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.

Great as was the reputation of these ambitious ecclesiastics among the ignorant masses of their countrymen, it did not approach that of the famous Gerbert, whose genius had unsuccessfully attempted the enlightenment of Europe nearly two hundred years before. The attainments of that accomplished scholar, respectable in any age, were so superior to those of his contemporaries that, as has been previously stated, they procured for him the unenviable and dangerous title of magician. A native of Aquitaine, of obscure birth and without resources, his talents early attracted the notice of the Count of Barcelona, who provided for his education in that city. Thence, after a time, he visited the principal Moorish cities of Andalusia. It was the tenth century, the epoch of the highest prosperity and magnificence of the Ommeyade Khalifate. Everywhere were visible the effects of that civilization which had no rival in the world. The thorough agricultural development of the country; the busy seaports; the luxurious palaces; the populous cities; the well-paved streets, filled by day with surging multitudes, and lighted at night by tens of thousands of twinkling lamps; the illimitable expanse of verdure which marked the environs of the great Moorish capital, broken only by occasional watch-towers and gilded minarets; the gorgeous splendor of the court; the prodigious libraries; the innumerable schools and colleges, equipped with every scientific appliance known to Moslem culture—colored maps, armils, sundials, clepsydras, hydrometers, parallactic rules, quadrants, astrolabes, planispheres, globes; the mosque with its throngs of pilgrims gay with the costumes of every land acknowledging the creed of Islam,—these scenes did not fail to profoundly impress the young French ecclesiastic, already imbued with prohibited ideas and fresh from the intolerance, the barbarism, the credulity, and the intellectual debasement of Christian Europe. The mind of Gerbert was prompt to recognize the manifold advantages to be derived from familiarity with Moslem institutions and erudition. He became a student of the University of Cordova. During the few years he remained in that city, his talents and perseverance procured for him a fund of scientific information unexampled for that period. On his return he established schools in both Italy and France. He imported books from every quarter of the world, and especially from Spain. His pupils, reckoned by thousands, diffused throughout Europe the fame of their teacher and the precepts of his works. The instruction he imparted embodied the forbidden learning taught beyond the Pyrenees. He was the first to explain to Europeans the abacus, the Indian numerals, the science of arithmetic. He taught geography and astronomy from globes constructed at Cordova. He observed the motions of the planets and determined the elevation of the pole through diopters. The results of the mechanical ingenuity which amused his leisure moments awakened the horror of his ignorant and pious contemporaries. He invented a steam or hydraulic organ; a clock whose mechanism was largely composed of wheels and pinions; and automatons whose mysterious movements suggested to the vulgar a diabolical agency. He improved the science of music. His system of imparting knowledge, based upon experiment and demonstration, exhibited a radical difference from the prevalent methods of an epoch whose instruction was limited to Scriptural texts and ecclesiastical admonition. The renown of the great scholar excited the envy of the monks, to whom the popular imputation of infernal communion afforded a pretext for persecution. They instigated marauders to plunder his abbey at Bobbio, in Italy. His library was burned, his instruments were destroyed, his students dispersed. This ill-treatment, so far from being, as intended, prejudicial to the fortunes of Gerbert, ultimately promoted them. His reputation was everywhere known, and the awe his wisdom excited was increased by the supernatural means he was believed to employ. He was patronized by the King of France and the Emperor of Germany; he became successively Bishop of Rheims and of Ravenna; and, through the influence of the latter sovereign, he was, in the year 999, raised to the pontifical dignity, under the name of Sylvester II. Even in that exalted position, the relentless spirit of ecclesiastical malice did not permit him to rest. His attempts to reform clerical abuses brought down upon him the vengeance of the corrupt and rapacious ministers of the papal court. The most absurd fables were invented to account for the results of his scientific experiments, otherwise incomprehensible by mediæval ignorance. He was accused of gross immorality, blasphemy, magical incantations, the invocation of demons. It was whispered that goblins of fantastic dress and repulsive aspect attended him at midnight during the celebration of impious orgies and profane sacrifices. The diligent propagation of these scandals prepared the way for the punishment meted out in that age to all daring reformers, and especially to those who presumed to interfere with the prerogatives and emoluments of the clergy. A victim of slow poison, Sylvester II. survived his elevation to the Papacy less than four years. His name was anathematized, his doctrines condemned as heretical, and the perusal of his writings prohibited as contrary to the canons of the Church and prejudicial to the interests of religion. After his decease, a long period of darkness again clouded the Christian world. The dawning spirit of inquiry thus suppressed, men once more turned to the priest for counsel, for assistance, for the explanation of natural phenomena, for the cure of disease. Such was the inauspicious and apparently futile result of the first introduction of Arabian learning into Roman Catholic Europe.

