History of the Intellectual Development of Europe Volume II Part 2

Even as early as the tenth century, persons having a taste for learning and for elegant amenities found their way into Spain from all adjoining countries; a practice in subsequent years still more indulged in, when it became ill.u.s.trated by the brilliant success of Gerbert, who, as we have seen, pa.s.sed from the Infidel University of Cordova to the papacy of Rome.

[Sidenote: The Arabian school system.] The khalifs of the West carried out the precepts of Ali, the fourth successor of Mohammed, in the patronage of literature. They established libraries in all their chief towns; it is said that not fewer than seventy were in existence. To every mosque was attached a public school, in which the children of the poor were taught to read and write, and instructed in the precepts of the Koran. For those in easier circ.u.mstances there were academies, usually arranged in twenty-five or thirty apartments, each calculated for accommodating four students; the academy being presided over by a rector. In Cordova, Granada, and other great cities, there were universities frequently under the superintendence of Jews; the Mohammedan maxim being that the real learning of a man is of more public importance than any particular religious opinions he may entertain. In this they followed the example of the Asiatic khalif, Haroun al Raschid, who actually conferred the superintendence of his schools on John Masue, a Nestorian Christian. The Mohammedan liberality was in striking contrast with the intolerance of Europe. Indeed, it may be doubted whether at this time any European nation is sufficiently advanced to follow such an example. In the universities some of the professors of polite literature gave lectures on Arabic cla.s.sical works; others taught rhetoric or composition, or mathematics, or astronomy. From these inst.i.tutions many of the practices observed in our colleges were derived. They held Commencements, at which poems were read and orations delivered in presence of the public. They had also, in addition to these schools of general learning, professional ones, particularly for medicine.

[Sidenote: Cultivation of grammar, rhetoric, composition.] With a pride perhaps not altogether inexcusable, the Arabians boasted of their language as being the most perfect spoken by man. Mohammed himself, when challenged to produce a miracle in proof of the authenticity of his mission, uniformly pointed to the composition of the Koran, its unapproachable excellence vindicating its inspiration. The orthodox Moslems--the Moslems are those who are submissively resigned to the Divine will--are wont to a.s.sert that every page of that book is indeed a conspicuous miracle. It is not then surprising that, in the Arabian schools, great attention was paid to the study of language, and that so many celebrated grammarians were produced. By these scholars, dictionaries, similar to those now in use, were composed; their copiousness is indicated by the circ.u.mstance that one of them consisted of sixty volumes, the definition of each word being ill.u.s.trated or sustained by quotations from Arab authors of acknowledged repute. They had also lexicons of Greek, Latin, Hebrew; and cyclopedias such as the Historical Dictionary of Sciences of Mohammed Ibn Abdallah, of Granada.

In their highest civilization and luxury they did not forget the amus.e.m.e.nts of their forefathers--listening to the tale-teller, who never failed to obtain an audience in the midst of Arab tents. Around the evening fires in Spain the wandering literati exercised their wonderful powers of Oriental invention, edifying the eager listeners by such narrations as those that have descended to us in the Arabian Nights'

Entertainments. The more sober and higher efforts of the educated were, of course, directed to pulpit eloquence, in conformity with the example of all the great Oriental khalifs, and sanctified by the practice of the Prophet himself. [Sidenote: Defects of their literature.] Their poetical productions embraced all the modern minor forms--satires, odes, elegies, etc.; but they never produced any work in the higher walks of poesy, no epic, no tragedy. Perhaps this was due to their false fas.h.i.+on of valuing the mechanical execution of a work. They were the authors and introducers of rhyme; and such was the luxuriance and abundance of their language, that, in some of their longest poems, the same rhyme is said to have been used alternately from the beginning to the end. Where such mechanical triumphs were popularly prized, it may be supposed that the conception and spirit would be indifferent. Even among the Spanish women there were not a few who, like Velada, Ayesha, Labana, Algasania, achieved reputation in these compositions; and some of them were daughters of khalifs. And this is the more interesting to us, since it was from the Provencal poetry, the direct descendant of these efforts, that European literature arose. Sonnets and romances at last displaced the grimly-orthodox productions of the wearisome and ignorant fathers of the Church.

If fiction was prized among the Spanish Arabs, history was held in not less esteem. Every khalif had his own historian. The instincts of the race are perpetually peeping out; not only were there historians of the Commanders of the Faithful, but also of celebrated horses and ill.u.s.trious camels. In connexion with history, statistics were cultivated; this having been, it may be said, a necessary study, from the first enforced on the Saracen officers in their a.s.sessment of tribute on conquered misbelievers, and subsequently continued as an object of taste. [Sidenote: Their taste for practical science.] It was, doubtless, a similar necessity, arising from their position, that stamped such a remarkably practical aspect on the science of the Arabs generally. Many of their learned men were travellers and voyagers, constantly moving about for the acquisition or diffusion of knowledge, their acquirements being a pa.s.sport to them wherever they went, and a sufficient introduction to any of the African or Asiatic courts. They were thus continually brought in contact with men of affairs, soldiers of fortune, statesmen, and became imbued with much of their practical spirit; and hence the singularly romantic character which the biographies of many of these men display, wonderful turns of prosperity, violent deaths. The scope of their literary labours offers a subject well worthy of meditation; it contrasts with the contemporary ignorance of Europe. Some wrote on chronology; some on numismatics; some, now that military eloquence had become objectless, wrote on pulpit oratory; some on agriculture and its allied branches, as the art of irrigation. Not one of the purely mathematical, or mixed, or practical sciences was omitted. [Sidenote: Their continued inclination to the study of medicine.] Out of a list too long for detailed quotation, I may recall a few names. a.s.samh, who wrote on topography and statistics, a brave soldier, who was killed in the invasion of France, A.D. 720; Avicenna, the great physician and philosopher, who died A.D. 1037; Averroes, of Cordova, the chief commentator on Aristotle, A.D. 1198. It was his intention to unite the doctrines of Aristotle with those of the Koran.

