Note 174 — Chapter XII

اعيان الثابته. Aâyan signifies “substances:” these are things which maintain themselves by themselves; or realities, which occupy a space by themselves, without their existence in space depending upon the concomitant existence of another thing. This is the contrary of accidents, the existence of which depends upon the concomitant existence of the substance which serves to support them, or which is the place by which they are supported. Aâyán sabitah, that is, “fixed substances,” are realities of things inclosed in the science of God, that is to say, the figures of realities of divine names in the scientific presence. They are posterior to God only as to essence, and not as to time; for they are eternal, as much on the side of the past as on the side of the future. When it is said, that God produces them by emanation, the posteriority which is thereby expressed, refers but to essence, and is not true in any other sense.—(See Jorjani’s Definitions in Ext. et Not. des MSS., vol. X. p. 65.)—We may, in a language more familiar to us perhaps, express them by “eternal ideals,” or “prototypes of realities.” Silvestre de Sacy adds to Jorjani’s explanation, that the question is here about divine names, that is, attributes of God as emanating from his essence, and residing in him, but not yet produced externally by any action. The scientific presence mentioned in this explanation appears, to him, to signify the divine majesty, inasmuch as manifesting its presence to beings which have no other existence but in the science of God.