nAnd that is because earthquakes occur only from the concealment of winds in the bowels of the earth, ٩ either from their being from the interior of the earth and their confinement and the scarcity of outlets for their exit; so when they follow one another and multiply, they seek the exit, and some of them crowd others, and that place is shaken thereby. And by the abundance of their motion and the abundance of their matter and their continuity, their increase occurs ١٢ and the greatness of their motion and its duration. And the proof of > that < is that when they multiply and endure, wells are dug for them, and the earthquakes cease and diminish. And sometimes they are from outside, and their disappearance and the prevention of their return is due to the abundance of their succession in the entrance, so that becomes ١٥ from it, and it is very little.\nAnd the subsidence follows the shaking of the earth from the things that were left in its interior and the weakening of its Elements and the heaviness of what is upon it and the like of that; and perhaps this event occurs ١٨\n\n\n## p. 26 (leaf n32)\n\nThe powers > in < that in which there is no void by power, because the weak, when it multiplies and its matter from the powers diminishes > ...... < in this state and the connection of their parts, ٣ meaning the parts of the weak by the parts of the strong, so the intervening and adjacent place to it is eclipsed by the compact; so know that and reflect upon what has been pointed to, for I am hastening to bring out the supreme benefit in this book, if God the Mighty and Majestic wills. ٦ All this is what can be brought forth from potentiality into actuality, and its trace has been made clear and evident.\n() As for the natures of the waters, it is according to the places, and that is due to the proximity of the sun’s cooking to the adjacent minerals. And it occurs in only three compositions: either hot and dry, which is the bitter in which there are no animals, for if they are generated (٢٠) then few; and it is the water of the seas near which are the sulphurs.\n\n\n## p. 27 (leaf n33)\n\nAnd salt and other things that alter it and that proceed in this manner. And these waters the lands carry a thousand parasangs and more than that and less. And among them are hot moist waters, and they are the sweet waters like the waters of Fars and the mountains ٣ of the fresh and what resembles that. And these waters are pestilential, lethal, morbid, altering the chyme, corrupting the temperament. And among them are cold moist waters, and they are the waters moderate in Nature that ٦ their pouring is abundant and their courses distant from the waters not praiseworthy in chyme or the action of the base minerals toward them, like the waters of the Tigris and the cold mountains from whose height the waters pour, unaltered in smell and taste. ٩ And among them is cold dry, and it is not naturally and it is not waters like snow. And more\n\n\n## p. 28 (leaf n34)\n\nThat in the mountains and what resembles them of the places in which the cold air abounds. So know\nthat and draw analogy from it, if God Most High wills ()\n٣\nAnd since we have come to the exposition of these things, meaning the Natures of the winds and the waters\nand the thunders and the lightnings and the earthquakes and the rains and the thunderbolts and other than that, and that\ntheir action, it is not harmful that we mention the Natures of the planets and the zodiacal signs and the countries and the tastes\n٦\naccording to the manifest matter, then we proceed after it to the discourse on the Power and the Act * at\nthe heptad and the cause in that * by way of natural guidance, if God\nMighty and Majestic wills.\n٩\nThe discourse on the Natures of the seven planets\nThe discourse came first that the Natures are eight in number. And I mean by that\nthe first Mothers ٢١ and they are: four of them are primary like the letters for the word,\n١٢\nand four secondary like speech at the letters\nand the Natures of the planets at the five are only from * the secondary ones which are:\n\n\n## p. 29 (leaf n35)\n\nthe hot [water] dry, and the hot moist, and the cold dry, and the cold moist, because they are composite — I mean the planets — even if in their essences they are simple. And in sum, all the planets are hot dry in absolute terms, but only ٣ on * condition that they are differentiated.\nAs for the wandering planets, they are seven spheres, some encompassing others, on the model of this figure (٥). So the circle of the Sun encompasses all because it is in the middle ٦ of the sphere, so its distance from Saturn then its distance from the Moon upon +the error root+ the upper middle, and it is that which supplies all the planets with heat and light. Therefore the surfaces of all the spheres are by the nature of heat, and therefore the Sun was placed in the middle so as to reach ٩ the first and the last and all heat was placed in it. So it is the lamp of the sphere and its light, and were it not for it the sphere would perish from cold and would not be.\nAnd Mars was made to follow it in the heat because it is hot by its nature and is close to it, ١٢ so it gave it from the heat its greater part, so know that.\nThen Jupiter follows that, for it is in the heat less than Mars because of its distance from it, and it was stronger in heat than Saturn because of its nearness to it, so it is as an intermediary, neither in the heat of Mars ١٥ nor in the cold of Saturn.\n\n\n## p. 30 (leaf n36)\n\nAnd he made Saturn the least of them in heat because of its distance from it and the greatest of them in cold because it is the end of rest from which came the coming-to-be of Nature, and he made it moving because it is the last of the motion ٣ that mixed with rest >and< from which came the coming-to-be of Nature. And he placed Venus in the mud near ٢٢ Mars yet not like it, because it follows the Sun from the lower side, and in this side there was a difficulty which is ٦ the harm. And Venus in the mud was like Mars and both of them adhering to the Sun. And the statement concerning that is curious, which is that heat and fire always seek the height because of their lightness, and Mars is higher than Venus. So the fiery substantiality in it is stronger because the power of the Sun upward is stronger than it downward on account of the limit which we mentioned concerning fire and its seeking the height, and Venus was weaker on account of this cause. And likewise the masters of artifice do that by walking upon fire and carrying heated pots upon their hands ١٢ on account of the fact that the body of fire >is hot< in the height and its lowest part is cold. Then Mercury, and it is like Jupiter in Nature except that it is deficient for the cause which passed between Venus and Mars. And the distance in the strength of Nature between Jupiter ١٥ and Mercury is like that which was between Venus and Mars. And likewise the statement concerning the Moon and Saturn, therefore the two higher extremities became...\n\n\n## p. 31 (leaf n37)\n\nBaridin with the middle heat in that which is of wisdom therein and the giving of the properties their due rights. And this — and by the truth of my master — is a pure essential discourse in which there is no admixture nor symbol. And verily I have depicted for thee thereby the Natures of the planets in their tinctures according to their true measure, ٣ and it is necessary that thou speakest thereafter concerning the zodiacal signs, if God the Exalted wills. The discourse on the Natures of the twelve zodiacal signs. ٦ Know that the division of the twelve zodiacal signs, sign by sign, according to the Natures is like the division of the spheres equally, I mean into four divisions, except that they are upon three ranks. And that is that Aries and Leo and Sagittarius are fiery signs, hot and dry, so Aries among them is stronger than Leo and it is the Nature of Leo, and Leo is stronger than ٩ Sagittarius and it is the Nature of Sagittarius; and we have already stated the cause therein and why they became three ranks in the book which we named the Book of What is After Nature, and we mentioned among the causes of these spheres in many of these our books, these one hundred and forty-three. ١٢ And the discourse concerning the remaining zodiacal signs is like the discourse concerning the preceding zodiacal signs. So Taurus and Virgo and Capricorn are earthy, cold and dry, and their rank in strength and weakness and the mean is as we have exemplified in Aries and Leo and Sagittarius. So Taurus is like Aries, ١٥ and Virgo to Taurus is like Leo to Aries, and Capricorn to Virgo is like Sagittarius to Leo.\n\n\n## p. 32 (leaf n38)\n\nAnd likewise what follows them of the zodiacal signs. So Gemini and Libra and Aquarius are airy hot moist, and the statement concerning them is like the statement concerning what preceded of them. So Gemini is first, and Libra ٣ second, and Aquarius the third the smallest the least.\nAnd Cancer and Scorpio and Pisces are like those. So Cancer is stronger than Scorpio and Pisces, and Scorpio is stronger than Pisces.\n٦ And for every sign of these signs there is a property from the spheres. And the spheres are divided over these signs into two divisions: as for one of them, the cause [?] on account of the Sun and the Moon, and they are particularized to sign by sign, and they are the Lion and the Crab. And they only became particularized to two signs because of their adjacency, so the Sun was particularized to the Lion and the Moon to the Crab, and because it is not among those possessing epicyclic spheres. And ten remain by five ٢٤ planets on the right of the Sun and the Moon and their left, and the meaning of that is upon them ١٢ and beneath them. And that is as seven of them were counted, the zodiacal sign of the planets began, because the counterpart of each is its seventh. So Aries and Scorpio belong to Mars, and Aquarius and Capricorn to Saturn, and Taurus and Libra to Venus, and Pisces and Sagittarius to Jupiter, and Gemini ١٥ and Virgo to Mercury. So according to that the matter of the zodiacal signs proceeded, so know it, if God Most High wills.\nAs for the figure of the sphere of the zodiacal signs, it is a sphere in which every sign of them is set beside\n\n\n## p. 33 (leaf n39)\n\ntower like the arrangement of the sphere and the millstone and what resembles that. It is not upon the operation of the sphere of the stars which are seven spheres but rather it is one sphere. We shall explain that well in what follows this passage ٣ Now that the form of the manner of the zodiacal signs and their relation to the sun and the moon has become clear let us speak after it, if God Almighty wills and by God is the success ٦ The discourse on the spheres of the zodiacal signs and the planets and the entering of some of them upon others O my brother hear what I have brought thee here of the science of the spheres and the rarities of their operations proceeding from potency to act, not by way of the speech of one who symbolizes in them and deviates ٩ from the path in explication The one called the sphere of the zodiacal signs is a single piece divided on the side of its nature into twelve parts, each part of them is divided into thirty parts, so that it becomes three hundred and sixty degrees, ١٢ and it proceeds from west to east upon the sphere of the earth with a hidden motion. ٢٠ Above that is the sphere of the All which is the aether, and it proceeds in the opposite of that, because it proceeds from east to west. Then the sphere of the wandering planets seven spheres ١٥\n\n\n## p. 34 (leaf n40)\n\nsome of them inside others, the highest and greatest of them being Saturn and the smallest and lowest of them being the Moon, and it moves from the West to the East upon the sphere of the Earth with a motion perceptible to the senses. ٣ This statement was therefore problematic in the Balance in the view of most people, there being no experience of it among them. God Most High has spoken truly when He says: Deaf, dumb, blind—so they return not (); He meant that the Truth is between their hands and before their eyes, yet they do not reflect upon it and do not know it. ٦ Now if we were to ask a hundred thousand of mankind: From where does the Sun rise? he would say: From the East, and it sets in the West! That is so only because the East is called East and the West is called West by relation to the Sun; otherwise, according to what we ourselves have related, it would be necessary that the West be East and the East be West—so that it would be correct. We shall explain that, God Most High willing. ١٢ That is because the West is the place of the Sun’s occultation from our sight at the time we call night, for that is taken from the language in this expression. As for the East, it is the beginning of its rising from the side opposite the place of its setting. ١٥ The reason for that is <.....