To him is imputed the discovery of spots upon the sun. The leading idea of his philosophy was the numerical unity of the souls of mankind, though parted among millions of living individuals. He died at Morocco.

Abu Othman wrote on zoology; Alberuni, on gems--he had travelled to India to procure information; Rhazes, Al Abbas, and Al Beithar, on botany--the latter had been in all parts of the world for the purpose of obtaining specimens. Ebn Zoar, better known as Avenzoar, may be looked upon as the authority in Moorish pharmacy. Pharmacopoeias were published by the schools, improvements on the old ones of the Nestorians: to them may be traced the introduction of many Arabic words, such as syrup, julep, elixir, still used among apothecaries. [Sidenote: Relics of the Arab vocabulary.] A competent scholar might furnish not only an interesting, but valuable book, founded on the remaining relics of the Arab vocabulary; for, in whatever direction we may look, we meet, in the various pursuits of peace and war, of letters and of science, Saracenic vestiges. Our dictionaries tell us that such is the origin of admiral, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, chemise, cotton, and hundreds of other words.

The Saracens commenced the application of chemistry, both to the theory and practice of medicine, in the explanation of the functions of the human body and in the cure of its diseases. [Sidenote: Their medicine and surgery.] Nor was their surgery behind their medicine. Albucasis, of Cordova, shrinks not from the performance of the most formidable operations in his own and in the obstetrical art; the actual cautery and the knife are used without hesitation. He has left us ample descriptions of the surgical instruments then employed; and from him we learn that, in operations on females in which considerations of delicacy intervened, the services of properly instructed women were secured. How different was all this from the state of things in Europe; the Christian peasant, fever-stricken or overtaken by accident, hied to the nearest saint-shrine and expected a miracle; the Spanish Moor relied on the prescription or lancet of his physician, or the bandage and knife of his surgeon.

[Sidenote: Liberality of the Asiatic khalifs.] In mathematics the Arabians acknowledged their indebtedness to two sources, Greek and Indian, but they greatly improved upon both. The Asiatic khalifs had made exertions to procure translations of Euclid, Apollonius, Archimedes, and other Greek geometers. Almaimon, in a letter to the Emperor Theophilus, expressed his desire to visit Constantinople if his public duties would have permitted. He requests of him to allow Leo the mathematician to come to Bagdad to impart to him a portion of his learning, pledging his word that he would restore him quickly and safely again. "Do not," says the high-minded khalif, "let diversity of religion or of country cause you to refuse my request. Do what friends.h.i.+p would concede to a friend. In return, I offer you a hundred weight of gold, a perpetual alliance and peace." True to the instincts of his race and the traditions of his city, the Byzantine sourly and insolently refused the request, saying that "the learning which had ill.u.s.trated the Roman name should never be imparted to a barbarian."

[Sidenote: Their great improvements in arithmetic.] From the Hindus the Arabs learned arithmetic, especially that valuable invention termed by us the Arabic numerals, but honourably ascribed by them to its proper source, under the designation of "Indian numerals." They also ent.i.tled their treatises on the subject "Systems of Indian Arithmetic." This admirable notation by nine digits and cipher occasioned a complete revolution in arithmetical computations. As in the case of so many other things, the Arab impress is upon it; our word cipher, and its derivatives, ciphering, etc., recall the Arabic word tsaphara or ciphra, the name for the 0, and meaning that which is blank or void. Mohammed Ben Musa, said to be the earliest of the Saracen authors on algebra, and who made the great improvement of subst.i.tuting sines for chords in trigonometry, wrote also on this Indian system. He lived at the end of the ninth century; before the end of the tenth it was in common use among the African and Spanish mathematicians. Ebn Junis, A.D. 1008, used it in his astronomical works. From Spain it pa.s.sed into Italy, its singular advantage in commercial computation causing it to be eagerly adopted in the great trading cities. We still use the word algorithm in reference to calculations. The study of algebra was intently cultivated among the Arabs, who gave it the name it bears. Ben Musa, just referred to, was the inventor of the common method of solving quadratic equations. [Sidenote: Their astronomical discoveries.] In the application of mathematics to astronomy and physics they had been long distinguished. Almaimon had determined with considerable accuracy the obliquity of the ecliptic. His result, with those of some other Saracen astronomers, is as follows:

A.D. 830. Almaimon 23 35' 52"

