Maimonides states that transient bodies are subject to destruction only from the persepctive of their matter (من جهة مادتها) and not through their form (من جهة الصورة): the form of things is permanent, while their matter is transitory. Thus, if we think of bodies as consisting of (1) matter and (2) form, for Maimonides it is clear that the former is lowly while the latter is exalted; matter is always changing, always transforming, and always transient; but form, as form, is permanent.

Note: in this chapter, Friedlander seems to have translated the word maadda as ‘substance’, but ‘matter’ is probably more appropriate. I should check what Pines has.

It is therefore clear that all corruption, destruction, or defect comes from matter. Take, e.g., man … all weakness, interruption, or disorder of his actions … originate in the transient matter, not in the form. … Man’s shortcomings and sins are all due to the substance of the body and not to its form; while all his merits are exclusively due to his form. Thus the knowledge of God, the formation of ideas, the mastery of desire and passion, the distinction between that which is to be chosen and that which is to be rejected, all these man owes to his form; but eating, drinking, sexual intercourse, excessive lust, passion, and all vices, have their origin in the substance of his body.

Expressing a rather surprisingly Christian idea, Maimonides says:

It was impossible, according to the wisdom of God, that matter should exist without form … and it was necessary that the very noble form of man, which is the image and likeness of God, … should be joined to the substance of dust and darkness, the source of all defect and loss,

This is reminiscent of Mir:

عالم میں جاں کے مجھ کو تنزّہ تھا اب تو میں
آلودگیِ جسم سے ماٹی میں اٹ گیا

aalam mein jaan ke mujh ko tanazzuh thha ab to mein
aaloodgi -e- jism se maati mein at gaya

In the realm of spirits, I was sanctified; now, well, I —
am mingled in dust from the pollutedness of body

This idea has ethical implications in the Maimonidean worldview, which in this chapter sounds quite monastic. Because man is distinguished by this ‘God-like’ ability to conquer his passions, one’s ability to do so determines one’s “station”. The more one indulges in the desires of the flesh, the farther away one goes from his ‘true’, Godly nature. Chief among the culprits is the sense of touch, which Maimonides — following Aristotle — considers particularly distasteful. If we must tend to our bodily needs and desires, we should “reduce these wants, guard against them, feel grieved when satisfying them, abstain from speaking of them, discusissing them, and attending to them in company with others.”

So what should we be engaged in, instead? Maimonides has a philosopher’s reply:

His aim must be the aim of man as man, viz., the formation of ideas, and nothing else.

which he then qualifies with a theologian’s lens, because he then says:

The best and sublimest among them is the idea which man forms of God, angels, and the rest of the creation according to his capacity. … This is man’s task and purpose. Others, however, that are separated from God form the multitude of fools, and do just the opposite. They neglect all thought and all reflection on ideas, and consider as their task the cultivation of the sense of touch, that sense which is the greatest disgrace.