Ibn Sīnā and the origin of human life
Joseph Kenny, O.P.
(in volume in honor of Fr. George Maclean, on his 80th birthday)There has been considerable study of the metaphysical thought of the classical philosophers of the Muslim world, and especially the question of the interrelationship of faith and reason. Little attention has been given to their contributions in the area of physical science.
That may be because most of it is outdated as science. It may also be because philosophers nowadays largely tend to regard science as outside the domain of philosophy and superfluous to the philosophical enterprise.
Ibn-Sīnā, however, in consonance with the generality of philosophers of his age, bundled all human knowledge in one encyclopedic package, which he entitled Shifā'—cure, or remedy for our intellectual hunger in all its dimensions. Within this package, he recognized formal boundaries only between logic (منطق, science of the mind), science of the many realms of nature (طبيعيات), mathematics (presupposed to his astronomy—هندسة), metaphysics ("divine science"—إلاهيات), applied science (notably his separate work on medicine, القانون في الطب), and the science of correct living (in various small treatises).
He drew these boundaries standing on a metaphysical overlook, not to compartmentalize these sciences, but to define their order and provide a seamless interface from one to another. Most importantly, physical science provided the bridge to metaphysics by providing evidence for the existence of immaterial being. Metaphysics is a distinct science because its subject is common being, inclusive of the material and the immaterial.
The passage I have selected for study in this essay is from Ibn-Sīnā's treatise on animals.[1] It echoes Aristotle's Parts of Animals, but is in no way lifted from it or even a summary of it. Rather, it reflects ideas that matured in the intervening centuries. Most significantly, it demonstrates Ibn-Sīnā's analytical acumen, even when dealing with mistaken data.
Ibn-Sīnā embeds human birth in a discussion of animal birth in general. In my translation, I try to use words that reflect the concepts of that time, rather than modern technical terms. Thus I use "semen" rather than "sperm", since semen is what they knew, never having isolated sperm as we know it. Similarly, they knew of female menses and genital fluid, but had not isolated the human egg.
TEXT
المقالة السادسة عشرة من الفن الثامن من الطبيعيات
الفصل الأول، في كيفية تولد الحيوان من المني والبيض واختلاف الحيوان فيه وكيفية قبول النطفة وما يجري مجراها القوى النفسانية
The 16th Chapter of the 8th volume of Natural Science
Section 1: How an animal is born from semen and egg, how animals differ in this respect, and how the seminal fluid—and what corresponds to it—receives life powers.
Annotation: The word nuṭfa—نطفة is used 11 times in the Qur'an. Instructive is Sura 22 (الحج), verse 5:
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنْ كُنْتُمْ فِي رَيْبٍ مِنَ الْبَعْثِ فَإِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ مِنْ تُرَابٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ نُطْفَةٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ عَلَقَةٍ ثُمَّ مِنْ مُضْغَةٍ مُخَلَّقَةٍ وَغَيْرِ مُخَلَّقَةٍ...
O people, if you are in doubt about the resurrection, we created you from dust [the case of Adam], then from a drop of genital fluid (nuṭfa), then from a clot, then from a formed or unformed embryo...
We will see later that Ibn-Sīnā applies the term nuṭfa also to the female material for fertilization.
1. الحيوان التام هو التام في الحرارة والرطوبة، وهو الذي يولد جنسه تاماً في الكيفية، وإن لم يكن تاماً في الكمية، لأنه لا يسعه مثله. ومثل هذا الحيوان هو حيوان دموي كامل الدم، فما نقص في أحد الأمرين أخل. فمنه ما يخل في أنه لا ينفعل ولده إلا خارجاً كالطيار، كأن مادته ليست تقبل الصورة في مدة يحتملها الاشتمال بل تثقل على البطن قبل أن تتصور. ولذلك قد تهيأ لها غشاء كثيف يقيها الآفات إلى أن يتولد خارجاً. وهذا أيضاً من الحيوان الدموي.
1. A perfect animal is perfect in heat and moisture. That is the kind that is born perfectly endowed, even if it happens not to be perfectly endowed because it is incapable of such as that. An example of such an animal is a fully blooded animal. Any animal that lacks either of the two requisites is defective. Some are defective because the offspring are only made exteriorly, such as birds. We could say that the matter cannot receive the form during the period it is within the parent, but it becomes too heavy for its stomach before it is formed. Therefore it prepares for it a thick nest to protect it from harm until it is born outside [the shell]. Some blooded animals have to do this.
