146 PROGRESS OF THE ARABIAN. [CH. LII. In the libraries of the Arabians, as in those of Europe, the far greater part of the innumerable volumes were possessed only of local value or imaginary merit.* The shelves were crowded with orators and poets, whose style was adapted to the taste and manners of their countrymen; with general and partial histories, which each revolving generation supplied with a new harvest of persons and events; with codes and commentaries of jurisprudence, which derived their authority from the law of the prophet; with the interpreters of the Koran, and orthodox tradition; and with the whole theological tribe, polemics, mystics, scholastics, and moralists, the first or the last of writers, according to the different estimate of sceptics or believers. The works of speculation or science may be reduced to the four classes of philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and physic. Γ The sages of Greece were translated and illustrated in the Arabic language, and some treatises, now lost in the original, have been recovered in the versions of the East,t which possessed and studied the writings of Aristotle and Plato, of Euclid and Apollonius, of Ptolemy, Hippocrates, and Galen. Among the ideal systems, which have varied library mentioned by Gibbon. His catalogue of forty-four vols. con- As for instance, the fifth, sixth, and seventh books (the eighth is A.D. 750-960.] IN THE SCIENCES. 147 with the fashion of the times, the Arabians adopted the philosophy of the Stagirite, alike intelligible or alike obscure for the readers of every age. Plato wrote for the Athenians, and his allegorical genius is too closely blended with the language and religion of Greece. After the fall of that religion, the Peripatetics, emerging from their obscurity, prevailed in the controversies of the Oriental sects; and their founder was long afterwards restored by the Mahometans of Spain to the Latin schools. The physics, both of the Academy and the Lyceum, as they are built, not on observation, but on argument, have retarded the progress of real knowledge. The metaphysics of infinite, or finite spirit, have too often been enlisted in the service of superstition. But the human faculties are fortified by the art and practice of dialectics; the ten Predicaments of Aristotle collect and methodize our ideas,† and his syllogism is the keenest weapon of dispute. It was dexterously wielded in the schools of the Saracens, but as it is more effectual for the detection of error than for the investigation of truth, it is not surprising that new generations of masters and disciples should still revolve in the same circle of logical argument. The mathematics are distinguished by a peculiar privilege, that, in the course of ages, they may always advance, and can never recede. But the ancient geometry, if I am not misinformed, was resumed in the same state by the Italians of the fifteenth century; and whatever may be the origin of the name, the science of algebra is ascribed to the Grecian Diophantus by the modest testimony of the Arabs Casiri (Bibliot. Arab. Hispana, tom. i. p. 238, &c. 251. 286-290. 302. 304, &c.). [Civilization and literature, although so long retrograde among the nations that succumbed to the Saracen arms, still had not lost all their efficacy to soften and smooth the roughness of Barbarian conquerors. The rude were made acquainted with the works of better ages, and from the recorded thoughts of the enlightened, learned themselves to think. A single century transformed the wild cameldriver of the desert into the student of the college, and elevated Bagdad above Constantinople, Athens, and Rome. The rapid change which one century made in the character and habits of the Arabians proves the usual course of human nature.-ED.] * See Mosheim, Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 181. 214. 236. 257. 315. 338. 396. 438, &c. + The most elegant commentary on the Categories or Predicaments of Aristotle may be found in the Philosophical Arrangements of Mr. James Harris (London, 1775, in octavo), who laboured to revive the studies of Grecian literature and 148 * PROGRESS OF THE ARABIANS [CH. LII. themselves. They cultivated with more success the sublime science of astronomy, which elevates the mind of man to disdain his diminutive planet and momentary existence. The costly instruments of observation were supplied by the caliph Almamon, and the land of the Chaldeans still afforded the same spacious level, the same unclouded horizon. In the plains of Sinaar, and a second time in those of Cufa, his mathematicians accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the earth, and determined at twenty-four thousand miles the entire circumference of our globe.t From the reign of the Abbassides to that of the grandchildren of Tamerlane, the stars, without the aid of glasses, were diligently observed; and the Astronomical Tables of Bagdad, Spain, and Samarcand,‡ correct some minute errors, without daring to renounce the hypothesis of Ptolemy, without advancing a step towards the discovery of the solar system. philosophy. * Abulpharagius, Dynast. p. 81. 222. Bibliot. Arab. Hisp. tom. i. p. 370, 371. In quem (says the primate of the Jacobites) si immiserit se lector, oceanum hoc in genere (algebra) inveniet. The time of Diophantus of Alexandria is unknown, but his six books are still extant, and have been illustrated by the Greek Planudes and the Frenchman Meziriac. (Fabric. Bibliot. Græc. tom. iv. p. 12-15.) [Was this Diophantus the same as the philosopher of that name, who educated Libanius about the year 330, and spoke the funeral oration of Proæresius at Athens in 367? It is an interesting subject for inquiry. The above dates clearly determine the time of the latter, and he is known to have been by birth an Arabian. (Clinton (who quotes Libanius, Eunapius, and Suidas), F. R. i. 369. 401. 469). The writer of the books on Algebra is said by Abulpharagius to have lived about A.D. 365, and the best informed moderns believe that he flourished in the fourth century (Colebrooke's Preface to his Algebra). It appears therefore probable, that there was but one Diophantus; that after leaving Arabia, his first place of abode was Antioch, where he was the preceptor of Libanius; that he thence proceeded to Athens, and afterwards to Alexandria, where it was likely that his mathematical talents would be more encouraged. This identity, if ascertained, would prove that the science of Algebra did come originally from Arabia.