SCOT TRANSLATES AYERROES 109 



>osed a course of moral discipline as the best way 

 >f attaining the ittisal : the same ascetic practice 

 vhich Ibn Tofail so remarkably illustrated and com- 

 aended in his mystical romance Hay Ibn Yokhdan. 

 jrazzali on the other hand, who was the sceptic of 

 hese schools, boldly declared that the ittisal was 

 nly to be reached by an intellectual and spiritual 

 nfusion attained in the zikr, or whirling dance of 

 :he Dervishes. It was left then for Averroes to 

 indicate once more the validity of human reason, 

 d this he did by proclaiming that science, rightly 

 nderstood, was the true way of entering into in- 

 llectual communion with the Deity. All, however, 

 eed in teaching that the soul of man was but 

 individual and temporary manifestation of the 

 ivine, from which it had proceeded, and into 

 hich it would again be absorbed. 



It is plain that the way to this consummation 

 oposed by Averroes had much in common with 

 e ancient theories of the Alexandrian Gnosis. 

 ae Albigenses and other sects of the time, 

 pecially that called the Brotherhood of the Holy 

 host, had already done much to familiarise the 

 7"est with these essentially Eastern speculations, 

 taste for such flights of the mind had been 

 rmed, and, as soon as it became known that a 

 teacher had arisen to advocate a theory of this 

 .d among the Moors, Christianity too was alive 

 th curiosity to know what the doctrine of Averroes 

 ;ht be. 



In these circumstances the anathema of the 

 .urch proved powerless to restrain so strong an 

 pulse of the human spirit. The Council of Paris 

 1209 had sounded the first note of warning and 



