Volume 3 — CHAPTER XXVIII THE HISPANO-ARAB AGE OF LITERATURE AND SCIENCE 760–1450

Intellectual Stagnation of Europe during the Period of Moslem Greatness—High Rank of Scholars in Spain—Attainments of the Khalifs—Character of Arab Literature—Progress of Science—The Alexandrian Museum—Its Wonderful Discoveries—Its Contributions to Learning—Its Influence on the Career of the Mohammedans—The Arabic Language—Poetry of the Arabs—Its General Characteristics—Theology and Jurisprudence—History—Geography—Philosophy—Libraries—Rationalism—Averroes—Mathematics—Astronomy—Al-Hazen—Gerbert—Botany—Alchemy—Chemistry—Pharmacy—Albertus Magnus, Robert Grossetete, and Roger Bacon—Medicine and Surgery—Ignorance of their Theories and Scientific Application in Mediæval Europe—Prevalence of Imposture—Fatality of Epidemics—Great Advance of the Arabs in Medical Knowledge—Hospitals—Treatment of Various Diseases—The Famous Moslem Practitioners—Contrast between the Christian and the Mohammedan Systems—Enduring Effects of Arab Science—Its Example and Benefits the Creative Influence of Modern Civilization.

While the Christian world was enveloped in darkness, and all learning save that of worthless metaphysics and polemic theology had been banished from the minds of men; while England was distracted by Danish and Norman invasion, and barbarous monks defied the authority of her kings in the very presence of the throne; while Charlemagne was desolating the provinces of Germany by sweeping and merciless proscription; while ecumenical councils were proclaiming the virtues of celibacy and the sanctity of images; while the populace of Rome was amused by the scandal of a female pope; during this period of intellectual stagnation the Moorish princes of Spain and Sicily, alone among the sovereigns of the West, kept alive the sacred fires of art, science, and philosophy. The thirst of empire, stimulated by the fervor of religious enthusiasm, had subjected to the Moslem sceptre a territory exceeding in extent and opulence the vast and fertile area which, in its most prosperous age, acknowledged the authority of the Cæsars. The Arab capitals of Cordova, Cairo, Damascus, and Bagdad did not yield in magnificence of architecture, in pomp of ceremonial, in the skilful adaptation of the mechanical arts, in the accumulation of prodigious wealth, in the opportunities for luxurious indulgence, to the traditional precedence of imperial Rome. In scientific attainments no comparison existed between the vague and unprofitable speculations derived from the schools of Greek and Latin philosophy and the results obtained from the practical application of principles conducive to the development of the human reason and the promotion of the welfare of mankind. In the intellectual as well as in the physical world the success of the Arabs was unprecedented. During the most splendid period of the Spanish-Mohammedan empire, ignorance was accounted so disgraceful that men who had not enjoyed opportunities of education in early life concealed the fact as far as possible, just as they would have hidden the commission of a crime. On the other hand, the learned—trusted by the sovereign, the oracles of the schools, the depositaries of influence and power—never relaxed their efforts for the development of their talents and the increase of their knowledge; and such was their ardor and their perseverance, that they gave rise to the popular proverb, “There are two creatures that are insatiable,—the man of money and the man of science.” The thorough instruction imparted by the Hispano-Arab institutions of learning was highly appreciated by foreign nations, and students went from the most bigoted communities of Europe to enter the Universities of Cordova and Seville. In every branch of polite literature the indefatigable Moslem manifested his genius and his diligence. His versatile talents and his prolixity are at once the wonder and the despair of the most patient and studious reader. One remarkable personage, Ibn-al-Khatib, of Cordova, who died in the tenth century, is credited with nearly eleven hundred works on metaphysics, history, and medicine. Ibn-Hasen composed four hundred and fifty books on philosophy and jurisprudence. Another writer left behind him eighty thousand pages of closely written manuscript. It was no unusual circumstance for a dictionary or an encyclopædia to number fifty volumes. Commentaries on theology, religious tradition, and law were almost infinite in the extent and diversity of their topics. The historical productions of the Spanish Arabs were probably the most minute and voluminous ever published by any people, and their scrupulous fidelity to truth has been repeatedly established by the comparison of their descriptions with the architectural monuments which have descended to us, and by the corroborative evidence of distant and often hostile writers. The authors are usually deficient, however, in the application, and often even in the knowledge, of the canons of historical criticism; their love of the marvellous occasionally interferes with their judgment, and their descriptions, overloaded with florid rhetoric, belong rather to the province of the orator than to that of the accurate and discriminating historian. More than a thousand chroniclers have illustrated the annals of Moorish Spain. Their style, at once turgid and obscure, often renders their meaning unintelligible, while their text is overburdened with puerile anecdotes, Koranic allusions, and perplexing Oriental metaphors. Generations passed in another land, under conditions of extraordinary political and industrial activity, seemed powerless to eradicate or even to substantially modify the mental characteristics of a race bred amidst the solitude and dominated by the prejudices and the superstitions of the Asiatic Desert. The stubborn persistence of these traits is one of the most singular phases of its life and history. Its polity and its religious belief were foreign to, and irreconcilable with, those that prevailed elsewhere in Europe. Its customs, its language, its literature were all exotic. In works of imagination, the elegant fictions of the East, fascinating to the highest degree, and better adapted to the expanding intellect of man than the coarse and barbaric tales of Gothic origin, soon supplanted the latter, as the light and keen-edged scimetar had already driven out the clumsy broadsword of the followers of Roderick. The practical methods of thought founded upon the system of Aristotle everywhere obtained precedence over the unsubstantial and visionary theories of the Platonic school. In public assemblies, where men and women alike competed for the prize of literary superiority; in social intercourse, where the fair sex were accorded far more liberty than had ever been vouchsafed to the matrons and virgins of antiquity, or than is now enjoyed in the harems of the Orient, were developed and practised those amenities and graces which, fostered by songs of love and gallantry, eventually, through the agency of bard and minstrel, were distributed far and wide throughout the continent of Europe. The desire for learning and the appreciation of its advantages were so universal as to be considered national characteristics. The Khalif was the discriminating and generous patron of genius. His favorite ministers were those whose productions had raised them to deserved eminence in the world of letters. In the Moslem system, a competent acquaintance with the principles of jurisprudence was an essential requisite of every finished education. The wonderful grasp of the Arab mind, which seemed to adapt itself with equal facility to the most opposite conditions, was especially fitted for the exacting requirements of diplomacy,—a calling for which proficiency in learning has, in later times, come to be regarded rather as a disqualification than an advantage. The greatest scholars, therefore, discharged the most important employments, and stood highest in the precarious favor of the Moslem princes of Europe. Their literary productions were recompensed with even greater munificence than their services to the state. They almost constituted a caste, so marked were their pride and exclusiveness. Untold wealth was lavished upon them. They took precedence of nobles who traced their ancestry to a period lost in the mazes of Arabic tradition. Their daughters, occupants of the imperial harems, not infrequently became the mothers of sovereigns. Their ostentatious magnificence moved the envy of the most opulent subjects of the empire. Their residences were not inferior in extent and splendor to the habitations of royalty. Great retinues of slaves attended their progress through the streets. Soldiers in uniforms of silk and gold guarded their palaces, preceded their march, and protected their persons from the effects of popular violence. The most lovely women to be procured in the slave-markets of Europe and Asia filled their seraglios.

The poet, the astronomer, and the historian, raised to posts of high political responsibility, enjoyed the confidence and the intimate familiarity of the monarch in whose presence the most distinguished soldiers trembled. Such was the grateful tribute paid by imperial power to intellectual pre-eminence. That this extraordinary favor should not be abused could scarcely have been expected from even the strongest understandings when subjected to the temptations of flattery and ambition. The lessons of philosophy were insufficient to correct the ignoble vices inseparably incident to human nature, and which, in all ages, have exercised despotic influence over the mind of man. The insolence and rapacity of these ministers rendered them offensive to the people; their dangerous aspirations eventually excited the fears of the sovereign. No class of men was so universally detested. The ancient chronicles are filled with accounts of their cruelty, their injustice, and their misfortunes. Some were sacrificed to the jealousy of their master, others fell victims to the unreasoning fury of the populace. Few there were who retained, in the midst of greatness, those virtues and that modesty which should always characterize the noble pursuit of letters, success in which had raised these statesmen to places of such consideration and authority. While the Koran, as interpreted by the more rigid Mussulman theologians, discourages scientific inquiry and the study of natural philosophy, the Khalifs of Cordova, in more than one instance, incurred the reproach of heterodoxy through the indulgence of investigations prohibited by law to their subjects, and, thus encouraged, the intelligent society of the capital did not disdain to adopt the noble maxim of the head of a rival sect. which declares that “the ink of the learned is as precious as the blood of the martyrs,” while the consistent believer kept constantly in remembrance the statement of the Prophet that on the Day of Judgment a rigid account will be required of the literary opportunities improved or abused by the Faithful. Not only did these great princes encourage literature by the bestowal of substantial honors and rewards, but they themselves won in that field laurels more profitable and enduring than any gained in the most successful campaign against the infidel. Abd-al-Rahman I. was an astronomer and a poet of unusual ability. Hischem I. and Al-Hakem I. were among the best informed scholars and critics of their time. The talents and learning which rendered illustrious the life and character of Abd-al-Rahman II., his acquaintance with the sciences of law and natural philosophy, his patronage of letters, caused him to be compared to Al-Mamum, the most renowned of the Khalifs of Bagdad. The erudition and acquirements of Al-Hakem II. were prodigious; the volumes of the immense library of Cordova were enriched by notes and comments in his own hand, and such was his zeal that his eyesight was ultimately sacrified to the assiduity with which he applied himself to every branch of knowledge. The imperial dignity, great as it appeared at its culmination, during his reign was the least important of his titles to eminence. In the golden age of Arabic literature, he stood conspicuous amidst thousands of distinguished writers, jurists, annalists, biographers. A critical history of Andalusia which he composed was famous for its accuracy and for the vast stores of information it contained, and, widely read, it long remained a monument to the remarkable erudition and industry of its author. No scholar of his time was his superior in depth and variety of intellectual attainments. He was the master of many languages and dialects. He wrote with equal fluency and elegance on almost every subject. Nothing pleased him so much as the perusal of a new and valuable work, and the accumulation of books was with him a passion, which supplanted the duty of proselytism and the lust of power. His library was so extensive that it overflowed the great building which had been erected for its reception, and whose treasures, the masterpieces of every nation—Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Egyptian, Persian, Hebrew, and Arabic—were the delight of the learned and the marvel of an illiterate and superstitious age.

Abdallah attained distinction by the plaintive elegies in which he celebrated the misfortunes of his house; Suleyman was dreaded for the cutting verses in which he satirized the treachery and hypocrisy of the city and the court.

