brought forward, it would cause no doubt, because no suspicion of error would be possible. Thus, when I have acknowledged ten to be more than three, if any one were to say, 'On the contrary, three is more than ten; and to prove the truth of my assertion, I will change this rod into a serpent:' and if he were to change it, my conviction of his error would remain unshaken. His manœuvre would only produce in me admiration for his ability. I should not doubt my own knowledge.

"Then was I convinced that knowledge which I did not possess in this manner, and respecting which I had not this certainty, could inspire me with neither confidence nor assurance ; and no knowledge without assurance deserves the name of knowledge.

"Having examined the state of my own knowledge, I found it divested of all that could be said to have these qualities, unless perceptions of the senses and irrefragable principles were to be considered such. I then said to myself, Now having fallen into this despair, the only hope remaining of acquiring incontestable convictions is by the perception of the senses, and by necessary truths. Their evidence seemed to me indubitable. I began, however, to examine the objects of sensation and speculation, to see if they could possibly admit of doubt. Then doubts crowded upon me in such numbers that my incertitude became complete. Whence results the confidence I have in sensible things? The strongest of all our senses is sight; and yet, looking at a shadow and perceiving it to be fixed and immovable, we judge it to be deprived of movement; nevertheless, experience teaches us that, when we return to the same place an hour after, the shadow is displaced; for it does not vanish suddenly, but gradually, little by little, so as never to be at rest. If we look at the stars, they seem as small as money-pieces; but mathematical proofs convince us they are larger than the earth. These and other things are judged by the senses, but rejected by reason as false. I abandoned the senses, therefore, having seen all my confidence in their truth shaken.

"Perhaps," said I, "there is no assurance but in the notions of Reason: that is to say, first principles, e. g. ten is more than three: the same thing cannot have been created and yet have existed from all eternity; to exist and not to exist at the same time is impossible.

"Upon this the senses replied: What assurance have you that your confidence in Reason is not of the same nature as your confidence in us? When you relied on us, Reason stepped in and gave us the lie; had not Reason been there, you would have continued to rely on us. Well, may there not exist some other judge superior to Reason, who, if he appeared, would refute the judgments of Reason in the same way that Reason refuted us? The non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-existence."

These skeptical arguments Algazzāli borrowed from the Grecian skeptics, and having borrowed them, he likewise borrowed from Grecian mystics, of the Alexandrian school, the means of escape from skepticism. He looked upon life as a dream.

"I strove in vain to answer the objections. And my difficulties increased when I came to reflect upon sleep. I said to myself, During sleep you give to visions a reality and consistence, and you have no suspicion of their untruth. On awakening, you are made aware that they were nothing but visions. What assurance have you, that all you feel and know when awake, does actually exist? It is all true as respects your condition at that moment; but it is, nevertheless, possible that another condition should present itself, which should be to your awakened state that which your awakened state now is to your sleep; so that, in respect to this higher condition, your waking is but sleep."

If such a superior condition be granted, Algazzāli asks whether we can ever attain to participation in it. He suspects that the Ecstasy described by the Soufis must be the very condition. But he finds himself philosophically unable to escape the consequences of skepticism: the skeptical arguments could only be refuted by demonstrations; but demonstrations themselves must

be founded on first principles; if they are uncertain, no demonstration can be certain.

"I was thus forced to return to the admission of intellectual notions as the basis of all certitude. This, however, was not by systematic reasoning and accumulation of proofs, but by a flash of light which God sent into my soul. For whoever imagines that truth can only be rendered evident by proofs, places narrow limits to the wide compassion of the Creator."

Thus we see Algazzāli eluding skepticism just as the Alexandrians eluded it, taking refuge in faith. He then cast his eyes on the various sects of the faithful, whom he ranged under four classes:

I. The Dogmatists: those who ground their doctrine wholly upon reason.

II. The Bastinis, or Allegorists: those who receive their doctrine from an Imam, and believe themselves sole possessors of truth.

III. The Philosophers: those who call themselves masters of Logic and Demonstration.

IV. The Soufis: those who claim an immediate intuition, by which they perceive the real manifestations of truth as ordinary men perceive material phenomena.

