על שהרע נוהג לארוב לטוב כ״בThat the Worse is wont to Attack the Better 22
א׳
1[79] The words which follow are an utterance of great richness, whether we look at the beauty of expression or at the thoughts conceived. The words are: “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth to Me from out of the ground” (Gen. 4:10). The loftiness of the phrasing is patent to all who are conversant with literature. Let us examine, according to our ability, the ideas expressed. And first, as to the blood.
ב׳
2[80] In many passages of the Law Moses pronounces the blood to be the essence of the life, saying in plain words, “for the life of all flesh is the blood” (Lev. 17:11 etc.). Yet, when first after the creation of heaven and earth and of what lies between them, the Framer of living beings fashioned man, we read, “He breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2:7), showing hereby, on the contrary, that the essence of life is breath.
ג׳
3[81] Now we must notice that it is the writer’s invariable habit never to forget for a moment the principles which he has laid down at the outset; he is scrupulously careful to let his later statements be such as follow from and agree with what he has said before. He would not therefore, having already said that the essence of life is breath, have said further on that it is some different substance, namely blood, had he not been bringing the matter under some most vital and essential principle.
ד׳
4[82] What then are we to say? Each one of us, according to the primary analysis, is two in number, an animal and a man. To either of these has been allotted an inner power akin to the qualities of their respective life-principles, to one the power of vitality, in virtue of which we are alive, to the other the power of reasoning, in virtue of which we are reasoning beings. Of the power of vitality the irrational creatures partake with us; of the power of reasoning God is, not indeed partaker, but originator, being the Fountain of archetypal reason.