The spirit of literary taste and rivalry which had inspired the accomplished society of the khalifate was not lost with the dismemberment of the empire. The capital of each principality became a centre of culture, of learning, of the arts. The rulers of these petty states, whose population still retained, amidst the turbulent scenes of civil discord and foreign encroachment, no small measure of that intelligence and taste which had so eminently distinguished their fathers, vied with each other in their encouragement of science and in their patronage of learned men. In this noble emulation, as well as in their own scholastic acquirements, the Moorish princes maintained the fame of their ancestors and the traditions of the monarchy. Every facility was afforded to the professors of experimental science. Political honors, salaries, pensions, attracted the scholars of distant countries. Religious intolerance had no place in a society whose cardinal principle was absolute liberty of thought, and which had long been accustomed to consider the untrammelled exercise of reason as an inherent and inalienable right. Al-Moktadir, King of Saragossa, was renowned for his erudition; his knowledge of philosophy, geometry, and astronomy was superior to that of any of the wise men of his court. Al-Modhaffer, King of Badajoz, compiled a great encyclopædia. The rulers of Almeria, Valencia, and Seville were not less distinguished for their profound scholarship and the protection they afforded to letters. The monarchs of the Abbadide dynasty, and especially Motamid II., were renowned for the harmony and pathos of their verses. The Almohade sovereign, Abd-al-Mumen, the nominal representative of the destroying principle of fanaticism, was the admiring patron of Ibn-Tofail, Ibn-Zohr, and Averroes, three of the greatest writers who ever embellished by their talents the literature of any age. The achievements of the Alhamares of Granada in the world of art and science, and the culture of their court—the last refuge of learning in mediæval Europe—form the most attractive episode in the annals of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Encouraged by the example and the patronage of royalty, the mental development of the masses advanced with gigantic strides. The spirit of progress, the incentives of a lofty ambition, animated all orders and conditions of men. So universal was the thirst for knowledge that even the blind, though hampered by the unkindness of nature, were still able, in that age of intellectual rivalry, to attain a high rank in the scale of literary excellence. The rhyming dictionaries, suggestive memorials of perverted and laborious ingenuity; the impassioned poems, born of a tropical clime and a sensual religion; the unprecedented and rapid progress attained in the exact sciences; the voluminous works on theology and history, and the incredible erudition of their authors, the numerous universities, the grand libraries, the competitive examinations, the public contests for literary precedence and royal favor, attest a degree of enlightenment little to be expected from a people sprung from a barbarian and idolatrous ancestry, and are all the more remarkable when contrasted with the degradation of contemporaneous Europe. Fanaticism and prejudice closed to the inquisitive mind of the Moslem some of the most important stores of classic wisdom. For, while the natural philosophers and historians of Athens were studied with the greatest assiduity, Mohammedan piety rejected with abhorrence the sublime creations of Grecian poetry on account of the gross fictions of its mythology, so repugnant to the exalted ideas of the unity and perfection of God. Nor was the fiery and impassioned nature of the Arab capable of appreciating the dignity of heroic verse or the measured cadence and majestic pomp of the Attic drama. It delighted in stirring lyrics, satirical epigrams, amatory songs, and pathetic elegiac lays. The marked influence exerted by Arabic poetry on the civilization of Europe has already been referred to in these pages. Its matter is frequently overloaded with quaint conceits and obscure allusions, its lucidity habitually sacrificed to difficult feats of rhyme, its style disfigured by extravagant metaphor and hyperbole. Love of the beautiful, the marvellous, the supernatural were the most prominent characteristics of Arabic writers, and from the effects of these national propensities even dignified works on scientific subjects were not entirely free.

Learned and voluminous as were the purely literary productions of the Hispano-Arab scholars, they were of secondary importance when compared with the practical achievements of the experimenters in the world of science. The Saracens introduced into Western Europe the Indian numerals, the tabulated observations of Babylon, and the discoveries of the astronomers of the Alexandrian School. These wise investigators examined the effect of gravity, and narrowly missed ascertaining its principles; they constructed the pendulum clock and the balance; they explained with perspicuity and exactness the origin of many hitherto mysterious physical occurrences which popular ignorance was accustomed to ascribe to supernatural intervention rather than to the inexorable and necessary operation of Nature’s laws. They were the first to demonstrate that the aerolite was a cosmic fragment and not a missile of Divine wrath, and to subject the substances of which it was composed to chemical analysis. They formulated a table of specific gravities, and the densities of bodies as laid down by them is said by Tyndall not to vary essentially from those accepted at the present day. They understood the force of capillary attraction; they had approximated to the true height of the atmosphere, and had noted its diminished weight at a distance from the earth. As early as the tenth century they had formed singularly correct ideas of the nature and causes of many geological phenomena,—such as the varying erosion of strata by the action of the elements, the presence of fossil remains on the summits of mountain ranges and the different characteristics they exhibited according as their origin was terrestrial or aquatic, the elevation and depression of the surface of the globe extending through inconceivably protracted periods of time. Both chemistry and pharmacy were pursued with remarkable success in the laboratories of Moorish Spain. Medicine and surgery especially engaged the attention of the ambitious student, who found an enthusiastic and dangerous competitor for distinction in the Hebrew, whose attainments and skill not unfrequently placed him at the head of his profession. Dissection was not unknown, but reverence for the dead preserved the human form from the scalpel, and the anatomical researches of the Arab surgeon were, in public at least, limited to animals of the lower orders, multitudes of which were annually sacrificed to the demands of science. In that noble pursuit which has for its object the determination of the motions of the celestial bodies, and the establishment of their relations with each other and with the universe, the Hispano-Arab, as in the investigation of other natural phenomena and in the solution of abstruse philosophical problems, evinced a rare and peculiar aptitude. In Moorish Spain, as in Chaldea, Babylonia, and ancient Egypt—where all astronomers were priests—the sanctuary of God was in part devoted to the study of the most sublime and wonderful of His creations, the visible heavens. Gnomous, astrolabes, dioptras, solstitial and equinoctial armils, were placed upon the minarets of the most sacred temples. The calculations of the observer were completed in the academical institution which Moslem tradition and practice caused to be attached to every building consecrated to the worship of Allah. No profession ranked higher than that of the astronomer. The sovereign loaded him with wealth and honors. In the mosque he was received with a consideration not inferior to that exacted by the most revered expounders of the Mohammedan law. The populace, recognizing in him a mysterious personage who in secret held communion with other worlds, and too often confounding him with the astrologer, gave way as he traversed the streets, and in whispers spoke of him as the heir of the wisdom of Solomon and as a mortal invested with supernatural powers. The study of the heavens was greatly promoted by the progress made in the science of optics, and by the lucid explanation of illusions due to atmospheric refraction. In this way the twinkling of the stars, the apparent inequality of the horizontal and vertical diameters of the planets, and the prolongation of the day after sunset were accounted for. The invention of the telescope, the comparison of observations taken at widely distant stations in every portion of the globe, the perfection of apparatus which measures, weighs, and separates the component elements of our atmosphere, the intelligent application of the principles of physics, and the progressive experience of nine hundred years have not affected the definiteness and scientific accuracy of these conclusions.

The Spanish Moslems possessed both terrestrial and celestial globes; some were composed of brass, others of massy silver. Their astronomical instruments were beautifully made, and were graduated with the greatest minuteness and precision. They had ten different kinds of quadrants, one of the most ingenious and complete having been invented by Al-Zarkal, of Toledo. They made use of clocks moved by water, sand, and weights. The Arabic armillary spheres and astrolabes preserved in the museums of Europe are not surpassed by the most laborious efforts of modern ingenuity in excellence of finish, and in the accuracy of adjustment which implies the possession by the artisan of a competent knowledge of the delicate operations for which they were intended. It must not be forgotten that these instruments, through whose agency such wonderful results were achieved, will compare favorably in elegance of construction with the optical appliances of the best equipped observatory of to-day.

To facilitate the investigations of the natural historian, there were numerous zoological collections, where the habits and characteristics of animals and birds of every description could be observed and noted for the present entertainment and future profit of mankind. The royal botanical gardens contained an endless variety of plants, both indigenous and exotic, cultivated for their brilliant foliage, their grateful fragrance, or their culinary and medicinal virtues.

The portentous development of Arabic intellectual activity presents one of the most interesting and instructive examples of progress in the history of the human mind. The Bedouin was a typical barbarian and freebooter. He had no organized government, and acknowledged no permanent authority. Without a settled habitation, he despised all who pursued the avocations of peace. He subsisted by pillage. His religion was debased, cruel, idolatrous. With the exception of a few poems and some collections of tales recounting the exploits of spirits and magicians, he had nothing which could be dignified by the name of literature. It is true that his language was one of the most copious and flexible ever devised by man, but its powers had never been tested and were practically unknown. Even the courage of the Arab was not exempt from suspicion, and he notoriously preferred the advantages of ambuscade and surprise to the more hazardous encounter of the open field. Almost his sole, certainly his most conspicuous, virtue was hospitality; but every consideration of friendship and courtesy was forgotten as soon as the guest of the night had quitted the precincts of his camp. The prevalence of such conditions was, it must be admitted, eminently unfavorable to the encouragement of science and letters. The Arab conqueror, therefore, in the prosecution of his literary career, owed nothing to the usually powerful influence of national tradition and example. His first important act was the destruction of the great library of Alexandria, his second the spoliation of the monuments of the Pharaohs, and the razing—in order to obtain materials for his own inferior constructions—of the vast structures of Greek and Roman antiquity which adorned that famous capital. The thoroughness with which this work was accomplished is demonstrated by the total absence of any remains of those superb edifices which were alike the pride of the Macedonian dynasty and the boast of the age of Augustus and Hadrian. In these acts of violence he only followed the inherent destructive and predatory instincts of his race. Contact with civilization and experience of its benefits, however, soon wrought a change in his nature, a change momentous in its results and which has no parallel in the annals of human advancement. A century after the Hegira, the descendant of the vagrant Bedouin had attained a remarkable predominance in every department of polite literature and scientific knowledge. The impulse which wrought this mighty intellectual transformation was imparted by Egypt, and sprang from the historical and philosophical reminiscences of the Alexandrian Museum. That renowned institution was the unique and practical embodiment of the passion for innovation, of the inventive faculty, of the utilitarian spirit of the ancient world. The doctrines of the higher antiquity were, as is well known, largely theoretical and speculative. The occasional appearance of men of genius like Hippocrates and Aristotle only served to emphasize the worthless character of the verbose and unprofitable disquisitions of the schools of Greek philosophy. Anterior to the fourth century before Christ, science owed little to experiment, and all knowledge of any value was empirical, or the result of purely accidental discovery. No intelligent method of investigation existed. No system which had for its object the physical amelioration of humanity was deemed worthy of attention. Such practical aims were trifles and beneath the dignity of the wise man of that age. His time was occupied in attempts to explain the nature of the soul, to define the supreme good, to discover the original essence of all created things, to demonstrate the fancied harmony or dissonance of numbers. In these absurd and fruitless occupations were wasted intellectual abilities which, properly directed, might have changed the aspect of nature and the condition of society many centuries before modern inventive genius was afforded an opportunity to exhibit its marvellous powers. The shrewd and discerning soldier, who, in the partition of empire, received as his share the ancient dominion of Egypt, pursued a diametrically opposite course in the policy he adopted for the promotion of education and literature. He united the culture of Macedon and the venerable traditions of the civilization of Persia with the experience gained in many campaigns. His skeptical and arbitrary nature had little sympathy with the abject superstitions of his Egyptian subjects, and still less with the despotic pretensions of their priesthood. His position as ruler invested him with almost theocratical authority. Scarcely was he seated upon the throne before a radical change was resolved upon. The genius of Ptolemy impelled him to attempt the modification of a system, sanctified by the practice of immemorial antiquity, in such a way that its outward observance would not be repugnant to Greek intelligence nor, by the violation of long-established prejudices, the stability of the newly constituted government be endangered. To accomplish this end, the worship of Serapis, the representative of Oriental Pantheism, was introduced. This strange co-ordination of skepticism and idolatry was productive of remarkable consequences. The Egyptians admitted with enthusiasm a new god into their Pantheon. The Ptolemaic dynasty was placed upon a firm and enduring basis. In the magnificent temple where was enshrined the image of the divinity, whose nominal worship became of such importance to future civilization, a grand institution of learning, totally unlike any that had hitherto imparted instruction to man, was established. Considerations of practical utility were recognized as the sole and legitimate objects of its foundation. Observation, experiment, debate, occupied the leisure of its professors. The principles of every known science whose application could enure to the benefit of humanity—medicine, surgery, astronomy, botany, physics—were expounded in its halls. Its library, subsequently destroyed by Amru, was the greatest collection of books ever assembled in ancient times. The fame of this great university soon spread throughout the world. The number of students who attended its lectures was incredible, not infrequently reaching the enormous figure of thirteen thousand. Their ambition was excited by the presence of the sovereign, who often assisted in the experiments and participated in the discussions.