The unrivalled excellence of the agricultural methods employed by the Spanish Mohammedans was, in large measure, due to their profound botanical knowledge. That science, practically unknown in the desert wastes of Arabia, to which nature has begrudged the wealth of her vegetable kingdom, was early pursued with great energy and success by the conquering Moslems. In no other part of their empire, however, was such progress made in its study or such beneficial results obtained from the culture of plants as in Andalusia. Their analysis and classification, and the determination of their properties, were sedulously encouraged by the government. The scientific expeditions of the khalifs collected specimens and seeds from every quarter of the world. Gardens for the propagation of both native plants and exotics were established in the environs of all the great cities, and the results of intelligent observation and experiment were regularly tabulated for the public benefit. In the oases of the Desert, along the banks of the Nile, on the fertile plains of Mesopototamia, on the arid plateaus of Central Asia, in the pestilent delta of the Ganges, the botanists of Cordova added to the stock of ideas and principles to be subsequently developed and advantageously applied in the valley of the far distant Guadalquivir. Nor were their efforts confined to the mere collection and examination of products of the vegetable kingdom. Every novel appliance, every useful invention, which might prove beneficial to horticulture, to irrigation, to the various branches of rural economy, were diligently noted and carefully preserved. As a consequence of these laborious researches, the Andalusian Arabs became more proficient in the kindred sciences of botany and agriculture than any people who have ever existed. In their country were concentrated all the fruits of the learning and experience of centuries then extant in the world. It is said that they added to the herbals of the ancients more than two thousand varieties of plants. They described the circulation of the sap; they understood the offices of the bark and the leaves. Every source of information was thoroughly explored. Already, in the tenth century, the treatise of Dioscorides had been translated into Arabic by a monk of Constantinople, sent by the Emperor at the special request of the Khalif, because the subjects of the latter were ignorant of Greek. The botanical works of the Hispano-Arabs were enriched with drawings from nature, beautifully executed in colors. When Ibn-Beithar, of Malaga, the most famous of Moslem botanists, travelled in the Orient, he was accompanied by a corps of artists, whose skill preserved the form and tints of unfamiliar flora in all their beauty and perfection. His is the greatest name in the annals of this important branch of learning from Dioscorides to Linnæus, an interval of fifteen hundred years.

In the wide range of philosophical and experimental study, however, no subject was so congenial to the taste of the Arab or appealed more strongly to his imagination than the pursuit of the spurious science of alchemy. That science originated in Egypt, the land of isolation, of enchantment, of prodigy. Its investigation, confined to a privileged class, had been protected by the double safeguard of religion and secrecy. For innumerable centuries the Egyptian priesthood, the sole depositaries of knowledge, had, in laboratories hidden in temples or excavated in the rocky sides of mountains, eagerly devoted themselves to the discovery of the universal panacea, of the elixir of life, of the transmutation of inferior metals into gold. The Ptolemaic dynasty, heir to these delusions so acceptable to human egotism and avarice, had contributed to their universal dissemination over Europe and Asia. The Arabs, from the first hour of their intellectual emancipation, prosecuted with alacrity a study especially adapted to their national inclination and genius. The fact that the Koran prohibits such occupations made their association with religion, contrary to the custom in Egypt, impracticable. At Toledo and Cordova, alchemy was not designated, as at Memphis and Thebes, the “Sacred Art,” cultivated in the precincts of temples, communicated only to royalty, screened from the profanation of the vulgar by the delusive mummeries of processions and sacrifices. Its close relations with thaumaturgy and divination, with astrology and magic, were inevitable consequences of the uncertainty of its results, and of the mystery that enveloped its professors. Ancient Hebrew tradition, as disclosed by the apocryphal books of the Bible, asserts that the occult arts and sciences were the gift of evil spirits to the children of men. The Romans punished such practices with death, probably for the reason that they came into competition with the oracles, a fruitful source of revenue and prestige to the state. Thus, in a measure, placed under the ban of religion and law, a subject of suspicion and fear to the masses, the study of alchemy was fraught with danger, even amidst the Pagan associations of antiquity. In the Middle Ages, the endangered interests of priestcraft added to legal prohibition and the prejudice of public opinion the resistless force of their condemnation.