>, even if it does not contradict what we have said. That is because the sphere of the zodiacal signs is the locus of the sphere of the planets, and the sphere of the zodiacal signs is slower in motion.\n\n\n## p. 35 (leaf n41)\n\nFrom the sphere of the planets. So when a planet descends from the planets into the state of a zodiacal sign among the signs, one of them proceeds from the direction of the west to the east. And the uppermost sphere encompasses them both and turns them back from the direction of the east to the west, and it is swifter in motion than the two of them—like the ascent of the man who turns the wheel contrary to the rotation of the wheel—because of the swiftness of the rotation of the sphere of the All, one sees the planets advancing from the east to the west. The confirmation of that is that they do not regress backwards—I mean the planets—but rather proceed forwards. And were their course as the ignorant imagine, from the east to the west, then their descent would be from the sign of Aries to Pisces to Aquarius, and likewise always backwards, and their descent from the beginning of time would not be according to the relation of opposition; for they are found only after Aries in Taurus and after Taurus in Gemini. And that is the principle; and likewise also the Moon, for it proceeds in a course whose rising is from the west to the east. And since that has been established, there is no harm that he make clear in it a mighty matter concerning the Lords, upon them be peace. And that is that the Sun, it has been related, was turned back for the Commander of the Believers because of his missing the prayer, just as the forenoon was turned back for him in the person of Abraham. For a man...\n\n\n## p. 36 (leaf n42)\n\nThe disputant said: I am my brother and I die (5), just as he argued against him. The disputant was eloquent, not covetous, because Ibrahim is the place of the mim at the time, and the disputant is the Commander of the Believers. ٣ And the meaning of his saying: “So the one who disbelieved was dumbfounded” (6) is not the disputant; rather, the one present among the blind—may God curse them and curse their like—was dumbfounded. Something like that has been related in this time, not the standing of the outward for the prayer. The meaning is one in sense and in disguise ٧ for whoever was present. ٤ The people differed concerning that into three groups: one party said: this report is a lie, because if the sun had returned, the world and what is in it would have been corrupted. Another party said: rather, it returned in the sense of returning to the prayer. A third party has confirmed from the saying twice <.......> and what we say when we reach it, if God wills. ٩ As for the one who said that the world would be corrupted by the return of the sun, he has erred, because there is not, in the measure of an hour of time, any corruption of the world. We have already clarified that in ١٢ our book known as The Virtues of the Commander of the Believers the Mighty, which is the Veiled One, the Truthful, the Tablet of Holiness and the Nobility of the People of the House; I do not name this book. And in God I seek aid and on Him I rely. ١٥ As for the one who said to it: it returned in the sense of the prayer, then the sun and the fifth and seventh prayer in the doctrine of the mim and the ʿayn have no difference between them, because the sun is sevenfold and the prayer is fivefold, and likewise their appearance in the two preceding times.\n\n\n## p. 37 (leaf n43)\n\nAnd perhaps the heptagonal figures now appear in what I imagine and hope as a communication to our brethren, God willing. And do not suppose—may God preserve you—that anyone who speaks of any of these doctrines [is to be heeded], for were it not that I am obliged in the commentary on this book to mention all that is in the possibility of the power going forth into act, I would not have uttered anything of it.\nAs for the third group, they said: The sun returned; that is His word, “God brings the sun from the east,” so she brought it from the west, and he was dumbfounded who disbelieved. Otherwise it was not in His power to say, “I shall bring it from the west,” according to what He said, “I give life and I cause death.” How [could it be otherwise] when the matter concerning her is that she is a planet [moving] from east to west? Indeed this is of extreme ignorance and burdensome speech: O company of men! Hear and understand and beware and investigate and seek, that you may prosper by these lofty lights and ascend in the paradise of greatness and be delivered from this corrupt world and painful chastisement. For he who neglects the Work of philosophy is not ascending, but rather is sediment, dissolving downward perpetually.\nAnd among the exceedingly difficult questions is that a questioner said: Why is the knowledge of the People of the House concealed, while they are the masters of the truth? They are not concealing it from him, but the truth is manifest; rather your ignorance and your heedlessness prevent you from looking. And likewise their book is for you according to degree. And of this there is a special example: If a man had property...\n\n\n## p. 38 (leaf n44)\n\nAnd a substance, and iron, and copper, and a number of kinds of substances, it was advisable that some of these which have been mentioned be hidden and stored with some or each one of them ٣ alone with its genus, and the precious among them stored and preserved; and likewise if the matter of the people of the matter of light is mixed with darkness itself? Or how is that, and what is the cause in it? So if you say: yes, you have cursed yourselves. And if you say: no, you have known ٦ the true aspect.\nLet us return to the purpose of the book so that the discourse on the planets and the zodiacal signs may be clarified. As for the station of the Sun in each sign, approximately thirty days. And Saturn ٩ two years and a half, which is thirty months, ٢٩ and Jupiter a year, and Mars <.....> <.....> forty days, and Mercury likewise; and these change and complete more than that or less + distances having limits in their form, and for these ١٢ its form (?). As for Venus, an eighth of Mars likewise, and the Moon two days and a half; and the most wondrous thing in the matter, O asses — upon you be the curse of God and the curse of those who curse — <.....> so know that the pole of the sphere of the zodiacal signs and the sphere of the planets is one single pole and their measure\n\n\n## p. 39 (leaf n45)\n\none measure, and this proceeds contrary to this. Is that not part of the Work of a wise man?\nThe matter in that — may God preserve you — is that the motion of the sphere is a single motion, except that the dependence of the sphere of the zodiacs is upon the sphere of the planets. Whenever a man performs that from ٣ a ray or reed or brass or silver or other than that among the bodies, it is + the very thing we have mentioned among these examples.\nSince we have come to the discussion of the Balance of the spheres, let us now speak of what follows ٦ of their sciences.\nThe Discourse on the Natures of the Countries\nMen have divided concerning the Natures of the countries into two knowing divisions: one of them divided them into four ٩ parts by the division of the four secondary Natures, because they are its tincture — I mean the countries are the making of the four composites — and they are: fire, air, water and earth.\nThe second division split into two divisions: a group made them seven divisions ١٢ according to the division of the spheres of the planets, and they argued for that that the influences in this world belong to those seven planets. A second division divided them into twelve divisions according to the division of the sphere of the zodiacs, and they argued for that with the like of the argument of the partisans of ١٥ the Natures and <the partisans of> the sphere of the planets.\n\n\n## p. 40 (leaf n46)\n\nAs for the masters of the Natures, they made the west from the action of heat, and the east from cold, and the north from dryness, and the south from moisture. And they rested from toil and gave the learner rest. As for the masters of the spheres, they made the whole east and the farthest reaches of the lands and the places of predominant cold for Saturn, and the places of the north and moderation for Jupiter, and the west and the directions of the lands for distances corresponding to the sun and the continuance of the rising of the sun for Mars, and the pure places burned by the sun, [and the continuance of the rising of Mars and the pure places burned by the sun] and the moderate places + the much-aiding active ones for Venus, and the shifting lands of many caputs for Mercury, and the dark places and the bellies of the earth for the Moon. This is what the people mentioned. As for the masters of the twelve, they only followed this path, so they made the moderate lands for the Ram, and the places in which war is frequent for the Bull, and the desert places and the routes for the Twins, and the places of waters and vapour for the Crab, and the places of burning and heat for the Lion, and the places of the deserts and dust for the Virgin, and the places that are between cities and what resembles that for the Balance, and the great rivers and what resembles that for the Scorpion, and likewise the remaining four on the path of experience.\n\n\n## p. 41 (leaf n47)\n\nWe have reduced the twelve to the four and its judgment, and likewise the seven to the judgment of the four. And indeed the four things are the root, and if + they are borne, then they proceed in the natural order as the correct and the intended. This is what is in the science of countries, so let that be known, if God Exalted wills. And in God is success and upon Him reliance, and He is sufficient for us and the best trustee. Chapter of the discourse on the properties of the stars and their actions in countries and the tastes in animals and plants and the Stone. And in God is success. Know that the discourse has already preceded concerning all the principles. And we need to mention [of the sciences] in this book, in what follows of the sciences, what requires mathematical and primary premises, even if they are secondary in other places. For we shall speak of the properties of the stars >and their actions< in the Natures of countries and the tastes of things which are more reliable in Nature than colour and smell in the three kinds, and we shall proceed from that to the sevenfold. So know that although we have already spoken of the spheres and the zodiacal signs, it is necessary that\n\n\n## p. 42 (leaf n48)\n\nKnow that the planets act more strongly in our world than the zodiacal spheres because of their proximity to it, and because the sphere of the zodiac is distant and the sphere of the planets is intermediate between this world and the sphere of the zodiac.\n٣ We have already informed you in more than one place in these our books and others that it is necessarily obligatory that everything possess some specific property in its Nature. We need to state this for each planet individually, if God Most High wills.\nThe discourse on the sphere of Saturn\n٦ Know that all blackness, heat, the earthly dissolvent in Nature, the sour, the bitter and the like + and the land of much pestilence belong to the divisions of Saturn, slow of motion +. And the emergence of what is in the belly of its earth to its surface, of the plants in the mountains and the herbage, >from< the black, blue and green stones and what follows them, and lead, diamond, sand, glass, orpiment, marcasite and all these things. And from the putrid seas which produce the turtle + and which shelter >... <.