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    "slug": "book-of-stones-according-to-balinas-part-4-selection",
    "name": "Book of Stones according to Balīnās, Part 4 (selection)"
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  "chapter": {
    "num": 1,
    "slug": "complete",
    "title": "Book of Stones according to Balīnās, Part 4 (selection)",
    "of": 1,
    "words": 2911,
    "text": "## p. 197 (leaf n202)\n\nYour intellect has already struck something in it and you have turned about in it with things, so it behoves you to continue the reading first, and especially if there has fallen to you the commentary on the Book of Istiqsaʾ al-Us. ٣ And if you have already passed this station, well done to you. So rise now to ٣ the sayings of the philosophers and their opinions concerning the affairs of the Natures and their compositions, and take up something of discourse and the science of logic and arithmetic and geometry, a little, according to what is easy for you to conceive of the problems when they have grown long for you. And if you have already acquired something of ٦ that long ago, it is easier for you ٨٩١ and better. So occupy yourself now, if you wish, in the science of the Natures or other than it. And if you desire the science of the Natures, then let you study from the Natures of the Stones and the Properties a little, then transfer wholly to the Balances, ٩ so that you may know from all the Balances a portion like the Balance of Fire and the Balance of Music and the Balances of the Bodies. And we have already mentioned a portion of that in other than a book, and especially in the Book of al-Safwa. So if you incline with the science of the Natures toward the science ١٢ of the Work, then let you study the Book of al-Makhariq so that you may be on guard against the falling of calamities and the loss of wealth and the falling of trickery upon you, then train in the Book of the Balances. And that you may know how the manner is in the composition of these things and what their cause is. And I have already informed you ١٥ that it behoves that you be at this time complete, of good sense. For he will not be finished with my Seven Books while something of the Balances is lacking to him, and when he has trained by them\n\n\n## p. 198 (leaf n203)\n\n[And] compound what he desires. What it lacks now is only the inflections of the chapters—and this is taken from the prose of the books—such as the tashyiʿ, the tasqiyat, the sahq, ٣ the hululat and the ʿuqudat, and like what people have mentioned from ancient days and have multiplied secrets therein by way of the tadbirs for the greatest thing. The falling away of toil lies only in the mizans, just as we have informed you; so understand that path if you desire ٦ the qurb or whatever you desire according to your appetite. Work on the basis that it is a sanʿa needing practice; indeed it is greater than every craft because it is not found in the senses but is only a thing subsisting in the ʿaql. Whoever prolongs its study, his speed in ٩ the tarkib will be according to that measure; whoever falls short, it will be according to his measure. Know that the fruit of the mizans is the operation of the ruʾus without things that have been mudabbira from the tarkibat and the akasir. The mizan occurs only after the mumazaja of the ajsam with the ajsam, or the arwah ١٢ with the ajsam, or the ajsad with the ajsam [and the ahjar], or the arwah with the arwah, or the ahjar with the arwah, or the ahjar, ajsam and arwah; the mizan occurs after this ikhtilat. If the arwah, ajsam and ajsad are defiled by what mixes with them, weigh them after their ikhtilat ١٥ and recognize what is in them from the totality of the tabaʾiʿ and effect their iʿtidal; you have a known qanun for the iʿtidal. If it is like it, then it is complete; if it is above it or below it, add.\n\n\n## p. 199 (leaf n204)\n\nin it from the Natures or if something is missing from it, it comes out in its final state [in every] seventeen parts. It is as if it brings out the thing of perfect equilibrium by the deficiency of one dirham in every seventeen dirhams. A group of the philosophers said: that deficient part is ٣ the impurities which are in it and the fire burns them up and consumes them. This is the most correct statement and there are many things among the answers, this being the best of them. As for the dirhams which come out, if they are silver or gold or copper or lead or other than that, there is added to the weights ٦ which come out deficient in that compounding the amounts of that deficiency from that body. An example of that is if you had intended to compound copper and it is less than seventeen dirhams, seventeen dirhams come out as we have said, then it is necessary to add to it one dirham of copper ٩ so that it returns to seventeen. Likewise if it is silver or gold or other than that. So know it, if God Most High wills.