done twice
already; once by Dr. _Ashwell_, another time by the _Quakers_, who
imagin'd that there was something in, it that favoured their
Enthusiastick Notions. However, taking it for granted, that both these
Translations we're not made out of the Original _Arabick_, but out of
the _Latin_; I did not question but they had mistaken the Sense of the
Author in many places. Besides, observing that a great many of my
friends whom I had a desire to oblige, and other Persons whom I would
willingly incline to a more favourable Opinion of _Arabick_ Learning,
had not seen this Book; and withal, hoping that I might add something by
way of Annotation or _Appendix_, which would not be altogether useless;
I at last ventur'd to translate it a-new.

I have here and there added a Note, in which there is an account given
of some, great Man, some Custom of the Mahometans explain'd, or
something of that Nature, which I hope will not be unacceptable. And
lest any Person should, through mistake, make any ill use of it, I have
subjoin'd an _Appendix_, the Design of which the Reader may see in its
proper place.

SIMON OCKLEY.

* * * * *

THE BOOKSELLER TO THE READER.

_When I first undertook the Publication of this English Translation, I
thought it would not be amiss to present the World with a Specimen of it
first. But since the Introduction is such, that the Reader can no more
by it give a Guess at what is contain'd in the Book itself, than a Man
can judge of his Entertainment by seeing the Cloath laid; I have thought
it necessary to give him a Bill of Fare_.

_The Design of the Author (who was a Mahometan Philosopher) is to shew
how Humane Reason may, by Observation and Experience, arrive at the
Knowledge of Natural Things, and from thence to Supernatural;
particularly the Knowledge of God and a Future State. And in order to
this, he supposes a Person brought up by himself where he was
altogether destitute of any Instruction, but what he could get from his
own Observation_.

_He lays the Scene in some_ Fortunate _Island situate under the
Equinoctial; where he supposes this Philosopher, either to have been
bred (according to_ Avicen_'s Hypothesis, who conceiv'd a possibility of
a Man's being formed by the Influence of the Planets upon Matter rightly
disposed) without either Father or Mother; or self-expos'd in his
Infancy, and providentially suckled by a Roe. Not that our Author
believ'd any such