" 879. Albategnius, at Aracte 23 35' 00

" 987. Aboul Wefa, at Bagdad 23 35' 00

" 995. Aboul Rihau, with a quadrant of 25 feet radius 23 35' 00

" 1080. Arzachael 23 34' 00

Almaimon had also ascertained the size of the earth from the measurement of a degree on the sh.o.r.e of the Red Sea--an operation implying true ideas of its form, and in singular contrast with the doctrine of Constantinople and Rome. While the latter was a.s.serting, in all its absurdity, the flatness of the earth, the Spanish Moors were teaching geography in their common schools from globes. In Africa, there was still preserved, with almost religious reverence, in the library at Cairo, one of bra.s.s, reputed to have belonged to the great astronomer Ptolemy. Al Idrisi made one of silver for Roger II., of Sicily; and Gerbert used one which he had brought from Cordova in the school he established at Rheims. It cost a struggle of several centuries, ill.u.s.trated by some martyrdoms, before the dictum of Lactantius and Augustine could be overthrown. Among problems of interest that were solved may be mentioned the determination of the length of the year by Albategnius and Thebit Ben Corrah; and increased accuracy was given to the correction of astronomical observations by Alhazen's great discovery of atmospheric refraction. Among the astronomers, some composed tables; some wrote on the measure of time; some on the improvement of clocks, for which purpose they were the first to apply the pendulum; some on instruments, as the astrolabe. The introduction of astronomy into Christian Europe has been attributed to the translation of the works of Mohammed Fargani. In Europe, also, the Arabs were the first to build observatories; the Giralda, or tower of Seville, was erected under the superintendence of Geber, the mathematician, A.D. 1196, for that purpose. Its fate was not a little characteristic. After the expulsion of the Moors it was turned into a belfry, the Spaniards not knowing what else to do with it.

[Sidenote: Europe tries to hide its obligations to them.] I have to deplore the systematic manner in which the literature of Europe has contrived to put out of sight our scientific obligations to the Mohammedans. Surely they cannot be much longer hidden. Injustice founded on religious rancour and national conceit cannot be perpetuated for ever. What should the modern astronomer say when, remembering the contemporary barbarism of Europe, he finds the Arab Abul Ha.s.san speaking of tubes, to the extremities of which ocular and object diopters, perhaps sights, were attached, as used at Meragha? what when he reads of the attempts of Abderrahman Sufi at improving the photometry of the stars? Are the astronomical tables of Ebn Junis (A.D. 1008), called the Hakemite tables, or the Ilkanic tables of Na.s.ser Eddin Tasi, constructed at the great observatory just mentioned, Meragha, near Tauris, A.D. 1259, or the measurement of time by pendulum oscillations, and the methods of correcting astronomical tables by systematic observations--are such things worthless indications of the mental state?

The Arab has left his intellectual impress on Europe, as, before long, Christendom will have to confess; he has indelibly written it on the heavens, as any one may see who reads the names of the stars on a common celestial globe.

[Sidenote: Improvements in the arts of life.] Our obligations to the Spanish Moors in the arts of life are even more marked than in the higher branches of science, perhaps only because our ancestors were better prepared to take advantage of things connected with daily affairs. They set an example of skilful agriculture, the practice of which was regulated by a code of laws. Not only did they attend to the cultivation of plants, introducing very many new ones, they likewise paid great attention to the breeding of cattle, especially the sheep and horse. To them we owe the introduction of the great products, rice, sugar, cotton, and also, as we have previously observed, nearly all the fine garden and orchard fruits, together with many less important plants, as spinach and saffron. To them Spain owes the culture of silk; they gave to Xeres and Malaga their celebrity for wine. They introduced the Egyptian system of irrigation by flood-gates, wheels, and pumps.

They also promoted many important branches of industry; improved the manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, iron, steel; the Toledo sword-blades were everywhere prized for their temper. The Arabs, on their expulsion from Spain, carried the manufacture of a kind of leather, in which they were acknowledged to excel, to Morocco, from which country the leather itself has now taken its name. They also introduced inventions of a more ominous kind--gunpowder and artillery.

The cannon they used appeared to have been made of wrought iron. But perhaps they more than compensated for these evil contrivances by the introduction of the mariner's compa.s.s.

[Sidenote: Their commerce.] The mention of the mariner's compa.s.s might lead us correctly to infer that the Spanish Arabs were interested in commercial pursuits, a conclusion to which we should also come when we consider the revenues of some of their khalifs. That of Abderrahman III.

is stated at five and a half million sterling--a vast sum if considered by its modern equivalent, and far more than could possibly be raised by taxes on the produce of the soil. It probably exceeded the entire revenue of all the sovereigns of Christendom taken together. From Barcelona and other ports an immense trade with the Levant was maintained, but it was mainly in the hands of the Jews, who, from the first invasion of Spain by Musa, had ever been the firm allies and collaborators of the Arabs. Together they had partic.i.p.ated in the dangers of the invasion; together they had shared its boundless success; together they had held in irreverent derision, nay, even in contempt, the woman-wors.h.i.+ppers and polytheistic savages beyond the Pyrenees--as they mirthfully called those whose long-delayed vengeance they were in the end to feel; together they were expelled. Against such Jews as lingered behind the hideous persecutions of the Inquisition were directed. But in the days of their prosperity they maintained a merchant marine of more than a thousand s.h.i.+ps. They had factories and consuls on the Tanas. With Constantinople alone they maintained a great trade; it ramified from the Black Sea and East Mediterranean into the interior of Asia; it reached the ports of India and China, and extended along the African coast as far as Madagascar. Even in these commercial affairs the singular genius of the Jew and Arabs s.h.i.+nes forth. In the midst of the tenth century, when Europe was about in the same condition that Caffraria is now, enlightened Moors, like Abul Ca.s.sem, were writing treatises on the principles of trade and commerce. As on so many other occasions, on these affairs they have left their traces. The smallest weight they used in trade was the grain of barley, four of which were equal to one sweet pea, called in Arabic carat. We still use the grain as our unit of weight, and still speak of gold as being so many carats fine.