2. وأما ما لا دم له فإنه يولد بيضاً غير تام، بل بيضاً يتم خارجاً، أو يولّد دوداً أو بيضاَ لا يفرخ إلا مستبطناً، لأن بيضه يكون ليناً، كأن هذا الفرخ لو خرج تعرض للآفات وكأن الأرضية تضاد المزاج الدموي، وإذا كان الحيوان أرطب وأقل أرضية، لكنه مع ذلك أقل حرارة، باض وقرخ داخلاً، وكذلك إذا كان أكثر أرضية وأقل رطوبة وأكثر حرارة كالأفعى، فإن منيه لليبوسة لا ينفصل في الابتداء، وللحرارة لا يتأخر تأخر سائر البيض. وأما الأرضي البارد حداً اليابس فيعجز عن تتميم البيض.
2. Non-blooded animals are also born imperfect. Their eggs are perfected outside. Or else they bear a larva or an egg that takes a long time to hatch, because its egg is soft. We could say that were it to hatch early it would be exposed to harm, and also that its earthly composition is opposed to the temperament of blood. But if the animal is more moist and less earthy, yet still lacks heat, it bears an egg that hatches within. Likewise, if it is more earthy and less moist, but has more heat, such as a snake, then its semen, because of dryness, does not separate at the beginning, and because of its heat, it does not delay as other eggs do. But what combines earthly and very cold and dry cannot bring eggs to perfection.
Annotation: The four factors of organic composition: hot, cold, wet, dry (earthy), go back through Galen to Aristotle.
3. أقول: هذا الحيوان لما عدم أعضاء الحضانة، وكان بيضه على خطر من الأسباب الخارجية، كثر بيضه جداّ احتياطاً فأثقل بالكثرة.
3. I add: If an animal has no members to protect its eggs, and its eggs are exposed to external danger, then it lays a huge number of eggs as a precaution. So it becomes heavy because of the number.
4. فلننطر في حال المني وهل فيه جزء نفس، أعني قوة، أم ليس فيه. ولما كان المني يتحرك إلى تكوين الجنين ليس بسبب غريب من خارج، بل بطبيعته المسخرة بإذن الله تعالى، ففيه مبدأ النفس الغاذية.
4. Let us examine whether semen has a living soul—that is, its power—or not. When semen moves to form an embryo, that is not because of some strange external cause, but by its nature that is active by God's permission. For within it is a principle of the vegetative soul.
5. وليس تكون الأعضاء منه معاً، فإن التجربة تدل على تقدم القلب لي التكوّن. ولا محالة أن ما لا قلب له فقد يكون له عضو آخر بدل القلب. والقلب أيضاً آخر ما يموت، وإذا تخلقت الرئة تنفس. وليس ما يقال من خفائها في الجنين وظهور القلب أنها كانت موجودة ولكن خافية صغرا بشيء، فإن الرئة في الجنين أعظم من القلب. ولا تظهر فيه مع القلب، بل تتكون من بعد. ولو كان الخفاء للصغر، لكان ما هو أصغر أخفى، ولكان القلب أولى بالخفاء من الرئة.
5. Yet the organs are not formed from it all at once, for experience shows that the heart comes first. It could be that animals which do not have a heart have a different member in its place. The heart is also the member that dies last. When the lung is created then the animal can breathe. It is a wrong opinion that the lung is present but hidden in the embryo while the heart appears, because what is hidden is smaller, but the lung in an embryo are larger than the heart. So it does not appear at the same time as the heart, but is formed afterwards. Where it to be hidden because of its smallness, the heart should be more hidden than the lung.
6. لكن فعل زرع الوالد في زرع الأم إنما يكون على سبيل الأفعال والتكوينات الطبيعية التي جلها على سبيل ملاقاة المحرك والمتحرك. فأما فاعل الدم الذي يتولد منه المني الذي يولّد منه الولد فهو كبد أو قلب، وأما مكونه منياً فأوعية المني. ثم المني يحرك شيئاً آخر أي نطفة المرأة، فيحرك أولاً إلى نكوين المبدأ، ثم يبعث عن العضو الأول قوة هي مبدأ ينحو إلى نكوين سائر الأعضاء منه بالترتيب، وتكون النطفة المنعقدة صارت ذات نفس بنفوذ قوة الذكر فيها. فإن الروح يشبه أن يتولد من نطفة الذكر، والبدن من نطفة الأنثى. فإذا صار ذلك ذا نفس تحركت النفس فيه إلى تكميل الأعضاء.
