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Part One · Chapter Thirty-Four — The Five Causes for Withholding Metaphysics
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The causes preventing the opening of instruction with the divine matters, and the calling of attention to what ought to be attended to, and the exposing of that to the multitude, are five causes.
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The first cause: the difficulty of the matter in itself, its subtlety and obscurity. He said, 'that which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?' (Eccl 7:24); and it is said, 'but where shall wisdom be found?' (Job 28:12). One ought not to begin instruction with the most difficult and the most obscure to understand. Among the famous parables in our nation is the likening of knowledge to water; and they, peace be upon them, explained in this parable meanings — among them, that he who knows how to swim brings up pearls from the bottom of the sea, while he who does not know swimming drowns; therefore none exposes himself to swimming save one trained in learning it.
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The second cause: the deficiency of all people's minds at their beginning. For man is not given his final perfection at the outset; rather the perfection is in him in potentiality, and at his beginning he lacks that actuality: 'and man is born a wild ass's colt' (Job 11:12). And not everyone who has some matter in potentiality necessarily brings it out into actuality; rather he may remain in his deficiency, whether through impediments or through scant training in what brings that potentiality into actuality. With clarity it was said, 'the many are not wise' (Job 32:9); and the Sages, of blessed memory, said, 'I saw the men of the upper rank, and they are few.' For the impediments to perfection are very many, and the distractions from it abundant; and when does the complete readiness and the leisure for training come about, that what is in that individual in potentiality may be brought out into actuality?
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The third cause: the length of the preliminary studies. For man has by his nature a yearning to seek the ends, and often he wearies of or rejects the preliminaries. And know that if some end could be attained without the preliminaries that precede it, those would not be preliminaries but mere distractions and superfluities. And every man — even the dullest of people — if you alert him as one wakes a sleeper and say to him, 'do you not now yearn to know these heavens, how many they are and what their form, and what is in them, and what the angels are, and how the whole world was created, and what its end is according to the ordering of its parts one to another, and what the soul is and how it comes to be in the body, and whether the human soul separates, and if it separates, then how and by what and to what' — and the like of these inquiries — he says to you, 'yes, without doubt,' and yearns by a natural yearning to know these things in their realities; but he wants this yearning quieted and the knowledge of all of it attained by a word or two that you would say to him. Yet were you to charge him to neglect his occupation for a week until he understood all that, he would not do it, but would content himself with false imaginings by which his soul is set at ease, and he hates that it be said to him that there is something which requires many premises and a long span of inquiry.
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And you know that these matters are bound up one with another; for there is nothing in existence but God, exalted be He, and His works — and these are all that existence comprises besides Him — and there is no way to apprehend Him save from His works, which indicate His existence and what ought to be believed concerning Him, that is, what must be affirmed of Him or denied of Him. It is therefore necessarily required to consider all the existents as they are, so that we may take from every single discipline true and certain premises that profit us in our divine inquiries. How many a premise is taken from the nature of number and from the properties of the geometrical figures, from which we infer matters that we deny of Him, exalted be He, whose denial guides us to a number of meanings! As for the matters of astronomy and natural science, I do not think it difficult for you to see that they are necessary matters for apprehending the relation of the world to God's governance, how it truly is, not according to imaginings. And there are many speculative matters which, though premises for this science are not taken from them, yet train the mind and bring about for it the habit of inference and the knowledge of truth in the matters essential to it, and remove the confusion present in most inquirers' minds from the confounding of accidental matters with essential ones, and the corruption of opinions that arises from that — besides the conceiving of those matters as they are. And though these be not a foundation in the divine science, they too are not devoid of other uses in matters that lead to that science. So there is an unavoidable necessity, for whoever desires human perfection, of being trained first in the art of logic, then in mathematics in order, then in physics, and after that in the divine science.
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And we find many whose minds halt at some of these sciences; and even if their minds do not fall short, death may cut them off while they are in the midst of some of the preliminaries. So that, were we to give no opinion at all by way of acceptance on authority, and guide toward nothing by a likeness, but rather bind people to the complete conception by essential definitions, and to assent by demonstration in what assent by demonstration is sought — which is not possible save after these long preliminaries — that would be a cause for the death of all people, while they did not know whether there is a God for the world or there is no God, let alone affirming a judgment of Him or denying its contrary of Him. From this destruction none at all would escape save 'one of a city, and two of a family' (Jer 3:14).
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As for the individuals — and they are 'the remnant whom the Lord shall call' (Joel 3:5) — the perfection that is the end is not valid for them save after the preliminaries. Solomon already made clear that the need for the preliminaries is necessary, and that it is not possible to reach the true wisdom save after training. He said, 'if the iron be blunt, and one do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength; but wisdom is profitable to direct' (Eccl 10:10); and he said, 'hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end' (Prov 19:20).
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And here is another necessity for acquiring the preliminaries: that a man has many doubts arise for him in the course of inquiry quickly, and he understands the objections too quickly — I mean the refutation of some statement — for that is like demolition in a building; but the establishing of statements and the resolution of doubts is valid only by many premises taken from those preliminaries. So the inquirer without preliminary training is like one who walked on his feet to reach some place, and fell on his way into a deep pit, with no device by which to get out, until he dies; had he not walked and stayed in his place, it would have been better for him.