The Spanish Arabs, passionately fond of experiment and novelty, were eminently proficient in the technicalities of the Hermetic Art. They entertained the idea that the same elements, in different proportions, were present in all metals, and that, by certain processes of elimination, any metal,—as, for instance, gold,—could be obtained. Like their masters, the Alexandrian Greeks, they concealed their discoveries in the obscurities of a learned jargon. The principles of their calling were indicated by mysterious symbols, enigmatical phrases, mutilated formulas, capable of interpretation only by themselves. With the advancement of learning, the operations of the alchemist were practised with less concealment and mystery. His labors were encouraged by the khalifs, of whom some were themselves adepts, and prosecuted their investigations in well-equipped laboratories. The prevalence of one delusion led to the propagation of others, and the original objects of alchemical research became confounded with astrology, mysticism, and all their chimerical relations and incidents,—theories involving the seven planets and the seven metals, the ceremonies of exorcism, the procuring of happiness by the identification of the soul with the Universal Intellect. Attracted by the profits to be obtained from human credulity, a swarm of charlatans sprang up in every community,—prototypes of the impostors who infested the society of Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Among these the Jews attained an unenviable notoriety, a reputation destined in subsequent ages to produce most deplorable consequences. Even under the Pharaohs, Hebrew astuteness had succeeded in penetrating the well-guarded arcana of the Egyptian priesthood. It was mainly through their traditional avarice that the precepts and formulas of the Sacred Art, divulged to the Greeks and afterwards to the Arabs, became the property of mediæval Europe. In Mohammedan Spain the Jews excelled in this unpopular but lucrative profession, as they did in every pursuit requiring intelligence, energy, craft, and skill. From this confused medley of philosophy, magic, and imposture were unconsciously obtained results of superlative value to the human race. The adept, poring over his retorts and crucibles in vaulted chambers far removed from inquisitive eyes, stumbled upon discoveries more important than that of the philosopher’s stone. In attempts to accomplish the transmutation of metals, processes were invented by which the analysis, separation, and smelting of ores were, hundreds of years afterwards, facilitated, and the visionary aim of the alchemist, in a measure, accomplished. From these secret experiments came the knowledge of the working of metals, of the composition of alloys, of the fusing of glass, of the application of enamels. Alchemy was thus the precursor of chemistry, and, so intimately are their principles and relations connected, that it is impossible to determine where the false science terminates and where the true science begins. The Hispano-Arabs carried the operations of both to a point not hitherto attained by the experimenters of the ancient world. While they profited largely by the learning of the East, it would be unjust to deny them the merit of conspicuous and striking originality. They practically invented modern chemistry. Their writers describe with clearness and precision the processes of crystallization, sublimation, distillation, filtration, solution. They introduced nitric and sulphuric acids, those powerful solvents, without whose agency chemical combinations could not be effected. To them is due the discovery of alcohol, muriate of ammonia, potassa, bichloride of mercury, nitrate of silver, and phosphorus. The adaptation of these substances to the multifarious purposes of daily existence has bestowed upon the inventor almost boundless resources for the development of the industrial arts, and has provided the surgeon with efficacious means of alleviating human suffering. The use of caustics and acids produced a revolution in medicine, and the skill of the physician, even in Christendom, was no longer classed with the exorcisms of the necromancer or subordinated to the mummeries of the priest. The Moslems of the Peninsula were aware that a calcined metal gains instead of loses weight, a fact whose knowledge foreshadows an acquaintance with gases and the discovery of oxygen; nor were they ignorant of the existence and the properties of hydrogen. Processes for the oxidation of metals and for the generation of gases are first mentioned by Djabar-al-Kufi, or Geber, whose personal history is unknown, and who is often confounded with the mathematician, Djabar-Ibn-Aflah, of Spain. The greatest Arabian chemist of any age, his abilities have been recognized and his name has been mentioned with respect by every investigator of the exact and experimental sciences down to the present day. It has been well said that he bears the same relation to chemistry that Hippocrates does to medicine. His writings—calm, judicious, eminently logical—are not obscured or disfigured by the absurdity and charlatanism of the epoch. Aside from his reference to the generation of gases by heat, and the radical alterations undergone by the substances from which they are derived, his fame would have been permanently established by his discovery of nitric acid and aqua regia, products of the laboratory not previously described by any author. Thus the philosophical methods of the Spanish Moslems gradually developed the visionary operations of alchemy into the science of chemistry. To the latter, however, still clung numerous indications of an origin fraught with imposture. Important experiments were deferred until the planetary influences were declared to be auspicious. The elixir of life was sought for with undiminished ardor. Monarchs were still deluded and plundered by means of fallacious promises of wealth to be obtained by the transmutation of metals. But, in many respects, notable changes were discernible, harbingers of incalculable benefit to both the physical and intellectual condition of humanity. Then was first effected the permanent separation between experimental science and religious mysticism, a union fatal to mental development and to the arts of civilization. From the earliest times, every important undertaking had been invested with a sacred character, and supplemented with ceremonies adopted to avoid publicity and to enhance its mysterious significance. It was no longer accounted sacrilege to explain the secrets of nature or necessary to enshroud the discoveries of the philosopher with the terms of an allegorical jargon. The scientific lectures of the Moorish universities of Spain were open to all students; the analyses of the laboratory were daily performed in the presence of thousands. Familiarity with its operations, experience of its advantageous application, diminished in time the suspicion with which chemistry was viewed by the populace. That science, necessarily slow in its development, originally based upon erroneous principles, profiting by the opportunities of accidental discovery, retarded by innumerable failures, hated by the priesthood, feared by the ignorant, classed as diabolical by the superstitious, was far from possessing the capability for progressive advancement and permanence of which mathematics was susceptible. Although practically its inventors, the Arabs paid more attention to the adaptation of its discovery to medicine than to the improvement of its processes or the purification of its products. This predilection induced them to separate pharmacy from chemistry as well as from medicine, thus creating a new and most important branch of science, of universal application and of practical benefit.