\n\n\n## p. 43 (leaf n49)\n\nThe [wild beasts] * and buffaloes and elephants and large beasts of burden and the tenth [of the signs?], the swift motion and the slow, the intelligent. That is among the divisions of Saturn. And among plants, the large trees and the date-palm and what prolongs its time and diminishes its kind and multiplies its entanglement and its hardness, and often it is among that in which there is no benefit ٣ from its being eaten . All that is among the divisions of Saturn. So know that and measure your affair by it.\n\nThe discourse on the sphere of Jupiter ٦\n\nJupiter is hot moist just as Saturn was cold dry, and it is a luminous eastern planet and it is in truth the fortune of the sphere and the place of its benefit and its growth. Its command follows that the land which its regard specially distinguishes and whose opposition to it is prolonged, that is an eastern luminous land ٩ in which are the yellow colours * and the pure brilliant from the green and the eastern from the white and the light red, and the pleasant tastes and the moderate fragrant odours, so that is among the divisions of Jupiter. + And the sweet and the luminous moderate eastern land in which is its flower ١٢ and the emergence of what is in the interior of its earth > to its surface < the moderate mountains facing one another, abounding in flower. And among stones the yellow ones and the thin stone and what resembles that.\n\n\n## p. 44 (leaf n50)\n\nlike lead, tin, crystal, pearl, gem and what resembles that. And from animals: man, monkey, dogs, foxes and what resembles that. And from ٣ the trees moderate in Nature such as the fig, the lote-tree, large fruits and their likes. And sufficient for us is God, the best trustee. \nThe discourse on the sphere of Mars \n٦ All things: wine, odorous matter, victims * and the bubbling of blood and what is akin to that such as sheep, goats, kids and what is slaughtered, flayed and tormented. * And from stones: iron * and sulphur, red marcasite, magnesia and their likes, and the red ruby. And from the trees: sharp acrid ones and what resembles that. \n٩ And from the crafts: command, leading armies, executioners, blacksmiths, fire-kindlers and all works of fire and what resembles that, for all of it belongs to the divisions of Mars. So know \n١٢ that, if God the Mighty and Glorious wills. \nThe discourse on the sphere of the Sun \nThe luminous radiant things, the king, the arising of the world + and its soul, its water and its life.\n\n\n## p. 45 (leaf n51)\n\nAnd from the good medicinal trees such as almond and walnut and all the fatty things such as olive and pine * and spikenard and what resembles that. And from animals gazelles and the lion and the kark * and what resembles that. And from stones gold and sapphire ٣ the red and the like of that. And it is the most of the planets in speech in the world and the most firmly established of them and the most beautiful of them and the most verdant of them. So build your affair upon that in it, if God the Exalted wills.\nThe discourse on the sphere of Venus ٦\nAll the things of Venus and the luminous and the shining following with its light ٣٤ and its splendour the path of beauty and comeliness [and] especially from women, and adornment and the craft and the equilibrium of affairs and the softness of hearts and the beauty of forms. And from stones copper ٩ and marcasite and the white fat + and all the beautiful descriptions +, and from trees the sweet-smelling herbs and the good fruits. And weddings and banquets and fornication and all debauchery and passion and singing and play. And from animals the good * such as ambergris and musk. ١٢ And from trees camphor and sandalwood. And if these differ in Nature, yet their mixture accords with that. So understand this and know it, you will be right, if God the Exalted wills.\n\n\n## p. 46 (leaf n52)\n\nThe Discourse on the Sphere of Mercury: love, jesting, sharpness, rapidity of motion, impression by every Nature, ٣ and turning to every doctrine and saying. And of men and animals belonging to it: masters of stratagems, laws, and foxes, and everything possessing cunning and wile such as the two arsenics, and the deceivers, and everything possessing cunning such as thieves. And of trees: the willow ٦ and those which have subtle actions in medicines and drugs especially. And of stones: quicksilver and the clear oils. <And> of crafts: the subtle difficult things such as writing, geometry, the sciences of images, and all the delicate precise instruments. This is what is in it; ٩ let it be known, if God Most High wills ٣٥١.\nThe Discourse on the Sphere of the Moon: lying, deception, injustice, rapidity, and little patience upon a single state ١٢ and the like of that. And of things: darkness, water, and the base moist black substances such as clay, mud, and silver. And of men: the hypocrites and the afflicted such as the blind ١٥ and the crippled and the maimed and the like of that. And of trees: herbs and some poisons such as fleawort seed and coriander and the like of that. And of days: the most evil ١٦ and foulest of them is Monday, the day of binding, backbiting, journeys, the appearance of seditions, and calamities.\n\n\n## p. 47 (leaf n53)\n\nAnd Monday was only made thus on account of desire and generation, because the first is the One and the second is desire and generation. And were I not commanded to give the people according to their deserving, I would have unveiled of the light of hikma that with which the ultimate healing ٣ would be, but I was commanded to do so because of the hikma that is in it. For knowledge comes only to a man according to the measure of his capacity, else it would burn him, just as the vessel and the animal cannot carry except according to the measure of its capacity and its water-content, else it would overflow and return with abasement and impotence. ٦ This has already passed in the speech of the Imams. And among that [and among that] is the operation of the science of the mizan, as our master (God’s blessings upon him) said: Verily justice is the truth, and verily justice is in the mizan; when it increases it diminishes, and when it diminishes it increases. Likewise increase in the limit ٩ is diminution of the limits, and diminution of the limit is increase in the limits. So know this and you will find it as we have taught you.\nAnd since we have already treated what is in the falaks of knowledge, let the last ١٢ of our speech and the justice be unto the discourse on the Sabʿiyya, if God the Exalted wills.\nThe discourse on the Sabʿiyya.\nVerily the Sabʿiyya are the sciences whose promise we have already given, and we shall expound them in these our books, namely the books of the mawazin. And these seven are: (1) the science of tibb and the reality of what is in it,\n\n\n## p. 48 (leaf n54)\n\n(b) and the science of the Work and extracting what is in it, (c) and the science of the properties and what is in them, (d) and the greatest, supreme, false science in our time whose people and speakers are in it, I mean the science of talismans, (e) and the great, supreme science which has no like among all the sciences nor is more precious <than it> and which is neither comprehensible nor intelligible and concerning which nothing has been composed in books: the science of employing the supernal planets and what is in it and how it is, 3 (f) and the whole science of Nature which is the science of the Balance, (g) and the science of forms which is the science of generation and extracting what is in it. And that was placed on the path of <extracting> what is in potentiality into actuality 6 9 so bind your soul and your intellect, for what I am about to mention: otherwise you will perish and be lost and you will obtain nothing of your affair, and you will be like one who studies this science—rather your ignorance of it will be more general than your knowledge. Knowledge is light, and intellect is light, so knowledge is intellect and light is intellect. 12 And each one of these can be a premise and can be a middle term. So you say: every knowledge is intellect, and every intellect is light, therefore the conclusion: every knowledge is light. Likewise if intellect is advanced and knowledge is made the middle term it is the same. Likewise if light is advanced and knowledge is made the middle term, it is as though every light is knowledge, and every knowledge is intellect, therefore the conclusion: every light is intellect. All of this is permissible and sound. 15 So know it, if God Most High wills. And in God is success, and He is sufficient for us and the best of guardians.\n\n\n## p. 49 (leaf n55)\n\nThe Art of Medicine is divided into two parts: into theory and into practice. Theory is divided into two parts: first concerning the Intellect and second concerning the Body. As for the first, it is the first of every craft among the primary sciences, meaning by that the propaedeutics. The second is the derived knowledge from what we shall mention. Practice is likewise divided into two parts: in the Soul and in the Body. That which concerns the Soul is divided into two parts: either natural and necessary, or conventional and customary. As for that which concerns the Body, it is divided into two parts: either from within or from without. This is all that is needed for the science of medicine and its practice. We shall now speak in explanation of these principles according to what we see as sufficient, if God the Mighty and Majestic wills. As for the first in this craft, it is that we know the elements (stoicheia) are four, namely heat, cold, dryness and moisture; and that we know after that the Elements are four, namely Fire, Air, Water and Earth; and that they are compounds of the first [powers]; and that Fire is hot-dry, Air is hot-moist, Water is cold-moist, and Earth is cold-dry; and that we know Fire is the highest of things, Air beneath it, Water beneath Air, and Earth the lowest of all things; and that we know the Seasons are four, namely summer, autumn, winter and spring; and that we know spring is the first of them.\n\n\n## p. 50 (leaf n56)\n\nAnd it is in the station of air in nature, and it is three months of the year, and the first of that is from the seventeenth day that remains of Adhar until the seventeenth day that remains of Haziran. Then summer, which is the hot season, and it is from the seventeenth day that remains of Haziran until the seventeenth day that remains of Aylul. Then autumn, and it is from the seventeenth day that remains of Aylul until the seventeenth day that remains of Kanun. Then winter, and it is from the seventeenth day that remains of Kanun until the seventeenth day that remains of Adhar.\nThen the seconds of the sciences, which is that you know that the humours in the body of man are four, called the moistures, and they are yellow bile and black bile and phlegm and blood. So yellow bile is like fire, and it has of time the hot season. And blood is like air, and it has of time spring. And black bile is like earth, and it has of time autumn. Then phlegm, and it is like water, and it has of time winter.\nAnd that the principal members whose soundness and maladies it is necessary to know are four, and they are as we exemplified first: the brain and the heart and the liver and the testicles. So the brain is like phlegm among the moistures, and like water among the elements, and like winter among the times. And the heart is like yellow bile and like fire and the hot season. And the liver is like blood and air and spring. And the testicles are like black bile and earth and autumn. Thus the structure of the world and Nature and man has become clear thereby, so the world was necessarily a man.