108 THE LIFE AND LEGEND OF MICHAEL SCOT 



Divine Power. This Wisdom was said to be imper- 

 sonal ; one common to all intelligent creatures ; 

 the Light that lighteneth every man that cometh 

 into the world. This Power was regarded as 

 supreme, seated high above the spheres, and, 

 through the Primum Mobile, entering into touch 

 with matter and deriving its force downward from 

 one heavenly circle to another till it reaches earth 

 itself. 



The origin of created beings was a problem 

 which received much attention from Averroes. His 

 ideas on this subject will be seen when we come to 

 speak of the important digression he wrote under 

 the title of Quaestiones Nicolai Peripatetici. 1 In 

 every man he perceived the existence of a passive 

 intellect or reason, in relation to which the other 

 Heavenly Intelligence, or Divine Wisdom, presented 

 itself to him as the Active Reason : that in whose 

 motions Thought was always accompanied by Power. 

 The one was Impersonal and Eternal, the other 

 individual and perishable, yet Averroes taught that 

 a close relation subsisted between them, and a con- 

 sequent sympathy and attraction, in which the 

 passive intelligence strove to unite itself with the 

 active and thus achieve eternity and immortality. 2 



This union was known as the ittisal : the supreme 

 object of the wise man's desire, and in connection 

 with it emerged for the first time a distinction be- 

 tween Averroes and his predecessors. Ibn Badja, 

 with whom he held the closest relation, had pro- 



1 See infra, p. 128. Nicolas Damascenus was born B.C. 64. 



2 This was purely Alexandrian doctrine: 'ensenaron Plotino, 

 Porfirio y lamblico, que, en la union extatica, el alrna y Dios se hacen 

 uno, quedando el alma conio aniquilada por el yolpe intuitivo.' Pelayo, 

 Heterodoxos Espanoles, vol. ii. p. 522. 