The most prominent characteristic of this unique educational institution was the catholic spirit which it manifested towards the representatives of hostile religious systems. Paganism was the recognized worship of the state. Its temples were numerous, its ceremonials of sacrifice, divination, and augury were performed with every accessory which could be afforded by unlimited wealth and prodigal munificence. Yet the philosophical doctrines consecrated by a hoary antiquity, and whose study has given rise to modern agnosticism, were highly esteemed by the educated classes of Egypt. It was to facilitate their introduction and acceptance that the scoffing Greeks had consented with mock solemnity to prostrate themselves before the altar of Serapis. The Jew, elsewhere despised, readily found a respectful audience for his monotheistic principles in the cosmopolitan society of Alexandria, and, what was to him of far greater moment, an opportunity to reap enormous profits from the commercial advantages offered by the most flourishing metropolis in the world. The fabled genealogies of the Olympian deities were perused by Jewish scholars with the same attention, if not with the same respect, as the sacred legends of the Hebrew race. The poems of Homer survived to delight posterity through the editions of the Alexandrian Museum; the Greek version of the Old Testament, known as the Septuagint, published by Ptolemy Philadelphus, is still an authority with erudite theologians. The spirit of inquiry was the dominating factor of the Ptolemaic educational and philosophical systems. Every hypothesis was rejected which could not stand the test of practical experiment and demonstration. No fact was considered too insignificant to be made the subject of intelligent and exhaustive scrutiny. The most abstruse problems of mathematical and physical science, the most obscure and difficult questions concerning life—its origin, its progress, its decay—were daily proposed for investigation and solution. The study of biology was one of the favorite pursuits of the Alexandrian School, and it is not impossible that topics which in recent years have so deeply engaged the attention of the learned may have been a subject of its profound and labored disquisitions. Among these was, perhaps, the doctrine of the Survival of the Fittest, which was not unfamiliar to the Greeks, for its adoption is advocated by Plato in his Republic, and its practical application was long a leading principle of the Code of Lacedæmon. The rational procedure employed in the study of medicine and surgery was most favorable to the prosecution of biological and physiological research. These sciences were established upon the solid foundation of anatomical demonstration. Autopsies and vivisections were of daily occurrence. The active participation of the kings in the operations of the clinic was due, no doubt, to a desire to discover the secret of longevity, and to justify by their sanction proceedings which the prejudices of all the races of antiquity branded as desecrations, actions abhorrent to reverence and decency. Many notable discoveries were the result of these enlightened methods. The offices of the internal organs, the ramifications of the venous system, the form and convolutions of the brain, the phenomena of respiration, digestion, and procreation, were described in terms remarkable for correctness and lucidity. It is a singular fact that in the midst of all these anatomical investigations, many of which were made upon the bodies of living animals, the peculiar function of the arteries remained unknown. The Alexandrian academicians supposed that they were intended, in their normal condition, for the circulation of air, and the vast period of thirteen centuries was destined to elapse before the genius of Harvey designated their true place in the human economy. Herophilus explained the relations of the brain and the nervous system. Erasistratus established the distinction between the nerves of sensation and motion. Alexandria abounded in specialists of every kind,—oculists, lithotomists, surgeons who treated the diseases of women. The practice of medicine was indirectly aided by a pursuit of a widely divergent character, the cultivation of alchemy. As, afterwards, under the Arabs, though not with such marked results, this delusion, through the discoveries induced by its study, proved of substantial service to the intelligent physician. The department of the Materia Medica was enriched by the importation of drugs, and by the cultivation, in botanical gardens, of foreign plants of great medicinal value. The school of the Ptolemies was so famous that an attendance upon its lectures, for however short a period, conferred upon a practitioner great professional distinction. All of the celebrated medical men of antiquity, with the single exception of Hippocrates, derived their information, and were indebted for their success, to the Alexandrian Museum. The extraordinary impulse imparted to all branches of science by this splendid institution was not materially checked for centuries. Before its foundation astronomy had long been stationary, but with the facilities it afforded a gigantic advance was accomplished. The heavens were mapped out and the constellations defined. The stars were catalogued. The motions of the planets were observed and compared, and the erroneous but plausible system of eccentrics and epicycles invented to account for the various phases they presented at different times. The globular form of the earth was demonstrated to the satisfaction of every intelligent mind. The mechanism and cycles of eclipses, the precession of the equinoxes, the first and second inequalities of the moon were explained. Estimates, more or less approximated to correctness, were made of the dimensions of the globe. Its surface was delineated, its climates described, hypotheses to account for the phenomena of its atmospheric changes advanced. Besides those already referred to, all sciences of a practical tendency—geometry, botany, natural history—were accorded a place in the course of the Museum; even the ordinarily prohibited studies of astrology and divination were not excluded. The names of such mathematicians as Euclid, Archimedes, and Conon; of such astronomers as Ptolemy and Hipparchus; of such geographers as Eratosthenes; of such geometers as Apollonius Pergæus; of such ornithologists as Callimachus; of such poets as Theocritus and Lycophron, suggest the infinite obligations of posterity to the noble institution established by Ptolemy Philadelphus at the mouth of the Nile. From such a source was derived the inspiration of Arab intellectual progress that preserved and multiplied the precious literary treasures in which were embodied the wisdom and the achievements of antiquity. That inspiration was, however, destined to long remain dormant. A melancholy period of eleven centuries of bigotry, ferocity, and ignorance separates the Alexandrian Museum from the University of Cordova.

To the unrivalled capabilities of the Arabic language was principally due the success of those who employed it in all branches of literature. That rich and sonorous idiom, isolated for centuries in the Desert, had been formed and perfected without contamination by extraneous influences. The peculiarities of its alphabet, the infinite multitude of its terms, the complexity of its conjugations, and the obscurity of style which its writers regard as an excellence worthy of assiduous cultivation, render its mastery by one not native to the soil a task of almost insuperable difficulty. The perfection of its grammar and the elegance of its construction imply many centuries of use and much literary practice for their establishment. Each tribe had contributed to its copious vocabulary. The number of synonyms by which objects of common occurrence or habitual usage are designated is enormous. It contains eighty names for honey, two hundred for a serpent, five hundred for a lion, one thousand for a sword. It has exerted a marked and permanent influence on the idioms and the literature of Europe. Many of our most familiar English terms have come down from it unaltered. French abounds in words and expressions derived from the same source. Spanish has been called a corrupt Arabic dialect, and its richness in proverbs is due to the use of that tongue in the Peninsula for nine hundred years. The influence of the Sicilian Moslems on Italian is very apparent. The Romance languages were largely Arabic and Hebrew. This exuberance gave the poet an immense advantage for the exercise of his talents. The periodical literary assemblies, popular in Arabia, had the effect of improving the diction of the competitors, and contributed greatly to the embellishment of the language in which their poems were composed. Facility of versification was so common that its possession was not regarded as an accomplishment, except where it produced results denoting unusual ability. So many words have a similar termination in Arabic, that in poems of considerable length the same rhyme is alternately made use of from beginning to end. Improvisatorial skill, so highly esteemed by the Moors, was rather mechanical than the result of poetic inspiration, and was immensely facilitated by the abundance of terms at the command of the poet, whose mind was trained to this mental exercise from childhood. Arabic versification readily adapts itself to every quantity and variation of numbers required by the practice of the art of poetical composition. It is lavish in the use of metaphor, simile, antithesis. In elegance of style, in brilliancy of expression, and in fertility of fancy it presents examples not inferior to the finest models of classic antiquity. Its characteristic extravagance was the result of national taste, a taste often perverted by a passion for the weird and the supernatural. It delights in the representation of abstractions as material beings; it bestows life and speech upon the zephyr and the rose. The play of words in which it abounds, the elaborate and quaint conceits dependent upon pronunciation and upon phrases susceptible of varied significance, while they may obscure the diction, are never suffered to interfere with the harmony. The vivacity of Arabic poetry is one of its greatest charms. Its imagery is born of the fiery imagination of the East; its proficiency in the delineation of human passion is the fruit of centuries of study, reflection, and jealous rivalry. Perfect familiarity with the poems of the pre-Islamic Bedouins, regarded as models by every generation of their descendants, was considered an indispensable qualification of every well-informed scholar. The Arabs were so deeply impressed by the potent influence of poetical genius that they assigned it a place among the kabbala of magical science. Rhymes were introduced into the most solemn discussions. An impromptu couplet opportunely spoken was often the surest recommendation to the favor of a prince. Poetic sentiment was such an essential characteristic of the Arab intellect that even grave metaphysical and historical treatises were designated by the most romantic and whimsical titles.

