Introduction

Shem Tov ibn Joseph (blessed be his memory) ibn Falaquera said: I examined the book composed by R. Solomon ibn Gabirol called The Source of Life, and it seemed to me that he followed, in his doctrines, the view of the ancient philosophers mentioned in The Book of the Five Substances composed by [Pseudo-]Empedocles. That book is based on the view that all spiritual substances have spiritual matter. The form comes from above and the matter accepts it from below, that is, the matter is the substratum, and the form is predicated of it. I found that Aristotle wrote in Book Lamda of the Metaphysics that the ancients had attributed matter to eternal things. He said that whatever has matter is composite and possesses possibility, and that, of necessity, only things that are generated and corrupted have material foundations. Such things change into other things. I have collected excerpts of [Gabirol's] discussion that encompasses his entire view.

Excerpts from Treatise One [The Knowledge of Universal Matter and Form]

1 The knowing part of man is the most worthy; hence, he must seek knowledge, and the knowledge he seeks should be of himself, so that through such [self-knowledge] he will achieve knowledge of other things beside himself. For his essence encompasses and penetrates all things, and these things are subsumed under his faculties.