AVICENNA, or Ibn-Sina, an Arabian physician and philosopher, was born at Bochara, about the year 978. He has been celebrated for the precocity of his talents. When he was scarcely ten, he is said to have made great profiCiency in polite literature, and to have been master of the Alkoran. Abu-Ab dallah, a famous L turer in philosophy, undertook to "instruct him in the art of logic ; but the pupil was soon convinced of the deficiences of his teacher, and declined receiving any farther assistance from him. With an ardour which no disappointment could quench, and with a constancy of application which never yielded to fatigue or difficulty, he successively studied mathematics, philosophy, and medicine ; and, before he was seventeen years of age, no person could be found in his native city who was capable of giving him farther instruction in any of these branches of knowledge. In the school of Bagdad, where he after wards studied for some time, he was regarded as a pro digy of learning. He scarcely allowed himself leisure for sleep or nourishment, and, if we could credit the marvellous tales of his biographers, his mind was per petually awake. To the difficulties which absolute ly baffled his judgment during the day, he persuaded himself that he found a ready solution in his dreams. This he piously ascribed to celestial illumination granted in answer to his prayers.
There is more of the romantic than of the credible in the life of Avicenna. With these hyperbolical ac counts of his almost supernatural capacity, we are at a loss to reconcile the extreme difficulty which he found in comprehending the metaphysics of Aristo tle. It is said, that after the astonishing progress, at which we have only hinted, he read over that work not less than forty times without understanding a word of it. We are apt to suspect, that the perspi cacity of the youthful philosopher had either been prematurely dimmed, or that the boasted sciences which he had already mastered were not very pro found, if they did not enable him to divine any mean ing in the pages of Aristotle. One would suppose lie had been under the influence of enchantment ; for., it seems an Arabian manuscript, which accidentally fell into his hands, dissipated the charm in an instant. In a transport of gratitude he flew to the mosque, and offered up fervent thanksgivings to heaven for dispelling his darkness. From this moment he was consulted as an oracle, to whose sage decisions the learned, the venerable, and the aged, yielded with implicit deference, as if he had been possessed of the gift of infallibility. We speak of him while only a youth of eighteen.
His celebrity, as a man of science, was equalled by his fame as a physician. But we forbear to recite the strange adventures which, we are told, were oc casioned by the eagerness with which he was courted by different sovereigns. We-believe the accounts to which we allude are almost entirely fabulous ; and we are convinced that our readers will not expect us to repeat all the legendary tales which ignorance aid credulity have attempted to impose on posterity. It is pretty well ascertained, that the last years of this applauded philosopher were embittered by misfor tunes, the fruit of his own vices and follies ; and that his days were shortened by the excesses of criminal pleasure. He died about the year 1036, in the
eighth year of his age.
This man was an incongruous compound of volup tuousness and fanaticism. Devotion and sensuality occupied him by turns. His studious habits, and his attention to the affairs of state, when he acted in the capacity of grand vizier, accord ill with the ac counts which have been preserved of his libertinism. His panegyrists, however, have spoken of him in a strain of admiration, which would almost persuade us that they are painting an ideal character. He wrote with great rapidity and ease ; and few authors have written more. Till the time of Averrbes, his books were held in the highest estimation. He wrote great number of treatises on morals, theology, ma thematics, astronomy, philology, metaphysics, logic, natural philosophy, natural history, and medicine : And, when he was only twenty-one years of age, he planned a comprehensive view of all the sciences, which, without any assistance, he soon accomplished, though it extended to twenty volumes. This work, which he named The Utility of Utilities, professed to be a complete Encyclopedia of human knowledge. There are some who say, that Avicenna was a mere plagiarist. So far as we have the means of judging, we do not hesitate to pronounce him a careless and hasty compiler, without taste, or judgment, or dis cernment ; and yet we have met with some compara tively modern authors, who speak of him as a most luminous, methodical, and profound writer, who never introduces a subject without throwing new light on it, and who is so remarkable for solidity and preci sion, that he can never be charged either with too great diffuseness, or too great condensation.
The scholastic divines were great admirers of Avi cenna, partly, we believe, because he pretended the most devoted attachment to Aristotle, and partly in consequence of his having professed sentiments differ ing less than any of the other Arabians from the Christian faith. On some points, however, his hete rodoxy is enormous : He'rejects the doctrine of grace as altogether superfluous ; he admits the eternity of motion ; he denies that the world could have been made without pre-existing matter ; he ass1rts, that nothing which is subject to change can proceed from God ; he opposes the doctrine of a particular providence,—meaning by this term the knowledge of individual objects ; he maintains that the visible heavens are animated ; he ascribes to angels the fa culty of propagating celestial souls ; and assumes it as an indisputable truth, that angelical intelligences cannot form any conception of evil. He has been celebrated as an adept in the mysteries of alchemy and the other occult sciences ; and we believe that he was as much skilled in these as in any of the substantial branches of knowledge. 'Upon the whole, we regard him as a weak visionary, who has contributed to retard the progress of, the human mind. See Hottinger. Bib. Orient. ; Baito lace. Bib. Rabb.; Leo Afr. Dr Vir.illustr. Arab.; Mereklin. De.Scrip. Med. (x)