الرابع مراتب استعداد النفس لتحصيل النظريات و قربها و بعدها عن ذلك و أثبتوا لها مراتب أربعة سموها بالعقل الهيولاني و العقل بالملكة و العقل بالفعل و العقل المستفاد و قد تطلق هذه الأسامي على النفس في تلك المراتب و تفصيلها مذكور في محالها و يرجع إلى ما ذكرنا أولا فإن الظاهر أنها قوة واحدة تختلف أسماؤها بحسب متعلقاتها و ما تستعمل فيه.

The fourth: the degrees of the soul's preparedness for the acquiring of theoretical knowledge, and its nearness to and distance from that. They have posited for it four degrees, which they have named the material intellect, the intellect in the mode of disposition, the intellect in act, and the acquired intellect. These names are sometimes applied to the soul in those degrees. Their detailed account is set down in its own places, and it comes back to what we mentioned first; for it appears that it is a single power whose names differ according to its objects and to what it is employed in.

الخامس النفس الناطقة الإنسانية التي بها يتميز عن سائر البهائم.

The fifth: the human rational soul, by which man is distinguished from the rest of the beasts.

السادس ما ذهب إليه الفلاسفة و أثبتوه بزعمهم من جوهر مجرد قديم لا تعلق له بالمادة ذاتا و لا فعلا و القول به كما ذكروه مستلزم لإنكار كثير من ضروريات الدين من حدوث العالم و غيره مما لا يسع المقام ذكره و بعض المنتحلين منهم للإسلام أثبتوا عقولا حادثة و هي أيضا على ما أثبتوها مستلزمة لإنكار كثير من الأصول المقررة الإسلامية مع أنه لا يظهر من الأخبار وجود مجرد سوى اللّٰه تعالى.

The sixth: what the philosophers have held to and, in their claim, established — an immaterial, pre-eternal substance having no connection with matter either in essence or in act. Holding to it as they have stated it entails the denial of many of the necessary tenets of religion, such as the temporal origination of the world and other matters this place does not admit of mentioning. And some of them who profess Islam have posited originated intellects; and these too, as they have posited them, entail the denial of many of the established Islamic principles — quite apart from the fact that there does not appear from the reports the existence of any immaterial being other than God the Exalted.

و قال بعض محققيهم إن نسبة العقل العاشر الذي يسمونه بالعقل الفعال إلى النفس كنسبة النفس إلى البدن فكما أن النفس صورة للبدن و البدن مادتها فكذلك العقل صورة للنفس و النفس مادته و هو مشرق عليها و علومها مقتبسة منه و يكمل هذا الارتباط إلى حد تطالع العلوم فيه و تتصل به و ليس لهم على هذه الأمور دليل إلا مموهات شبهات أو خيالات غريبة زينوها بلطائف عبارات.

And some of their verifiers said that the relation of the tenth intellect, which they call the active intellect, to the soul is as the relation of the soul to the body: so just as the soul is a form for the body and the body is its matter, likewise the intellect is a form for the soul and the soul is its matter; and it shines upon it, and its sciences are derived from it; and this connection is perfected to the point that the sciences are read off in it and it is joined to it. And they have no proof for these matters save specious ambiguities or strange fancies which they have adorned with subtle expressions.

فإذا عرفت ما مهدنا فاعلم أن الأخبار الواردة في هذه الأبواب أكثرها ظاهرة في المعنيين الأولين الذين مآلهما إلى واحد و في الثاني منهما أكثر و أظهر و بعض الأخبار يحتمل بعض المعاني الأخرى و في بعض الأخبار يطلق العقل على نفس العلم النافع المورث للنجاة المستلزم لحصول السعادات.

Now that you know what we have laid down, know that most of the reports that have come down in these chapters are apparent in the first two senses, whose issue comes back to one; and in the second of the two more so and more evidently. And some of the reports admit of some of the other senses; and in some of the reports the intellect is applied to beneficial knowledge itself — that which bequeaths deliverance and entails the attaining of felicities.

فأما أخبار استنطاق العقل و إقباله و إدباره فيمكن حملها على أحد المعاني الأربعة المذكورة أولا أو ما يشملها جميعا و حينئذ يحتمل أن يكون الخلق بمعنى التقدير كما ورد في اللغة أو يكون المراد بالخلق الخلق في النفس و اتصاف النفس بها و يكون سائر ما ذكر فيها من الاستنطاق و الإقبال و الإدبار و غيرها استعارة تمثيليه لبيان

As for the reports of the intellect's being made to speak, and of its coming forward and its going back: it is possible to construe them upon one of the four senses mentioned first, or upon what comprises them all. And in that case it is possible that creation is in the sense of determining, as has come in the language; or that what is meant by creation is creation in the soul and the soul's being qualified by it, and that the rest of what is mentioned in them — the making to speak, the coming forward, the going back and the like — is a representational metaphor to set out