tsoever People talk of besides, is
meer Whimsy and old Wives Fables_. A principle, which if believ'd would
make all Men despair of the Mercy of God, and puts the Good and Evil
both upon the same Level, in that it makes annihilation the common end
to them both. This is an Error not to be pardon'd by any means, or made
amends for. Besides all this, he had a mean Opinion of the Gift of
Prophecy, and said that in his Judgment it did belong to the _faculty of
Imagination_, and that he prefer'd Philosophy before it; with a great
many other things of the like nature, not necessary to be mention'd
here.

As for the Books of _Aristotle, Avicenna_'s Exposition of them in his
_Alshepha_ [i.e. _Health_] supplies their Room, for he trod in the same
steps and was of the same Sect. In the beginning of that Book, says,
that the _Truth_ was in his opinion different from what he had there
deliver'd, that he had written that Book according to the Philosophy of
the _Peripateticks_; but those that would know the _Truth_ clearly, and
without Obscurity, he refers to his Book, _Of the Eastern Philosophy_.
Now he that takes the pains to compare his _Alshepha_ with what
_Aristotle_ has written, will find they agree in most things, tho' in
the _Alshepha_ there are a great many things which are not extant in any
of those pieces which we have of _Aristotle_. But if the Reader, take
the literal Sense only, either of the _Alshepha_ or _Aristotle_, with,
out penetrating into the hidden Sense, he will never attain to
perfection, as _Avicenna_ himself observes in the _Alshepha_.

As for _Algazali_[14], he often contradicts himself, denying in one
place what he affirm'd in another. He taxes the Philosophers with
_Heresy_[15] in his Book which he calls _Altehaphol_, i.e.
_Destruction_, because they deny the Resurrection of the Body, and hold
that Rewards and Punishments in a Future State belong to the Soul only.
Then in the beginning of his _Almizan_, i.e. _The Balance_, he affirms
positively, that this is the Doctrine of the _Suphians_[16], and that he
was convinc'd of the truth of it, after a great deal of Study and
Search. There are a great many such Contradictions as these interspers'd
in his Works; which he himself begs Pardon for in the end of his _Mizan
Alamal [The Ballance of Mens Actions]_; where he says, that there are
Three sorts of Opinions; 1. Such as are common to the Vulgar, and
agreeable to their Notions of things. 2. Such as we commonly