\n\n\n## p. 51 (leaf n57)\n\nAnd man is a small part in relation to the world. Then after that we wish to judge in the second science after the science of the Soul, that is the science of the body, which is the science of corporeality. And we have explained that in other than a book, and especially what Galen related, for he perfected that to the utmost perfection in his Great Book and his Little Book with what no one has pointed to. And we have made that clear with a sufficient statement, but we need to mention it here. And I have mentioned to you what you were heedless of, and what I mention in this my book has rendered you free of every statement and book. So from that, know that corporeality is among composite things, and its division does not avoid being in four modes. And that is that it is a thing composed of quality and quantity, and everything composed of two things, its division is into four modes only. And it is either that corporeality is swift, or it is slow, or it is fine, or it is coarse. So our saying slow and swift is quality, and our saying fine and coarse is quantity. So know that. And the principles of its division are four parts, four compositions: either it is swift-coarse, or it is swift-fine, or it is slow-\n\n\n## p. 52 (leaf n58)\n\nthick, or it may be slow and fine. The thick speed indicates the blood, for speed belongs to heat and thickness to moisture, and likewise the blood is hot and moist. As for the fine speed, it indicates the yellow bile, for speed belongs to heat, and fineness to dryness, and likewise the yellow bile is hot and dry. [Or it may be slow and thick.] The slow thick indicates the phlegm; as for thickness, it belongs to moisture, and as for slowness, it belongs to cold, and likewise the phlegm is cold and moist. As for the slow fine, it indicates the black bile; as for slowness, it indicates cold, and as for fineness, it indicates dryness, and likewise the black bile is cold and dry. These are the judgments of the pulse that enters the way of equilibrium and simple health. In the pulse there are excesses and signs that indicate death. Among them is the worm-like, which resembles the walking of the worm; in it there is weak succession and wavy movement that leads to languor and withering and weakness in motion and stopping until no movement is found for it under the fingers, [and stopping until no movement is found for it under the fingers]; then it returns. Its possessor lives no more than three hours except what befalls him. As for the empty, it is fine, swift, feeble, having no weight under the fingers other\n\n\n## p. 53 (leaf n59)\n\nobtained under a single regimen. For it strikes five blows and withers and disappears, and ten blows and withers and disappears, and three blows. Then that likewise increases according to a regimen as though it strikes five, then ten, then three, then whatever it may be and returns inverted from the first matter. This is praiseworthy even if it is excessive, because the regimen increases the duration a little in time. And the striking, had it possessed a regimen in the blow and order, would almost be sound, I mean these signs. But as for ٦ in the first statement, if they are mixed they announce a likeness of this second state, because the regimen of the striking of the striking-body its cause is the action of Nature and its regimen, and its mixture its cause is the neglect of Nature toward it >and< without that the departure and the revelation of death ٩ And among those signs is what is called the leap of the gazelle, and they are five leaps or fewer, small ones called: one sharp and two and three and one lofty, and the great pounding likewise resembles the walking of the gazelle, because it walks and leaps then ١٢ returns to the soft and the gentle; but as for the leap of the gazelle, it leads, if there is matter and remainder in the body of the patient, to the empty, and the empty, if there is remainder in it, to the wormy, and the wormy to the soft and the departure, and there is in that no recovery at all nor stratagem ١٥\n\n\n## p. 54 (leaf n60)\n\nleads to cold. And this is all that is in the sensation for the learners of what they ought to know.\nAs for the way of explanation and expansion, it ought not to be that, but rather\n٣ it is the foundation of all knowledge.\n٤ Since we have already treated that, it is necessary that we know the statement concerning the signs\nof the first sensation. < > and > it is also necessary that we know that some of it is dissolved into some\n٦ according to the transformation of the Natures and the dominance of some over some. And this is the form of the sensation.\nIf you have known that, then it is necessary that we know the matter of the flask also, and that follows\nthe striking, for some of it is swift and fine, and some of it is swift and slow. As for the choleric residues\n٩ they indicate the blood, and likewise the livid residues. And the intensely yellow yellow-bile\nwhich reverts to redness indicates the yellow-bile. And the white and the watery and the turbid\nyellow-bile all that indicates the phlegm and the black-bile. If < it was > turbid\n١٢ and not transparent it indicates the phlegm. And if it was thick in consistency and little in foam it indicates\nthe black-bile. And that whose heat strikes toward blackness > then it indicates\nthe yellow-bile < and the black-bile, for it has no cure at all. As for the abundant blue water\n\n\n## p. 55 (leaf n61)\n\nThe foam with a little yellowness, it is either the unifying water or the water of the cord. And if there is in it a hidden vein of redness, it requires a sharpness of vision that indicates that the cord is male. And if it whitens, it indicates female. As for the altered water + and the state regarding it ٣ for the physicians, that is not needed here.\nAnd since we have come to these principles, let us know that we draw toward speech on anatomy and the signs of maladies and speech on treatment, and that shall be the end ٦ of our discourse, God willing, the Exalted.\n\nThe discourse on anatomy\n\nMan is composed of eighty-four thousand large and small segments, ٩ and all of them are called either bone or muscle or nerve or artery or tendon or fiber ١٢ or cartilage or the eight-shaped bones called the phalanges in the language of the Arabs or nail or skin. As for the mother bones, they are two ١٢ and forty-nine bones, and as for the muscles, five hundred and forty-nine muscles, and the nerves and arteries and veins are enumerated in anatomy according to need and their presence in every member since they may decrease and increase. >And< >in the cavity ١٥ of the heart is a delicate bone that dissolves quickly like the shape of lam exactly, when the heart is split.\n\n\n## p. 56 (leaf n62)\n\nImmediately at the beginning of the slaughter it adheres, otherwise it does not adhere and dissolves. The brain is divided into three parts: the first is aligned with the face and is called the house of imagination, the middle which is the brain is called the house of memory. The third at the back of the brain is called the house of thought. Whichever of these is corrupted, that limited thing is corrupted with it until the imagination, thought and memory are corrupted, so know that. This is what it is necessary to know. + Thus in its apparent form. If the learner wishes to read our books and especially this our book, let him already have practised these crafts according to the method of expansion. As for the chapter of nutrition and the three digested things, we have already fully treated the discussion of it in the Book of Collection at the Utmost of Exposition. As for the discussion of all the divisions of medicine, we have already expanded upon it in the Great Book of Medicine, but we mention here what pertains to the subtle difficult things and the emergence of what is in potency into act. Of that is the eye, which is composed of ten things among which are three layers and three humours, and by the eye I mean the seeing one and what surrounds it of the white of the eye, not the eyelids and the canthi and what is around them. And of that is the womb, which is five.\n\n\n## p. 57 (leaf n63)\n\nFor each piece of them there is a limit, a form, and an indication of what is in it, and the like of that. As for the eye, we begin by explaining its state from its inside to its outside so that ٣ the instruction may be by way of composition. As for the layers from the inside of the eye to its outside: the hard celestial layer, and above it the meningeal cerebral layer, and above it the third layer called the reticular; above this reticular is a moisture called the vitreous, ٦ and behind it a second moisture called the crystalline [and behind it a second moisture called the crystalline], and behind it a third moisture called the albuminoid, and between these two moistures—namely the crystalline and the albuminoid—is a thin peel resembling the peel of an onion, which is the uvea layer, ٩ and behind it the corneal layer, and behind it the conjunctival layer. These are seven layers and three moistures, as we have mentioned. Disagreement and contention have occurred among the physicians concerning that. Some of them mentioned ١٢ that the layers of the eye are six, and claimed that the growth of the cornea is from the sclera, and they did not call the sclera a layer. Some said: the layers are five layers, and that because the choroid is not also a layer, since the growth of the uvea is from it. Some said: ١٥\n\n\n## p. 58 (leaf n64)\n\nFour, and that is because they did not see fit to call the reticular layer a layer. They argued for that by saying: the layer * covers it, and the reticular is not * upon that but only adheres to it. Some said: three layers, and that is because they did not see fit to call the arachnoid a layer and said: it is a part of it. Some said: only two layers, and that is because they did not see fit to call the outer layer <a layer> and said it is ٤٤ * quicksilver of the eye. This is what there is of statement concerning the layers of the eye. As for the benefits of these layers and the description of their placement * and their arising and the causes that are in them and why they became thus * and the colors of the eye and their natures and their causes and the treatments of their ailments and the limits of what is in them, [it is] in our book entitled On the Eye. I mention here what is appropriate to the wonder of the world and the making of Nature. Since we have come to what is in the eye, let us now speak of the womb according to the statement, if God the Exalted wills. We say: the womb has five layers, not in the sense of the layers of the eye, layer upon layer, but its conception is completed beside it to a house <of them>: two of\n\n\n## p. 59 (leaf n65)\n\nThe right side, and two opposite it from the left side equal to the right equally, and a fifth chamber in the chest of the womb. As for the first lower chamber of the right womb, all that comes to be in it is female, > * < , and the upper chamber ٣ of it, meaning the right one, that which is generated in it is male * < , and the first lower chamber of the left womb, all that comes to be in it is male, and the upper chamber of it, meaning the left one, that which is generated in it * female, and the chamber which is in the chest of the womb, in it ٦ is generated the hermaphrodite. As for the Nature of the first lower right one, it is cold moist, and the Nature of the second upper right chamber is hot moist. Therefore whoever is born from it among the males is soft, moist, smooth, perfect in form, beautiful in shape, ٩ because the course of heat in moisture is more penetrating than the course of heat in dryness, because heat is the nourishment of fire. As for the Nature of the first lower left one, it is cold dry,\n\n\n## p. 60 (leaf n66)\n\nAnd the Nature of the second upper left chamber is dry pottery, intensely hot and dry. ٣ Therefore, any woman born in it will be ugly, wicked, vile, and sometimes wholly coarse of limb. As for the Nature of the fifth chamber which is in the upper part of the womb, it is almost devoid of heat, yet there is in it only a slight heat of growth, like the heat which is in fish. So know that ٦ and draw analogy from it, if God Most High wills. \nThe Discourse on the Causes\nKnow that the kinds of causes follow the kinds of combinations of the Natures, and the Natures ٩ from which the causes arise follow the moistures which are in the diseased body, namely the yellow bile, the blood, the phlegm and the black bile. The causes are either from them singly and pure, such as the yellow-bile fever, jaundice and pure yellow-bile delirium, or the pure phlegmatic one and the like, and such as the surging of blood, redness of colour, bloody fever, bloody apoplexy, pleurisy and pneumonia and what resembles them among the bloody causes, and black-bile delirium, spasm and facial paralysis.\n\n\n## p. 61 (leaf n67)\n\nAnd the traces in the body like the ladder and the cancer and what resembles them, and like paralysis and the cold stroke + and the fibre * and the power and the leprosy and what resembles that which is attributed to phlegm. For these are the simple ailments from the simple Natures and what resembles them, and they are in ٣ reality composite from composite.