Note 5 — Ibn Tufail

The Learned Avicenna—This great Man was born in Bochara, a City famous for the Birth of a great many very Learned Men; it lyes in 96 Degrees, and 50 Minutes of Longitude reckoning from the Fortunate-Islands, and 39 Degrees and 50 Minutes of Northern Latitude. A pleasant place, and full of good Buildings, having without the City a great many Fields and Gardens, round about which there is a great Wall of XII Parasangæ, or 36 Miles long, which encompasses both the Fields and the City Abulphed. Golius 's Notes upon Alferganus. Thus much concerning the Place of his Nativity; he was born in the Year of the Hegira 370, which is about the 980 Year of Christ. He was indeed a prodigious Scholar; he had learn'd the Alcoran, and was well initiated into Human Learning before he was Ten years old; then he studied Logick and Arithmetick, and read over Euclid without any help, only his Master show'd him how to demonstrate the first five or six Propositions; Then he read Ptolemy's Almagest, and afterwards a great many Medicinal Books; and all this before be was sixteen years old. He was not only a great Philosopher and Physician, but an excellent Philologer and Poet. Amongst other of his Learned Works, he wrote an Arabick Lexicon; but it is lost. Besides all this, he was a Vizier, and met with a great many Troubles, which nevertheless did not abate his indefatigable Industry. The Soldiers once mutiny'd, and broke open his House, and carry'd him to Prison, and would fain have persuaded the Sultan Shemfoddaulah to have put him to Death, which he refusing, was forc'd to Banish him. After a Life spent in Study and Troubles, having written more Learned Books than he liv'd Years, he died, Aged 58 Years.