s grace, aware of the
worthlessness of the perishable world, when, from their ecstatic state
they return to it, are haunted for the rest of their lives by regret and
sadness.'

"Here Hay ibn Yokdhan closed his discourse by adding:

"'If I had not, in thus addressing you, been acting in obedience to the
commands of my Lord, I would rather have left you for Him. If you will,
accompany me on the path of safety.'"

Thus concludes this brief allegory, which, like Avicenna's other
mystical treatises, is concerned with the progress and development of
the human soul. According to him, the soul is created for eternity, and
the object of its union with the body is the formation of a spiritual
and independent microcosm. During our earthly life we have but a dim
presentiment of this future condition; this presentiment produces in
different characters a lesser or greater desire for it, and the
thoroughness of our preparation depends on this desire. This preparation
is only accomplished by the development of the highest faculties of the
soul, and the inferior faculties of the senses furnish the indispensable
basis for this.

Every human faculty has some pleasure corresponding to it. The pleasure
of the appetitive faculty for example, is to receive a sensation which
accords with its desire; the pleasure of the irascible faculty is
attack; the pleasure of the surmising faculty, hope; that of the
recollective faculty, memory. Generally speaking, the pleasures
attending these faculties consist in their realising themselves in
action, but they differ widely in rank, the soul's delight in
intellectual perception of realities, in which the knower and the known
are one, being incomparably higher than any mere sensual satisfaction.
By attaining to such perceptions, the soul prepares itself for the
beatitude of the next life. The degree of this beatitude will correspond
to the intensity of spiritual desire awakened in it during its earthly
sojourn.[41]

It is extremely difficult, not to say impossible, to determine the
degrees of beatitude of the soul after death. We may, nevertheless,
understand that the various impediments of passions, prejudices, etc.,
to which its union with the body has given rise, are not immediately
dissolved on its separation from the body. Souls thus hindered may pass
into a state depicted by Plato and other ancient philosophers, in which
they are still weighed down by the passions they indulged in. Every soul