{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/kas/kas09.htm","path":"isl/kas/kas09.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/kas/kas09.htm","text":"MAN hath no Soul, a state of things,\n a no-thing still, a sound, a word\n Which so begets substantial thing\n that eye shall see what ear hath heard.\nWhere was his Soul the savage beast\n which in primeval forests strayed,\n What shape had it, what dwelling-place,\n what part in nature's plan it played?\nThis Soul to ree a riddle made;\n who wants the vain duality?\n Is not myself enough for me?\n what need of \"I\" within an \"I\"?\nWords, words that gender things!\n The soul is a new-comer on the scene;\n Sufficeth not the breath of Life\n to work the matter-born machine?\n{p. 46}\nWe know the Gen'esis of the Soul;\n we trace the Soul to hour of birth;\n We mark its growth as grew mankind\n to boast himself sole Lord of Earth:\nThe race of Be'ing from dawn of Life\n in an unbroken course was run;\n What men are pleased to call their Souls\n was in the hog and dog begun:\nLife is a ladder infinite-stepped,\n that hides its rungs from human eyes;\n Planted its foot in chaos-gloom,\n its head soars high above the skies:\nNo break the chain of Being bears;\n all things began in unity;\n And lie the links in regular line\n though haply none the sequence see.\nThe Ghost, embodied natural Dread\n of dreary death and foul decay,\n Begat the Spirit, Soul and Shade\n with Hades' pale and wan array.\n{p. 47}\nThe Soul required a greater Soul,\n a Soul of Souls, to rule the host;\n Hence spirit-powers and hierarchies,\n all gendered by the savage Ghost.\nNot yours, ye Peoples of the Book,\n these fairy visions fair and fond,\n Got by the gods of Khemi-land[1]\n and faring far the seas beyond!\n\"Th' immortal mind of mortal man!\"\n we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry;\n Whose mind but means his sum of thought,\n an essence of atomic \"I.\"\nThought is the work of brain and nerve,\n in small-skulled idiot poor and mean;\n In sickness sick, in sleep asleep,\n and dead when Death lets drop the scene.\n\"Tush!\" quoth the Z\u00e2hid, \"well we ken\n the teaching of the school abhorr'd\n \"That maketh man automaton,\n mind a secretion, soul a word.\"\n[1. Egypt; Kam, Kem, Khem (hierogl.), in the Demotic Khemi.]\n{p. 48}\n\"Of molecules and protoplasm\n you matter-mongers prompt to prate;\n \"Of jelly-speck development and apes\n that grew to man's estate.\"\nVain cavil! all that is hath come\n either by Mir'acle or by Law;--\n Why waste on this your hate and fear,\n why waste on that your love and awe?\nWhy heap such hatred on a word,\n why \"Prototype\" to type assign,\n Why upon matter spirit mass?\n Wants an appendix your design?\nIs not the highest honour his\n who from the worst hath drawn the best;\n May not your Maker make the world\n from matter, an it suit His hest?\nNay more, the sordider the stuff\n the cunninger the workman's hand:\n Cease, then, your own Almighty Power\n to bind, to bound, to understand.\n{p. 49}\n\"Reason and Instinct!\" How we love\n to play with words that please our pride;\n Our noble race's mean descent\n by false forged titles seek to hide\nFor \"gift divine\" I bid you read\n the better work of higher brain,\n From Instinct differing in degree\n as golden mine from leaden vein.\nReason is Life's sole arbiter,\n the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:\n Worlds lie above, beyond its ken;\n what crosses it can ne'er be true.\n\"Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!\"\n Angels and Fools have equal claim\n To do what Nature bids them do,\n sans hope of praise, sans fear of blame!\n{p. 50}","title":"The Kas\u00eedah of H\u00e2j\u00ee Abd\u00fb El-Yezd\u00ee: VII","type":"page"}