Under the Mohammedan dynasties of Spain the wit and skill of the successful poet claimed and enjoyed the highest consideration. It has been aptly remarked that poetry was the central point about which revolved the intellectual life of the Andalusian Moors. Its influence upon the invaders was rather augmented than diminished by the transplantation of the lyrics and satires of the Desert to the soil of Southern Europe. The universality of its cultivation and the honors and emoluments which rewarded popularity expanded its productions to an enormous volume. At the close of the reign of Al-Hakem II., hundreds of manuscripts were required for the catalogues of the poetical works which crowded the shelves of the imperial libraries. Verse was employed alike in the most momentous and the most unimportant transactions of life, in the congratulation of royalty, in the celebration of triumphs, in the familiar intercourse of neighbors and friends, in the frivolities and gossip of the seraglio. Its power over the nature of the sensitive and impulsive Asiatic cannot be measured. It diminished the agony of the suffering. It hastened the cure of the convalescent. Its voice brought temporary oblivion to the dungeon of the captive, its pictures of paradise lighted the dark pathway to the grave. Rhyming prose was used in private correspondence by all persons who laid claim to good breeding. The Hispano-Arab histories are filled with verses. They were frequently employed to relieve the severity of scientific works, whose authors were equally celebrated as philosophers and as poets. Diplomatists inserted couplets and stanzas of more or less merit and propriety into their state papers. The passport given to the great scholar Ibn-Khaldun by Mohammed V., King of Granada, was written in rhyme.

In the classification of subjects, amatory poems, as in all countries which acknowledge the power of the lyric muse, claim precedence. It is obviously unfair to judge Hispano-Arab poetry by the accepted rules of modern criticism. The totally different conditions of society, the education of an audience whose ideas of literary excellence and correctness of expression were strongly at variance with ours; the similes, now obscure, but then full of meaning to the appreciative listener, the idioms of a copious and extremely complicated language but imperfectly understood by the most accomplished scholars of our day, ignorance of the physical environment of the writer, the distance and vicissitudes of nine centuries, all contribute to render the formation of an accurate and impartial opinion on the merits of Arab poetry an arduous, indeed an almost hopeless, task.

The exalted position occupied by women under the Arab domination in Spain gave them an influence, and invested them with an importance, elsewhere unknown in the Mohammedan world. This peculiar social condition had a tendency to restrain the sensual instincts of the bard, not yet entirely emancipated from the coarse traditions of the Desert, while at the same time it encouraged the cultivation of generous and lofty sentiments. Admiration for the qualities and accomplishments of the mind gradually supplanted the hyperbolical praise of corporeal perfection, which had hitherto predominated in the compositions of the Arabian poet. The verses of the later era of the khalifate allude to the perfections and graces of the sex in terms of honor and veneration worthy of the noblest paladin of chivalry. This admiration was intensified by the eminent rank attained by many women in the literary profession. The female relatives of khalifs and courtiers vied with each other in the patronage and cultivation of letters. Ayesha, the daughter of Prince Ahmed, excelled in rhyme and oratory; her speeches aroused the tumultuous enthusiasm of the grave philosophers of Cordova; her library was one of the finest and most complete in the kingdom. Valada, a princess of the Almohades, whose personal charms were not inferior to her talents, was renowned for her knowledge of poetry and rhetoric; her conversation was remarkable for its depth and brilliancy; and, in the academical contests of the capital which attracted the learned and the eloquent from every quarter of the Peninsula, she never failed, whether in prose or in poetical composition, to distance all competitors. Algasania and Safia, both of Seville, were also distinguished for poetical and oratorical genius; the latter was unsurpassed for the beauty and perfection of her calligraphy; the splendid illuminations of her manuscripts were the despair of the most accomplished artists of the age. The literary attainments of Miriam, the gifted daughter of Al-Faisuli, were famous throughout the Peninsula; the caustic wit and satire of her epigrams were said to have been unrivalled. Umm-al-Saad was famous for her familiarity with Moslem tradition. Labana, of Cordova, was thoroughly versed in the exact sciences; her talents were equal to the solution of the most complex geometrical and algebraic problems, and her vast acquaintance with general literature obtained for her the important employment of private secretary to the Khalif Al-Hakem II. Inherited genius for poetical composition, joined to constant familiarity with its exercise, the tendency of early education, the influence of intellectual association and example, the exalted estimation in which proficiency in it was held, the extraordinary facility afforded by the Arabic language for the formation of rhyme, the inherent predilection of the Asiatic for the employment of epigram, hyperbole, and allegory, called into existence a race of juvenile poets whose number and abilities seem, in our practical and unimaginative age, absolutely incredible. In readiness of improvisation and quickness of repartee these youthful rhymers displayed talents scarcely to be expected of the most precocious intellect. Some of the rhyming couplets composed by the children of Moorish Spain which have descended to us, in propriety of expression and elevation of feeling, in aptness of comparison and in elegance of style, are not inferior to the classic productions of educated maturity.

Nor was the taste for and the delight in the arts of extemporaneous composition confined to the eminent and the learned; all classes practised it, and it was said that in the district of Silves alone there was hardly a laborer to be encountered who could not improvise creditable verses with facility. Volumes devoted to the lives and productions of the princely and noble poets of Andalusia were published; the palaces of royalty and the mansions of the great fairly swarmed with men of genius and poetasters, greedy of wealth and ambitious of renown. The ancient and venerated models of the Desert were never lost sight of in the productions of Moslem Europe. Their striking peculiarities, their lofty sentiments, their obscure metaphors, their extravagant panegyrics, their fantastic imagery, were regarded as merits which, while they might provoke, would ever defy imitation. In Andalusia, however, the enlarged and humanizing ideas of an advanced civilization, the steady march of material and intellectual improvement, familiarity with the literary masterpieces of antiquity and intercourse with foreign nations, modified to some extent the character of the subjects treated by the Moorish poet, although his style remained the same. Similes deduced from the nomadic life of the Bedouin—a life abandoned, centuries before, for the monotonous occupations of trade and agriculture—still, in the midst of conditions incompatible with the existence of predatory habits, and side by side with the tribal hatred whose intensity never diminished, maintained their universal ascendency. Adroitness in the metrical art; the gift of combining the infinite resources of the Arabic idiom in complicated phrases and rhymes which nothing but the enthusiasm and penetration of the illuminated could understand and unravel; the introduction of mysterious allegories, remote and obscure analogies, bold and striking antitheses,—these were the artificial excellences of Hispano-Arab poetry. The perfect comprehension of its productions implies an acquaintance with the language practically unattainable by a foreigner. The original form of Semitic poetry, whether Hebrew or Arabic, was improvisatorial; it was inspired by passing events; it was gay or plaintive, didactic or satirical, but never solemn and grandly impressive, like the sublime flights of the Grecian muse. The Arab poet was deficient in the dramatic faculty. His versatility, elsewhere remarkable, was unequal to the composition of an epic. His ignorance was so profound that he could not even give a correct definition of tragedy or comedy. To the greatest scholars of Mohammedan Spain, men who knew Aristotle by heart, and who were capable of the instant solution of the most difficult equations of Conon and Euclid, the works of Sophocles, Æschylus, and Euripides were unknown. The mental constitution of the Arab was thus not adapted to the creation of plays, a form of literature also discouraged by his traditions; while his prejudices forbade the study of the classic models which his religion stigmatized as idolatrous and indecent. Poetical narration was not unfamiliar to him, but a lengthy historic or allegorical composition, either in blank verse or rhyme, which required sustained and protracted action, was both repugnant to his taste and beyond his powers.

While love-ditties were the favorite productions of the Hispano-Arab, the martial lyrics of battle and triumph, sonnets depicting the pleasures of wine with more than Roman freedom, and the mourful elegies suggested by the events of a decadent empire, claimed a large proportion of the efforts of his poetic genius. Among the myriad poets whose compositions have adorned the Moorish domination in Spain, it is difficult to attempt to distinguish a few of superior merit; yet the following may be designated as masters in that art whose possession was a passport alike to political eminence and popular veneration. Ibn-Hasn, Ibn-Zeidun, of Cordova, Abbas-Ibn-Ahnaf, were noted for the sweetness and beauty of their amorous songs; the martial airs of Ibn-Chafadscha, of Valencia, chanted by the Moslems in the front of battle, assisted in turning the tide of many a doubtful day; the bacchanalian verses of Ibn-Said, of Seville, were the delight of the corrupt and voluptuous Andalusian capital, and were even sung by the children in the streets; the keen satires of Ibn-Ammar of Silves—the unhappy memories of whose early life, passed in mendicity, tinctured his writings with bitterness even when raised by his talents to the highest posts in the kingdom—spared neither prince nor courtier in their indiscriminate and playful wit; Abul-Beka, of Ronda, Ibn-al-Lebburn, of Murviedro, and Ibn-al-Khatib, of Granada, described, in language of inexpressible beauty and pathos, the national calamities inflicted by Christian supremacy,—the dissolution of empire, the desecration of the sanctuary, the dismemberment of families, the exile of the vanquished, the horrors of servitude.

The ordinary lyrics of the Spanish Moslems were technically known as the Kasida and the Ghazal, and, in the composition of both, only the alternate verses were in rhyme. The sonnets of Petrarch are modelled after this peculiar method of versification, or rather after its imitations prevalent among the vagrant poets of Southern Europe. It was principally through the example afforded by the Moorish kingdom of Sicily that an intellectual impulse was imparted to the founders of Italian mediæval literature. The Mohammedan princes who governed that fertile island were generous and enthusiastic patrons of letters. The Normans, whose enlightened spirit preserved with little modification the laws and customs of a civilization whose benefits were so apparent, encouraged with especial favor the labors of the Arab muse. The compositions of the Sicilian poets embodied principles and were governed by canons identical with those in vogue beyond the Pyrenees. In a land abounding in classic associations, the scene of military and maritime events upon whose issue had depended the destiny of empires; whose striking natural features had given rise to the most charming fictions that adorn the productions of antiquity, and where the architectural monuments of Grecian elegance and grandeur recalled the magnificence of former ages; the Arab, enveloped in the exclusiveness of his own personality, fettered by the influence of inherited tradition, never departed from the beaten track of his ancestors. Physical environment, unusually so potent in the formation of taste and the modification of national impulse and individual characteristics, produced no visible effect upon the mental constitution of the Moorish poet. Everything else—physiological peculiarities, the general tendency of thought, the nature of the objects of intellectual inquiry, opinions of the benefits to be obtained from the prosecution of scientific pursuits, the occupations of daily life—underwent radical changes, but the methods of the poet remained to the last invariable. The persistence of this spirit of immobility is further demonstrated by the popular ballads of the conquerors to whom the Moslems bequeathed it. The striking resemblance of the songs of the troubadours to those of the Arabs indicate plainly the source whence the former derived their inspiration. Other circumstances, based upon national customs, go far towards confirming this opinion. The Mohammedan Peninsula abounded with itinerant rhymers and sonneteers. They travelled from mansion to mansion, everywhere welcomed with joy and hospitality. They attended the person of the prince. They formed an indispensable part of the retinue of every great household. Their poems were ordinarily improvisations, evoked by the occurrences of the moment or the suggestions of the locality. Their compensation was gratuitous, entirely dependent upon the caprice of the patron or the generosity of the auditory. The privileged character of their profession enabled them to use a boldness of speech and a freedom of criticism which an ordinary personage would not have dared to exercise. In their train often followed the story-teller, the prototype of the jongleur, whose lineal descendant may still be seen amusing with his coarse buffoonery the idle crowds of Tangier and Cairo.