\nAnd only that the ailments be composite from these Elements by the composition of the Elements some upon others, and they have signs by which they are known. So from that is the black when ٦ it mixes with the yellow or is generated from it, and it occurs upon three > . . . .\nThe Discourse on the Science of the Work\n<.......> ٩ in everything in the world, and they are quicksilver and arsenic and sulphur and sal-ammoniac and camphor and oil from everything, for these fly from the fire. And they have distinctions in their essences, and that is that these six Spirits are divided into three divisions: either volatile non-combustible mixed, or volatile non-combustible ١٢ and non-mixed, or combustible mixed volatile. As for the volatile non-combustible and mixed, it is quicksilver alone; as for the volatile non-combustible and non-mixed, it is sal-ammoniac and camphor; and as for the combustible mixed volatile, it is sulphur and arsenic and oil, and these ١٥ alone > * Souls < because all of them are oil.\n\n\n## p. 62 (leaf n68)\n\n(5) As for the bodies (metals), they are that whose measure of their Spirits and their bodies is one, so their bodies are not separate from their Spirits, nor their Spirits separate from their bodies. Because the generation and the mixture joined between that with the most perfect joining, so from them came the thing called the bodies (metals). And these bodies (metals) are seven and they are the malleable ones, because everything whose spirit has been mixed with its body upon a balance such that it becomes a body (metal), then it is a body (metal). And these seven, their qualities have been divided like the divisions of the planets according to what we have informed you in the beginning of this book and in other places. And these seven are: lead (Saturn) which is by the Nature of Saturn, and tin which is by the Nature of Jupiter, and iron which is by the Nature of Mars, and gold which is by the Nature of the Sun, and copper which is by the Nature of Venus, and silver which is by the Nature of the Moon,\n\n\n## p. 63 (leaf n69)\n\nAnd the Chinese iron, and it is by nature Mercury. As for most of the artificers, they introduce quicksilver in place of the Chinese iron, because quicksilver is included in the number of the Spirits, not in the number of the Bodies ٣ and the Bodies. Certain ignorant persons of the Work have symbolized this and said: it is a body yet not a body, it is volatile yet not volatile, and the like of that from the dregs ٦ of every sect; so know that. And be content — may God preserve you — with these our books instead of their expressions, may God curse them and disgrace them. For it is incumbent upon whoever reads anything of my books that he not carry anything of the sciences, but rather that which aims at them >... < something of them upon verification, for he is ٩ the perfect philosopher; so know that and act upon it as the object of the path, if God Most High wills.\n\n\n## p. 64 (leaf n70)\n\nAs for the bodies (metals), they are those which have become mixed in their mines from the Spirits (volatiles) and the bodies (metals) without proper mixture. They fly and become fixed because what flies of them is their Spirits (volatiles) and what remains fixed of them is their bodies (metals). They have only become separated in the regimen because they are not properly mixed. [Know this.] They are marcasite, magnesia, dahnaj, lapis lazuli, daws and the like. > Know this < and act upon it. This is what is in the Stones of the science. As for the aqueous, know that the tinctures belong to the Spirits (volatiles) because they require, on account of the abundance of their Spirits (volatiles) and the paucity of their bodies (metals), more than their place. For a dirham of quicksilver covers twenty of copper until all of it becomes white with its colour, and a dirham of sulphur burns two dirhams of copper and colours twenty of it blue, altered from its natural colour, and a dirham of >.....< silver and copper and gold because it covers more than its measure. And the bodies (metals) which are compounded of\n\n\n## p. 65 (leaf n71)\n\nThe spirits and the bodies, some of them cover and some of them do not cover, <.......> it proceeds in the manner of the bodies, so know that. For when we knew that the tincture is for the spirits because of their marking and that the plants and the perpetuity are for the bodies because the bodies are fetters for the spirits, whoever is able to introduce the spirits into the bodies is able to perform the Work and to bring forth the Elixir from potentiality into actuality.\nAs for the bodies that are not spirits and not bodies but are composed of all of them — I mean the spirits and the bodies — they are in reality closer to the coming-to-be of the Work than the separated spirits and the separated bodies.\nAnd since we have come to what is in the spirits and the bodies and the bodies and it has been established\n\n\n## p. 66 (leaf n72)\n\nEach one of them in its proper place and assigned locus. So let this be the end of our discourse on the quiddity, and let us take up the quality which is the Work. And let us proceed from that to what follows it from the Septenary, if God Most High wills.\n٣\nThe discourse on the quality.\nQuality is the regimen of the Work without which it would not exist, and it is the regimen. And that is divided into divisions: either for the Spirits, or for the Bodies, or for the blending, or for the projection. And these four are the Work in reality.\n٦\nAs for the regimen of the Spirits, the learned have been divided in it into three divisions: a first group of them mentioned that the Spirits must be sublimed and that fire and the subtlety of the sublimation wash their impurities and their dirt and make them fit for blending, and they mentioned the instrument of the sublimation by means of the cucurbit and the flasks and what resembles that. As for the second group, they said: rather by ablution, not by sublimation, because the whitening of these Spirits is accidental, not essential, the proof being that when they are returned to the fire they revert black and yellow and what resembles that; and ablution removes their dirt even if it takes longer time, so that it comes forth pure\n١٢\nwithout any defilement. Because sublimation whitens them by dispersion just as it whitens the natif, especially what is extended in the air by whitening, whereas ablution removes their defilement completely and does not\n١٥\n\n\n## p. 67 (leaf n73)\n\nIt returns black at the fire. And a third group said: Knowledge is indeed abundant in the two of them, and that is because it must be washed to remove its burning, then it is made to ascend to whiten, so that it becomes pure < whitened >. Thus the washing and the sublimation have together gathered in it the benefit of the washing and its purification and the benefit of the sublimation and its whiteness, and the thing which is from two aspects, as we have set forth in the sciences of logic and the Intellect, is superior to the thing which is from one aspect.\nThis is what is in the Spirits regarding the regimens, except that it is necessary that we know here what we say: and it is that the unburnt requires from the fire that which is intense from it, and that which is burnt from it requires from the fire that which is soft and subtle, I mean in the regimen. This is what is in the Spirits. When they have appeared they require congelation and solution, and most of the authorities say in this section: We require solution and congelation. This is what is in the Spirits.\n\n\n## p. 68 (leaf n74)\n\n() As for what concerns the regimens in the bodies, the scholars — may God have mercy on them — divided concerning the bodies into two groups. That is because some of them said: calcine the body until it becomes subtle and turns to dust that does not revive and does not return to its origin from which it began and from which it derives. The second group said: rather, it becomes subtle and revives and there remains in it a remainder, so that the body is in the sense of the dissolved, not the perished, and there remains in it a remainder for attachment. As for the adherents of the first opinion, they brought the body to perishing and ashiness, and it stood in need of a moisture that gathers.\n\n\n## p. 69 (leaf n75)\n\nbetween it and the spirit. As for the people of the second sect, they are the people of truth: verily the truth. So work by it and you will attain your right guidance, if God Most High wills.\nThe discourse on the mizan.\nThe mizan requires for its demonstration two things that have been derived, Muhammad, of one quality; and it is possible that they are equal in quality. So long as the two things have not been derived as one and have not been divided into one part, the conjunction does not occur. And whenever the quality — that is, the form — is not one, the conjunction does not occur.\nAs for the Balance (al-muwazana), it is the measure of the attachment of the higher to the lower and the lower to the higher; so know that. The explanation of that is that if the spirit is pure and the body is not pure, no operation occurs. And whenever the spirits are pure and the bodies are not sifted, aqueous, dusty, aerial, neither conjunction nor order occurs in the regimen, and the mizan does not occur. As for the quantity, the things between which there is a proportion are the things that must be one; and those between which there is no proportion are those in which contrariety occurs.\n\n\n## p. 70 (leaf n76)\n\nThe quantity between them, and this is what is in the mizaj. So when the blended [things] gather completely and some of them accept others, then the existence of the iksir has become necessary and what preceded has become a tabiʿa for it, and the tarh remains upon you; and before the tarh [come] the sura and the kayfiyya. As for the sura, it is that in the red [Elixir] it should be red in the utmost degree, inclining toward blackness from the intensity of its heat, and the tabʿ should be predominantly hot and dry, with little coldness and moisture; this is what is in the red iksir. It should resemble ice, some of it piled upon some as we have exemplified, so that it is as though it were raised eternally, so that it is as though it were + a body, all of it a tincturing agent, all of it +, so that it is as though it were entirely sibgh. Likewise the white [Elixir], except that it is intensely white, going toward ice in colour, cold and dry, intensely cold and dry, with little heat and moisture, in duration and quality like the red [one], with the tabaʾiʿ reversed, fusible so that it is as though it were wax. This is what is in the mizaj, and God knows best what is correct.\n\nDiscourse on the tarh\nThe tarh follows the tadbir; if it is complete there is no limit to the tarh, but if it is defective then it is deficient. The least tarh of the true iksir\n\n\n## p. 71 (leaf n77)\n\nsixty, the most of them a thousand thousand and a hundred thousand, and the middlemost of them a thousand and two hundred (٣). Repetition is obligatory in the Work because repetition is solution and congelation; solution proceeds after the manner of purification and congelation proceeds after the manner of calcination, and this continually augments the Elixir until it reaches its end. The Elixir is a medicament beneficial against all ailments, and it is the poison of poisons; the meaning of “poison” is that it is such. A potent medicament such as theriac is called “poison,” and every medicament that cures an ailment is the poison of that ailment. Fire is the poison <..... .> because it is the poison of poisons. Now that we have established this, let us say: the belief of the Artificers concerning the Art is more appropriate; they hold that the macrocosm is a great man, the Art is a middle man, and man is a small man. As for the Tawqidiyya sect, they asserted that the cause is a small man and that it increases and multiplies until another offspring is produced upon which augmentation is continually made, and that it only became a great enduring man by this cause [and] its knowledge is perfected by regimen and it manifests the procedure in perpetuity, so that it became a great man without end, just as you see things growing weak...