[Sidenote: Obligations to the Khalifs of the West.] Such were the Khalifs of the West; such their splendour, their luxury, their knowledge; such some of the obligations we are under to them--obligations which Christian Europe, with singular insincerity, has ever been fain to hide. The cry against the misbeliever has long outlived the Crusades. Considering the enchanting country over which they ruled, it was not without reason that they caused to be engraven on the public seal, "The servant of the Merciful rests contented in the decrees of G.o.d." What more, indeed, could Paradise give them? But, considering also the evil end of all this happiness and pomp, this learning, liberality, and wealth, we may well appreciate the solemn truth which these monarchs, in their day of pride and power, grandly wrote in the beautiful mosaics on their palace walls, an ever-recurring warning to him who owes dominion to the sword, "There is no conqueror but G.o.d."

[Sidenote: Examination of Mohammedan science.] The value of a philosophical or political system may be determined by its fruits. On this principle I examined in Vol. I., Chapter XII., the Italian system, estimating its religious merit from the biographies of the popes, which afford the proper criterion. In like manner, the intellectual state of the Mohammedan nations at successive epochs may be ascertained from what is its proper criterion, the contemporaneous scientific manifestation.

At the time when the Moorish influences in Spain began to exert a pressure on the Italian system, there were several scientific writers, fragments of whose works have descended to us. As an architect may judge of the skill of the ancient Egyptians in his art from a study of the Pyramids, so from these relics of Saracenic learning we may demonstrate the intellectual state of the Mohammedan people, though much of their work has been lost and more has been purposely destroyed.

[Sidenote: Review of the works of Alhazen.] Among such writers is Alhazen; his date was about A.D. 1100. It appears that he resided both in Spain and Egypt, but the details of his biography are very confused.

Through his optical works, which have been translated into Latin, he is best known to Europe. [Sidenote: He corrects the theory of vision.] He was the first to correct the Greek misconception as to the nature of vision, showing that the rays of light come from external objects to the eye, and do not issue forth from the eye, and impinge on external things, as, up to his time, had been supposed. His explanation does not depend upon mere hypothesis or supposition, but is plainly based upon anatomical investigation as well as on geometrical discussion.

[Sidenote: Determines the function of the retina.] He determines that the retina is the seat of vision, and that impressions made by light upon it are conveyed along the optic nerve to the brain. Though it might not be convenient, at the time when Alhazen lived, to make such an acknowledgment, no one could come to these conclusions, nor, indeed, know anything about these facts, unless he had been engaged in the forbidden practice of dissection. [Sidenote: Explains single vision.]

With felicity he explains that we see single when we use both eyes, because of the formation of the visual images on symmetrical portions of the two retinas. To the modern physiologist the mere mention of such things is as significant as the occurrence of an arch in the interior of the pyramid is to the architect. But Alhazen shows that our sense of sight is by no means a trustworthy guide, and that there are illusions arising from the course which the rays of light may take when they suffer refraction or reflexion. It is in the discussion of one of these physical problems that his scientific greatness truly s.h.i.+nes forth.

[Sidenote: Traces the course of a ray of light through the air.] He is perfectly aware that the atmosphere decreases in density with increase of height; and from that consideration he shows that a ray of light, entering it obliquely, follows a curvilinear path which is concave toward the earth; and that, since the mind refers the position of an object to the direction in which the ray of light from it enters the eye, the result must be an illusion as respects the starry bodies; they appear to us, to use the Arabic term, nearer to the _zenith_ than they actually are, and not in their true place. [Sidenote: Astronomical refraction.] We see them in the direction of the tangent to the curve of refraction as it reaches the eye. Hence also he shows that we actually see the stars, and the sun, and the moon before they have risen and after they have set--a wonderful illusion. He shows that in its pa.s.sage through the air the curvature of a ray increases with the increasing density, and that its path does not depend on vapours that chance to be present, but on the variation of density in the medium. [Sidenote: The horizontal sun and moon.] To this refraction he truly refers the shortening, in their vertical diameter, of the horizontal sun and moon; to its variations he imputes the twinkling of the fixed stars. The apparent increase of size of the former bodies when they are in the horizon he refers to a mental deception, arising from the presence of intervening terrestrial objects. [Sidenote: Explains the twilight.] He shows that the effect of refraction is to shorten the duration of night and darkness by prolonging the visibility of the sun, and considering the reflecting action of the air, he deduces that beautiful explanation of the nature of twilight--the light that we perceive before the rising and after the setting of the sun--which we accept at the present time as true. [Sidenote: Determines the height of the atmosphere.] With extraordinary acuteness, he applies the principles with which he is dealing to the determination of the height of the atmosphere, deciding that its limit is nearly 58-1/2 miles.

