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Fourth Article
It is reported that the joining of fire to a lamp resembles, in some respects, the joining of spirit to body.
O noble one! Know that the philosophers have said: The animal soul’s (ruh-ı hayvani) attachment and adherence to the body is like the light within a lantern's attachment and relation to its wick. Indeed, severing this fire’s connection with the wick is easily accomplished with a single breath, just as severing the animal soul’s connection with the body can be effortlessly achieved with a few tugs. And when the oil that nourishes the lamp’s wick runs out, the fire departs and extinguishes, so too when the natural humors sustaining the body's vitality cease, the spirit separates from it.
If there is a place where the fire can draw air and continue to burn, then there also a person can breathe and not die. In a place where the fire has extinguished, a person cannot breathe and perishes. For this reason, miners and those engaged in excavation, if they wish to enter any cave, first light a lantern and hang it on the end of a long pole, extending it into the cave. If the extended lantern does not extinguish, then they follow after it. But if the extended lantern extinguishes, they do not enter that cave; rather, they return and depart. Just as the oil of a burning lantern runs out, the fire at the tip of its wick flares up a few times (with a final effort) and gives light around it, and then it extinguishes. Similarly, at the time of death, a strength comes to humankind; an increased power which is called “the health of death.” And after that, the spirit departs from the body.