Page:Alchemyofhappiness en.djvu/45

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Ghazzali's Alchemy of Happiness.
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from the blood, such diseases as leprosy, insanity, inflammation of the spleen and remittent fever are the consequence. If any derangement happen to the gall-bladder so that it cannot secrete the bile, bilious disorders follow. If the kidneys get disordered, so that they cannot abstract the water from the blood, dropsy and similar diseases are the result. It all depends, however, on the will of God. In the same manner, all the organs of the body have a specific function. If it were not so, the body would perish....

Our intention has been to show you that man is a great world, and that you might know what a multitude of servants his body has to minister to him: so that you might realize while in your enjoyments, in walking, in sleeping or at rest in your world, that by God's appointment, these numerous servants in your employ never suffer their functions to cease for a minute. Listen now for a moment candidly. If you had a servant who had been faithful to you during his whole life, with whose services you were not able to dispense, while he could at any time find a better master—yet if he should only for a single day disobey your orders, you would get angry, beat him, and wish to get rid of him. But God has been abundant in kindness to you, and has given you so many servants, and has in no wise any need of you. How then can it be just that you should become enslaved to yourself, and follow your own passions, and that forgetful of pleasing the infinite God, you should rebel against your Creator and Benefactor, and that you should render obedience to Satan, who is your enemy and the enemy of God?

Many and even innumerable books, O student of the divine mysteries, have been written in explanation of the organization of the body and the uses of its parts: but they have no more made the subject clear and exhausted it, than a drop can illustrate the ocean, or an atom illustrate the sun. 5