In the latter there is no succession and association.

In the latter there is no succession and association. Here one sees something as something else. That is, he joins it to the other and applies the definition of one thing to another thing. There is no succession of ideas as in association. In metaphor there is a simultaneous unification of two things, not a succession of several things. This is what gives the power of passion and pathos to elegies.

Thus one of the objections against the Allamah's view is that he generalizes the faculty of normative formulation to all animate beings, whereas it is exclusive to man and that too to his practical reason. Early Muslim philosophers defined practical wisdom, which includes ethics, as the science of man's voluntary actions in respect of how they ought to be and how they can be best and most perfect.

This definition given by early Muslim philosophers is somewhat similar to that of theoretical wisdom which deals with the most perfect order and the question whether or not the existing order is the best and most perfect order possible. This question however relates to whether something exists or not, and in the discussion of man's voluntary acts the question relates to how something ought to be and how it can be most perfect.

According to modern philosophers ethics deals with the question, How should one live one's life, i.e. it does not deal with how men live but with how they should live. This almost amounts to the same thing with certain added qualifications. One relates to universality. When the early Muslim philosophers defined ethics as a science of man's voluntary acts they meant a universal prescription for all human beings, not for any particular person.

The other point that should be mentioned here is that when modern philosophers hold that ethics deals with how one should live one's life, a qualification is to added here-and they often add it themselves, thus coming closer to the viewpoint of ancient philosophers-stating that what is meant is a life imbued with sublimity and sanctity. The meaning of ethics is loaded with a sense of sublimity and sanctity, or value in contemporary terms.

Another point whose mention here is not without benefit is that when it said that ethics is the science of how one must live one's life, that includes behaviour and habit, that is, what kind of conduct and habits one must have to lead a worthy life.