[1] This book, by the way, was the first book in Arabic type which issued from the Oxford University Press, just as his “Porta Mosis,” containing the six Prefatory Discourses of Maimonides on the Mishna, was the first Hebrew text (in fact Arabic with Hebrew characters) printed at Oxford.
In the splendid array of famous Arabic scholars the last century has produced there are only two in England that rank with Edward Pococke on the same level--two men whose names stand out in bold relief, namely, Edward William Lane, prince among lexicographers, and William Wright, the brilliant exponent of the theories of the native Arabic grammarians.
The co-operation of Edward Pococke, the father, in the edition of this book, “Philosophus autodidactus,” was indeed the best recommendation. To Edward Pococke, the father, is due the honour of having discovered and unearthed this priceless gem of Arabic philosophical literature, whilst the son, “the worthy son of so great a father,” undertook the task, by no means an easy one, of editing the Arabic text and furnishing it with a Latin translation.[2] This Latin translation was undoubtedly for that time a praiseworthy performance; yet, considering the enormous strides Oriental science has made during the last centuries, and with all the new material at hand, we are to-day able to put the philological groundwork on a more solid basis.
[2] The value of the book was quickly recognised. In a comparatively short time it quite caught the fancy of the public--in fact it took the world by storm, and for a long time it remained greatly in vogue.
In casting about for the work of an Arabian philosopher for the “Wisdom of the East” Series, I could not think of anything more engaging, more captivating, than this simple romance.
Unfortunately, for reasons of space, I could not give a translation in full, but I have given the most interesting parts. On the passages, however, which I had to leave out, I have dwelt at greater length in this Introduction. In the translation I have tried to preserve the _cachet_, the archaic flavour and spirit of the book.
The idea underlying the story is, as Ockley puts it, to show how human capacity may, unassisted by any external help, attain to the knowledge of the higher world, and so by degrees find out its dependence upon a superior Being, the immortality of the soul, and other questions of the highest importance. In short, it describes the gradual awakening of the soul, the evolution of an original mind from its first groping in the dark to the most dazzling heights of philosophical speculation.