-ED.] + Abulfeda (Annal. Moslem. p. 210, 211, vers. Reiske) describes this operation according to Ibn Challecan, and the best historians. This degree most accurately contains two hundred thousand royal or Hashemite cubits, which Arabia had derived from the sacred and legal practice both of Palestine and Egypt. This ancient cubit is repeated four hundred times in each basis of the great pyramid, and seems to indicate the primitive and universal measures of the East. See the Métrologie of the laborious M. Paucton, p. 101105. See the Astronomical Tables of Ulugh Begh, with the preface of Dr. Hyde, in the first volume of his Syntagma A.D. 750-960.] IN THE SCIENCES. 119 In the eastern courts, the truths of science could be recommended only by ignorance and folly, and the astronomer would have been disregarded, had he not debased his wisdom or honesty by the vain predictions of astrology.* But in the science of medicine, the Arabians have been deservedly applauded. The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian masters; in the city of Bagdad, eight hundred and sixty physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession;t in Spain, the life of the Catholic princes was intrusted to the skill of the Saracens, and the school of Salerno, their legitimate offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the healing art.§ The success of each professor must have been influenced by personal and accidental causes; but we may form a less fanciful estimate of their general knowledge of anatomy, botany,** and chemistry,+t the threefold basis of their theory and practice. A superstitious reverence for the dead confined both the Greeks and the Arabians to Dissertationum, Oxon. 1767. *The truth of astrology was allowed by Albumazar, and the best of the Arabian astronomers, who drew their most certain predictions, not from Venus and Mercury, but from Jupiter and the sun. (Abulpharag. Dynast. p. 161-163.) For the state and science of the Persian astronomers, see Chardin. (Voyages en Perse, tom. iii. p. 162-203.) Bibliot. Arabico-Hispana, tom. i. p. 438. The original relates a pleasant tale, of an ignorant but harmless practitioner. In the year 956, Sancho the Fat, king of Leon, was cured by the physicians of Cordova. (Mariana, 1. 8, c. 7. tom. i. p. 318.) § The School of Salerno, and the introduction of the Arabian sciences into Italy, are discussed with learning and judgment by Muratori (Antiquat. Italiæ Medii Ævi, tom. iii. p. 932-940), and Giannone (Istoria Civile di Napoli, tom. ii. p. 119—127). See a good view of the progress of anatomy in Wotton. (Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, p. 208-256.) His reputation has been unworthily depreciated by the wits in the controversy of Boyle and Bentley. ** Bibliot. Arab. Hispanica, tom. i. p. 275. Al Beithar of Malaga, their greatest botanist, had travelled into Africa, Persia, and India. ++ Dr. Watson (Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 17, &c.) allows the original merit of the Arabians. Yet he quotes the modest confession of the famous Geber of the ninth century (D'Herbelot, p. 387), that he had drawn most of his science, perhaps of the transmutation of metals, from the ancient sages. Whatever might be the origin or extent of their knowledge, the arts of chemistry and alchymy appear to have been known in Egypt at least three hundred years before Mahomet. (Wotton's Reflections, p. 121-123. Pauw, Recherches sur les Egyptiens et les 150 ARABIAN CHEMISTRY. [CH. LII. the dissection of apes and quadrupeds; the more solid and visible parts were known in the time of Galen, and the finer scrutiny of the human frame was reserved for the microscope and the injections of modern artists. Botany is an active science, and the discoveries of the torrid zone might enrich the herbal of Dioscorides with two thousand plants. Some traditionary knowledge might be secreted in the temples and monasteries of Egypt; much useful experience had been acquired in the practice of arts and manufactures; but the science of chemistry owes its origin and improvement to the industry of the Saracens. They first invented and named the alembic for the purposes of distillation, analyzed the substances of the three kingdoms of nature, tried the distinction and affinities of alkalis and acids, and converted the poisonous minerals into soft and salutary medicines. But the most eager search of Arabian chemistry was the transmutation of metals, and the elixir of immortal health; the reason and the fortunes of thousands were evaporated in the crucibles of alchymy, and the consummation of the great work was promoted by the worthy aid of mystery, fable, and superstition. But the Moslems deprived themselves of the principal benefits of a familiar intercourse with Greece and Rome, the knowledge of antiquity, the purity. of taste, and the freedom of thought. Confident in the riches of their native tongue, the Arabians disdained the study of any foreign idiom. The Greek interpreters were chosen among their Christian subjects; they formed their translations, sometimes on the original text, more frequently perhaps on a Syriac version; and in the crowd of astronomers and physicians, there is no example of a poet, an orator, or even an historian, being taught to speak the language of the Saracens. The mythology of Homer would have provoked the abhorrence of those stern fanatics; they possessed in lazy ignorance the colonies of the Macedonians, and the provinces of Carthage and Rome; the heroes of Plutarch and Livy * Chinois, tom. i. p. 376–429.) * Abulpharagius (Dynast. p. 26. 148) mentions a Syriac version of Homer's two poems by Theophilus, a Christian Maronite of Mount Libanus, who professed astronomy at Roha or Edessa, towards the end of the eighth century. His work would be a literary curiosity. I have read somewhere, but I do not believe, that Plutarch's Lives were translated into Turkish |