73argument that the thing must be regarded as existing in the mind, is unjustifiable. "Ideal" existence follows, only from the denial of externality which the Ash`arite do not deny; since they hold that knowledge is a relation between the knower and the known which is. known as external. Al-Katibi's proposition that if the thing does not exist as external existence, it must exist. as ideal or mental existence, is self-contradictory, since,. on his principles, everything that exists in idea exists in externality (1).
Al-Katabi explains and criticises the proposition, maintained by contemporary philosophers generally "That the existent is good, and the non-existent is evil".(2) The fact of murder, he says, is not evil because the murderer had the power of committing such a thing; or because the instrument of murder had the power of cutting; or because the neck of the murdered had the capacity of being cut asunder. It is evil because it signifies the negation of life - a condition which is non-existential, and not existential like the conditions indicated above. But in order to show that evil is non-existence, we should make an inductive inquiry, and examine all the various cases of evil. A. perfect induction, however, is impossible, and an incomplete induction cannot prove the point. Al-Katibi, therefore, rejects this proposition, and holds
1 Ibid. fol.
11b.
2 Ibid. fol. 14a.