كتاب الحيوان (Book of Animals)

( 12 )

Yet the raid or "expedition" is only [successful] if
The mount is sound after [it has suffered] the hide.

And regarding the first meaning, the poet says:
She said, "O Fatim, [bring] Amir some dates,
And my dates were like stones and dry hard bits."

And regarding the first meaning, Hatim said this, and this is my point. Thus, the rajaz poet said:
"The house is made populous by ruin."
He says: this is its prosperity. Abu Ishaq was amazed at their saying "Fire is dry." He said: As for their saying "Water is moist," it is correct because we see it flowing. And when he says "The earth is dry," he only intends the crumbling soil exclusively. If he intended the very substance of the earth that holds itself together due to the plasticity it possesses, he would be mistaken. This is because the parts of the earth are mixed with the parts of water, so it is prevented from crumbling to the extent of that [mixture]. Whenever we dig and enter into the depth of the earth, we find the earth to be clay; rather, you will always find clay to be moister until you reach water. The earth today is entirely earth and water, and water is water and earth. It only holds the name according to the amount of abundance or scarcity.

As for fire, its substance is not dry. If its substance were dry, it would crumble like soil and its parts would separate from one another. Just as water, since it is moist, is fluid—however, when the people found that fire extracts everything from the wood, and moisture appeared for that reason, and they found that the components of the wood were distinguished upon the exit of its fires, which was one of its natures?, [resulting] in the distinction—they found the wood had become dry, crumbling ash. They thought its dryness was only what the fire had given it and brought into it. But the fire did not give it anything; rather, when the fire of the wood separated from the moistures of the wood, those latent moistures, which were restrictive, appeared. There remained of the wood the part which is the ash, and it is the part of the earth and its essence, because wood contains an earthy part, a watery part, a fiery part, and an airy part. When the fire exited and the moisture withdrew, the earthy part remained. Thus, their saying that fire is dry is an error. They only went by what the eyes see and did not dive into the hidden causes.

He used to say that those people were not on the path of the true dialecticians, nor on the path of the past masters of scrutiny. He used to say that the community not matured by the wombs, who differ in the colors of their bodies, the pupils of their eyes, and the colors of their hair—the way of moderation—their intellects and temperaments can only be in accordance with that, and in accordance with that are their morals, their manners, their attributes, and the conduct of their ambitions in their baseness and nobility, due to the difference [of their origins].