the divine, and their First Teacher claimed that it was the ultimate aim of their philosophy and the culmination of their wisdom—only a scant few of its propositions are true. Most of it concerns knowledge of mental judgments, not external realities. Nor is most of it supported by logical syllogism. This includes abstract existence, necessity, possibility, abstract cause and effect; their division into what constitutes the essence—matter and form—and the two causes of its existence—the agent and the end; and the discussion of the division of being into substances and the nine accidents: quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, possession, acting, and being acted upon. As one of them expressed it in verse:
Zayd, tall and black, the son of Mālik,
Was reclining in his house yesterday;
In his hand a sword: he drew it, and it was drawn—
These are the ten categories, all alike.
Neither these matters nor their subdivisions are supported by logical syllogism. Rather, most of this is mere induction, much of which has been challenged by those disputing its proponent.
If, then, their discipline ranges between sciences in which logical syllogism is unnecessary and matters in which they cannot employ it, it is of no benefit to their sciences. Indeed, its distraction of the heart from beneficial knowledge and deeds has harmed many people