The Improvement of Human Reason | Page 5

pleasure
which is enjoy'd in the UNION, before the Vulgar; besides he said, that
it belonged to the imaginative Faculty; and promis'd to write a Book
about it, in which he design'd to give an account of the whole matter,
and describe the condition of those who were so happy as to attain it
clearly and perspicuously; but we may answer him with the Old
Proverb, _viz. Don't say a thing is sweet before you taste on't_; for he
never was so good as his word, nor performed any thing like it. But 'tis
probable that the reason why he did not, was either because he was
streightn'd for Time, being taken up with his Journey to _Wahran_; or
else, because he was sensible, that if he should undertake to give a
description of that State, the Nature of such a kind of Discourse, would
unavoidably have put him upon a necessity of speaking some things,
which would manifestly have reproach'd his own manner of living, and
contradicted those Principles which he himself had elsewhere laid
down; in which he encourages Men to heap up Riches, and proposes
several ways and means in order to the acquiring them.
We have in this Discourse (as necessity required) disgress'd something
from the main Design of what you desir'd; it appears from what has
been already said, that you must either mean, 1. That I should describe
to you, what they see and taste, who are so happy as to enjoy the
UNION,(which is impossible to be described as it really is; and when
any one goes about to express it, either by Speech or Writing, he quite
alters the thing, and sinks into the speculative way. For when you once
come to cloath it with Letters and Words, it comes nearer to the
corporeal World, and does by no means remain in the same State that it
was in before; and the Significations of these Words, which are used in
the explaining it, are quite alter'd; so that it occasions a great many real
Mistakes to some, and makes others believe, that they are mistaken,

when indeed they are not; and the reason of this is, because it is a thing
of infinite Extent, comprehending all things in it self, but not
comprehended by any.) 2. Or else the meaning of your Request must be
this, that I should shew you after what manner they proceed, who give
themselves to Contemplation. And this (my good Friend) is a thing
which is capable of being express'd both by Speech, and Writing; but
'tis as scarce as old Gold, especially in this part of the World where we
live; for 'tis so rare, that there's hardly one of a thousand gets so much
as a smattering of it; and of those few, scarce any, have communicated
any thing of what they knew in that kind, but only by obscure Hints,
and _Innuendo_'s. Indeed the Hanifitick Sect[11], and the Mahometan
Religion, doe forbid Men to dive too far into this matter. Nor would I
have you think that the Philosophy which we find in the Books of
Aristotle, and _Alpharabius_[12], and in _Avicenna_'s Book, which he
calls _Alshepha,_ does answer the end which you aim at, nor have any
of the Spanish Philosophers[13] writ fully and satisfactorily about it.
Because those Scholars which were bred in Spain, before the
Knowledge of Logick and Philosophy was broach'd amongst them,
spent their whole Lives in Mathematicks, in which it must be allow'd,
they made a great Progress, but went no farther. After them came a
Generation of Men, who apply'd themselves more to the Art of
Reasoning, in which they excell'd their Predecessors, yet not so as to
attain to true Perfection. So that one of them said,
_T'is hard the kinds of Knowledge are but two,_ _The One erroneous,
the Other true_. _The former profits nothing when 'tis gain'd,_ _The
other's difficult to be attain'd_.
After these came others, who still advanc'd further, and made nearer
approaches to the Truth; among whom there was one that had a sharper
Wit, or truer notions of things than Avenpace, but he was too much
taken up with Worldly Business, and Died before he had time to open
the Treasury of his Knowledge, so that most of those pieces of his
which are extant, are imperfect; particularly his Book _about the Soul_)
and his _Tedbíro 'lmotawahhid,_ i.e. How a Man ought to manage
himself that leads a Solitary Life So are his Logicks and Physicks.
Those Pieces of his which are compleat, are only short Tracts and some

occasional Letters. Nay, in his Epistle concerning the UNION, he
himself confesses that he had wrote nothing compleat, where he says,
_That it would require a great deal of trouble and pains to