6. But the action of the father's seed on the seed of the mother is one of those actions or natural productions which are principally a matter of a mover meeting the moved. The maker of the blood, from which is produced semen, from which is produced the child, is the liver or the heart. The producer of semen is the semen gland. The semen in turn moves something else, the seminal fluid (nuṭfa) of the woman. It first moves to form a principle [of life]. Then it sends from the first organ the power which is the principle leading to the formation of the other organs from it, each in order. The coagulated seminal fluid takes on a living soul through the agency of the male power on it. For the spirit seems to arise from the male genital fluid, and the body from the female genital fluid. Once [the embryo] has a living soul, that soul within it moves to perfect the organs.
Annotation: Ibn-Sīnā's position on the origin and timing of "the spirit" differs from the common legal position, reflected in al-Qurtubī's commentary on Q 22:5, that the spirit is breathed in only at the 120th day (four months), even though the lawyers are talking about a rational spirit. In Chapter 9, section 5, Ibn-Sīnā gives his sequence for the development of an embryo, with allowance for variance:
- The foamy period: 6 days
- Red lines and points: day 9
- Blood throughout: day 15
- Flesh and distinction of the three organs: day 27
- The head and limbs distinct: day 36
- All organs clearly distinct: day 40
This is a far cry from the legal position which still dominates contemporary Muslim thinking.
In the present passage, Ibn-Sīnā uses the term nuṭfa, otherwise a synonym for semen, for what is fertilized in the woman. In many other places he speaks of female "seed" (زرع) and "semen" (مني).[2] But in Chapter 9, section 1 (p. 145), he explicitly restricts the term manī to male semen. In Chapter 15, section 1 (p. 189), he uses the term bayḍa (بيضة) for both the pair of testicles in the man and the pair of ovaries in the woman.
Nevertheless, Ibn-Sīnā, contrary to Galen, insists that the woman does not merely provide blood-nourishment for the embryo, but true genetic material, which accounts for the fact that the child resembles both parents.[3] In this, Ibn-Sīnā departs also from Semitic tradition reflected in both the Old Testament and the Qur'an, that the child is from the father, and the mother is merely the "field" in which his seed is sown (Q. 2:223). From this idea stem the stories that the whole human race was actually present in the body of Adam and there made a pact with God (Q 7:172), and that Muhammad was the first creation of God, and was passed as light from Adam down the male line to `Abdallāh, who deposited it in Āmina (Ibn-Hishām 1:157).
7. وتكون هذه النفس حينئذ نفساً غاذية أو لا فعل فها آخر، وإن كانت فيها القوة لغير ذلك. وإنما اشتد البياض فيه لكثرة الروح المولد فيه، ولذلك يرق ويزول عنه البياض خارجاً، لأن خثورته كانت بسبب الهوائية فإذا انفصلت زال بياضه، وصار له مرأى الماء، ورق، على ما يُعلم هذا في موضع آخر. ويكذب من ظن أن زرع الفيلة أسود وهذا قياس الأنثى. وأكذب منه من ظن أن مني الحبشية أسود. وبالجملة فإن المني زبدي الجوهر، ولذلك سميت الزهرة زبدية لأنها جعلت مبدأ الشهوة ومبدأ توليد المني، ولذلك المني لا يجمده البرد وهو مني.
7. At that time this soul is either vegetative or it has no other kind of action. [The embryo] is mostly white, because of the large amount of spirit produced in it. That is why whiteness exudes and comes out of it. For its coagulation was the result of airiness. When this dissipates, the whiteness also goes away, and it takes on the appearance of water, and is smooth, as has been explained elsewhere. They are in error who say that the seed of elephants is black, from comparison with the female. They are even more in error who say that the genital fluid of an Ethiopian woman is black. In summary, semen is naturally foamy. That is why a flower is called foamy, because it is a source of pleasure and a source of semen production. Therefore also semen does not get hard in the cold, as long as it remains semen.
Annotation: Notice the subtlety of Ibn-Sīnā's observation that the soul in the beginning is either vegetative or has no other kind of action. He is allowing for the presence of the sensitive or rational soul, even though there is no corresponding activity to prove its presence.