\nThey named this the leaven, and it is the leaven which you find named in the books that ١٢ a thing must have a leaven, meaning that gold must have a leaven for gold. This is the doctrine of a certain group. As for those who have no stopping at a doctrine, they are the + preferred group, for their doctrine proceeds > * upon > everything in the world ١٥ and the people have states in this matter. Some of them have summarized in the Balances and acted on the principle that the Natures are the origin in all things; some of them said: nothing in the world ١٨ is creator before a thing. For a group of the Sabians and their like hold that the foundation\n\n\n## p. 200 (leaf n205)\n\nSome parts of the world precede others in existence, not because they precede in arrangement and order, but because some precede others in durations and states. ٣ And that is because I have seen some of them claiming that the first thing created in the hyle were the three dimensions—length, breadth, and depth—so that the hyle became a simple body possessing three dimensions. Then there were created in it the four qualities, which are heat, cold, moisture, and dryness, so that from it came the Natures of things and the Elements of creation. Then these four Natures were compounded and some of them mixed with others, so that from them came all these persons and phantoms existing in this world. ٩ It is therefore fitting that it be said to them: You have ascended through a number of degrees of unknowns, all of them irrational, until you affirmed the existence of the world as it is. And since discourse has led us here, let us complete the remainder of the explanation of this discourse. ١٢ And if we have deviated from the intended course, we only intended thereby that these four books of ours should not omit anything we mentioned in the Books of the Balance, so that one who studies them after studying those may dispense with anything besides these books. ١٥ We therefore say, and in God is success: The first of those degrees is a Nature that has never ceased, not a body and not described by anything by which bodies are described. He claimed that it is the phantom of things and the element of created beings. And the representation of this Nature in the imagination and its abridgement\n\n\n## p. 201 (leaf n206)\n\nimpossible and not possible in the mind. The second rank is that you mentioned that when the three measures occurred in this clay it became a body not described by anything of heat or cold or moisture or dryness or colour or taste or smell or motion or rest, ٣ because all these are qualities and qualities had not occurred [290] in it at this time, and this is something not intelligible. Then you claimed that after this second rank the four qualities occurred in it which are heat and cold and moisture and dryness, so that from them came the four which are fire and air and water and earth. It is evident that it is not intelligible that these four Natures should exist in any state upon other than this order and arrangement in which they now exist in this world, namely that earth ٩ is in the middle of the sphere and water above the earth and air above the water and fire above the air, and every Nature of these four Natures overcomes its contrary among the Natures and the overcome is transmuted from it to the victor, and plants and animals exist with them ١٢ and derive from them and are transmuted to them. So complete these ranks whose description preceded, all of them imperceptible, and the intelligent person, whenever the origination of things not from a thing occurs to his mind, it is easier and simpler in his imagination than what you describe. Or inform us concerning the thing ١٥ from which fire was created from the Hyle, whether it was possible that water be created from it? For if they say yes, they have made it impossible, because everything from which a thing is composed is Hyle for what is composed from it. And it is part of their statement that the sperm of man is the Hyle of man and the sperm ١٨\n\n\n## p. 202 (leaf n207)\n\nThe hot is the substrate of the hot, and they claim that it is impossible for the human sperm to receive the form of the hot because it is not its substrate, and likewise it is impossible for the sperm of the hot to receive the form of the human. It therefore follows by this analogy that the thing that receives the form of fire [and] is its substrate, it is impossible that it receive the form of water and that it be its substrate.\nIf they say: We find that water changes and becomes fire, so the substance that bears its qualities and its state is the bearer of the qualities of fire and its states; thus what was permitted for the first is permitted for the second, only its accidents having changed; likewise the eternal substrate is one and it bears the qualities of water and its state if they occur in it,\nand bears the qualities of fire and its states if they occur in it, we say: Water does not change at a single stroke and become fire, but rather it first changes into vapour, then becomes air, then air changes and becomes fire. If someone were to say that water changes into air and becomes fire, he would have posited something unintelligible. Your statement concerning the simple eternal substrate is not like this, for you do not say that the thing from which water is first created, it was only possible that fire be created from it upon\n\n\n## p. 203 (leaf n208)\n\nway of these transformations which we have mentioned, but one might say: it would be permissible that the hyle upon which the Nature of water and its state had gained mastery, the Nature of fire and its states should gain mastery over it instead, without intermediate transformations between the water and the fire, ٣ and this is contrary to reason.