\n\n\n## p. 72 (leaf n78)\n\nFirst, then it strengthens degree by degree upon that until it ends at its extremity so that it has a final goal, and I do not blame the Indians for + a limit for them + because I have singled out \n٣ for them a book in which I mentioned their opinions, and likewise the cosmic Qarmatians and the Qadarites + and the Raziyya and the Salsaliyya + and the Mahiyya + and the Samiyya who resemble the Samaritans * and the Muslimiyya, nor the doctrine of the Magians, the vile descent upon * his unbelief and his levity \n٦ * and the ugliness of its result, nor the doctrine of the philosophers concerning religions and * their leaping <-> <-> vileness * of their hatred when they believed in the first water * that it is like + what I intended + the flattery of causes thereby. For if <it were> that true, then Nimrod and Pharaoh have spoken truth — \n٩ may God curse him — and those resembling them both and all the devils Kambas and ʿAbd Allah and Ishaq and al-Khuld + and al-Bayir and what resembles that of opinions. Praise be to God who has made true to us His promise and caused us to inherit the earth; we settle in the Garden wherever we will — how excellent is the reward of the workers ()\n\n\n## p. 73 (leaf n79)\n\nThis is the end of the Work. Let us therefore speak afterwards of the Septenary, if God Most High wills. Discourse on the Properties. The term \"properties\" is divided into three meanings: either swift to vanish, called a state, or slow to vanish, called a disposition, or essential in that which it is in. We have already clarified this in the first part of the Logic. The discourse on the properties concerns only the most specific of them, the essential in that which it is in. For we need to carry out the regimen of the properties; we have already treated the matter at length with a comprehensive statement indicating what is in it. This is because property follows upon its operation, and the Balance is consequent upon it by way of precision. For when one takes the lodestone, which is the most famous and general in the minds of men, and weighs it with the natural Balance that we shall mention later and determines its quantity, then weighs the substance with another <.....>. For properties do not agree in two different substances by a single weight; but when they agree in two substances or several substances, their limit is exactly like the first substance in quality.\n\n\n## p. 74 (leaf n80)\n\nAnd all the definitions, because it is impossible for a substance to exist whose two separate definitions are predicated of it with one property. For the relation of the hot to the hot in quality is not equal in substantiality. An example of that is that asarum, which is hot and dry, is not ٣ like pepper, which is hot and dry, but only resembles these qualities, while the substantiality differs. > * Likewise < if they also agree in quantity, that is to say ٦ in one degree. For balsam is in the third degree of heat and dryness, for example, and likewise pepper. They have agreed in one quantity and quality, ] and the qualities and quantities [ > * so the two of them < are close by vegetality and by qualities and quantities, ٩ and the difference between them is in another slight place, which is the completion of the form, because the two recent ones, Muhammad, are one, agreeing in substantiality and accidentality—so understand that. And for things, the properties have conditions: among them what acts by drinking, and among them what acts ١٢ by attachment, and among them what acts by adjacency not by way of attachment but by way of adjacency of will and action, and especially in the chapter of talismans, and indeed this kind of the properties enters into it. ١٥ And an example of the properties that act by drinking ٥٤ is all the things that act at their time. We have already mentioned some of that in the chapter of the Balance in the Book of the Principles among these books, what suffices therein. Except that it is not harmful to point to that.\n\n\n## p. 75 (leaf n81)\n\nAlways and this indicates it, if God Almighty wills. So we say that an example of that is in the drinking of the instantly lethal aconite and the gall of vipers and the milk of the opium poppy, and scammony in the expulsion of yellow bile, and the herb in sugar, and the inclined nut ٣ and what resembles that.\nAnd an example of the attachment we attach to the eagle Stone for mountains, and the nine houses in which are fifteen of the durations how it turned, and the + ʿabhari Stone for obsession, ٦ and the peony which is the wood of the cross for headache, and the likes of that of which we have already lengthened speech. As for what is done by adjacency and borrowing of what we have mentioned in the chapters of talismans like the menstruating woman stripped bare preventing the cold falling upon the crops, ٩ and the tortoise placed upon its back, and the likes of that. And in it is another chapter of positioning and figures which when prepared >... .< that second one acts: like the opposition of the emerald to the eye of the viper so that it flows immediately, and like the * engraved scorpion and the opposition ١٢ of the appearance of the scorpion from under the earth to its height and the likes of that, and the things which we have mastered in the books of occult properties, I mean the fifty epistles and their likes. For writing with veins and the Stone steeped in lime >... .< the writing appears ١٥\n\n\n## p. 76 (leaf n82)\n\nupon that silk. And the fire which is kindled in the heads of the flasks with boiled wine and salt and what resembles that of things among the wondrous properties in which the measure of benefit is thought ٣ to be slight. And these indicate something abundant in these sciences, and it behooves the examiner in the science of properties [to] gather from them what is needed >to< test it, then attach each one of them to the ten categories, either by substance ٦ or by accident, so that each one of them is attached to its genus. For that which operates by substance is not like that which operates by quantity nor by what follows it, and likewise that which operates by quantity is not the one operating by quality. For if we set up in the nine houses other than what indicates ٩ fifteen, birth would not be facilitated. And likewise if nine dirhams of saffron were taken or eleven dirhams, the afterbirth would not fall. And likewise that which is in time and place: each one of them operates by what is set for it. For that which dissolves in certain days does not dissolve ١٢ in fewer than them nor more, else the regimen would be corrupted. And likewise the statement concerning place: that which is dissolved in putrefaction does not dissolve in another. And likewise the woman stripped in the desert—if she stripped in a house that work would not be performed, and the like of that. And likewise the statement ١٥ concerning posture and possession and the relative and the agent and the patient, for the statement must be made clear and verified to the utmost verification; and man needs after that practice and time for knowledge and persistence upon it until the realities of each one of these principles emerge for him.\n\n\n## p. 77 (leaf n83)\n\nAnd since we have already treated the discourse on the properties, let us return to the discourse on talismans, which is the fourth of the Heptads, so that we may proceed from that to what resembles it until we exhaust the discourse on it and on our book, and it shall be its conclusion, so that we may hasten to another of these books, ٣ God willing.\n\nThe Discourse on Talismans ٥٦\nThe discourse on talismans, upon verification, belongs to the chapter of the substance, because whatever performs some operation by its own essence is substantial in nature. Its instruments proceeding from potency to act belong to the chapter of the relative in respect of its mass, and it is called affinity and contrariety. We have already defined that for you and established its explanation in more than one place in our books ٩ and in the books of logic with the utmost precision; and now we shall speak of it in a discourse that encompasses that and comprehends it and the meaning in it. It is that affinity is the resemblance of things to one another and their mutual attraction and the multiplication from them, like the affinity of sulphur to fire. * And contrariety ١٢ is the mutual alienation of things from one another and their distance from them and their mutual repulsion and independence from them. They have two ranks in affinity and contrariety: as for affinity, the things that incline by the agent are stronger and more efficacious than those that incline by the act, and the things ١٥\n\n\n## p. 78 (leaf n84)\n\nSimilarity by the two extremes is stronger and more possible than that which is similar by one of them. For the ratio between the hot dry <and the hot> moist is stronger than the ratio between the hot dry and the cold dry and vice versa. And [between] the ratio between the hot dry and the hot dry is stronger and more possible than the two preceding figures, so know that. And since the matter of similarity has become clear, let us speak of opposition: so know that things <which> oppose by the active are more distinct than those which oppose by the passive; and those which oppose by the two extremes are stronger and more possible than those which oppose by one of them. And the example of that is that things ٥٧ which oppose in this <manner>, namely that one of them is hot dry [and the other dry] and the other cold dry, then these are stronger and more possible in distinctness than those which oppose by one of them being hot dry and the other hot moist. And things which are hot dry are stronger and more possible in distinctness from the cold moist than all the two preceding manners. And since the manner in opposition and similarity has become clear, we are returning to the mention of talismans. And we have already said concerning them that they are only attraction and multiplication like the attraction of scorpions and serpents.\n\n\n## p. 79 (leaf n85)\n\nAnd the frogs and the fish and the people and the beasts; it is only expulsion and removal like the driving away of these from the cities and the places. And these talismans follow two things, namely: the Natures of the drugs and the medicaments, and the Natures of the motions of the stars and the Natures of their positions, nothing else. ٣\nThe science of the properties is not like that, because the properties follow one of them: either the Natures of the stars by motion or their Natures also by position, or the Natures of the drugs and the medicaments and the Stones and other than that. So this is the difference between the talisman and the property. ٦\nAnd because we make clear <... ...> to say here why the talisman was called talisman >tilasma<, for this was not said in it * to anyone anything but you. For we have related it from the mine of Wisdom and its master informed me of it and said: O Jabir. So I said: At your service, O my master. ٩\nHe said: Do you know why the talisman was called talisman? I said: No, by God, O my master, I do not know. He said: Reflect upon it, for it is of your knowledge. So I reflected upon it a year and did not know what it was. I said: No, by God, O my master, I do not know what it is. He said: Were it not that I planted you ١٢\nwith my hand and originated you first and last [symbol] until this time, I would have said that you are obscure; woe to you, turn it over. So I said: Yes, O my master; thus its meaning is empowered from the side of overcoming and empowerment. So I prostrated myself in prostration. He said: Were your prostration to me and your earnestness, you would have been ١٥\namong the successful ones; your forefathers of old prostrated themselves to me. And your prostration to me, O Jabir, is your prostration to yourself; you, by God, are above that. So I prostrated myself in prostration. He said: O Jabir, and God\n\n\n## p. 80 (leaf n86)\n\nYou have no need of all this. I said: You have spoken truly, my master. He said: We have already taught what you desired, and you have learned what you desired, so be certain. Explain this therefore in my book ٣ the Bringing-forth of What is in Potentiality into Actuality. The talisman—may God preserve you—is dominant in its action, overpowering and victorious through the correspondence of likeness and opposition. We need to state how this occurs in the likeness and opposition among the stars, stones, drugs and animals, and let ٦ that be the conclusion of this book. God is the Granter of success to what is correct, if God Exalted wills.