All this is very grand. Shall we compare it with the contemporaneous monk miracles and monkish philosophy of Europe? It would make a profound impression if communicated for the first time to a scientific society in our own age. Nor perhaps does his merit end here. If the Book of the Balance of Wisdom, for a translation of which we are indebted to M.

Khanikoff, the Russian consul-general at Tabriz, be the production of Alhazen, of which there seems to be internal proof, it offers us evidence of a singular clearness in mechanical conception for which we should scarcely have been prepared, and, if it be not his, at all events it indisputably shows the scientific acquirements of his age. [Sidenote: The weight of the air.] In that book is plainly set forth the connexion between the weight of the atmosphere and its increasing density. The weight of the atmosphere was therefore understood before Torricelli.

This author shows that a body will weigh differently in a rare and in a dense atmosphere; that its loss of weight will be greater in proportion as the air is more dense. [Sidenote: Principles of hydrostatics.] He considers the force with which plunged bodies will rise through heavier media in which they are immersed, and discusses the submergence of floating bodies, as s.h.i.+ps upon the sea. He understands the doctrine of the centre of gravity. [Sidenote: Theory of the balance.] He applies it to the investigation of balances and steelyards, showing the relations between the centre of gravity and the centre of suspension--when those instruments will set and when they will vibrate. He recognizes gravity as a force; a.s.serts that it diminishes with the distance; but falls into the mistake that the diminution is as the distance, and not as its square. [Sidenote: Gravity; capillary attraction; the hydrometer.] He considers gravity as terrestrial, and fails to perceive that it is universal--that was reserved for Newton. He knows correctly the relation between the velocities, s.p.a.ces, and times of falling bodies, and has very distinct ideas of capillary attraction. He improves the construction of that old Alexandrian invention, the hydrometer--the instrument which, in a letter to his fair but pagan friend Hypatia, the good Bishop of Ptolemais, Synesius, six hundred years previously, requests her to have made for him in Alexandria, as he wishes to try the wines he is using, his health being a little delicate. [Sidenote: Tables of specific gravities.] The determinations of the densities of bodies, as given by Alhazen, approach very closely to our own; in the case of mercury they are even more exact than some of those of the last century.

I join, as, doubtless, all natural philosophers will do, in the pious prayer of Alhazen, that, in the day of judgment, the All-Merciful will take pity on the soul of Abur-Raihan, because he was the first of the race of men to construct a table of specific gravities; and I will ask the same for Alhazen himself, since he was the first to trace the curvilinear path of a ray of light through the air. Though more than seven centuries part him from our times, the physiologists of this age may accept him as their compeer, since he received and defended the doctrine now forcing its way, of the progressive development of animal forms. [Sidenote: The theory of development of organisms.] He upheld the affirmation of those who said that man, in his progress, pa.s.ses through a definite succession of states; not, however, "that he was once a bull, and was then changed to an a.s.s, and afterwards into a horse, and after that into an ape, and finally became a man." This, he says, is only a misrepresentation by "common people" of what is really meant. The "common people" who withstood Alhazen have representatives among us, themselves the only example in the Fauna of the world of that non-development which they so loudly affirm. At the best they are only pa.s.sing through some of the earlier forms of that series of trans.m.u.tations to which the devout Mohammedan in the above quotation alludes.

The Arabians, with all this physical knowledge, do not appear to have been in possession of the thermometer, though they knew the great importance of temperature measures, employing the areometer for that purpose. They had detected the variation in density of liquids by heat, but not the variation in volume. In their measures of time they were more successful; they had several kinds of clepsydras. A balance clepsydra is described in the work from which I am quoting. [Sidenote: The pendulum clock.] But it was their great astronomer, Ebn Junis, who accomplished the most valuable of all chronometric improvements. He first applied the pendulum to the measure of time. Laplace, in the fifth note to his Systeme du Monde, avails himself of the observations of this philosopher, with those of Albategnius and other Arabians, as incontestable proof of the diminution of the eccentricity of the earth's...o...b..t. [Sidenote: Astronomical works of Ebn Junis.] He states, moreover, that the observation of Ebn Junis of the obliquity of the ecliptic, properly corrected for parallax and refraction, gives for the year A.D.

1000 a result closely approaching to the theoretical. He also mentions another observation of Ebn Junis, October 31, A.D. 1007, as of much importance in reference to the great inequalities of Jupiter and Saturn.

[Sidenote: The Arabic numerals.] I have already remarked that, in the writings of this great Arabian, the Arabic numerals and our common arithmetical processes are currently used. From Africa and Spain they pa.s.sed into Italy, finding ready acceptance among commercial men, who recognised at once their value, and, as William of Malmesbury says, being a wonderful relief to the "sweating calculators;" an epithet of which the correctness will soon appear to any one who will try to do a common multiplication or division problem by the aid of the old Roman numerals. It is said that Gerbert--Pope Sylvester--was the first to introduce a knowledge of them into Europe; he had learned them at the Mohammedan university of Cordova. It is in allusion to the cipher, which follows the 9, but which, added to any of the other digits, increases by tenfold its power, that, in a letter to his patron, the Emperor Otho III., with humility he playfully but truly says, "I am like the last of all the numbers."

[Sidenote: Arabian philosophy.] The overthrow of the Roman by the Arabic numerals foreshadowed the result of a far more important--a political--contest between those rival names. But, before showing how the Arabian intellect pressed upon Rome, and the convulsive struggles of desperation which Rome made to resist it, I must for a moment consider the former under another point of view, and speak of Saracen philosophy.