\nAnd if they claim that the ancient hyle, before it was clothed with forms and the Natures occurred in it, was a thing whose power was only that it should receive thereby, in the beginning, the states of fire ٦ and their qualities, and among them something whose power was only that it should receive thereby the states of water and their qualities, and likewise in earth and air ٨١ — by this statement they would already have established for creation four elements that have always been eternal and are different in powers, and their statement that ٩ the first element is one, not different, would be voided.\nAnd they will be asked: is the dissolution of things into the ancient hyle permissible, just as they were composed from it? If they say this is not permissible, it will be said: and why is it not permissible? If ١٢ they say: that would be the annihilation of things and a return to what has always been upon it, namely that it is simple, with no composition in it, we say: and what harm would it do you to say that things will return to what has always been upon it, namely that it is an eternal cause and a simple hyle without composition ١٥ in it, and this world would be voided?\n\n\n## p. 204 (leaf n209)\n\nIt is said to them: A great many of the philosophers have claimed that these four Natures which are the Elements of creation and the elements of things — meaning Fire, Air, Water, and Earth — are some in others in potentiality, and they have rejected the statement of whoever claimed that these four Natures ٣ existed apart from themselves and apart from what is compounded from them. They said: Nothing is intelligible of what exists except these. So if a claimant claims that these four Natures ٦ exist only in potentiality apart from themselves and in what is compounded from them, then let him bring a proof for his claim; and he has never been able to do that. If anyone opposes this statement and departs from this order and arrangement, it is speech contrary to what is intelligible. ٩ Among the things by which the falsity of their statement is demonstrated is that among the premises of certainty and the necessary knowledges according to the philosophers is that it is impossible for an existing substance to be absolutely devoid of all natural and artificial acts, such that that substance has ١٢ no act in itself nor in another. Yet this Nature which these people claimed is eternal and is the element of things and the matter from which they are compounded is eternally devoid of all natural and artificial acts. This is the meaning which the philosophers have rejected ١٥ and denied its existence, and they have not been able to establish a substance absolutely devoid of all acts, neither by bringing a proof for what they say nor by way of indicating it. So if the case is other than all this, then the Natures are as we have set forth for you in what\n\n\n## p. 205 (leaf n210)\n\nWe have presented from the rest of the books that it is the origin and that it is passive to the Creator, may His praise be exalted. And I have known from this way the arrival to the natural Balance so that one may be knowledgeable ٣ with all that is in the compounds of the Natures [and] of soundness and corruption. Then the learner moves after his completion of this to discussion and classification for it, it has been perfected in its attributes. For if his insight into the Work is like his insight into knowledge ٦ and in it there is subtlety of quality in the operation, he is called a perfect philosopher. And since we have reached this place, which is the last thing needed of the arrangement of knowledge for the learner, then he is at that time as we have defined and described him, and he is among the closest of people to us at that time. And we now hasten to mention the figures possessing ٩ the Balances, and we follow it with the figure of increase and decrease, which is the end of the book, if God the Exalted wills.\n\n\n## p. 206 (leaf n211)\n\nIn the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate. O Lord, help by Thy mercy. Praise be to God abundantly as befits Him and as He deserves.\n٣\nIt behooves us to set forth in this our book our statement in general and in particular concerning the matter of the Balances specifically. For this chapter belongs to the sciences in which the intellects of men are bewildered and become dull,\n٦ so that there has befallen men therein, time after time, an error that is neither easy nor slight; and indeed there is in that, in the learning of the Work of the Balances of the Natures, that which I shall describe. And that is that the learning of our statement in the Books of the Balances is derived from it and there is obtained\n٩ thereby every meaning thereof from its fellow, if God Most High wills.\nWe say: it behooves us to know that the long is entirely of the hot division, the short of the cold division, the fine of the dry division, and the coarse of the moist division.\n١٢ And our statement on the particular and the general. As for the general aspect, it is because there may exist a long cold, a short hot, a fine moist, and a coarse dry. But as for the particular, these forms occur in reality only according to the first figure.\n١٥ And that is because the long is always of the division of heat, and the short of the division",
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