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On Human
Perfection
by Avenpace (Ibn Badjdja)
The word "regime," in its most popular sense,
signifies a concurrence of actions which are
directed toward a certain end. The word regime
cannot, therefore, be applied to a single action,
since it is used for a complex of actions, as
military regime or political regime. Thus, we say
that God governs and rules over the world. For this
regime, according to vulgar opinion, is similar to
that of the governments of states, though, from the
philosophical point of view, these words are a
simple homonym. This regulated concurrence of
actions which demands reflection, cannot be formed
but by a solitary man. The regime of the solitary
man must be the image of the perfect government of
a state, where judges and physicians are absent
because they are useless. . . In a perfect state,
every individual will have the highest degree of
perfection of which man is capable. There, everyone
thinks in accordance with the highest justice, and
does not neglect, when he is acting, any law and
custom. There will be no fault, no joke, no
ruse.
In an imperfect state the solitary man shall
become the element of the future perfect state.
He who acts under the influence of reflection
and justice only, without regard to the animal
soul, must be called divine rather than human. Such
a man must excel in moral virtues so that when the
rational soul decides in favor of a thing, the
animal soul, far from objecting, decides in favor
of the same thing. It is the nature of the animal
soul to obey the rational soul. This is, however,
not the case with men who are not in the natural
state but who allow themselves to give way to rage.
He who allows himself to give way to passions acts
in accordance not with human but with animal
nature. He is even worse than the animal which
obeys its own nature.
Excerpted from Regime of the
Solitary Man, by Avenpace
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Islamic
Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism, by Majid
Fakhry
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