[Sidenote: The writings of Algazzali.] And here Algazzali shall be my guide. He was born A.D. 1058.

Let us hear him speak for himself. He is relating his attempt to detach himself from the opinions which he had imbibed in his childhood: "I said to myself, 'My aim is simply to know the truth of things; consequently, it is indispensable for me to ascertain what is knowledge.' Now it was evident to me that certain knowledge must be that which explains the object to be known in such a manner that no doubt can remain, so that in future all error and conjecture respecting it must be impossible.

[Sidenote: The cert.i.tude of knowledge.] Not only would the understanding then need no efforts to be convinced of cert.i.tude, but security against error is in such close connexion with knowledge, that, even were an apparent proof of falsehood to be brought forward, it would cause no doubt, because no suspicion of error would be possible. Thus, when I have acknowledged ten to be more than three, if any one were to say, 'On the contrary, three is more than ten, and to prove the truth of my a.s.sertion, I will change this rod into a serpent,' and if he were to change it, my conviction of his error would remain unshaken. His manoeuvre would only produce in me admiration for his ability. I should not doubt my own knowledge.

"Then was I convinced that knowledge which I did not possess in this manner, and respecting which I had not this certainty, could inspire me with neither confidence nor a.s.surance; and no knowledge without a.s.surance deserves the name of knowledge.

"Having examined the state of my own knowledge, I found it divested of all that could be said to have these qualities, unless perceptions of the senses and irrefragable principles were to be considered such.

[Sidenote: Fallibility of the senses.] I then said to myself, 'Now, having fallen into this despair, the only hope of acquiring incontestable convictions is by the perceptions of the senses and by necessary truths.' Their evidence seemed to me to be indubitable. I began, however, to examine the objects of sensation and speculation, to see if they possibly could admit of doubt. Then doubts crowded upon me in such numbers that my incert.i.tude became complete. Whence results the confidence I have in sensible things? The strongest of all our senses is sight; and yet, looking at a shadow, and perceiving it to be fixed and immovable, we judge it to be deprived of movement; nevertheless, experience teaches us that, when we return to the same place an hour after, the shadow is displaced, for it does not vanish suddenly, but gradually, little by little, so as never to be at rest. If we look at the stars, they seem to be as small as money-pieces; but mathematical proofs convince us that they are larger than the earth. These and other things are judged by the senses, but rejected by reason as false. I abandoned the senses, therefore, having seen all my confidence in their truth shaken.

"'Perhaps,' said I, 'there is no a.s.surance but in the notions of reason, that is to say, first principles, as that ten is more than three; the same thing cannot have been created and yet have existed from all eternity; to exist and not to exist at the same time is impossible.'

[Sidenote: Fallibility of reason.] "Upon this the senses replied, 'What a.s.surance have you that your confidence in reason is not of the same nature as your confidence in us? When you relied on us, reason stepped in and gave us the lie; had not reason been there, you would have continued to rely on us. Well, may there not exist some other judge superior to reason, who, if he appeared, would refute the judgments of reason in the same way that reason refuted us? The non-appearance of such a judge is no proof of his non-existence.'

[Sidenote: The nature of dreams.] "I strove in vain to answer the objection, and my difficulties increased when I came to reflect on sleep. I said to myself, 'During sleep, you give to visions a reality and consistence, and you have no suspicion of their untruth. On awakening, you are made aware that they were nothing but visions. What a.s.surance have you that all you feel and know when you are awake does actually exist? It is all true as respects your condition at that moment; but it is nevertheless possible that another condition should present itself which should be to your awakened state that which to your awakened state is now to you sleep; so that, as respects this higher condition, your waking is but sleep.'"

It would not be possible to find in any European work a clearer statement of the scepticism to which philosophy leads than what is thus given by this Arabian. Indeed, it is not possible to put the argument in a more effective way. His perspicuity is in singular contrast with the obscurity of many metaphysical writers.

[Sidenote: Intellectual despair.] "Reflecting on my situation, I found myself bound to this world by a thousand ties, temptations a.s.sailing me on all sides. I then examined my actions. The best were those relating to instruction and education, and even there I saw myself given up to unimportant sciences, all useless in another world. Reflecting on the aim of my teaching, I found it was not pure in the sight of the Lord. I saw that all my efforts were directed toward the acquisition of glory to myself. Having, therefore, distributed my wealth, I left Bagdad and retired into Syria, where I remained two years in solitary struggle with my soul, combating my pa.s.sions, and exercising myself, in the purification of my heart and in preparation for the other world."

This is a very beautiful picture of the mental struggles and the actions of a truthful and earnest man. In all this the Christian philosopher can sympathize with the devout Mohammedan. After all, they are not very far apart. Algazzali is not the only one to whom such thoughts have occurred, but he has found words to tell his experience better than any other man. And what is the conclusion at which he arrives? [Sidenote: Algazzali's ages of man.] The life of man, he says, is marked by three stages: "the first, or infantile stage, is that of pure sensation; the second, which begins at the age of seven, is that of understanding; the third is that of reason, by means of which the intellect perceives the necessary, the possible, the absolute, and all those higher objects which transcend the understanding. But after this there is a fourth stage, when another eye is opened, by which man perceives things hidden from others--perceives all that will be--perceives the things that escape the perceptions of reason, as the objects of reason escape the understanding, and as the objects of the understanding escape the sensitive faculty. This is prophetism." Algazzali thus finds a philosophical basis for the rule of life, and reconciles religion and philosophy.

