is transient.  Life is like a statue with several limbs.  When properly adjusted each in its right place, they hold themselves together on a single pivot but which, when the latter is taken off, fall to pieces.  O soul, do not deceive thyself owing to intercourse with friends and companions and do not strain thyself after it, inasmuch as this intercourse brings no doubt joy but also much hardship and tribulation and finally ends in separation.  It is like a ladle which men use for hot soup, so long as it is new but when it breaks they have done with it—­burn it.  O soul, allow not thyself to be moved by family and relations to amass property for them so that thyself should perish.  Thou shouldst, then, be like fragrant incense which is burnt only for the enjoyment of others.  They are like a hair which men cherish so long as it remains on the head but cast it off as impure as soon as it falls.  O soul, be steadfast in treating the diseased and give it not up because thou findest that the physician’s profession is arduous and people do not recognise its uses and high value.  Judge only thyself whether a man who cures in another a disease making him feel once more fresh and whole is not worthy of a great reward and handsome remuneration.  This is the case with one who has solicitude for a single individual; how much more then is this so in the case of a medicineman who for meed in the next world thus acts towards a, large number of men, so that they after torturing pains and maladies, which shut them out from the enjoyment of the world, from food and drink, wife and child, feel once more as well as ever before.  Who indeed merits larger reward and nobler retribution?  O soul, do not put away from thy sight things of the next world because thou hungerest after passing life.  For thou, in thy haste to acquire a triviality surrenderest the valuable; and such people are in the position of the merchant who had a house full of aloe wood and who said, “If I were to sell this by weight it would take me too long” and therefore gave it away wholesale for a trifling price.

[Sidenote:  Autobiographical]

After thus I had replied to my soul and thereby explained matters to it and guided it aright it could not deviate from truth, yielded to righteousness and abandoned what it was inclined to.  Accordingly I continued to treat the sick for the sake of my reward in the next world.  This, however, by no means prevented my acquiring a rich portion of earthly goods before my journey to India as well as after my return from the kings, and that was more than I was ambitious of or had hoped for, for a man in my position and my calling.

[Sidenote:  Limitations of the healing art.]

Thereafter I again reflected on the healing art and found that the physician can employ no remedy for a suffering patient which so completely cures his disease that it does not attack him again or that he is immune from a worse disorder.  While, therefore, I was unaware how I could effect a perfect cure secure against the recurrence of a disease, I saw that on the other hand acknowledge of the next world was a permanent absolute protection against all distempers.  Accordingly I conceived a contempt for the healing art and a longing for religious knowledge.