8. النطفة إذا استعدت فيها القوة الغاذية لقبول أفعال أعدت للنفس الحسية، فيكون فيها قوة قبول النفس من حيث هي حسية. فإن كانت الحسية في ذوات النطق هي والطبيعة واحدة، وذلك لأن الأعضاء الحسية والنطقية تتم فيها معاً، ولا كذلك الغاذية وأعضاؤها. وأيضاً فإن أعضاء الحيوان ليس يعمها الحس، ويعمها قبول الغذاء. ولا يبعد أن تكون النطفة بهذه الحال فتكون فيها الغاذية مستفادة من الأب والأخرى جائية من بعد. ويجوز أن تكون النفس الغاذية التي جاءت من الأب تبقى إلى أن يستحيل المزاج استحالة ما ثم تتصل له النفس الغاذية الخاصة، كأن المستفاد من الأب لا يبلغ من قوته أن يكمل التدبير إلى آخره، بل يفي بتدبير ما، يحتاج إلى أصل قوي، كأن ذلك الذي أخذ من الأب قد تغير عما عليه الواجب. فليس من نوع الغاذية المطلقة التي كانت في الأب والتي تكون في الولد، ولكن لم يخرج بها التغير عن أن تعمل عملاً مناسباً لذلك العمل. وكيف ما كان، فإذا صار القلب والدماغ موجودين في الباطن تعلق بها النفس النطقية، وتفيض منها الحسية.
8. When the vegetative power in the embryo is prepared to receive actions preparatory for a sensitive soul, then it has the power to receive its soul in so far as it is sensitive. If the sensitive soul is found in souls that have reason, it and that nature are one. That is because the organs for sensation and for reasoning are perfected at the same time. But that is not true of the vegetative power and its organs. Also sensation is not present in all the organs of an animal, but the ability to receive nutrients is. It is not farfetched to say that seminal fluid (nuṭfa) can be in this state, with a vegetative power coming from the father, and another power coming later. It is possible that the vegetative soul that comes from the father remains there until the complexion is somewhat altered, and then the [seminal fluid] gets its own vegetative soul. If this is so, what comes from the father is insufficient to complete the formation all the way, but only part way. It needs a powerful source, as if what it received from the father changed from what is required. For the vegetative power that is in the child is not exactly of the same kind as is in the father. Nevertheless it does not undergo so much change that it cannot do something suitable for that purpose. Whatever the case, if the heart and the brain are found inside [the embryo], the rational soul is there, and from it flows the sensitive [soul/power].
Annotation: Here Ibn-Sīnā is similarly subtle in the words "it has the power to receive its soul in so far as it is sensitive." In other words, there is not an exchange of souls, but the sensitive power emerges from the soul that was already there. And in the case of humans, he explicitly states that, for man, the sensitive power cannot be present without the rational power as well. In Chapter 9, section 4, Ibn-Sīnā has more to say about the spirit and the heart:
فيكون ذلك المبدأ [للروح] هو الجزء من المني الذي إذا استحكم مضغة كان قلباً. فيجب إذن أن يكون أول وعاء يتكون هو وعاء الروح، ويكون في أول الخلقة غير محسوس. (ص 166)
So that principle [of the spirit] must be a part of the semen which, when it reaches the status of an embryo is the heart. And so the first receptacle to be fashioned must be the receptacle of the spirit. And it must be present from the outset, even though it cannot be perceived.
In the latter passage we see Ibn-Sīnā proposing an organ for the spirit—a proto-heart?—from the moment of conception. If that—and a proto-brain—are present, then, as he said above, the rational soul is there. Another passage refers to the presence of a triple spirit in the semen:
...إذ كان الروح هو مركب القوى النفسانية. والنفس واحدة... ولم يكن الروح النفساني والطبيعي والحيواني متفرقاً في المني، بل المني متخصص متشابه الأجزاء. وليس حركة تفارق الأرواح في جسم متشابه إلى نقطة واحدة بعينها أولى (ص 168-9)
The spirit is composed of the animating powers, while the soul is one... The animating, natural and animal spirit are not separated in the semen, but the semen has its own specificity, with all its parts alike.
Here the "natural" refers to the vegetative, the "animal" to the sentient. The "animating", in the case of man, is also described as rational in Chapter 12, section 8:
الروح النفساني المفكر التي ليست لسائر الحيوانات
The thinking animating spirit, which the other animals do not have.
These spirits are later differentiated when their organs are formed:
فيتميز حينئذ الأرواح، ويخلق لها أوعية تجتمع فيها (ص 170).
Then the spirits are distinguished, and organs are made for them to reside in.
Ibn-Sīnā explains that the heart is the principle of the animating spirit, the brain is the home of the sensitive spirit, which is also the principle of motion, and the liver is the home of the vegetative spirit.
9. أما النطقية فتكون مباينة وتكون غير مادية، ولكنها لا نكون عاملة بعد، بل تكون كما في السكران والمصروع، وإنما تستكمل في أمر خارج يفيد العقل. وأما سائر القوى فتكمل بالبدن والأمور البدنية. ولو كان الصبي حساساً ثم يصير إنساناً بالنطق لكان ينتقل بالاستكمال من نوع إلى نوع.
