which this encyclopaedia consists are interspersed with
apologues in true Oriental style, and the idea of goodness, of moral
perfection, is as prominent an end in every discourse as it was in the
alleged dream of al-Ma'mun. The materials of the work come chiefly from
Aristotle, but they are conceived in a Platonizing spirit, which places
as the bond of all things a universal soul of the world with its partial
or fragmentary souls. Contemporary with this semi-religious and
semi-philosophical society lived Alfarabius (see FARABI), who died in
950. His paraphrases of Aristotle formed the basis on which Avicenna
constructed his system, and his logical treatises produced a permanent
effect on the logic of the Latin scholars. He gave the tone and
direction to nearly all subsequent speculations among the Arabians. His
order and enumeration of the principles of being, his doctrine of the
double aspect of intellect, and of the perfect beatitude which consists
in the aggregation of noble minds when they are delivered from the
separating barriers of individual bodies, present at least in germ the
characteristic theory of Averroes. But al-Farabi was not always
consistent in his views; a certain sobriety checked his speculative
flights, and although holding that the true perfection of man is reached
in this life by the elevation of the intellectual nature, he came
towards the close to think the separate existence of intellect no better
than a delusion.

Avicenna.

Unquestionably the most illustrious name amongst the Oriental Moslems
was Avicenna (980-1037). His rank in the medieval world as a philosopher
was far beneath his fame as a physician. Still, the logic of Albertus
Magnus and succeeding doctors was largely indebted to him for its
formulae. In logic Avicenna starts from distinguishing between the
isolated concept and the judgment or assertion; from which two primitive
elements of knowledge there is artificially generated a complete and
scientific knowledge by the two processes of definition and syllogism.
But the chief interest for the history of logic belongs to his doctrine
in so far as it bears upon the nature and function of abstract ideas.
The question had been suggested alike to East and West by Porphyry, and
the Arabians were the first to approach the full statement of the
problem. Farabi had pointed out that the universal and individual are
not distinguished from each other as understanding from the senses, but