These schools he resolved thoroughly to question. In the writings of the Dogmatists he acknowledged that their aim was realized; but their aim was not his aim: "Their aim," he says, "is the preservation of the Faith from the alterations introduced by heretics." But his object was philosophical, not theological; so he turned from the Dogmatists to the Philosophers, studying their works with intense ardor, convinced that he could not refute them until he had thoroughly understood them. He did refute them, entirely to his satisfaction;* and having done so, turned to the Soufis, in whose writings he found a doctrine which required the union of action with speculation, in which virtue was

* In the ninth volume of the works of Averroes there is a treatise by Algazzāli, Destructio Philosophorum, which contains his refutation of the philosophical schools.

a guide to knowledge. The aim of the Soufis was to free the mind from earthly considerations, to purify it from all passions, to leave it only God as an object of meditation. The highest truths were not to be reached by study, but by transport—by a transformation of the soul during ecstasy. There is the same difference between this higher order of truth and ordinary science, as between being healthy and knowing the definition of health. To reach this state, it was necessary first to purify the soul from all earthly desires, to extirpate from it all attachment to the world, and humbly direct the thoughts to our eternal home.

Reflecting on my situation, I found myself bound to this world by a thousand ties, temptations assailing me on all sides. I then examined my actions. The best were those relating to instruction and education; and even there I saw myself given up to unimportant sciences, all useless in another world. Reflecting on the aim of my teaching, I found it was not pure in the sight of the Lord. I saw that all my efforts were directed towards the acquisition of glory to myself."

Thus did Philosophy lead him to a speculative Asceticism, which calamity was shortly afterwards to transform into practical Asceticism. One day, as he was about to lecture to a throng of admiring auditors, his tongue refused utterance: he was dumb. This seemed to him a visitation of God, a rebuke to his vanity, which deeply afflicted him. He lost his appetite; he was fast sinking; physicians declared his recovery hopeless, unless he could shake off the sadness which depressed him. He sought refuge in contemplation of the Deity.

"Having distributed my wealth, I left Bagdad and retired into Syria, where I remained two years in solitary struggle with my soul, combating my passions and exercising myself in the purification of my heart, and in preparation for the other world."

He visited Jerusalem, and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, but at length returned to Bagdad, urged thereto by "private affairs" and the requests of his children, as he says, but more probably urged

thereto by his sense of failure, for he confesses not to have reached the ecstatic stage. Occasional glimpses were all he could attain, isolated moments of exaltation passing quickly away.

"Nevertheless, I did not despair of finally attaining this state. Every time that any accident turned me from it, I endeavored quickly to re-enter it. In this condition I remained ten years. In my solitude there were revelations made to me which it is impossible for me to describe, or even indicate. Enough if, for the reader's profit, I declare that the conviction was forced upon me that the Soufis indubitably walked in the true paths of salvation. Their way of life is the most beautiful, and their morals the purest that can be conceived."

The first condition of Soufi purification is, that the novice purge his heart of all that is not God. Prayers are the means. The object is absorption in the Deity.

"From the very first, Soufis have such astonishing revelations that they are enabled, while waking, to see visions of angels and the souls of the prophets; they hear their voices, and receive their favors. Afterwards a transport exalts them beyond the mere perception of forms, to a degree which exceeds all expression, and concerning which we cannot speak without employing language that would sound blasphemous. In fact, some have gone so far as to imagine themselves to be amalgamated with God, others identified with him, and others to be associated with him.* All these are sinful."

Algazzāli refuses to enter more minutely into this subject; he contents himself with the assertion that whoso knows not Ecstasy knows prophetism only by name. And what is Prophetism? The fourth stage in intellectual development. The first, or infantile stage, is that of pure Sensation; the second, which begins at the age of seven, is that of Understanding; the third is Reason, by means of which the intellect perceives the necessary, the possible, the absolute, and all those higher objects which transcend

* How characteristic this is of mysticism in all ages may be seen in the delightful Hours with the Mystics, by Mr. R. A. Vaughan.