And now I have to turn from Arabian civilized life, its science, its philosophy, to another, a repulsive state of things. With reluctance I come back to the Italian system, defiling the holy name of religion with its intrigues, its bloodshed, its oppression of human thought, its hatred of intellectual advancement. [Sidenote: Renewal of the operation of Mohammedan influences.] Especially I have now to direct attention to two countries, the scenes of important events--countries in which the Mohammedan influences began to take effect and to press upon Rome. These are the South of France and Sicily.

Innocent III. had been elected pope at the early age of thirty-seven years, A.D. 1198. The papal power had reached its culminating point. The weapons of the Church had attained their utmost force. In Italy, in Germany, in France and England, interdicts and excommunications vindicated the pontifical authority, as in the cases of the Duke of Ravenna, the Emperor Otho, Philip Augustus of France, King John of England. [Sidenote: Interference of Innocent III. in France.] In each of these cases it was not for the sake of sustaining great moral principles or the rights of humanity that the thunder was launched--it was in behalf of temporary political interests; interests that, in Germany, were sustained at the cost of a long war, and cemented by a.s.sa.s.sination; in France, strengthened by the well-tried device of an intervention in a matrimonial broil--the domestic quarrel of the king and queen about Agnes of Meran. "Ah! happy Saladin!" said the insulted Philip, when his kingdom was put under interdict; "he has no pope above him. I too will turn Mohammedan."

[Sidenote: In Spain and Portugal.] So, likewise, in Spain, Innocent interfered in the matrimonial life of the King of Leon. The remorseless venality of the papal government was felt in every direction. Portugal had already been advanced to the dignity of a kingdom on payment of an annual tribute to Rome. The King of Aragon held his kingdom as feudatory to the pope.

[Sidenote: In England; denounces Magna Charta.] In England, Innocent's interference a.s.sumed a different aspect. He attempted to a.s.sert his control over the Church in spite of the king, and put the nation under interdict because John would not permit Stephen Langton to be Archbishop of Canterbury. It was utterly impossible that affairs could go on with such an empire within an empire. For his contumacy, John was excommunicated; but, base as he was, he defied his punishment for four years. Hereupon his subjects were released from their allegiance, and his kingdom offered to anyone who would conquer it. In his extremity, the King of England is said to have sent a messenger to Spain, offering to become a Mohammedan. The religious sentiment was then no higher in him than it was, under a like provocation, in the King of France, whose thoughts turned in the same direction. But, pressed irresistibly by Innocent, John was compelled to surrender his realm, agreeing to pay to the pope, in addition to Peter's pence, 1000 marks a year as a token of va.s.salage. When the prelates whom he had refused or exiled returned, he was compelled to receive them on his knees--humiliations which aroused the indignation of the stout English barons, and gave strength to those movements which ended in extorting Magna Charta. Never, however, was Innocent more mistaken than in the character of Stephen Langton. John had, a second time, formally surrendered his realm to the pope, and done homage to the legate for it; but Stephen Langton was the first--at a meeting of the chiefs of the revolt against the king, held in London, August 25th, 1213--to suggest that they should demand a renewal of the charter of Henry I. From this suggestion Magna Charta originated. Among the miracles of the age, he was the greatest miracle of all; his patriotism was stronger than his profession. The wrath of the pontiff knew no bounds when he learned that the Great Charter had been conceded.

In his bull, he denounced it as base and ignominious; he anathematized the king if he observed it; he declared it null and void. It was not the policy of the Roman court to permit so much as the beginnings of such freedom. The appointment of Simon Langton to the archbishopric of York was annulled. One De Gray was subst.i.tuted for him. It ill.u.s.trated the simony into which the papal government had fallen, that De Gray had become, in these transactions, indebted to Rome ten thousand pounds.

[Sidenote: The drain of money from that country.] In fact, through the operation of the Crusades, all Europe was tributory to the pope. He had his fiscal agents in every metropolis; his travelling ones wandering in all directions, in every country, raising revenue by the sale of dispensations for all kinds of offences, real and fict.i.tious--money for the sale of appointments, high and low--a steady drain of money from every realm. Fifty years after the time of which we are speaking, Robert Grostete, the Bishop of Lincoln and friend of Roger Bacon, caused to be ascertained the amount received by foreign ecclesiastics in England. He found it to be thrice the income of the king himself. This was on the occasion of Innocent IV. demanding provision to be made for three hundred additional Italian clergy by the Church of England, and that one of his nephews--a mere boy--should have a stall in Lincoln cathedral.