The graceful courtesy and deference to the sex, which were the indispensable attributes of every gallant cavalier, in short, the very genius of chivalry, originated among the Spanish Mohammedans. The women of Christian Europe—except in countries influenced by Moslem culture—from the tenth to the fifteenth century received no such social consideration and enjoyed no such educational advantages as did their infidel sisters of the Peninsula. In Southern France and Italy a tolerant spirit, fostered by a light and pleasing literature, had invested woman with an eminent, indeed with a despotic, authority. Elsewhere it was far different. Condemned to unspeakable hardships; degraded by brutal associations; if of high rank, the mere plaything of a tyrannical master; if born in an inferior position, classed with beasts of burden; in every situation of life kept in ignorance; subject to insult, to oppression, to all the sufferings incident to a condition of humiliating dependence little removed from servitude, such was the lot of woman in orthodox Christendom. This state of moral and physical degradation long prevailed, save where intimate contact with Arab civilization produced a substantial and permanent improvement of social and intellectual conditions. The most important factor of this metamorphosis was the poetry of which the troubadour was the exponent. This erratic calling drew its members from every rank of society: it included sovereigns, princesses, nobles, peasants, beggars. As the rhyming instinct is not innate and almost universal in Europe as in Asia, the often unlettered troubadour was more highly considered in Languedoc and Calabria than was the wandering poet among the hypercritical literary dilettanti of Seville and Granada.

In addition to the presumption afforded by the resemblance of subject, style, and metre, the fact that only countries contiguous to, or directly influenced by, Moorish civilization during the Middle Ages developed a taste for poetry similar to that of the Arabs, furnishes strong corroborative evidence that the gai science, as the art of improvising verses was called, was of Arabic derivation. The natural haunt of the troubadour was the romantic, semi-tropical region washed by the waves of the northwestern Mediterranean. The genius of his poetry—ardent, extravagant, voluptuous—had nothing in common with the cold and sluggish spirit of the North. France and Italy were the only European countries whose boundaries coincided with those of the Moslems. In both the revival of learning, after centuries of darkness, first arose. France was the abode of the Huguenot and the Camisard; the birthplace of Henry IV. and Coligny; the seat of the Great Schism which rent the Church in twain; the vantage-ground of the philosophers who precipitated the frightful struggle for civil and religious freedom in the eighteenth century. Italy was the land of Galileo, of Bruno, of Savonarola, of the Medici; the home of the Florentine academicians, whose labors and experiments effected so much for the advancement of science; the scene of the most extensive reaction against mediæval ignorance,—a movement inaugurated in the immediate neighborhood of Rome, and in defiance of the vehement protest of the Papal See. The greatest names in Italian literature insensibly acknowledged their obligations to Arabic poetry, by adopting the style and rhythm of its European imitators, the troubadours. The peerless Dante himself did not disdain to follow and to advocate the observance of its rules. The Canzoni of Petrarch present innumerable points of resemblance to the productions of Moslem Sicily. Ariosto is greatly indebted to Elmacin. In the melodious and charming songs of Lorenzo, the same sources of inspiration are discernible, and the same rhyme is used. In England, the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer bear an unmistakable relation in form and metre to the mediæval compositions of Southern France. Nor was this powerful and all-pervading influence confined to poetry. The tales of Boccaccio have an Oriental cast. The very manner of their recital recalls the customs of the Desert. They are reminiscences of the popular calling of the Provençal jongleur and the Arabic story-teller. In the license of their expressions, in the wit of their repartee, in the amusing character of the events which they describe, they may be classed as realistic adaptations of the Thousand and One Nights. The patronage and example of the Emperor Frederick II. carried beyond the Alps the cultivation of letters, and with it the traditions of Sicilian civilization. From this literary transmigration originated the Minnesingers, German counterparts of the troubadours, whose elegant verses sensibly modified the innate coarseness of the Teutonic character, and introduced a spirit of refinement, in pleasing contrast with the drunken orgies of the banquet and the festival. Their two principal productions, the Minnesong and the Minnelay, were models of elegance of diction, beauty of sentiment, and perfection of rhyme. For more than a century they were the delight of all classes of German society, nor did any compositions of equal merit succeed them until the age of Goethe and Schiller. Into Germany were also introduced, by the influence of the Emperor, a spirit of inquiry, the foundation of all true knowledge, and the philosophical and heterodox ideas entertained by the educated Moslems of his Sicilian dominions. The ultimate effect of this enlightened policy upon the national mind, imperceptible at the time, but increasing in intensity with the lapse of centuries, was the defiant course of Luther, which established the right of private interpretation of the Scriptures and shook the foundations of the papal throne. The fact that these three countries, which alone were directly acted upon by the spirit of Arabic learning and the example of Moorish civilization, were the scene of the revival of letters, when the rest of Christendom was plunged in the most abject ignorance, is of profound significance in ascertaining the causes that, promoting the intellectual advancement of Europe, have culminated in the great scientific achievements of modern times.

In Moorish Spain great attention was paid to the study of the kindred subjects of theology and law. The commentaries on the rites of the various sects into which Islam is divided; the arrangement and review of the enormous mass of tradition which tends to elucidate or to confirm the ambiguous texts of the Koran; the digests of the decisions whose authority is considered unimpeachable, form a stupendous body of literature chiefly remarkable for the patience, the learning, and the labor necessarily employed in its compilation. The muftis and the faquis were the authorities whose office it was to explain perplexing questions of Mohammedan jurisprudence. In the system of the latter, a system generally remarkable for its simplicity and efficiency, the Koran was the guide of every magistrate. The rules were supplemented by the precepts and suggestions of the Sunnah, a collection of traditions derived from sources more or less authoritative, and transmitted through many generations. The conflicting interpretation placed upon ancient customs sanctified by prescription, and the disputed authenticity of many of them, gave rise to a swarm of sects whose rancorous disputes were often terminated by bloodshed. In the Moslem judicature, the sovereign was the sole fountain of justice. Heir to the patriarchal customs of the East, he often sat in judgment at the gate of his palace, heard the complaints of his subjects, composed their quarrels, reproved their faults, condemned their animosity, and decided upon their merits all controversies between worthy litigants. Under him was the kadi, in whom was vested civil and criminal jurisdiction, whose judgments were rendered and whose sentences—from the scourging and the cruel mutilations enjoined by the law to the supreme penalty of decapitation—were executed with a relentless promptitude little in accordance with modern ideas of criminal procedure. In these courts there were no opportunities for oratorical display; custom discouraged such exhibitions; and Arab eloquence, unlike that of other nations, was most concise and laconic. The doctors of the law and the commentators on the Koran received greater homage than any other class of Moslem men of letters. Their occupation invested them with a measure of the reverence enjoyed by the works to which their labors were consecrated; it implied the possession of superior knowledge, perhaps of inspiration; they were ordinarily personages of venerable appearance and irreproachable character; and upon their opinions, promulgated with all the authority of age, wisdom, and experience, depended the administration of justice and the preservation of order throughout the vast extent of the empire.

The extensive and diversified character of the works of the Arabs is one of the wonders of literature. This extraordinary fertility attained a greater development in Spain than in any other portion of the Mussulman empire. Al-Modhaffer, King of Badajoz, wrote fifty volumes; Ibn-Hayyan, sixty; Honein, a hundred; Abdallatif and Ahmed-Ibn-Iban, the same; Ibn-al-Heitsam, two hundred; Abu-Mohammed-Ibn-Han, four hundred; Ibn-Habib-al-Solami and Abu-Merwan-Abd-al-Melik, each a thousand.

In the realm of history and biography the genius of the Hispano-Arab was most prolific. The subjects treated are of great variety, and are usually expanded into a prodigious number of books. Tedious and obscure as is much of their narrative, its minuteness of detail and extraordinary fidelity to truth render the surviving collections—which, extensive as they are, compose but a fragment of the historical literature that once existed—invaluable to the student. The biographical dictionary of Hadji Khalfa contains notices of twenty thousand works, of which twelve hundred are historical. The Arabic critical, theological, and geographical cyclopædias were scarcely less voluminous.

The plan of this work does not contemplate more than a passing allusion to the principal historical writers whose learning and talents were conspicuous during the Moorish domination in Spain. Among them may be mentioned Ibn-al-Afttas, Prince of Badajoz, who composed a valuable treatise on the political and literary events of the Peninsula; Ibn-Ahmed-al-Toleytoli, of Toledo, who wrote a General History of Nations; Al-Khazraji, of Cordova, to whom is attributed a History of the Khalifs; Al-Ghazzal and Al-Hijari, who published, the one a rhyming history, the other a topographical description of Andalusia; Ibn-Bashkuwal, of Cordova, and Mohammed Al-Zuluyide, famous for their biographical dictionaries; Ibn-al-Khatib, of Granada, whose marvellous erudition was displayed in the greatest of his works, The Universal Library, an immense epitome of the literary and historical facts obtainable in his time. Disquisitions on general topics were not, however, the favorite employment of Moorish authors; their subtle minds preferred the narration of important events, the tracing of remote causes, the solution of obscure historical problems. In the treatment of special subjects they displayed a wonderful, often a tedious, prolixity. Each khalif and prince entertained at his court an historian charged with the description of the principal occurrences of his reign. Every town had its annalist, every province its chronicler. There was not an art or a science, not a profession or a calling, whose origin and influence had not been described, and its distinguished teachers enumerated, by some eminent writer. Mohammed Abu-Abdallah, of Granada, compiled an historical dictionary of the sciences; Al-Assaker is credited with a curious and instructive history of inventors. Even animals famous for their superior qualities were assigned an honorable place in the biographical productions of the Spanish Mohammedans. Abu-al-Monder, of Valencia, and Ibn-Zaid-al-Arabi, of Cordova, composed memoirs recounting the genealogy, the endurance, the speed, and the beauty of certain horses conspicuous in a race proverbial for its excellence. Abd-al-Malik wrote an account of celebrated camels. The names given to books, even by the grave and pious, partake of the fanciful and figurative imagery of the Orient, and were suggestive of the most precious objects admired and coveted by man, such as “The Silken Vest,” “Strings of Pearls,” “Links of Gems,” “Prairies of Gold.” From a remote antiquity similar titles had been adopted, for, as has already been remarked, the earliest of Arabic poems, the Moallakat, derive their collective appellation, not from having been suspended in the Kaaba of Mecca, but on account of their figurative resemblance to the pendants of a necklace.