9. The rational [soul/power] is distinct and immaterial, but it is not yet operative. It is like that of someone who is drunk or mad. It can be perfected only by external assistance. But the other powers are perfected by the body and bodily factors. Were a child to be sentient, and then become a man with reason, then, by being perfected, he would have to change from one species to another.
Annotation: This reasoning explains Ibn-Sīnā's earlier reluctance to speak of an exchange of souls from vegetative to sentient. There should be a single soul from fertilization until the embryo is fully formed, while three "spirits" reside in specific organs.
The "external assistance" could refer to sense experience, but in view of Ibn-Sīnā's views expressed elsewhere, should refer rather to the separate agent intellect.
10. الشيء المتهيئ في المني لأن يقبل علاقة النفس، ليس من جنس الحار الأسطقسي الناري بال الحار الذي يفيض من الأجرام السماوية ويقوم بالمزاج، وفي الممتزجات من الرطب واليابس فإنه مناسب بجوهره لجوهر السماء، لأنه ينبعث عنه. ونعم ما قال المعلم الأول هذا. وإن شئت فاعبر تأثير حر النار وحر الشمس في أعين العُشى. ويشبه أن تكون تلك الحرارة تتبعها قوة لا تتبع الحرارة النارية، وأن بلك القوة قوة مجيبة ومناسبة بوجه ما لقوة الأجرام السماوية. وأن تلك القوة تجعل الأجسام شبيهة بوجه ما بالأجسام السماوية، حتى يكون لها أن يقبل الحياة. وهي فاشية في كل جوهر من البدن رطبه ويابسه وبه يحيا البدن من الحيوان والنبات. وفي المني جوهر هو أول جوهر يقبلها، وهو الروح الذي هو أول حامل لهذا الحار، وهو سبب جمع أجزاء المني، لأنه فاعل المني ومنضجه، وهو بفارق بذاته، وإن لم يفارق قواماً. فإنه إذا انفصل عن المني فسد وتحلل.
10. The thing being prepared in the semen, since it has a relationship to the soul, is not of the genus of elemental fire, but of the heat that flows from the heavenly bodies and resides in the composite. In compounds of wetness and dryness, its nature corresponds with the nature of heaven, since it was sent from there. The First Philosopher spoke well [about this]. If you like, compare the heat of fire and the heat of the sun in the eyes of the night-blind. A power seems to follow sun heat which does not follow fire heat, and that power corresponds in some way with the power of the heavenly bodies. And that power makes the bodies in some way similar to the heavenly bodies, so that they are capable of receiving life. This occurs in the essence of moist and dry bodies, and through this animal and plant bodies live. In semen there is an essence which [the embryo] first receives, and this is the spirit which is pregnant with this hot [embryo]. This is the cause of the joining of the parts of the semen, because it makes the semen and makes it mature, even though it does not subsist separately. For if it is separated from the semen it rots and decays.
11. هذا الروح جسم ما إلهي، نسبته من المني ومن الأعضاء نسبة العقل من القوى النفسانية. فالعقل أفضل جوهر غير جسماني، والروح أفضل جوهر جسماني. وهذا الجوهر لا يفارق المني ما دام صحيحاً مضبوطاً في الرحم، بل يحيل المني إلى جوهره فيتحلل ويلطف ويصير روحاً، فتمتلئ النطفة المتكونة ريحاً روحياً لا ريحاً فضلياً نفخياً، كما ظن الطبيب. وتكون هذه الريح روحاً نافذة تكون الأعضاء بالقوى التي فيها وتتممها. وهو مثل الإنفحة تخالط اللبن وتفعل في أجزائه التي نتفذ فيها من غير أن يكون هو جزء الجبن، بل الجبن منفعل عنه. كذلك هذا المني ليس هو جزء الأعضاء، بل مبدء روحي نافذ فيه يفعل الأعصاء.
11. This spirit is a kind of divine body. It relates to the semen and to the organs as the intellect relates to the powers of the soul. For the intellect is the highest kind of essence and is immaterial. So the spirit is the highest of bodily essences. This essence is inseparable from the semen as long as it remains true and genuine in the womb. In fact, the semen turns into its essence, dissolving, becoming soft an eventually becoming itself spirit. Then the glob that has taken shape becomes a spiritual odor, not a superfluous gaseous odor, as the Doctor [Galen] thought. This odor is an effective spirit that shapes and perfects the organs with its own power. It is like the yeast that is mixed with milk. It works on the milk parts without becoming itself part of the cheese, but the cheese is acted upon by it. Likewise, the semen is not part of the organs, but a spiritual principle working on it, producing the organs.
