A-Y-SH – ‘capacity for mentation, understanding, reason based on desire’ 
(‘desire to know truth’)

I beg the reader to remark first of all, that Moses, giving a name to this companion, does not derive it from that of Adam; for Adam considered as universal man, could not know a companion…

Such is the difference between the Hebraic words אדם and איש . The one characterizes man universalized by his homogenous essence, the other designates man individualized by his efficient will…

This name איש springs from two contracted roots אש-אי … אי develops every idea of desire, of inclination , of appetite, of election: אש is the power of movement, the elementary principle, fire, considered in the absence of all substance…

Here is the hieroglyphic meaning of the word איש intellectual man. It is a new development of universal man, a development, which, without destroying his universality and his homogeneity, gives him nevertheless, an independent individuality, and leaves him free to manifest himself in other and particular conceptions, by means of a companion, an auxiliary force, intended to reflect his image…

It is therefore with profound reason that Moses having especially in mind, in this companion, the volitive faculty which constitutes universal man, intelligent-being, that is to say, the faculty which renders him capable of willing and of choosing, draws its name from the same name of intellectual man, איש . In this derivation, he has caused the sign of manifestation י to disappear, and has replaced it with the final sign of life, in order to make it understood that it is not the volitive principle which resides in אשה , but the principiant will, existing, no longer in power, but in action. (The Hebraic Tongue Restored, Fabre d’Olivet, p. 92-93)