BOOK REVIEWS
tion du mot Zij, qu'il identifie au mot
qanun; il faut opposer au contraire de
Zij qui veut dire la table, les colonnes
de chiffres et le qanun, qui est la regle
et le mode d'emploi de la table. Dans
certains exemplaires anciens les tables
les plus importantes sont munies d'un
fil (Zij en persan) attache au bord des
pages et qui sert 'ales trouver plus facile-
ment. Par extension, le mot Zij en est
venu a comprendre les trois parties de
la table; le prologue, les regles (canones
tabularum) et les tables (tabulae). La
confusion entre les canones et les tabu-
lae est tout "afait analogue 'acelle qui est
malheureusementpassee maintenant dans
l'usage pour les portulans, qui n'est que
le texte des instructions nautiques par
opposition a la carte, toujours nommee
au Moyen Age charta ou tabula. Le
Qanun al-Masudi d'al-Biruni confirme
ce point de vue car il ne pretend pas etre
une table, mais un recueil de regles ac-
compagne de quelques tables, comme
l'analyse de Kennedy en fait foi (p. 157).
La deuxieme partie, la plus impor-
tante du travail de Kennedy, est con-
stituee par une analyse par sujets (pp.
139-167) du contenu de onze tables
astronomiques. Ces elements permettent
de comprendre la structure des tables et
de les comparer entre elles. Les chapitres
analyses sont les suivants: chronologie,
fonctions trigonometriques, astronomie
spherique, equation du temps, moyens
mouvements, equation des planetes, leur
latitude, leur longitude: stations et ret-
rogradations deferents et epicycles, par-
allaxes, eclipses, levers de la lune, co-
ordonnees geographiques, catalogues
d'etoiles, elements astrologiques. La
precession des equinoxes n'est pas tou-
jours indiquee avec l'exactitude desir-
able; il aurait ete preferable de donner
exactement le chiffre des tables ou de les
reduire tous en annees solaires. Les ta-
bles analysees sont celles de Yaya ibn
Abi Mansour (il s'agit de la Table Veri-
fie'e d'al-Mamoun et par consequent sa
date est posterieure 'a 810), al-Kwar-
izmi, Habash, al-Battani, Kushyar ibn
Labban (il s'agit sans doute du MS de
Leide Golius 8 et non pas du Warn.
523), al-Biruni (cet ouvrage est un
traite encyclopedique et non pas une
table astronomique), al-Khazini, Nasir
al-Din, Ibn al-Shatir (les coordonnees
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273
equatoriales du manuscrit etudie pro-
viennent de Musa Ibn Yunis de Damas
(1161-1242), le correspondant de Fred-
eric II et le maitre d'Atir al-Din Abhari
et non pas de la grande table Hakemite
du celebre Ibn Yunis du Caire (940-
1008), comme il est indique, p. 164),
Jemshid al-Kashi et Ouloug-Beg.
Dans ses conclusions, l'auteur resume
et compare les donnees ainsi reunies et
presente quelques propositions, que nous
approuvons vivement, au sujet des tra-
vaux qu'il conviendrait d'entreprendre
dans l'avenir; il recommande, en par-
ticulier la publication des tables encore
inedites. Si nous pouvions nous per-
mettre egalement une suggestion, ce
serait que l'on puisse disposer dans un
proche avenir, de la traduction des pref-
aces au moins de toutes ces tables; ces
textes ne comprennent qu'un petit nom-
bre de feuillets et contiennent un grand
nombre de donnees qui sont de la plus
grande utilite pour les recherches fu-
tures; nous voudrions voir celles-ci en-
couragees par les organisations scien-
tifiques. A ce sujet, il faut remercier
l'American Philosophical Society, qui a
publie cette importante bibliographie, et
remercier E. S. Kennedy d'avoir entre-
pris ce travail, que nous souhaitons voir
completer par la publication des parame-
tres des tables, qu'il a dej'a rassembles.
Paris M. DESTOMBES
* * *
IBN SINA: Psychologie d'Ibn Sina
(Avicenne) d'apre'sson ceuvre As gifa'.
Volume I, Texte arabe, edite par Jan
Bakos. 270 pp. Volume II, Texte arabe
edite et traduit en franqais par Jan
Bakos. ix + 245 pp. (Travaux de
l'Academie Tchecoslovaque des Sci-
ences, Section de linguistique et de lit-
terature.) Prague: 1-ditions de l'Acade-
mie Tchecoslovaque des Sciences, 1956.