The Arabic language, regarded by Moslems as the most perfect of all idioms, received great attention from grammarians. Their works upon this subject are infinite, exhaustive, perplexing. One treatise, in a hundred parts, treats solely of genders. Knowledge of this character was held in the highest estimation. Abu-Ghalib, of Murcia, refused a thousand dinars of gold from the sultan of that kingdom, who had solicited, as an honor, the dedication of a work upon grammar composed by that celebrated scholar, whose labors were devoted to the instruction of the people, and not to the flattery of power. Natural history, chronology, numismatics, were treated at great length by the European Moslems. The menageries and aviaries maintained in the principal cities afforded unusual advantages to the student of zoology. Chronological computations were based upon the deductions of the Alexandrian Museum. The Moorish scholars of Spain and Sicily made invaluable contributions to the general stock of geographical knowledge. The measurement of a degree which they effected approximates very nearly to the one accepted by modern science. Abulfeda enumerates sixty Arabic geographers who lived before the thirteenth century. Many of their maps were veritable works of art, in which, upon a ground of silk, continents, mountains, lakes, and streams, represented in relief, were embroidered in gold and silver. Their researches were aided by the historical remains of antiquity, by the accounts of merchants and mariners, and by the reports of travellers despatched by their sovereigns to collect information in the remotest corners of the earth. Ibn-Hamid penetrated to the most inaccessible regions of Central Asia. Ibn-Djobair visited and described Sicily and the countries of the Orient. The travels of Ibn-Batutah were prolonged through twenty-four years. Obeyd-al-Bekri, of Onoba, was the author of a geographical dictionary, in which were described an immense number of cities, principalities, and kingdoms. The reputation of all medieval geographers, however distinguished, was obscured by the fame of the great Edrisi. A native of Malaga, of royal blood, and a lineal descendant of Mohammed, he united to pride of birth and the advantages of fortune all the learning and all the accomplishments to be acquired in an enlightened age. His relationship to the Prophet invested him with a dignity and an importance second to none, in the sight of every devout Mussulman. His education at Cordova was the best that the ancient capital of the khalifs, still the intellectual centre of the world, could afford. His mind, improved by travel, was familiar with many countries whose physical features he afterwards depicted with such ability. Invited to Palermo by Roger, King of Sicily, he speedily attained a high rank among the scholars of that brilliant court. The geography he composed, partly from his own information, partly from data furnished by the King, who had long made a study of that science, represented the labor of fifteen years. In vividness of description, in accuracy of detail, in correct estimation of distances, it is one of the most remarkable literary productions of mediæval times. The incomplete work of Ptolemy had for centuries been the recognized, indeed the only, authority. The configuration of the earth’s surface, its climates, the locations of continents and seas, of cities and empires, were facts little known, even to persons of the best education. In Christian lands the Church sedulously discouraged all such studies as inimical to Scriptural revelation. Geographical works had already appeared in Arabic, but they were grossly inaccurate, and largely based on fable, romance, and tradition. The compilation of Edrisi marks an era in the history of science. Not only is its historical information most interesting and valuable, but its descriptions of many parts of the earth are still authoritative. For three centuries geographers copied his maps without alteration. The relative position of the lakes which form the Nile, as delineated in his work, does not differ greatly from that established by Baker and Stanley more than seven hundred years afterwards, and their number is the same. The mechanical genius of the author was not inferior to his erudition. The celestial and terrestrial planisphere of silver which he constructed for his royal patron was nearly six feet in diameter, and weighed four hundred and fifty pounds; upon the one side the zodiac and the constellations, upon the other—divided for convenience into segments—the bodies of land and water, with the respective situations of the various countries, were engraved. As a recompense for his skill, Edrisi received from King Roger the remainder of the precious material, amounting to two-thirds, a hundred thousand pieces of silver, and a ship laden with valuable merchandise. Such was the munificence with which the son of a Norman freebooter, bred to arms and rapine and ignorant of letters, rewarded the genius of a scholar whose race was stigmatized by every Christian power in Europe as barbarian and infidel.

In philosophical studies, the European Arab evinced the same curious and inquiring spirit which characterized his investigations of natural phenomena. The multiplicity of sects into which the religion of Mohammed was divided, and the incessant religious controversies which the disputed texts of the Koran and the conflicting interpretations of doubtful traditions evolved, were not favorable either to proselytism or to the maintenance of orthodoxy. The Moslems had their Nominalists and their Realists, their Mystics and their Epicureans. They understood the esoteric doctrines of the most renowned schools of antiquity. They had read and commented upon Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Socrates, Empedocles, Plato. They were familiar with the atomic theory of Democritus. They recognized the argumentative ability of the Stoics. With the productions of the Alexandrian School—through whose medium was derived their knowledge of the dogmas of the Portico and the Academy—they were thoroughly conversant. The prolonged and attentive consideration of these vain and unprofitable opinions did not, however, commend itself to the ingenious and practical mind of the Arab. He indulged in no abstract speculations concerning the origin, nature, and destiny of man. He wasted no time in attempts to decide the vexed and frivolous question of the supreme good. He regarded with boundless favor the works of Aristotle, a predilection destined with years to develop into an undiscerning admiration akin to idolatry. To the influence of this sage of the ancients, the educated Moorish population of Spain was peculiarly susceptible. The doctrines of Al-Ghazzali, of Bagdad, who lived in the eleventh century, had also obtained general acceptance. His teachings involved the absolute separation of philosophy from superstition. He believed in a higher sphere than that of human reason, where was exhibited the manifestation of the Divine Essence pervading all space, all matter, a form of the Pantheism of India.

The Peninsula had for centuries experienced the ascendency of different races of men, the successive predominance and decay of many forms of religious belief. The transmission of national peculiarities; the survival of various, often hostile, political and social opinions; the comparison of a series of creeds, each claiming divine origin and inspiration, yet each, in its turn, supplanted by a more powerful adversary, had disposed the minds of men to investigation and reason. It was only among the intellectual, however, that such a disposition prevailed. With no class of fanatics did intolerance exist in greater intensity than among the orthodox masses of Mohammedan Spain. Their antipathy to all who questioned the revelation of the Koran or the authenticity of accepted tradition was irreconcilable. In the unreasoning fury engendered by prejudice, they forgot the marvels of the civilization that surrounded them; the encouragement that their greatest princes had extended to learning; the statement of the Prophet that the first thing created by God was Intelligence. While they loved the material pomp which thinly disguised the forms of despotism, while they cringed before the pride of rank and opulence, they found the quiet and unassuming pre-eminence derived from superior wisdom and a profound acquaintance with letters intolerable. These narrow ideas, so prejudicial to mental development, were diligently fostered by the doctors of the law, who discerned, in the general diffusion of philosophical opinions, a serious menace to their importance and dignity. Natural philosophy was the object of their especial abhorrence. A system which professed to account for the familiar phenomena daily manifested on the earth and in the heavens by the operation of natural causes and inexorable necessity, and which absolutely dispensed with divine revelation, might well awaken the suspicion and alarm of a class whose worldly interests absolutely depended upon the suppression of knowledge and the maintenance of orthodoxy. The populace, as usual, sided with their teachers. As a result the philosopher was an object of aversion, often of horror, to the conscientious Mohammedan. In the eyes of the irrational zealot the pursuit of science was a certain indication of a bargain with the devil. No rank, however exalted, was proof against this odious imputation. The greatest of the Ommeyade and Abbaside khalifs, whose highest title to fame was the encouragement of letters, were stigmatized as wizards and magicians. The union of the powers of Church and State in a single individual, and the number and importance of the institutions for the diffusion of knowledge, alone prevented the extinction of learning by popular violence. The majority of the Hispano-Arab princes were men of unusual intellectual attainments,—historians, poets, chemists, philosophers. The patronage they afforded to science had a deterrent effect on those who longed for the restoration of purity of doctrine, which had disappeared, as it invariably does, before the progressive march of civilization. Emulating the examples of the khalifs, the governors of provinces vied with their royal masters in the propagation of knowledge. They founded schools and academies. They offered prizes for new and useful discoveries. At their invitation, the greatest scholars in their jurisdiction assembled once a year at the seat of government, for public discussion of subjects of interest to the learned professions, or of such as could, through the medium of practical inventions, be made to enure to the benefit of the community.

The high estimation in which letters were held was indicated by the honors paid to writers and the consideration attaching to the office of public librarian. In the catalogues were inscribed not only the title of the work, but the name, the parentage, the dates of the birth and of the decease of the author; and, not infrequently, interesting biographical notices were appended to the already ample record. In the provinces, the custody of the assembled manuscripts was entrusted to a noble of distinction; but at the capital the charge of the magnificent library of Al-Hakem was considered an employment worthy of royalty itself, and was committed to Abd-al-Aziz, a brother of the Khalif. The general supervision of all educational institutions was exercised by Al-Mondhir, another brother of Al-Hakem, who, in the absence of the sovereign, presided over the contests of the famous literary institute in which were exhibited the talents and the learning of the aspiring scholars of the empire.

The indefatigable energy of the Arabs exhausted every source of knowledge. Not only did they translate the masterpieces of Greek and Roman literature, but they familiarized themselves with Persian, Chaldaic, Hebrew, Chinese, Hindu, and Sanscrit works. Honein translated the Septuagint into Arabic. Abulfeda was the first to direct attention to the so-called inconsistencies of the Pentateuch and the pronounced materialistic character pervading it; to its want of coherence; to its apparent solecisms; to state that it contains no mention of a future life, of heaven or hell, of the immortality of the soul; and to suggest that its legends indicate a Persian rather than a Jewish derivation. Averroes had mastered and embraced the philosophical ideas of India; he believed in the Universal Intellect; the popular religious fictions which evoke the hopes and fears of the vulgar he treated with contempt. The precocity and vast intellectual powers of the great scholars of Islam are almost beyond belief. Avicenna, at sixteen, had attained to such eminence that learned and experienced physicians came from remote countries to enjoy the benefit of his wisdom; at twenty-two he was Grand Vizier. Abul-Hamid-al-Isfaraini was accustomed to lecture every day on a new topic to a class of seven hundred students of jurisprudence. Yezid-Ibn-Harun, of Bagdad, knew by heart thirty thousand traditions. All were pantheists or agnostics. The generally irreverent spirit of the age is disclosed by the epigram of Abu-Ala-Temouki, “The world is divided into two classes of people,—one with wit and no religion, the other with religion and little wit.”