Europe is indebted to the Moslems of Spain and Sicily for the introduction of such drugs as nux vomica, cassia, croton, tamarind, myrrh, sandal, cubebs, ergot, senna, rhubarb, and camphor; for such spices as cloves, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon; for such compounds as juleps, elixirs, syrups, and electuaries, still known to commerce by their Arabic names. Under the khalifs, pharmacies were established in all the principal towns of the empire, subordinated to great central depôts at Toledo and Cordova. These were placed under government supervision, were visited by inspectors, and their owners held accountable for the purity of their commodities and the methods of their preparation. In Sicily the laws were even more stringent: every dispenser of drugs was subjected to a rigid examination as to his qualifications, and the professional oath of the physician required him to denounce to the proper authorities any pharmacist whose wares were inferior in quality to the regular standard. In addition to these salutary precautions against dishonesty and fraud, a scale of prices, publicly displayed, prevented extortion; and violation of the law subjected the offender to serious penalties. These regulations, adopted in the thirteenth century by the Emperor Frederick II., contributed greatly to the success attained by the medical schools of Salerno and Naples, and made Sicily the most famous market for medicaments in the world.

It is a remarkable circumstance that the science of the Saracens was largely diffused among the nations of Northern Europe through the agency of the ecclesiastical order, to whose faith, organization, and traditions it had always evinced an implacable hostility. The general dearth of educational facilities in the Middle Ages, the monopoly by the clergy of such learning as existed, and the fact that, among the latter, would be found, sooner or later, superior minds dissatisfied with the ignorance and the absurdities of the Fathers, were conditions that inevitably tended to this result despite the anathemas of pontiffs and the decrees of synods. Many of these innovators came from the monastic orders. It must not be forgotten that both Savonarola and Bruno were Dominicans. For more than a century there emanated from Toledo translations into Latin of classical works that had long before been rendered from Greek into Arabic. The pioneer of this intellectual movement was Archbishop Raymond, a Frenchman. His example was followed by Herman of Dalmatia, Michael Scott, and John of Seville. The three greatest Christian disseminators of the science derived from the Moors, however, were Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon; Robert Grossetête, Bishop of Lincoln; and Roger Bacon, professor in the University of Oxford, all of the thirteenth century. The first is popularly known to posterity as an alchemist and a magician. He was, besides, a man of extensive knowledge, and a writer of voluminous treatises on theology, philosophy, alchemy, and chemistry. He described successfully the action of acids, the character of alkalies, the forms and alloys of metals. The method used to-day in the manufacture of caustic potash is identical with the one he recommends. He was the first to prove by sublimation that cinnabar was a compound of sulphur and mercury. He understood perfectly the preparation of acetate of copper, of arsenic, of oxide of lead. The process of refining metals was also familiar to him. He gives the composition of gunpowder,—an invention also attributed to Friar Bacon, but unquestionably due to the Arabs. The idle legends attaching to his name, which have ascribed to him supernatural powers derived from an intercourse with demons, are a part of the homage that mediæval credulity was accustomed to pay to superior intelligence. His life, devoted to science, was as exemplary in its character, in an age of ecclesiastical corruption, as his talents were great and his deeds meritorious. His mathematical knowledge and his mechanical skill were the marvel of his contemporaries. The curious automaton that he constructed, which could open doors and utter guttural sounds, was broken to pieces by St. Thomas Aquinas, who had previously satisfied himself of its magical origin and diabolical character.