This handsomely printed edition of
the psychology ('ilm an-ntafs) of the
Kithb ash-Shifa' is a great addition to
the printed works of Ibn Sind. It is the
first svstematic and complete translation
of the work into a European language
as well as being its first well printed
Arabic text. The Shifa', which is prob-
ably the greatest encyclopedia of learn-
ing ever written by one person and the
274
most complete treatise of the Peripatetic
(masha'i) school in Islam, has never
been printed in its totality even in the
original Arabic; the lithograph of the sec-
tion on "natural philosophy," tabi'iyat,
which was produced in Teheran in
1303 A.H. (1886) has many mistakes,
besides being quite rare. It is hoped that
the appearance of this section will not
only give a wider audience a taste of the
Shifa', but also encourage the speedy
publication of the rest of the work.
Psychology in medieval science was
not only the counterpart of the modern
subject with the same name and dealing
with the human psyche, but also had the
same relation to medieval physics as
dynamics does with respect to Newto-
nian science, i.e., it dealt with the forces
which move things. These forces were
related to the various souls as later they
became identified with the forces of
Newtonian physics. Moreover, the psy-
chology of Ibn Sind serves not only as
the key to the understanding of his study
of the physical domain but also as the
subject in which the relation of man to
God and the universe is defined.
Ibn Sind divides his Psychology into
five chapters dealing respectively with
the definition of the soul as a substance
and its faculties; the vegetable soul and
the senses; the nature of light, colors
and sight; the internal senses of the
animal soul; and the nature of the hu-
man, prophetic and angelic souls and
intelligences. The editor and translator
Jan Bakos mentions in his brief intro-
duction (p. vii) about the psychology of
Ibn Sini that it, .... s'appuie, au point
de vue scientifique, sur la psychologie
d'Aristote et des Peripateticiens, ainsi
que sur la doctrine de l'ame et du corps
professee par les anciens medecins-phi-
losophes grecs." He follows the tradi-
tion of Munk and Sauter in identifying
Ibn Sind closely with Aristotle. Actu-
ally the relation is far from one of a
disciple to a master. As the recent
works of Gardet and Corbin have shown,
Ibn Sini from the beginning wore the
Aristotelian dress while the core of his
ideas was much closer to the Neopla-
tonic school. He was even to throw off
this dress in his later symbolic narra-
tives. Even in the Shif a' the doctrine of
the immortality of the human soul and
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BOOK REVIEWS
its final illumination differs greatly from
the ideas of the Peripatetics. In a short
poem on the soul, published as a separate
work, Ibn Sind shows clearly how dif-
ferently he views the relation of the soul
to the world from the "occidental phi-
losophers" or Aristotelians. He writes:
But when finally the time of her [soul's] de-
parture from this world approaches
She can renounce this body that she leaves
behind,
And which being tied to the earth cannot fol-
low her.
She was sleeping; suddenly the veil is lifted;
She perceives finally the Universe of the Spirit
Which the eyes of the body do not see in their
night.
Then she chants at the top of a mountain:
"The true science elevates the most humble."
It was this perspective in contrast to
the outward similarities with the Peri-
patetics that was to permit later Ishraqis
like Suhrawardi of Aleppo and Sadr ed-
Din Shirazi to consider Ibn Sind as one
of their masters.
It is gratifying to see that although
the work is published by the Czech
Academy of Sciences the translation of
the Arabic text has been done into
French which in many branches of Is-
lamic studies, especially that of Ibn Sind,
is still the universal European language;
translation into Czech would have lim-
ited the usefulness of the book to a much
smaller group. Despite a few errors in
the Arabic and certain stiffness in parts
of the translation, M. Bakos is to be
congratulated on his major contribution
to the literature of Islamic thought.
Moreover, the large number of very
scholarly and detailed footnotes give the
reader an excellent knowledge of the
Greek sources of many of Ibn Sind's
ideas.
SEYYEDHOSSEINNASR
Teheran, Iran
* * *
WALTER PAGEL: Paracelsus. An Intro-
duction to Philosophical Medicine in the
Era of the Renaissance. xii + 370 pp.,
ills. in text. Basel and New York:
S. Karger, 1958. Sw. Fr. 70.; $16.00.
No more contentious figure is to be
found in the whole history of science
and of medicine than Aureolus Theo-
phrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim,
called Paracelsus (1493-1541). His