Thus, both a human being’s animal nature and his rationality include something shared with other animals and something peculiar to him alone. The same applies to the formation of his bodily constitution. Although his growth and nourishment have something in common with those of plants, they are not identical to them. For he feeds on what gives him pleasure and delights his soul, and he grows as his sensation, movement, intent, and work develop. Plants are not like this. The same applies to the various classes and individuals within a species. Thus, the rationality of the Arabs, manifested in the discernment of their hearts and the eloquence of their tongues, is more perfect than that of others. Indeed, some human beings fall below beasts in rationality and discernment, while others reach heights whose limits cannot be fathomed.

All this shows that when individuals within a class, classes within a species, species within a genus, and lower genera share the designation of a higher genus, this does not entail that the common meaning is present in them equally. Likewise, there is no single entity shared by externally existing realities. Rather, the mind grasps a meaning found in one thing, whose counterpart is found in another. It has already become clear that this is a counterpart by way of resemblance, not sameness, and that the reality of this common meaning in one differs from its reality in the other. This is where those who employ comparative reasoning go wrong: they attend to the common meaning that unites things, but not to the difference that distinguishes them.

And the Arabs, among the various peoples, and the Muslims, among the adherents of religions, are the foremost of people