Robert Grossetête, Bishop of Lincoln, eminent alike in scientific attainments and theological controversy, is one of the prominent and interesting characters of English mediæval history. An accomplished scholar, he was profoundly versed in all the learning of his time. Anticipating Wyclif by more than a century, he was not afraid to criticise publicly the abuses of the Papacy, to defy its mandates, and to advocate the exercise of individual judgment in ecclesiastical matters. In these daring innovations we obtain the first glimpse of the audacious spirit which animated the founders of the English Reformation. He resisted successfully the presentation of Italian prelates to the vacant benefices of England, a prerogative hitherto exercised by the See of Rome, almost without remonstrance. He elevated the standard of scholarship at Oxford by introducing the methods of examination which obtained in the University of Paris, at that time the first institution of learning in Christian Europe. Although of distinguished rank in the Roman Catholic hierarchy, the unconcealed exultation of the Pope at his decease is a suggestive indication of the broadness of his views, and of the danger to the cause of ecclesiastical supremacy incurred by the extent of his knowledge, the boldness of his sentiments, and the unchecked propagation of his heretical doctrines.

But the greatest of this trio of illustrious names, in both renown and influence, is that of Roger Bacon. Born in 1214, he was early distinguished for his extraordinary abilities. He studied at Oxford and Paris, mastered without difficulty the sciences as taught at those two universities, and, unfortunately for himself, adopted the habit of the Franciscan Order. His inclinations, little in accordance with the maxims of his profession, impelled him to the investigation of natural phenomena. He seems to have had well-defined notions of many practical devices which have contributed largely to the triumphs of modern civilization. He regarded experiment and demonstration as the only rational method of arriving at philosophical truth. A mind endowed with remarkable versatility, a spirit of indomitable perseverance, acquired for him an acquaintance with languages unexampled in his age. In addition to being thoroughly conversant with the classics, Hebrew and Arabic, generally unknown in the thirteenth century except to the Jew and the Saracen, were as familiar to Bacon as the accents of his mother tongue. It is said that he devoted forty consecutive years to the study of science. He expended for rare books and for the apparatus necessary for its researches the sum of two thousand pounds sterling, an amount corresponding to seventy-five thousand dollars of our money. In his writings, he especially recommends the study of mathematics as the most potent instrument of mental culture, the only key which can unlock the secrets of Nature. His erudition embraced the most recondite branches of learning, and some of his suggestions viewed in connection with subsequent discoveries almost seem prompted by supernatural inspiration. He recognized the necessity for the reform of the calendar, and applied to Pope Clement IV. for permission to rectify its errors, but the latter refused. He declared a thorough knowledge of optics to be indispensable for the construction of astronomical instruments. After the perusal of his writings, a doubt can hardly be entertained that he was the inventor of spectacles,—whose idea he obtained from Al-Hazen,—and that he also understood the adjustment of the lenses in the telescope. He explained the phenomena of the rainbow as due to refraction. The power of magnifying-glasses he correctly states to vary with the size of the angle under which the object is seen. He gives the ingredients and describes the effects of gunpowder, a discovery in which he was, however, anticipated by Albertus Magnus. He discourses on the possibilities of inventions similar to the steam-engine, the balloon, and the application of electricity, obscure, it is true, yet with an accuracy of perception that seems incredible, and which cannot be questioned without denying the authenticity of his works. He apparently understood the theory of the suspension-bridge. He refers to the inflammable product obtained by the sublimation of organic matter, probably an allusion to hydrogen. The properties of carbonic acid gas, unfavorable to combustion and fatal to animal life, he mentions in terms whose meaning cannot be misunderstood. He entertained the ancient idea of the compound nature of metals, and declares that, in order to effect their transmutation, a reduction to their primary elements is an essential requisite to success. He explains their artificial coloration, a trick very popular with charlatans, who passed off inferior metals subjected to processes that changed their appearance for silver and gold. The latter metal he asserts to be perfect, because in its formation the operations of countless ages have been completed, and similar processes must be devised by man before he can hope to enter into competition with Nature. In addition to his proficiency in mathematics and chemistry, Bacon was a learned astronomer and a physician. He also constructed automatons, which brought down upon his head the censures of the Church and the enmity of the ignorant. Accused of magic, although he wrote a treatise against it, fanaticism and hatred sentenced him to imprisonment and anathematized his works. After ten years of confinement in a dungeon, he was liberated, only to die with the first return of the blessings of freedom. The intolerant spirit of the age that condemned him is epitomized in a sentence taken from a chapter in which he deplores the irrational bigotry that obstructs the progress of scientific investigation, “Animus ignorans veritatem sustinere non potest.” The versatility of his talents was only surpassed by the audacity with which he attacked and the success with which he controverted the absurd prejudices of his epoch. His name, synonymous with progress, stands forth in prominent contrast with the intellectual abasement and unquestioning credulity with which he was surrounded. His prophetic foresight, while it provoked the ridicule of the thirteenth century, commands alike the respect and astonishment of ours. Like every innovator, he experienced the penalties of superior genius,—persecution, contumely, deprivation of liberty. Among the representative scholars of the Middle Ages, he deserves pre-eminent celebrity as a bold and original exponent of experimental philosophy and scientific thought.