Annotation: The physical spirit, as "a kind of divine body" is the principle of the remaining development of the embryo, working on it until it is complete.
There is a similar discussion of the work of the "spirit" in the formation of an embryo in Chapter 9, section 4 (pp. 166-168).
Ibn-Sīnā's use of the word "divine" may make us think of the rational soul or the "thinking animating spirit" specific to man, mentioned above. But we must never forget that Ibn-Sīnā is a dualist. For him, even if the rational soul is present right from the beginning, it resides in the body as the driver in a car.[4] The body's functions are governed by the vegetative, sentient and animating "spirits", each through their own organs. Even the "thinking animating spirit" specific to man, mentioned above, probably does not refer to the intellect as such, but to the internal senses, the imagination and particularly the cogitative sense, which provide data for the intellect, and without which the intellect, in this life, cannot function.
12. لا يظن أنه يقول إن المني يتحلل ويتفرق ويذهب ريحاً، بل غرضه ما بينته لك.
12. Do not think that he says that the semen dissolves, dissipates and goes away as wind, but his aim is what I explained to you.
Annotation: See chapter 9, section 1 of the same book for a similar passage.
13. قال: فإذا وقع المني في الرحم قوم نطفة الأنثى وحركها، وتحرك هو أيضاً مها، فإنه يحرك بأن يتحرك ويخالط ويماس.
13. He [Aristotle] says: When semen is deposited in the womb, it strengthens the female sexual fluid and moves it. It is also moved itself. When it moves and is also moved, then it mixes and is in contact.
14. هذا دليل على ما نسبناه إليه من المذهب، فالجسد من الأنثى، والروح النفساني من الذكر. والمولود من ذكر وأنثى مختلفين. إذا تمادى الزمان وبقي التناسل مال إلى مشاكلة الأنثى لغلبة المادة على الصورة. كما أن البزور إذا نقلت عن أرض ما، فإنها إذا تكررت الحراثة بها مالت إلى طبيعة تلك الأرض فأنبتت ما يشاكلها، ولم تنبت الغريب، كالقنبيط يزرع في بلاد خراسان فيجيء سنة قنبيطاً ثم يصير كرنباً لا قنبيط فيه، ثم يصير كسائر الكرنب. وكذلك أجناس البطيخ فإنها إذا نقلت إلى أرض غريبة عادت إلى مشاكلة البطيخ الذي يكون بها. وزرع الذكورة ربما لم يستعمل كلها ولم ينجذب إلى حاق موضع الولادة، بل انجذب منها قليل ينفعل بقوته وكيفيته، وربما أذهبت القلة قوته إذا أفرطت.
14. This indicates what our school attributes to him. For the body is from the female, and the animating spirit is from the male. And the child is from the male and female which are distinct. If the time is extended and the gestation goes on, [the embryo] tends towards a female shape, because the matter overwhelms the form. It is like seed taken from one land and is planted repeatedly in another land, which takes on the nature of that land, and produces what resembles it, and not the foreign [original] land. Cauliflower planted in Khurasan will produce cauliflower the first year, then cabbage and not cauliflower, becoming ordinary cabbage. Similarly when different species of watermelon are taken from a foreign land, they take on the shape of the native watermelon. [Another explanation] is that the male seed may not be completely used, and is not drawn all the way inside the place of birth, but a little distance from it. It is then acted upon by the power and nature of that [place]. Also, maybe the small amount, if excessive, makes it lose its power.
15. قال: وما لا رحم له بل يتعلق حبله تحت الحجاب، فليس يكون قبوله المني بجذب، بل بالزرق من الذكر والرحم، وإن كانت له قوة جاذبة، فإن الحرارة تعين على ذلك.
15. He [Aristotle] says: Animals that have no womb, but conceive under a cover, do not receive semen by drawing it in, but by injection from the penis and the womb. If it has any drawing power, heat helps that.
16. اعلم أن المني وإن كانت فيه قوة محركة فإنها لا تنهض إلى فعلها إلا بمعين من خارج، مثل البزر أيضاً. وهذا المعين شيئان: مادة موافقة، ومحيط موافق. كما أن البزر يحتاج أن يجد مادة موافقة من الأرض وهواء موافقاً.
