since that object is not to be realized in this world, it must be realized in another. That the future world will be like this in respect of the division into knowledge and ignorance may be argued from the analogy of the present. That knowledge and ignorance there will be respectively assigned to knowledge and ignorance is proved by reductio ad absurdum.
If, therefore, the future world is like this in respect of the division, since knowledge constitutes the happiness of the soul, and the power of acquiring knowledge increases as the bodily humours diminish, when finally freed from those humours the soul will have an unlimited power of acquiring knowledge and become perfectly happy. To the question why in that case suicide should not be committed, the answer of Socrates in the Phaedo must be given.
Although the dialogue is not free from obvious fallacy and self-contradiction, its ingenuity is no less apparent than the elegance of the Persian translator's style.
Of this argument the Hebrew translator has misunderstood or omitted almost every step, substituting for it much foreign matter, chiefly consisting in commonplaces of mediæval scholasticism about the three souls, the four principles, etc., and some legends embodied in the Qorʾan. On the other hand, his answer to the question why suicide is not commendable is more original: any one who had reached the eminence of Abraham would be justified in perpetrating that act; but the ordinary philosopher needs time in which to perfect himself. The same reason is assigned by the commentators on the Qorʾan for the precept “slay not yourselves.”[1]
The title, “Book of the Apple,” has been adopted from the quotations in Ikhwān ul-Ṣafā and the Uri MS.; I have not ventured to translate it into Persian. The Hebrew translator evidently thought the Apple was not given
sufficient prominence in the dialogue, and endeavoured to
- ↑ A characteristic interpolation is that in which the contents of the Book of the Soul are described in accordance with the Hebrew פסר הנפש, edited by Löwenthal.