Although unappreciated by his contemporaries, Roger Bacon found a host of imitators during the next three centuries. Members of every rank and profession embraced the study of alchemy. The clerical order included the larger number; the secrecy of the cloister was made subservient to the purposes of magic; and the formulas of the laboratory claimed far more attention than the accomplishment of penance or the ceremonies of devotion. It was even alleged that Pope John XXII. found time at Avignon to engage in a fruitless search for the philosopher’s stone. From these illusory occupations were, as already remarked, occasionally derived discoveries of great practical value. The benefits resulting from the exercise of the spirit of inquiry and the vigorous employment of the intellectual faculties were of even greater consequence to the growth of civilization and the future welfare of mankind.

In no department of scientific investigation was the genius of Arabian culture more signally displayed than in the noble profession of medicine. In ancient Arabia, disease was supposed to be an indication of the anger of God, which it was the peculiar province of the sorcerer to remove. The erroneous ideas of morbific conditions common to nations in their intellectual infancy, among the primitive Arabs, conspicuous for their ignorance, were even more pronounced than was characteristic of other races not less barbarous. It was a long step from the fetichism of the Desert to the sacrificial ceremonies of Rome and the Asclepiads of Greece, yet all were of a similar character, though the latter represented the origin of the medical science of antiquity. Temperance was at once the precaution and the remedy of the abstemious Bedouin. Mohammed diligently inculcated the doctrine that the stomach was the seat of all diseases, and fasting their cure.