16. Know that, even though semen has within itself a moving power, it cannot rise to action without external help, just like grain. For that assistance comprises two things: suitable matter, and suitable environment, just as grain needs to find suitable matter in the earth, and suitable air.
Annotation: This reference to external help agrees with Ibn-Sīnā's general position that there is proper causality in this world, but it all operates of necessity in a chain of causes going back to the First Cause.[5]
17. اعلم أن لكل متكون غذاء أول وغذاء ثان. فأما الغذاء الأول فيوجد في بزور النبات والبزور أنفسها لاجتماع قوة الذكرية والأنوثية فيها، فإذا تحركت القوة المؤلفة فيه غذته من نفسه، وتعرف ذلك من الباقلي والبصل.
17. Know that any organism has an primary nourishment, and a secondary nourishment. Primary nourishment is found in the grains of plants, the grains themselves, because they combine male and female powers. When their ordinary power is in motion, it feeds it by itself. You know that from vegetables and onions.
18. أما في الحيوان فيوجد في النطفة من جهة نطفة الأنثى، فإنها تحال إلى طبيعة الدم الأول، أو ما يقوم مقام الدم الأول بفعل قوة في مني الذكر. والدم الأول هو الدم الذي يتكون منه القلب أو يتكون في القلب، ثم بعد ذلك يحتاج إلى مدد من خارج. والجنين أيضاً أول غذائه من قرب وهو اللبن، وبعد ذلك فيغتذي من خارج.
18. As for animals, it is found in the female seminal fluid, for it is changed into the nature of primary blood, or whatever takes its place in the production of power in male semen. Primary blood is that from which the heart is made or is formed in the heart. Afterwards it requires outside supply. Likewise for the child, primary nourishment is nearby, in the milk. Afterwards he is nourished from outside.
19. ولا يبعد أن يكون في بعض الحيوان ما تكون القوتان فيه في شخص واحد منه مجتمعتين. وكذلك يقال: إن نوعاً من السمك يسمى أربوناما لا يوجد فيها ذكر البتة، وفي بعض الإناث حصة من قوة الذكورية، فإن في نطفهن مبدأ تحريك النطفة إلى صورة ما ليست الصورة الماشكلة، بل هو صورة استكمال النطفة لأن تكون مبدأ لأن يتكون عنه الفرخ متميزاً إلى غذاء أول وهو البياض، ويتكون الجنين وهو أول هيولى الجنين. وإلى غذاء ثان وهو الصفرة يغتذي بها الفرخ بعد ما تصور يسيراً هو أول هيولى للفرخ وإلى وقاية وهو القشر. لكنه إنما يكون مبدأ اللتوليد في البيض من حيث هو بيض توليد مادة يتغذى التوليد فيها إلى تصوير ما هو كمال للعادة من حيث هي مادة. ولا يقتصر على إعداد المادة فقط، بل إلى تكميلها بالصورة التي يتم بها استعدادها مادة كل التمام، وذلك من القوة الغاذية الأمية أو المصورة الأمية. فإن اتفق أن :ان المبدأ المتحرك محتصراً في البيضة أخذ يفعل فعله بعد ما فرغت القوة المولدة النطفية، وإن لم تكن تعطلت المادة.
19. It is possible that in some animals the two powers can be joined in a single individual. Thus it is said that the among the fish called "Arbunama" there is no male. And in some females there is a measure of maleness, and in their sexual fluid there is a principle moving it to a certain form, not one that resembles it, but a form perfecting the sexual fluid, making it a principle for the formation from it of a chick with preference for a primary nourishment which is white—An embryo is formed, and this is the first matter of the embryo—and with preference for a secondary nourishment which is yellow—The chick feeds on this after it has been formed a little, and this is the first matter of the chick—and for protection, and that is the shell. But a generative principle is in the egg only in so far as the generative egg is the matter in which the generative process is nourished until the matter is completely formed as matter. And it is not restricted to preparing the matter only, but to perfect it with the form by which its preparation of the matter is fully completed. That comes from the female nourishing power or from the maternal formative power. It is agreed that the motive power is limited to the egg, which begins its work after the generative power in the sexual fluid has finished its own work, even if the matter has not been left idle.
20. ونحن لا نمنع أن تكون في الأنثى من الناس والبهائم قوة مولدة ومكملة للمني من حيث هو مادة، لكنها تكمل على التمام، وذلك من القوة الغاذية الأنوثية أو المصورة الأنوثية إعداد المادة مع إلقائها المني. ولا يحتاج أن يكمل كمالاً ثانياً في الرحم، بل يكون ما يكفيه من المني مع أول وجوده بحيث يفعل فيه الفاعل لو لاقاه.