\n\nDiscourse on Talismans and Their Operation\n\nAs for likeness, it is the equality of the first with the fifth and the fifth with the ninth in all of them: the hot with the hot, the cold with the cold, the moist with the moist and the dry with the dry. ٩ It bestows strength through the middle term and bestows weakness through the two extremes, the first being weaker than the last. An example of this is that Aries, Leo and Sagittarius are the first, its fifth and its ninth, and they are proportionate because all of them are hot-dry. ١٢ Strength belongs to Leo because it is the middle term, while Aries is weaker in action than Sagittarius, the two being extremes, and Sagittarius is stronger in action than Aries. Likewise Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn; likewise ١٥ Gemini, Libra and Aquarius; likewise Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. This is what concerns likeness.\n\n\n## p. 81 (leaf n87)\n\n> * As for the discussion of opposition * < the proportion therein belongs to the hebdomadal [system], for these are opposites. Because the light of every > first < is dark at the appearance of its seventh, and the light of its seventh is dark at the rising of its first. Its example is that the proportion of the first to the seventh is as the proportion of the second to the eighth, the third to the ninth, the fourth to the tenth, the fifth to the eleventh, the sixth to the twelfth. It revolves and exceeds the period, so that the proportion of the seventh becomes to the thirteenth, the eighth to the fourteenth, the ninth to the fifteenth, the tenth to the sixteenth, the eleventh to the seventeenth, the twelfth to the eighteenth. The example of that is in the sphere of the zodiac, which consists of twelve signs with twelve names, and they are these: Aries. Taurus. Gemini. Cancer. Leo. Virgo. Libra. Scorpio. Sagittarius. Capricorn. Aquarius. Pisces. For the first contrariety is by the hebdomadal [system] only, without increase of the number, such as the opposition of Aries to Libra which is its seventh, Taurus to Scorpio which is the proportion of the second to the eighth, Gemini to Sagittarius which is the proportion of the third to the ninth, Cancer to Capricorn which is the proportion of the fourth to the tenth, Leo to Aquarius which is the proportion of the fifth to the eleventh, Virgo to Pisces which is the proportion of the sixth to the twelfth. These are the first [terms] ٦٠ comprising the + mentioned without inversion, all of them equal, each one like the other from first to seventh. > ..... from seventh <\n\n\n## p. 82 (leaf n88)\n\nTo the first belongs + how likewise inverted + , and the statement concerning it is as the statement concerning what preceded. Because the ratio of the seventh to the thirteenth is the ratio of the seventh to the first inverted, so the first becomes counted twice, thus the circle of the twelve increases by one. Likewise the eighth to the fourteenth, the ninth to the fifteenth, the tenth to the sixteenth, the eleventh to the seventeenth, the twelfth to the eighteenth. An example of that is the Balance <to> the Ram [twice] so it becomes repeated twice, and like the Scorpion <to the Bull> and the Bull is from the Ram fourteen, and like the Archer >to the Twins> and the Twins are from the Ram fifteen, and like the Kid to the Crab >and the Crab< from the Ram sixteen, and like the Water-carrier to the Lion >and the Lion< from the Ram seventeen, and like the Fish to the Virgin >and the Virgin< from the Ram eighteen. This then is what is in the science of talismans * from the opposition of the zodiacal signs. As for the planets, the one is that the star be in its sign, so that it is in its middle house [in] for things >...> , or in the house of its exaltation for things + existing, or in its dejection and retrogression for things inferior small. + Or let its likeness be like the Sun + that belongs to you + in the zodiacal signs, so let it be Mars, and if it is lacking then Venus, and if it is lacking then Mercury, and the like of that. We have already mentioned from\n\n\n## p. 83 (leaf n89)\n\nThat is a sufficient thing in a book of these our books > in < the talismans, what suffices and enriches therein. So let him seek it and look into it and combine between its meanings and the meanings of what is in this our book. For it opens the way for him, if God Exalted wills.\n٣\nAnd since we have come to what is in the correspondence of the planets, let us mention + after the medicines\nwith it ٦١ so that from them comes the coming-to-be of the talismans, if God Exalted wills.\n٦\nSo we say: the hundred that one relies upon the medicines sharing in Nature with a planet in the action ٦ of that thing. The example of that is that you desire to draw the lion to a city of cities or the fish to a water of waters. And these two examples are opposites in Nature,\nexcept that the hundred is with them both. So let the observation be to a hot dry sign—this is the chapter of the lion—٩\nand let there be in that sign a hot dry star in one of the ranks, either in predominance\nor in the middle or in deficiency. And the example >of the sign< is the lion and the lion\nand the bow, and the planets are either the sun or Mars or Venus or Mercury. ١٢\nAnd the sun is stronger and more established, and Mars is middle, and Venus and Mercury are weaker.\nSo know that and analogize upon it, if God Exalted wills.\nAnd the fish that the sign be cold moist >....< like the moon only, ١٥\nand the cold dry is Saturn. So this is what is in the correspondence from the planets.\nAs for the medicines, let them be from one of the three kinds, either the animal or\nthe plant or the stone [as for the animal and the plant and the stone] as for the animal and the plant\n\n\n## p. 84 (leaf n90)\n\nFor it dries and turns from what it was upon, so the Work is nullified except at its time and departs. As for the Stone, it remains. So let the Stone be, if the talisman is hot dry, a dry vapour; and if it is cold dry, then cold dry; or hot moist, a moist vapour; or cold moist, cold moist. This is what is in it. ٣ And the statement regarding opposition by inversion, because opposition is negation and distancing. And that is that the operation be in the hot with the cold, and in the cold with the hot, and in the moist with the dry, and in the dry with the moist. Because these ٦ are mutually repugnant. And let them be contradictory at the extremes, for that is more enabling for it and stronger, so know that and entrust your affair to it, you will find it, if God Most High wills. ٩ And its example is that you wish to drive away scorpions and vipers from a place among places. Scorpions are cold and vipers are hot, so the example in them is contradictory. So we say: it is necessary that the zodiacal sign in the cold be hot, and the planet hot, and the Stone hot; and in the hot, the zodiacal sign cold, and the planet cold, and the Stone cold. And a group of the verifying ١٢ philosophers do not hold that view, and they say: it is necessary that the zodiacal sign in the cold be hot, and the planet cold, and the Stone hot moist. And they have a proof for that, because ١٥ what is entirely contrary to a thing removes the thing without intention. And when there is in the thing a nature from the thing, it reaches it by its very self and is not general. And the example of that is that the talisman when\n\n\n## p. 85 (leaf n91)\n\nWork for a prophet something cold, for example, yet the talisman did not single out one of the cold things. It destroyed all the cold things and did not <.....> that intention. Likewise the statement concerning the hot and other than it. This is speech that does not permit the Stone to be by the Nature ٣ of the living * nourished being. The inclined did not intend from the things anything for two causes: one of them is that it is a drawing and an increasing, and the second is the Form. For we speak concerning the Form, and it is the last of the speech concerning the talismans. And God is the granter of success ٦\n\nThe Statement concerning the Form\n\nAn example > of that < is what is engraved upon the Stone for the existence of the talisman. Know ٨ that many among men have doubted concerning the Form taken upon the talisman, and they have estimated ٩ that a derivation in the course of diversion and play and the laws. Yet what they have supposed of that is not true, because the relation of the shape to the shape is as the relation of the Nature to the Nature. And it is necessary that the Balance in the engraving be the completion of the appearance of that star and the zodiacal signs ١٢ from beneath the earth to their height\n\nAnd whoever has read something of our books concerning the science of the Balances — I mean our books these the hundred and the four and the forty — it will become clear to him by this our book from the science of the talismans ١٥ a great, mighty, dangerous, large foundation, so know its measure. And beware of neglecting it and casting it aside\n\n\n## p. 86 (leaf n92)\n\nits principles and abandoning anything from them, so that one may attain thereby knowledge of the talismanic desire, if God Most High wills.\n٣\nNow that we have dealt with what is in the talismans of discourse, let us return to speech concerning the higher things in the same manner of discourse, one by one from the seven kinds, so that the discourse concerning them may be complete, if God Most High wills, and by God is success.\n٦\nDiscourse on the employment of the higher things\n٩\nAs for the higher things and their employment, it is a discourse of great theosophy. Discourse upon it is also exceedingly rare, difficult, and impossible to attain, save by intellects that are perfect and complete and by those possessed of discipline and full benefits. Otherwise the discourse perishes and it is not known what it is, so the authoring scholar is thereby excused.\n١٢\nThe least employment of the higher things is the existence of the talismans, and within them is what exists of these talismans as a part in relation to the whole. We shall state how that is in a concise statement, if God Most High wills.\n١٥\nThe first of that is that we know what the higher things are <and> whether they exist and why they exist, and we state how they are and proceed from it to something else, if God wills.\nAs for the higher things, they are the twelve, the seven, the nine, and the forty-nine.\n\n\n## p. 87 (leaf n93)\n\n* It is <the planets that are above it [they are the planets]> — and all of that is sixty-eight planets. This is according to the opinion of some people. And according to the opinion of others: the seven and the three hundred and sixty degrees. And both statements are true, the second being better ٣ than the first. This is according to what is in the Muʿawwalat, and let us now state how that is.\nThe statement on the manner of these Muʿawwalat\nThis occurs for two things only, namely observation and fumigation. As for observation, ٦ it is that you look at the descent of whichever planet you wish to whichever degree you wish for the performance of that same thing. As for fumigation > < every planet has two fumigations, one for the hundred and the other for the opposition. The hundred is that the planet be in a degree according to its nature: if the ٩ planet is cold the degree is cold, and if it is hot the degree is hot. Likewise if >it is moist or dry< it is moist or dry. And the fumigation is as we have previously stated. And in the case of opposition it is exactly the contrary, that the ١٢ planet be hot >........< and the degree hot and the fumigation hot + and the operation cold. The first is for attraction and this second for repulsion. Know that and apply it; you will find it correct, God willing.\n١٥\n\n\n## p. 88 (leaf n94)\n\n65 As for the observation, we have already taught it to you in another book. As for the fumigations, the fumigations have become fourteen fumigations. We shall now mention that 3 and proceed from it to the discourse on the Balance, if God the Mighty and Glorious wills.