The beneficent art which has for its object the alleviation of human suffering was in the seventh century degraded to the vilest purposes of the priest and the charlatan. The writings of the celebrated Greek practitioners, lost in the universal destruction of learning consequent upon barbarian supremacy or hidden in the seclusion of the cloister, had been forgotten. The reputation of the medical school of Alexandria, whose methods had wrought such miracles in the advancement of science, was, in the minds of the more intelligent, but an indistinct and doubtful tradition; to the ignorant it was wholly unknown. Then, and for centuries afterwards, throughout Christendom, medicine was closely allied with sorcery and imposture, partly astrological, partly mystical, but never scientific. The supernatural] character with which ecclesiastical shrewdness and cunning had invested it,—the accepted principle that disease was punishment inflicted for the commission of sin,—a principle which, strange to say, has still its advocates even in our enlightened age,—rendered all progress impossible. Maladies were largely attributed to the influence of spirits or to the possession of devils, to be exorcised by prayer, holy water, the application of relics, the invocation of saints. The superstitions inherited from Pagan antiquity, and of incalculable potency in their action upon the minds of the multitude, were a source of great revenue to the clergy. Among the vast number of holy men whose names fill the pages of the Roman Catholic calendar there were many individuals whose intercession was considered especially efficacious in the treatment of certain diseases. The policy of the Church, which lost no opportunity of impressing the fancy of its votaries, even went so far as to expel from the constellations of the zodiac the familiar forms of the ancients, and to substitute in their stead representations of cenobites and martyrs, the piety of whose lives, often of questionable authenticity, had obtained for them the honor of canonization. The identification of the treatment of disease with religious ceremonial, and indirectly with celestial interference, conferred upon the priesthood a new and formidable weapon of spiritual power. Their influence, already great at the bedside of the sick and the dying, soon became paramount. To the weight which their ecclesiastical functions imposed, they added the dictatorial manner which is essential to the successful ministrations of the physician. They collected enormous fees. They disposed of estates. Often, in the very presence of death, they engaged in unseemly disputes over the division of the spoil. They forced the afflicted to the most humiliating compliances. Profoundly ignorant of the nature of disease and its cure, they supplied their glaring deficiencies by the employment of every resource of imposture known to their calling. By aspersions and the exhibition of the Host they cast out demons. They removed pain with the sovereign virtues of relics. Chronic affections were treated by protracted prayer and vicarious penance. Pilgrimages to sacred localities, supplemented by frequent and generous contributions, were also of notable efficacy. The waters of certain wells and springs under the patronage of a saint, and which had been the scenes of well-attested miracles, were classed among the most popular therapeutic agents. The gift of healing, especially efficacious in cases of goitre and scrofula, with which royal personages were supposed to be endowed, was another of the delusions in which mediæval times were so remarkably prolific. This singular idea, probably of British origin, can be traced to the reign of Edward the Confessor, and was not discarded until the accession of the House of Brunswick. Its institution was undoubtedly ecclesiastical; the repetition of a religious formula accompanied the touch of the sovereign; and the practice of the ceremony at Pentecost was always a source of much edification to the multitude, and of substantial profit to the religious establishment under whose auspices it happened to be conducted.

Side by side with clerical impostors, another class of practitioners, equally ignorant and scarcely less dangerous, preyed upon the superstitious and credulous of mediæval society. These were the charlatans who posed as astrologers, alchemists, magicians. Their encroachments upon the territory of the Church, and the suspicious methods they employed, necessitated a certain degree of concealment and secrecy, but their haunts were well known to their victims. They professed to consult the appearance of the heavens, the motions of the planets, the recurrence of eclipses, the apparition of comets and meteors, in the compounding of medicines and the treatment of distempers. Celestial phenomena were thus regarded as of the highest importance in the determination of symptoms and the administration of remedies. The curative virtues of plants were entirely dependent on the position of the star under which they were gathered. A correspondence of qualities was presumed to exist between objects having the same color or form, an idea possibly as old as man himself. Hence were derived the imaginary aphrodisiacal virtues of the mandrake, and the alleged properties of red and white substances as calorifacients and refrigerants. The occupations of these pretenders, usually confined to the fleecing of their dupes, were, however, not always so innocuous. They were eminently skilled in the composition of love-philters and poisons, whose secret administration is believed to have more than once changed the succession of certain of the royal houses of Europe. The criminal history of the Middle Ages is not more remarkable for the nefarious deeds of these fraudulent practitioners than for the immunity which the possession of dangerous secrets enabled them to enjoy.