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And Solomon expatiated in Proverbs on describing the states of the lazy and their incapacity — all of it a parable for incapacity to seek the sciences — and he spoke of the yearning of one who longs for the attainment of the ends but does not strive to acquire the preliminaries that lead to those ends, but only yearns. He said, 'the desire of the slothful killeth him; for his hands refuse to labour. He coveteth greedily all the day long: but the righteous giveth and spareth not' (Prov 21:25–26). He means that the cause of his yearning being a killer of him is that he does not strive and work for what would quiet that yearning, but only multiplies wishing and nothing more, and hangs his hopes on what he has no way to attain — and had he desisted from this longing, it would have been safer for him. And take heed of the end of the parable, as he made plain its beginning, in his saying 'but the righteous giveth and spareth not'; and 'righteous' here is opposed to 'slothful' only according to what we have explained, for he means that the just man among people, who gives everything its due, gives his whole time to the search and withholds nothing of his time for aught else. It is as if he said, 'the righteous giveth his days to wisdom and spareth none of them,' like his saying, 'give not thy strength unto women' (Prov 31:3).
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And most of the learned — I mean those famed for knowledge — are afflicted with this disease, I mean seeking the ends and speaking of them without speculation into their preliminaries. Among them is one whom ignorance or the seeking of dominion brings to disparage those preliminaries that he falls short of apprehending or is too slack to seek, and he wishes to make a show that they are harmful or useless; but the truth, upon reflection, is plain and clear.
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The fourth cause: the natural predispositions. For it has been made clear — indeed demonstrated — that the moral virtues are preliminaries to the rational virtues, and that true rational attainments, I mean perfect intelligibles, are not possible save for a man very well trained in character, of tranquillity and calm. And there are many people who have, from the first natural endowment, a temperamental constitution with which no perfection is possible at all — like one who is by nature very hot of heart and strong, who never ceases from rashness even if he train himself with the utmost training; and like one whose temperament is hot and moist, of strong build, with seminal vessels abundant in generation — such a one is far from being chaste even if he train himself with the utmost training. Likewise you find among people folk of frivolity and recklessness, their movements very disordered and irregular, indicating a corruption of constitution and an evil temperament that cannot be expressed. In such no perfection is ever seen, and to strive with them in this art is sheer ignorance on the striver's part; for this science, as you know, is not the science of medicine or the science of geometry, and not everyone is prepared for it in the ways we have mentioned. So there is no escape from setting the moral preliminaries first, until the man becomes utterly upright and perfect: 'for the perverse is an abomination to the Lord, but his secret is with the righteous' (Prov 3:32). Therefore its instruction to the young is disapproved; rather they cannot receive it, because of the boiling of their natures and the occupation of their minds with the flame of growth, until that bewildering flame is quenched, and they attain tranquillity and calm, and their hearts grow humble and submissive in respect of temperament; and then they rouse themselves to this rank, which is His apprehension, exalted be He — I mean the divine science designated 'the Account of the Chariot.' He said, 'the Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart' (Ps 34:19), and he said, 'I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit' etc. (Isa 57:15).
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Therefore they said in the Talmud, regarding their statement 'one transmits to him the chapter headings,' they said: 'one transmits the chapter headings only to the head of a court whose heart is anxious within him.' And the aim in that is the excess of awe, humility, and piety, in addition to knowledge.
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And there it was said, 'the secrets of the Torah are transmitted only to a counsellor, and one cunning in crafts, and one skilled of charm' (cf. Isa 3:3). These are matters that necessarily require a natural readiness. For you should know that among people is one very weak of judgment, even if he be the most understanding of people; and among them is one of sound judgment and good management in political matters — and he is the one called 'counsellor' — yet he does not understand an intelligible, even were it close to the first intelligibles, but is very dull, with no remedy in him: 'wherefore is there a price in the hand of a fool to get wisdom, seeing he hath no heart?' (Prov 17:16). And among people is the understanding, naturally keen, able to hide meanings in a brief, well-wrought expression — and he is the one called 'skilled of charm'; but he has not occupied himself, and no sciences have been acquired by him. And the one who has the sciences acquired in actuality is the one called 'cunning in crafts'; they said, 'once he speaks, all become as though deaf.'
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Consider how they stipulated, by the text of a book, the individual's perfection in civil governance and in the speculative sciences, together with keenness of nature, understanding, and goodness of expression in conveying meanings by hint; and then 'one transmits to him the secrets of the Torah.'
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And there it was said: 'Rabbi Yohanan said to Rabbi Eleazar: come, let me teach you the Account of the Chariot. He said to him: I am not yet old enough' — meaning, I have not aged, and still I find the boiling of nature and the frivolity of youth. See how they stipulated age too, in addition to those virtues. How then is it possible, along with this, to plunge into that with the generality of all people, who are 'children and women'?
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The fifth cause: occupation with the necessities of the body, which are the first perfection — especially if to it is joined occupation with wife and children; and all the more if to that is joined the seeking of life's superfluities, which becomes an established habit through bad conduct and customs. For even the perfect man, as we have mentioned, when his occupation with these necessary matters grows much — let alone the non-necessary — and his yearning for them grows strong, the speculative yearnings are weakened in him and snuffed out, and his seeking of them becomes feeble, slack, and of little concern; so that he does not apprehend what is in his power to apprehend, or apprehends a confused apprehension, mingled of apprehension and shortfall.
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By reason of all these causes, these matters were fitting for very select individuals, not for the multitude; and therefore they are hidden from the beginner, and he is prevented from exposing himself to them, just as the small child is prevented from taking coarse foods and from lifting heavy weights.