Intellection is of two kinds: one is innate and the other through listening. The innate is like the earth, and the one through listening is like the seed and water: innate intellection does not proceed by itself unless intellection through listening comes to it to rouse it from its sleep, free it from its fetters, and stir it from its place, just as seed and water bring out what lies in the depths of the earth.
– Theophrastus of Eresus in al-Sijsitani’s Siwan al–hikma (“Vessel of Wisdom”) 15.