20. We do not exclude the possibility that in the semen of females of man and beast there is a perfective generating power in so far as it is matter, but it is completely perfected from the female nutritive power or from the female formative power, and that is the preparation of the matter with the semen inserted. It does not need a secondary perfection in the womb, but it has what it needs from the semen from its first existence, just as if the agent were to act on it were it to meet it.
21. وأما نطفة الطائر فيستكمل الكمال الهيولاني في الرحم في زمان، وتتميز فيه الأمور التي ذكرناها. وبعد ذلك تتحرك القوة الفاعلة الذكورية إلى تصوير الصورة النوعية وإلى إحالة المادة البيضية، وإن كانت القوة الفاعلة موجودة في ذلك البيض وهي القوة الذكورية. ويكون عند حركه ذلك قد ثقل المني على بطن الدجاجة، ويحتاج مع ذلك إلى معونة من خارج.
21. The sexual fluid of a bird achieves the perfection of its matter in the womb over some time, and its stages are those we have mentioned. Afterwards the male power acts to form the specific form and to change the white matter. If there is any active power in the egg, it is the male power. When that moves, the semen weighs on the stomach of the hen, and outside help is then needed.
22. وأول ما يتولد القلب، ثم أعضاء الجوف، ويكون الأعلى أثقل وأعظم من الأطراف، ثم تثقل الأسافل.
22. The first thing to be formed is the heart, then the inner organs. The upper organs are heaver and bigger than the extremities. Then the lower parts become heavy.
23. والحيوانات التي لها أربعة أرجل مشقوقة الأصابع، فإنها تولد غير مفقحة ثم تفقح.
23. Animals which have four legs and divided hooves have offspring without an anus, which they get later.
SUMMARY
In this section (16:1) of Ibn-Sīnā's treatise on animals and related passages, we have a discussion of "spirits" which we do not find in his treatise on the soul and related works. The position that emerges from this work is that:
- The animating, vegetative and sentient spirits are merged in the male semen.
- At conception, this spirit permeates the female nuṭfa, takes over its matter, and after a brief time becomes an independent living fetus, with its own soul, having at first only vegetative operations.
- With the emergence of the heart, brain and liver, the original spirit divides into three, each appropriating its own organ. At this time the soul has sentient action while, in the case of man, intellective power is present but its action is dormant. If man cannot exchange souls from one species to another, the intellective power must have been present from the beginning.
- In man, the sensitive soul or power emanates from the intellective soul. Because Ibn-Sīnā holds that the intellect or intellective soul is a substance totally separate from the body, he should have concluded that the human body is animated only by a sensitive soul, but he does not go in that direction, assuming that the intellective substance somehow substitutes for the substantial form of the body.
- In any case, the three spirits manage all the functions of the body, and correspond to what Thomists would call "powers of the soul". Even the "thinking, animating spirit proper to man" should be essentially material, referring to the internal sense powers.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS
Ibn-Sīnā is the only medieval thinker I know of who, in so many words, maintains the hominization of the human fetus right from conception.
The case he makes we can fault from many counts. First, his scientific data was very primitive, basically what medical doctors could observe with their bare eyes only, both in the healthy and the sick, in operations, miscarriages, and autopsies.
Secondly, the neo-Platonism that runs through his thought prevented him from seeing the immaterial human soul as the form of a material body. Likewise, he could not recognize the "spirits" as powers of that same soul.
Yet we can see in him a mind that gathered all the learning of the past, made his own observations, pursued his investigation, even when this meant differing from Aristotle or fiqh—the legal opinion of his day.
In spite of his limitations, he came up with an argument that is more defensible today than in his own day. In what he saw as a "foamy clot" we now can see the DNA and entire structure of the adult.
Ibn-Sīnā is a guide for all who need to decide, from the abundant evidence available, when human life and human rights begin.
Notes
[1] بتحقيق الدكتور عبد الحليم منتصر، سعيد زايد، عبد الله إسماعيل. القاهرة: الهيئة المصرية العامة للتأليف والنشر، 1970.
[2] E.g. ch. 20, section 1 (pp. 186-7); ch. 15, section 1 (p. 389), section 3 (pp. 398-9).
[3] Cf. ch. 9, section 2 (pp. 149 ff.)
[4] On this, see my Philosophy of the Muslim World (Washington DC: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 2003), pp. 89 ff.
[5] See the discussion of his position in my Philosophy of the Muslim World, pp. 68 ff.