[Sidenote: Goading of Europe into a new crusade.] While thus Innocent III. was interfering and intriguing with every court, and laying every people under tribute, he did not for a moment permit his attention to be diverted from the Crusades, the singular advantages of which to the papacy had now been fully discovered. They had given to the pope a suzerainty in Europe, the control of its military as well as its monetary resources. Not that a man like Innocent could permit himself to be deluded by any hopes of eventual success. The crusades must inevitably prove, so far as their avowed object was concerned, a failure. The Christian inhabitants of Palestine were degraded and demoralized beyond description. Their ranks were thinned by apostasy to Mohammedanism. In Europe, not only the laity begun to discover that the money provided for the wars in the Holy Land was diverted from its purpose, and in some inexplicable manner, found its way into Italy--even the clergy could not conceal their suspicions that the proclamation of a crusade was merely the preparation for a swindle. Nevertheless, Innocent pressed forward his schemes, goading on Christendom by upbraiding it with the taunts of the Saracens. "Where," they say, "is your G.o.d, who can not deliver you out of our hands? Behold! we have defiled your sanctuaries; we have stretched forth our arm; we have taken at the first a.s.sault, we hold in despite of you, those your desirable places, where your superst.i.tion had its beginning. Where is your G.o.d? Let him arise and protect you and himself." "If thou be the Son of G.o.d, save thyself if thou canst; redeem the land of thy birth from our hands. Restore thy cross, that we have taken, to the wors.h.i.+ppers of the Cross." With great difficulty, however, Innocent succeeded in preparing the fourth crusade, A.D. 1202. The Venetians consented to furnish a fleet of transports. But the expedition was quickly diverted from its true purpose; the Venetians employing the Crusaders for the capture of Zara from the King of Hungary. [Sidenote: The crusade is used for the seizure of Constantinople.] Still worse, and shameful to be said--partly from the l.u.s.t of plunder, and partly through ecclesiastical machinations--it again turned aside for an attack upon Constantinople, and took that city by storm A.D. 1204, thereby establis.h.i.+ng Latin Christianity in the Eastern metropolis, but, alas! with bloodshed, rape, and fire. On the night of the a.s.sault more houses were burned than could be found in any three of the largest cities in France. [Sidenote: Sack of that city by the Catholics.] Even Christian historians compare with shame the storming of Constantinople by the Catholics with the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin. Pope Innocent himself was compelled to protest against enormities that had outrun his intentions. He says: "They practised fornications, incests, adulteries in the sight of men. They abandoned matrons and virgins, consecrated to G.o.d, to the lewdness of grooms. They lifted their hands against the treasures of the churches--what is more heinous, the very consecrated vessels--tearing the tablets of silver from the very altars, breaking in pieces the most sacred things, carrying off crosses and relics." In St. Sophia, the silver was stripped from the pulpit; an exquisite and highly-prized table of oblation was broken in pieces; the sacred chalices were turned into drinking-cups; the gold fringe was ripped off the veil of the sanctuary. a.s.ses and horses were led into the churches to carry off the spoil. A prost.i.tute mounted the patriarch's throne, and sang, with indecent gestures, a ribald song. The tombs of the emperors were rifled; and the Byzantines saw, at once with amazement and anguish, the corpse of Justinian--which even decay and putrefaction had for six centuries spared in his tomb--exposed to the violation of a mob. It had been understood among those who instigated these atrocious proceedings that the relics were to be brought into a common stock and equitably divided among the conquerors! but each ecclesiastic seized and secreted whatever he could. The idolatrous state of the Eastern Church is ill.u.s.trated by some of these relics. [Sidenote: The relics found there,] Thus the Abbot Martin obtained for his monastery in Alsace the following inestimable articles: 1. A spot of the blood of our Saviour; 2. A piece of the true cross; 3. The arm of the Apostle James; 4. Part of the skeleton of John the Baptist; 5.--I hesitate to write such blasphemy--"A bottle of the milk of the Mother of G.o.d!" [Sidenote: and works of art destroyed.] In contrast with the treasures thus acquired may be set relics of a very different kind, the remains of ancient art which they destroyed: 1. The bronze charioteers from the Hippodrome; 2. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus; 3. A group of a Sphinx, river-horse, and crocodile; 4. An eagle tearing a serpent; 5. An a.s.s and his driver, originally cast by Augustus in memory of the victory of Actium; 6. Bellerophon and Pegasus; 7. A bronze obelisk; 8. Paris presenting the apple to Venus; 9. An exquisite statute of Helen; 10. The Hercules of Lysippus; 11. A Juno, formerly taken from the temple at Samos. The bronzes were melted into coin, and thousands of ma.n.u.scripts and parchments were burned. From that time the works of many ancient authors disappeared altogether.

[Sidenote: The pope and the doge divide the spoil.] With well-dissembled regret, Innocent took the new order of things in the city of Constantinople under his protection. The bishop of Rome at last appointed the Bishop of Constantinople. The acknowledgment of papal supremacy was complete. Rome and Venice divided between them the ill-gotten gains of their undertaking. If anything had been wanting to open the eyes of Europe, surely what had thus occurred should have been enough. The pope and the doge--the trader in human credulity and the trader of the Adriatic--had shared the spoils of a crusade meant by religious men for the relief of the Holy Land. [Sidenote: Works of art carried to Venice.] The bronze horses, once brought by Augustus from Alexandria, after his victory over Antony and transferred from Rome to Constantinople by its founder, were set before the Church of St Mark.

They were the outward and visible sign of a less obvious event that was taking place. For to Venice was brought a residue of the literary treasures that had escaped the fire and the destroyer; and while her comrades in the outrage were satisfied, in their ignorance, with fict.i.tious relics, she took possession of the poor remnant of the glorious works of art, of letters, and of science. Through these was hastened the intellectual progress of the West.