The instruction imparted by the provincial academies of the empire and by the University of Cordova—the centre of the intellectual activity of Europe—was essentially infidel in character and tendency. The influence of these institutions upon the public mind was immense and far-reaching. Thousands of students attended their lectures. Their professors were the first scholars of the age, whose genius and abilities were not limited to the duties of their calling, but who at times administered with equal dexterity and success the most important judicial and diplomatic employments. Education was in a measure compulsory, and, to obtain additional force for the mandates of the law, the sanction of religion was enlisted, and the school became an indispensable appendage to the mosque. The various institutions appertaining to the academic system of the Peninsula which culminated in the University were graded much as are those of modern times. In Cordova were eight hundred public schools frequented alike by Moslems, Christians, and Jews, where instruction was imparted by lectures. The natural quickness which distinguished the intellectual faculties of the Arab, and his phenomenally retentive memory, enabled him to achieve results of incalculable value to the development of his civilization. This marvellous progress was promoted by every incentive which could arouse the energies of the aspiring or the covetous,—by the expected favor of the monarch, by the prospect of exalted and honorable dignities, by the certainty of magnificent rewards, by the hope of social distinction, by the ambition of literary fame. There was not a village within the limits of the empire where the blessings of education could not be enjoyed by the children of the most indigent peasant, and the universities of Granada, Seville, and Cordova were held in the highest estimation by the scholars of Asia, Africa, and Europe. In the various departments of these great institutions were taught, in addition to the doctrines of the Koran and the principles of Mohammedan law, the classics, the exact sciences, medicine, music, poetry, and art. In the superintendence of academies and colleges, the profession of Islamism was not considered an indispensable prerequisite by a liberal and enlightened public sentiment; scholarly acquirements and devotion to learning were the accepted criterions of fitness for the direction of youth; and both Jews and Christians attained to acknowledged distinction as professors in the great University of the capital. In the ninth century, in the department of theology alone, four thousand students were enrolled, and the total number in attendance at the University reached almost eleven thousand. Nor were these priceless educational privileges restricted to one people or to the votaries of a single faith. The doors of the college were open to students of every nationality, and the Andalusian Moor received the rudiments of knowledge at the same time and under the same conditions as the literary pilgrims from Asia Minor and Egypt, from Germany, France, and Britain. A remarkable correspondence exists between the procedure established by those institutions and the methods of the present day. They had their collegiate courses, their prizes for proficiency in scholarship, their oratorical and poetical contests, their commencements, their degrees. In the department of medicine, a severe and prolonged examination, conducted by the most eminent physicians of the capital, was exacted of all candidates desirous of practising their profession, and such as were unable to stand the test were formally pronounced incompetent. Great and invaluable contributions to the fund of historical and scientific information were made by the members of the various academies and schools. They composed voluminous treatises on surgery and medicine. They bestowed upon the stars the Arabic names which still cover the map of the heavens. Above the lofty station of the muezzin, as he called the devout to prayer, were projected against the sky the implements of science to whose uses religion did not refuse the shelter of her temples,—the gnomon, the astrolabe, the pendulum clock, and the armillary sphere.

The trading expeditions of the adventurous Arab had long before familiarized him with the relative positions, areas, and natural productions of the principal countries of the globe. But the princes of the Western Khalifate, not satisfied with the results accidentally obtained, frequently despatched to the most distant regions accomplished scholars with the object of making new contributions to art, literature, and geography. In consequence of these extensive voyages, no science was better understood by the Moorish teachers than that treating of the earth’s surface; and its practical application was demonstrated by means of accurate representations of its principal features carved in relief upon globes of copper and silver.

In the cultivation of the two sciences, geography was considered as dependent on history, and was often treated in connection with it and in a subordinate capacity. The Chaldean shepherds had already, upon the plains of Asia Minor, by the measurement of a degree of a great circle, determined the form and dimensions of the earth; their observations had been confirmed by the experiments of the Khalif Al-Mamun; and these important data were carried into Spain with many other treasures of Oriental wisdom. The earth was whimsically divided into seven zones or climates, to correspond with the seven planets and the seven metals known to the Arabs, that number having with them, as with other branches of the Semitic race, a peculiar and mystic significance. With the Arab, however, the study of the earth was rather topographical than geometric; his measurements were confined to the estimated distances between important points; and his figures were approximately calculated according to the popular but unreliable conception of the length of a day’s journey, which was usually twenty-five miles on land and a hundred miles by sea. The geographer, in his description of the provinces of a country, devoted much space to the location of springs, wells, and rivulets, a consideration of more importance in the mind of the traveller whose antecedents were to be traced to the pathless and arid wastes of Arabia than were even the woody shores and unruffled harbors of an hospitable coast to the eye of the shipwrecked mariner.

Nor must the libraries be omitted from this list of those factors of progress which so signally contributed to public enlightenment and to the formation of national character. There was no city of importance without at least one of these treasure-houses of literature. Their shelves were open to every applicant. Catalogues facilitated the examination of the collections and the classification of the various subjects. Many of the volumes were enriched with illuminations of wonderful beauty; the more precious were bound in embossed leather and fragrant woods; some were inlaid with gold and silver. Here were to be found all the learning of the past and all the discoveries of the present age,—the philosophy of Athens, the astronomy of Babylon, the science of Alexandria, the results of prolonged observation and experiment on the towers and in the laboratories of Cordova and Seville. Here also were mysterious treatises of Indian lore, whose origin ascended beyond the records of history, whose doctrines, perused for centuries in a dead language, had travelled through the medium of Greek and Arabic versions from the Indus to the Guadalquivir, and were ultimately destined to form the basis of the pantheistic ideas popular among educated persons at the present day. These opinions had, long anterior to the invasion of Tarik, provoked the curiosity and engaged the attention of studious Mohammedans. Under the khalifate, and subsequently, they were taught in the schools of the Peninsula, figured in elaborate disquisitions of philosophers, formed the subject of learned discussion in lyceums and literary assemblies. Their vital principles were founded upon the eternity of matter, the unity of intellect, the final absorption of the spirit of the individual into the Soul of the World. They accounted for the succession of natural phenomena by laws resulting from inevitable necessity. They refused to acknowledge the possibility of the supernatural, and renounced the time-honored and popular idea of incessant providential interventions. They ridiculed the apparitions of angels and demons as phantasms evoked by the credulity and fears of the ignorant. The tenets and ceremonial of religion were regarded as the convenient pretexts and apparatus of imposture. The origin of life was explained by the development of the germ through its latent force. The law of progressive evolution was considered susceptible of universal application, as embracing animal, vegetable, even mineral, forms. The theory of Lord Monboddo, promulgated in the eighteenth century and elaborated with such ingenuity by Darwin in our own time, was, it is evident, far from being original with either; for Moorish philosophers had, ages before, elucidated its leading principles. Thus, in the end, they even went to the extent of including in its operations every description of matter,—a course of thought evidently suggested by advanced Hindu conceptions and confirmed by the fancied analogy between the transmutation of metals and the transmigration of souls, doctrines also imported from the extreme Orient. These ideas, so antagonistic to the dogmas of religion, while long entertained in secret, had been first publicly advocated by Solomon-ben-Gabirol, the Jewish philosopher of Malaga, during the eleventh century. The Moorish school of rationalism soon included many distinguished names. The development of the mental faculties of humanity was declared to be a manifestation of the incessant activity of the omnipotent, intellectual principle that pervaded all Nature. The supreme object of human existence was the mastery of the sensations by the purer and nobler parts of the soul.

From these speculations, generally accepted, the opinions of many of the Hispano-Arab philosophers in time exhibited wide and radical divergence. Some, it is true, adhered to Peripatetic Pantheism in its integrity. Others oscillated between the extremes of mysticism and materialism. Against all, without exception, the doctors and the populace displayed a mortal hatred, whose influence even royal favor was not always able to withstand. Those who had risen to political eminence were compelled to relinquish their employments. Many were driven into exile. The intensity of popular odium forced those who still pursued their studies into obscurity, sometimes into penury. Consciousness of a defective title to the crown often impelled a prince to resort to the ignoble expedient of persecuting science for the sake of obtaining popularity. It was thus that Al-Mansur, the greatest of Moorish conquerors, himself an enthusiast for and an adept in the very studies he professed to condemn, as a political measure for the consolidation of his power discouraged literature and oppressed philosophy.

In spite of the extraordinary literary privileges within their grasp, the masses of Moorish Spain—largely dominated by African influence—never advanced beyond the primary stage of learning. It is true that they appreciated, in a measure, the benefits accruing from the employment of scientific methods in their various occupations of a mechanical or agricultural character. But this reluctant acknowledgment of the advantages of science extended no further. The invincible prejudices of the Semitic race clung to them through all the phases of their civilization. They never discarded the opinions born of a pastoral life, of all the most conducive to the perpetuation of ignorance. Their antipathy to innovation was only exceeded by the aversion they entertained towards all who questioned the authenticity of their religious belief. Greek philosophy they regarded with undisguised detestation. For their countrymen who devoted themselves to its study they evinced an abhorrence greater even than that with which they regarded apostasy.

The most famous of the natural philosophers of Mohammedan Spain, whose transcendent ability has caused him to be considered the exemplar of all, was Ibn-Roschid, popularly known as Averroes. His life embraced the greater portion of the twelfth century; his voluminous works on theology, jurisprudence, philosophy, and medicine denote an important epoch in Arabic literature; and his influence, which preponderated over that of any writer of his age, has survived the overthrow of his government, the dispersion of his people, the abandonment of his language, and the manifold catastrophes of more than seven hundred years. His industry was indefatigable. It is said that during the greater part of his life there were but two nights which he did not pass in study,—the night of his marriage and that of the death of his father. The genius he displayed in other professions has been overshadowed by the reputation he acquired as a philosopher. He occupied the responsible position of first physician to the Almohade Emir, Yakub-Al-Mansur-Billah. He administered for a time the office of Grand Kadi of Cordova. His immense erudition was the wonder of Europe. His commentaries on Aristotle were more highly esteemed by his disciples and admirers than were even the originals, the masterpieces of the great founder of the Peripatetics. His popularity with the Jews was so great that manuscripts of his works are more numerous in Hebrew than any other book except the Pentateuch. By his Mussulman contemporaries he was believed to have concluded a compact with Satan; to Christian theologians his name has ever been a synonym of evil. The audacity of his opinions was indeed calculated to provoke ecclesiastical indignation. He diligently inculcated the Indian dogma of Emanation and Absorption. He treated all revelations as impostures. Religions he pronounced convenient instruments of statecraft, admirable contrivances for the preservation of order and the encouragement of morality. The three then predominant in the world he held in equal contempt,—the Christian he declared was impossible; the Jewish he characterized as a creed adapted only to children; the Mohammedan as a doctrine for swine. He indulged in sarcasms highly derogatory to the sanctity of the Eucharist. His popularity among the clerical profession was not enhanced by the saying attributed to him: “The tyrant is he who governs for himself and not for the people, and the worst of tyrannies is that of the priest.”

