T O R s

REY & - S S v

I1

THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES

HE hierarchic “placing” of the facu'ties of the
soul is one aspect of the reintegration of the soul
into the Spirit. The state of a soul which has been
spiritually regenerated has already been compared to a
crystal which, though solid, is akin to light both in its
transparence and in its rectilinear form. The various
intellectual faculties are like the facets of this crystal,
each one refracting in its own way the unique and limit-
less Intellect.

The faculty which is specific to man is thought
(al-fikr) Now the nature of thought, like the nature of
man, is two-faced. By its power of synthesis it mani-
fests the central position of man in the world and so
also his direct analogy with the Spirit. But its formal
structure, on the other hand, is only one existential
“style” among many others ; that is to say it is a speci-
fic mode of consciousness which could be called
“animal’® were it not distinguished, for better and for
worse, by its connection with man’s unique—and intrin-
sically ¢ supernatural”’—function from those faculties
of knowledge that are proper to animal species. In fact
thought never plays an entirely ““natural” part in the
sense of being a passive equilibrium in harmony with
the cosmic surroundings. To the degree that it turns