that We might see.”

He thus explained knowledge accompanying existence as seeing, for what does not exist cannot be seen, unlike what exists, although seeing entails further knowledge.

Al-Tūsī said in his commentary on Ibn Sīnā’s words:

His statement, “Particular things may be apprehended intellectually, just as universals are,” points to their apprehension as natures abstracted from the aforementioned particularizing features. He qualified this with the words, “insofar as they are necessitated by their causes,” so that the apprehension of those things, while universal, would be certain rather than conjectural.

Then he said, “Related to a principle whose species exists in its individual instance.” That is, related to a principle whose specific nature exists in that individual instance—not that it does not exist in any other individual, but allowing that it may exist in another. The point is that those things are necessitated by their causes only insofar as they, too, are natures.

Then he said, “They are particularized by it.” That is, those particulars are particularized by the nature of that principle. He related them to a principle of this kind only because the particular, insofar as it is