Hayy ibn Yaqzan (The Improvement of Human Reason)

After these came others, who still advanc'd further, and made nearer approaches to the Truth; among whom there was one that had a sharper Wit, or truer notions of things than _Avenpace_, but he was too much taken up with Worldly Business, and Died before he had time to open the Treasury of his Knowledge, so that most of those pieces of his which are extant, are imperfect; particularly his Book _about the Soul_) and his _Tedbiro 'lmotawahhid,_ i.e. _How a Man ought to manage himself that leads a Solitary Life_ So are his _Logicks_ and _Physicks_. Those Pieces of his which are compleat, are only short Tracts and some occasional Letters. Nay, in his Epistle concerning the _UNION_, he himself confesses that he had wrote nothing compleat, where he says, _That it would require a great deal of trouble and pains to express that clearly which he had undertaken to prove_; and, _that the method which he had made use of in explaining himself, was not in many places so exact as it might have been_; and, _that he design'd, if he had time, to alter it_. So much for _Avenpace_, I for my part never saw him, and as for his Contemporaries, they were far inferiour to him, nor did I ever see any of their Works. Those who are now alive, are, either such as are still advancing forwards, or else such as have left off, without attaining to perfection; if there are any other, I know nothing of them.