The Process of Separation

Philosophy places emphasis on total knowledge of things. It seeks to delve beneath the external nature of things into their inner essence. For almost five thousand years, particularly in the period when Greek philosophy dominated human thought, philosophers had been attempting, with no success, to achieve this aim.

But in the 16th century, when scientific research began in Europe, scientists found it to be in their interests to separate the reality of things from the properties of things. They divided knowledge up into two categories: Knowledge of things and Knowledge of truths.

They came to the conclusion that it was not possible to achieve absolute knowledge of truths, for truth is of a subtle nature and cannot be weighed and measured in the scales available to man. (The Quran: 17:85) Unlike the philosophers, they came to the conclusion that man has been given, as the Quran points out, only a ‘little knowledge.’ Science is determined to put this ‘little knowledge’ to practical use, rather than delve into a knowledge of truth that could not be uncovered. It concentrated on properties, and eliminated realities from its field of study; it dealt with quantity, not quality; it answered the question ‘how’ but left the question ‘why’ unanswered; it limited its study to things concerning which absolute knowledge could be obtained.

This way of thinking continued to gain ground. For the first time, in Galileo’s day, the fragrance of a flower was separated from its chemistry. Scientists then studied the chemistry of flowers, but not their fragrance, which could not be analyzed. Descartes (1596-1650) took this principle of dualism one stage further by applying it to his study of the human being. He studied the body and ignored the soul. The spiritual part of man was thus separated from his material being.

This dualism was not apparently harmful when applied in the field of science. One does not have to know the reality of a magnetic field, for instance, to be able to utilize it in the production of light and motion; knowledge of the properties of a magnetic field is sufficient for this purpose. But when this same principle of dualism was applied to man, it did irreparable damage.

Why was it that a method, which was so successfully applied to the lifeless objects of nature, was harmful when applied to man? The reason for this is that man is not analyzable in terms of dualism as inanimate matter is.

This can be understood from a simple illustration. If a stone statue is confined to a small dark cell, it will remain unaffected. But man is a psychological being; if one were to confine him to the same cell, he would die. Statues will not react if they are deprived of their freedom, but if man is deprived of his freedom, it will adversely affect his whole personality.

So matter was separated from its meaning and body from its soul. Such were the precepts on which western thought came to be based, and these were the precepts, which later led to the separation of man from God in the western world.