\nThe Discourse on the Fumigations of the Planets\nFumigation of Saturn for the watery in coldness and dryness: camphor, colocynth, 6 * turmeric, peels of sea butter, lizard’s eye. Its fumigation in the hot dry contrary: balsam, and balsam seed and musk only. If anything is added, then pepper.\nFumigation of Jupiter for the watery hot moist: dried rocket and amber and anise and sagapenum and saffron. Its fumigation for the cold dry contrary * like 9 the fumigation * mentioned in the chapter on Saturn, the cold dry, exactly. If a little frankincense and nutmeg is added to it, it will be excellent. So do it, if God wills.\n12 Fumigation of Mars for the watery hot dry: sugar and saffron and iron saffron and verdigris and balsam and balsam seed and sagapenum and pepper and mastic only. Its fumigation for the cold moist contrary: fox-grape and live-of-the-world and shepherd’s staff 15 and poppy and colocynth leaves, all these dried. For they are among the wonders.\n\n\n## p. 89 (leaf n95)\n\nIncense of the Sun for the hot-dry inclination: balsam and sandarac\nand musk and ambergris and asarum and all the hot oily things and whatever\nfollows their course ٣ and resembles them and enters into them, if God Most High wills.\nIts incense for the opposite cold-wet [inclination]: boiled water in which is projected perfume\nsuch as camphor and aloes-wood and whatever resembles that among the cold incenses only. So know\nthis and work by it, if God Most High wills. ٦\nIncense of Venus for the hot-wet inclination: its mode is water of basil pounded with\ncamphor, and water of chicory pounded with nutmeg, and water of licorice pounded with\ncardamom, and clove made into pills, all of that dried. Then fumigate with it at the time of the rising ٩\nof each planet in that degree until the time of its departure * from it by observation. So know this\nif God Mighty and Majestic wills. Its incense for the opposite cold-dry [inclination] is like the incense of Saturn\nexactly in the chapter of the inclination. And if you add to it mastic, triturated and pounded with ١٢\nthe herb called + susanda — and it is the herb of the Jews — it will be excellent for that, if\nGod Most High wills.\nIncense of Mercury for the cold-wet inclination: black and white poppy ١٥\nand dried mandrake and psyllium; these either with their bran or triturated and sifted.\n\n\n## p. 90 (leaf n96)\n\ncompounded with camphor water, and it is the best. So operate with it, if God Most High wills. Its fumigation for the hot dry correspondence: sulphur and sagapenum and galbanum and bdellium ٣ and sagapenum and frankincense and resin and what resembles that among things possessing oiliness. So know that, if God Almighty wills.\nFumigation of the Moon for the cold moist Natures: peels of vine shoots ٦ and peels of the mulberry called bark and pomegranate blossom and the two dried roses and black camphor and a little of * hellebore, if God Almighty wills. And its fumigation for the hot dry correspondence: jasmine shoots and peels of the seed of the balsam tree and also the ben tree ٩ — this is what is in the fumigations of the planets for the Natures and the correspondence. And since we have come to all of it and its explanation and the measure of its time, the fumigation must be pulverized, some of it mixed with some, except what of it is compounded, for it is not harmful that one fumigate ١٢ with it separately. So know that and manage the procedure in it * and you will find it correct, if God Most High wills.\nWe shall make clear that and what has preceded of the discourse concerning its like, because it is there symbolic ١٥ and it is here explained and clarified, so know that. And this is the end of the discourse on the mawiyyat; let us therefore return to the discourse on the Balance, if God Most High wills.\n\n\n## p. 91 (leaf n97)\n\nIt is also from the chapter of equivalence and opposition. It is either the equivalence of one substance with [another] substance from among several substances, or the opposition of one act with [another] act from which arises the occurrence of a quality in another substance from among several substances. That occurs in equivalence either as the equivalence of the hot with the hot, the cold with the cold, the moist with the moist, and the dry with the dry in the simples; or as the equivalence of the hot-moist with the hot-moist, <or as the equivalence of the hot-dry with the hot-dry,> or as the equivalence of the cold-dry with the cold-dry, or as the equivalence of the cold-moist with the cold-moist. This is in the division of equivalence. As for opposition, it is the contrary of this exactly. It is either the equivalence of the hot with the cold or the moist with the dry in the simples; and in the compound, the equivalence of the hot-dry with the cold-moist or the hot-moist with the cold-dry. This is the root of the first Balance, to which discourse returns even if it is prolonged and does not depart from it. But it has conditions and principles which I shall now mention, proceeding thereafter to what follows of the discourse on generation, if God the Mighty and Majestic wills.\n\n\n## p. 92 (leaf n98)\n\nIt is also necessary that you know that the parts predominant from the Nature of the Natures conceal their contrary toward the center of that thing and it dissolves in its periphery.\nIt is also necessary that you know that the parts, if they exceed four degrees, return to the first degree from the contrary of that Nature.\nIt is also necessary that you know that the thing, if it is of a certain Nature, and there belongs to it a certain quality indicating it, and there is added to it from its contrary until the first contrary is concealed, the quality changes by its transmutation to the second form in quality. This is in the Balance of the Natures.\nAs for the quantitative Balance, it is that the quantity of the two substances in the Balance be one quantity. And if one is round, the other is round. And if one is a surface, the other is a surface. And likewise in each one of them. And if the water is less than filling the pan, the correct procedure is to fill the pan until it overflows onto it, and likewise in the other pan. And it is not permitted that one of the two pans be removed and return while the other remains standing. And what we have mentioned of the conditions in the Balance in the result, the dispersion, the combination, and the Balance, and all the books likewise, if God the Mighty and Majestic wills.\n\n\n## p. 93 (leaf n99)\n\nThe Discourse on the Third Balance\nAs for the discourse on the third Balance, know that the contraries of b, and that j is contrary to d in the ranks, and likewise what follows them of the degrees and the minutes up to the fifths. As for its form, these letters are made to correspond by placing the other letter in its stead so that the weight by predominance is correct. The example of that is that when a is predominant in a b, then b becomes a, and b is hidden while a appears. And likewise the discourse concerning j and w, and conversely according to dissolution and composition. So know it, if God Most High wills. And with God is success.\nThe Discourse on Generation\nGeneration is the seventh chapter, and it is the result of the science of the Balance, talismans, employment of the spiritual beings, medicine, and the Work. These are the sciences of the entire world. I have indeed mentioned of them in this my book what suffices and suffices fully. I shall speak in this seventh art, cutting short the discourse in this our book, and passing from it to the remainder of these books, if God Mighty and Glorious wills.\nWe say: that which the regulator ought to be guided by in the science of generation is knowledge of their realities in the Balance. So he must not add anything nor subtract anything, else corruption would result thereby. And he must give things their realities from the ranks, so he does not give what requires a first rank to a second rank, nor a second to a third, nor a third to a fourth, nor to...\n\n\n## p. 94 (leaf n100)\n\nlower also, like one who needs a certain rank, so it is given to him below it in measure. This is among the greatest corruption and the most complete confusion * of what is in this science. And that there be ٣ understanding of the first form and its measure and the composition of its shape, good knowledge of the ordering of the parts and placing them in their places. For if these principles are obtained, one reaches the rank desired of sound generation which we have already set forth in the Book of the Gathering. So know that and build your affair upon it; the path in the science is clear, ٦ if God, exalted and mighty, wills. \nAs for what is feared of error in the operation, it is the instrument that gathers the form and sets it upright, and the instrument for cooking, meaning glass. For glass, just as its substance is pure, is more efficacious for generation and more manifest for it. And the place of putrefaction must be safe from the blowing of winds and their violence, > * preserved < from all of them. And it is said ١٢ that division for it is good, yet I myself do not choose that at all. So know it and work by it; you will be guided, if God most high wills. \nAnd among them is the water that is cooked under 7 generation. For the philosophers ١٥ have differed in that with difference. Some of them said: it is from rainwater. And some of them said: seawater. And some of them said: distilled, repeated salt water. Each has hit the mark at a distance, and his statement is earnest. As for proportion in the whole, this is not\n\n\n## p. 95 (leaf n101)\n\nIt is. That is because the pure water must be for people and the good fish and the sweet animal such as the monkey and the fox and what resembles that. As for the water of rain, it is for the massive creatures such as the elephant and the camel and the buffalo and the cow and the donkey and what resembles them. ٣ As for the water of the sea >no ...< and the turtles and the crab and the scorpions and the * venomous snakes and the beasts of prey and what resembles them. As for the distilled salt water, it is for the mentioned animals that do not have the invented forms like a flying human and what resembles that and what has ٦ two heads and what has a head contrary to its form and the likes of that. So know it and act by it, you will find it correct, if God the Exalted wills. Since we have come to what is in the generation, let now the end of the speech and the end ٩ of the book be, if God the Exalted wills. And God is the granter of success to what is right. * The book of bringing forth what is in potentiality into actuality, by the praise of God and His help and the goodness of His granting success and His favour. And His blessings upon our lord Muhammad, the best of His creation, and his family and his companions, and peace. () ١٢\n\n\n## p. 96 (leaf n102)\n\nPraise be to God who is not praised by any praise, nor described by any meaning of description, nor ٣ do the attributes of creatures apply to Him. And may God bless our master Muhammad, the seal of the prophets ٦ and the messengers, and his family and all his companions, and grant abundant peace until the Day of Judgment.\nKnow that we have books on the definitions possessing diverse arts and varying treatments according to the levels of the sciences for which they were intended and toward which they were directed. This book ٦ we have placed in rank of nobility equal to the rank of the sciences with which these books are concerned. And what passes before you in them, if you understand what is said, dispenses with their description and praise in your view and makes easy their excellence; but if you do not understand what passes before you in them, then your station is not to define them ٩ nor that anything of them be conceded to you, let alone that you see them, touch them, and read them.\nKnow that the purpose of the definition is the encompassing of the essence of the definitions in reality, so that nothing that belongs to it goes out from it and nothing that does not belong to it enters into it. Therefore it came to be ١٢ that it admits neither addition nor diminution, since it is taken from genus and specific differences.",
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