Chapter XXVIII: The Hispano-Arab Age of Literature and Science (2)

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.

Thus a desire to penetrate the secrets of futurity and avert impending misfortune gave rise to the spurious science of astrology, itself the parent of astronomy. The European Arabs cultivated both with almost equal assiduity. The mind of the philosopher, disciplined by the daily habit of mathematical calculation, was yet unable to discard the delusions of the horoscope or to forget the visionary and fictitious properties of talismans. In the mental constitution of the ablest Arabian scholars, the fascination of the occult and the forbidden predominated over the experience of centuries, the influence of letters, and the dictates of reason.

The discoveries of Al-Hazen in optics, communicated to Europe by the Spanish and Sicilian Mohammedans, have had a marked effect on the development of that science, and are the basis of all that we know on the subject. He understood the cause of the twilight; estimated the density and calculated the height of the atmosphere. He explained by the principle of refraction why celestial bodies are visible when they are actually below the horizon. He discussed the effect upon vision of the varying transparency of the air, and suggested that beyond our atmosphere there was nothing but ether, a proposition which modern astronomy accepts. First of all investigators, he corrected the prevalent fallacy that the rays of light proceed from the eye to the object seen, an error which had hitherto deceived all who had written on the science of optics. The works of Al-Hazen were used as text-books in the Andalusian colleges, and they were first made known to Christendom through the foreigners who came to study Arabic learning in the schools of Toledo. Among such literary pilgrims of the twelfth century were the Englishmen Adelard of Bath, Robert of Reading, Daniel Morley, William Shelley, and the Italian Gerard of Cremona. The translations of Arabic works into Latin introduced by the labors of these and subsequent scholars in the department of medicine alone amount to nearly four hundred.