The power of public opinion, stimulated by the efforts of orthodox Mussulmans, procured the disgrace of Averroes. He was deprived of his judicial office. The honorable post of court physician was taken from him. He was compelled to seek refuge in Africa; his property was confiscated; and, in age and infirmity, he was exposed to the insults of the fanatical rabble, who spat in his face as he sat helpless at the door of the mosque of Fez. With his death in 1198 disappeared from the Peninsula every outward trace of the doctrines of which he had been both the champion and the representative. Posterity, on account of the variety and excellence of his intellectual gifts, the extent of his erudition, and the boldness with which he asserted his opinions, has seen fit to dissociate him from the other learned men of his epoch, his instructors, his collaborators, his disciples. There were many other philosophers, however, such as Solomon-ben-Gabirol, Ibn-Badja, Ibn-Tofail, Ibn-Zohr, who were his equals in learning and scarcely inferior to him in natural courage and in argumentative ingenuity and eloquence.

The apparent extinction of his theories, obnoxious alike to muftis and populace, was illusory. Introduced with other branches of Moslem science by the Jews, through the convenient channels of France and Italy, they eventually permeated the intellectual life of Europe. The Universities of Paris and Padua, the literary centres of the age, were from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century foci of infidelity. The impiety of propositions openly promulgated by the faculties of those two great institutions would to-day shock any one except the most daring agnostic. The seed thus sown bore abundant fruit. All Italy became tainted with heresy. The Lateran Council, summoned to place the official stamp of ecclesiastical condemnation upon the prohibited doctrines, was unable to check their progress. The Jews carried these ideas everywhere; scholastics adopted them; they were even disseminated by members of the monastic orders. Alexander de Hales, of the Franciscans, was one of their ardent advocates. Robert Grossetête, Bishop of Lincoln, second in attainments and reputation only to his great contemporary Roger Bacon, believed in the Universal Intellect. It was Savonarola who wrote, “Ille ingenio divinus homo Averroes philosophus.” From the propagation of these theories was derived the idea of the mythical book, entitled De Tribus Impostoribus, an alleged satire aimed at Moses, Christ, and Mohammed, variously attributed to a score of authors; supposed to be filled with blasphemy; whose very title was a powerful weapon in the hands of the clergy, yet whose publication was apocryphal, and whose contents were necessarily purely imaginary.

The general acceptance and perpetuation of the opinions of Averroes, denounced from every pulpit, persecuted by the secular authority and anathematized by councils, is a striking proof of the universal decline of ecclesiastical power. The most popular poetical compositions bore the impress of the prevailing spirit of incredulity and pantheism, which indeed pervaded, to a greater or less extent, every class of literature. It was in vain that those most deeply concerned vehemently protested against the alarming growth of this detested heresy. No rank of the clerical order was exempt from its effects; it was whispered that its insidious influence had even penetrated the sacred precincts of the Vatican. That influence was transmitted unimpaired to posterity, and modern science is largely indebted for its inquisitive and impartial spirit to the doctrines of the great Arabian philosopher of the twelfth century.

In their treatment and application of the exact sciences, and especially in the development of the higher branches of mathematics, the Spanish Mohammedans exhibited pre-eminent ability. The Arabs were the first to ascertain with accuracy the length of the year. They tabulated the movements of the stars. They discovered the third lunar inequality of 45´ six hundred and fifty years before Tycho Brahe. They determined the eccentricity of the sun’s orbit; the movement of its apogee; the progressive diminution of the obliquity of the ecliptic; the amount of the precession of the equinoxes. To them is due the credit of having introduced to the knowledge of Europe many ingenious devices and processes of calculation which diminished labor, and, at the same time, opened new fields of investigation that otherwise might have remained unknown and unexplored. The grand work of Ptolemy, the Syntaxis, had, under the name of the Almagest, been translated before the ninth century, and been revised by Isaac-ben-Honein in 827. In the tenth century, the famous Abul-Wefa, of Bagdad, wrote an astronomical treatise to which he gave the same name, which caused the two to be long confounded by scholars. Both of these compositions, equally wonderful for their learning, were early known to the Spanish Arabs. The numerals of India, which they adopted, at once superseded the cumbersome Roman characters hitherto in use. The decimal system was also introduced by them. They greatly advanced the study of algebra, whose scope and possibilities had previously been imperfectly understood, and applied it to geometry. They substituted sines for chords, invented modern trigonometry, proposed a formula for the solution of cubic equations. They understood the principles of the calculus. Geber, of Seville, published rules for one of the most important demonstrations of spherical trigonometry. Al-Zarkal, of Toledo, was the first to suggest the substitution of the elliptical orbit to correct the errors of the generally accepted Ptolemaic system, thus anticipating Copernicus and Kepler. In his attempts to determine the movement of the sun’s apogee alone, he made four hundred and two observations; and the result he obtained was within a fraction of a second of the amount declared to be correct by modern astronomers. Abul-Hassan-Ali, by a series of observations extending over a distance of nine hundred leagues to establish the elevation of the pole, estimated with precision the dimensions of the Mediterranean. The catalogue made by Ibn-Sina contains a thousand and twenty-two stars. Ibn-Abi-Thalta studied the movements of the heavenly bodies without intermission for thirty years. Averroes, while computing the motion of the planet Mercury, discovered spots upon the sun. The far greater portion of the results of the labors of the Moorish astronomical observers of the Peninsula, having shared the general fate of the monuments of Moslem learning, are lost. No complete copy of the works of any Arab astronomer who lived since the ninth century is known to exist. The extent of this calamity may be inferred from the fact that in the royal library of Cairo there were six thousand works on mathematics, copies of many of which must have been in the hands of the Moslems of Spain, and none of which have survived. They made constant use of the formulas of Ibn-Junis for tangents and secants, of whose existence Europe was ignorant for six hundred years after their publication. As the duty of pilgrimage promoted the study of geography, so an acquaintance with astronomy was rendered necessary to Mohammedans by the requirements of their religion. In order to determine the direction of Mecca, an exact knowledge of the points of the compass was indispensable. It was equally important to establish, without error, the hours of prayer and of diurnal ablution, and the dates of festivals which began with the rising of the moon. These considerations, which invested astronomical pursuits with a semi-religious character, greatly promoted their popularity. The study of mathematics was, independently of this influence, an occupation especially congenial to the Arab mind. In all the schools were globes, both terrestrial and celestial, of wood and metal, planispheres, and astrolabes. The construction of these latter instruments, the precursors of the sextant, as perfected by the Arabs, was very complicated, and demanded the exercise of the highest degree of scientific ingenuity. They were used for the measurement of angles, and for ascertaining the hour either of the day or night. Some had as many as five tables, were engraved on both sides, and were provided at the bottom with eleven different projections for as many horizons. On them were represented the movement of the celestial sphere, the signs of the zodiac, and the position of the principal stars and constellations. Interchangeable plates, calculated for different latitudes, facilitated observations wherever made. It was not unusual for an astrolabe to give the latitudes of nearly a hundred cities. The invention of the pierced gnomon by Ibn-Junis greatly simplified observations made to determine the altitude of the sun. The passage of time was usually marked by sundials, and by clepsydras of complex and elaborate mechanism. The oscillatory property of suspended bodies, represented by the isochronism of the pendulum, was familiar to the Arabs, who had adapted it to a contrivance whose construction resembled that of the modern clock, an invention generally attributed to Galileo. Many of the instruments used by them in their astronomical observations were of enormous dimensions. Some of their armillary spheres were twenty-five feet in diameter, and quadrants with a radius of fifteen feet were not uncommon. The bronze sextant, employed in the tenth century for the determination of the obliquity of the ecliptic and described by Abul-Hassan, of Morocco, had a radius of fifty-eight feet, and its arc was divided into seconds. At that time astronomy, especially among the Spanish Moslems, had advanced as far as was possible without the use of the telescope. It was through the influence of the Arabs that knowledge of that science, as well as of all other branches of mathematics, was universally diffused. The modern almanac, as its name denotes, is their invention, and the signs by which it designates the seven planets have been transmitted through their agency. As with all pastoral nations, their attention was early directed to the phenomena of the heavens. They noted the rising and setting of certain stars which seemed intended to mark the advent of the seasons; they divided the most prominent groups into constellations, and assigned to them, as did the Greeks, a fanciful and legendary origin and nomenclature. With the practice of astral worship, incident to every race at a certain stage of its intellectual progress, was associated the study of astrology, whose principles, based upon the imaginary effect of benign or malignant planetary influence, has still in educated as well as in ignorant communities its enthusiastic votaries. The practice of this false but attractive science was, however, in no age confined to impostors. Some of the greatest minds of mediæval or modern times believed in its delusions, which were especially popular with the most eminent astronomers of the Middle Ages. Tycho Brahe, who gravely interpreted dreams, drew the horoscope of the Emperor Rudolph. Even the ability of Kepler did not preserve him from the prevalent superstition; he also cast horoscopes and published prophetic almanacs. Its pursuit led to the cultivation of other and more debased superstitions,—the chimerical follies of geomancy and oneiromancy, the profane rites of divination and magic, the belief in the occult virtues of talismans and amulets. The persistence of those practices, through unnumbered centuries to the present time, is a singular commentary on human credulity in enlightened as well as in unlettered ages. In many parts of Germany the horoscope of an infant is cast at its nativity, and is religiously preserved, with its baptismal certificate, until the hour of dissolution. Our farmers sow and reap and perform the various duties incident to rural economy with diligent attention to the phases of the moon. Confidence in the efficacy of talismans is even in our generation far from extinct. It is unconsciously manifested in the cruciform plan of our majestic cathedrals; in the gilded emblem which points heavenward on the summits of their loftiest towers; in the curves of their painted windows, glowing with all the hues of the rainbow; in the armorial bearings of some of the proudest royal houses of Europe; in the carvings of our furniture; in the horseshoe suspended over doorways; in the Teraphim and the phylacteries of the Jew; in the holy symbols embroidered upon the vestments of the Catholic clergy; in the badges of our secret societies; in the settings of the jewels which rise and fall on the voluptuous bosom of Beauty. The superstition of the evil-eye, universally prevalent in the Orient, is largely responsible for the employment of charms. It is not improbable that this belief may have been originally derived from the peculiar influence exercised by some person endowed with an extraordinary degree of hypnotic power. To animal magnetism—as a mysterious force—is certainly due a large proportion of the magic fascinations of ancient times; and the power of the serpent over birds and animals probably gave rise to the popular fable of the basilisk. The virtues of amulets were derived, according to common opinion, not from the substance of which they were composed, but from the portion of the Universal Intelligence by which they were supposed to be tenanted.