To the ministrations of these two classes—that of the ecclesiastic and that of the charlatan—was the health of Christian Europe thus committed for many centuries. A striking similarity characterized the proceedings of both. Each employed mummeries, exorcisms, incantations. Each professed to believe in the efficacy of amulets. One invoked the intercession of the saints; the other was credited with holding nightly intercourse with the spirits of the infernal world. Both, by the alleged exercise of supernatural affiliation, wielded great power, and lived in luxury at the expense of those whom they habitually deluded. While each considered the other as encroaching on his peculiar domain and an object of suspicion, a community of sentiment between them generally prevented any serious outbreak of hostility. The favor and protection of the prince was equally accorded to these two appendages of the court. One was the keeper of the royal conscience; the other was valued as an unscrupulous and ever available instrument of secret vengeance. Both at times exercised the important functions of physician. Unfortunate, indeed, was the invalid dependent upon such inadequate resources. For him there was no prospect of substantial relief; no system of intelligent treatment; no remedies but incense, relics, and the mysterious formulas of imposture; no prophylactic but the talisman; no diagnosis but the consultation of the stars; no prescription but the Pater and the Ave. In the estimation of the populace, the calling of the physician was identical with that of the necromancer. In the advice of the priest the greater confidence was reposed, his connection with the Church investing his opinions with a divine, even an infallible, sanction. When failure resulted, as was often the case, it was not attributed to inexperience and ignorance, but to neglect to propitiate the saints and the Virgin. The commonest rules of hygiene, upon which are absolutely dependent the health of communities, were habitually ignored. The streets were open sewers. The court-yards steamed with miasmatic vapors engendered by decaying garbage. Into most houses the purifying rays of the sun could never penetrate. Floors and walls alike were grimy with filth. Linen and cotton garments worn next the skin, and which contribute so much to personal comfort and cleanliness, were unknown; the Arabs, by whom they were invented, had not yet introduced them to the knowledge of Europe. The supply of water, everywhere contaminated, became a prolific source of infection. Public baths did not exist; a profane luxury of the Pagan and the Saracen, their use was contrary to the traditions of Christianity; the Gospels contain no general precepts for ablution; and its practice was abhorrent to the meditative simplicity of clerical and monastic life. The universal existence of these pathogenic conditions is alone sufficient to account for the rapid diffusion and frightful mortality of contagious diseases. Leprosy had under the filthy habits and promiscuous intercourse of the populations of the Middle Ages assumed a character of extraordinary virulence. France, at that time certainly not the least civilized country of Europe, furnishes a suggestive instance of the prevalence and disastrous effects of this incurable disorder. From the eleventh to the fourteenth century, there was not a village—scarcely a hamlet—without its lazar-house; the streets of great cities swarmed with leprous beggars in every stage of loathsome deformity; and in 1250 there were known to be two thousand leper-asylums in that kingdom,—there were nineteen thousand in Europe. The result of the disregard of sanitary precautions, and the deplorable lack of medical knowledge, is also established by the fatality of great epidemics, previously mentioned. Such was the awful penalty entailed by hatred of learning, personal neglect, and public indifference to the laws of health, conditions sedulously maintained by the policy of the papal system, whose ministers collected immense revenues from shrines, relics, amulets, and the endless paraphernalia of superstition, and discouraged, by all the insidious arts of their profession, every rational method for the prevention and treatment of disease.

In the Orient, on the other hand, great progress had early been made in the various branches of the healing art. The number of Arab physicians was prodigious. An entire volume of the biographical work of Abu-Osaibah is taken up with their names. In the city of Bagdad, at one time during the eleventh century, there were nearly nine hundred. The Nestorian school of Djondisabour had already, in the sixth century, sent forth many eminent practitioners. Some of these, in search of more extensive knowledge, travelled in India; at least one of them, Harets-Ibn-Keladah, an Arab, established himself at Mecca. From him Mohammed, who was his friend, obtained something more than the rudiments of medicine, an accomplishment which contributed greatly to his success. The Prophet attended the sick, gave consultations, and imparted his learning to his wives. He recognized the paramount importance of hygiene, and inculcated its maxims upon every occasion. “God has not caused a single disease to descend upon men without providing a remedy,” “Diet is the principle of cure, and intemperance the source of all physical ills,” were some of the aphoristical sayings whose truth he constantly impressed upon his followers. The renowned Khalif Al-Mamun was the first Moslem prince to impart a decided impulse to the study of scientific medicine. To Bagdad, his capital, which he had named the City of Peace, he attracted, by the promise of magnificent rewards, the chief professors of the medical school of Djondisabour. The fact that they were Christians was in the eyes of that great monarch no impediment to their employment or promotion. Under their intelligent direction colleges and dispensaries were established. The first hospital of which history makes mention was founded at Bagdad. The world was diligently explored for medical treatises of every description. The Greek authors were rendered into Arabic by a body of translators especially employed for that purpose. The vast importance of this intellectual movement, guided by the spirit of scientific inquiry whose conclusions were based on results obtained by observation and experiment, is disclosed by the great minds it produced and through the influence it exerted on other nations.

In medicine, as in all other sciences, the Spanish Arabs enjoyed peculiar advantages. The accumulated wisdom of the Alexandrian School was theirs by right of conquest. The learning, the inventions, and the methods of the great colleges of Djondisabour, of Bagdad, of Cairo, of Damascus, were theirs by appropriation or inheritance. Many of the most accomplished scholars of those institutions established a residence in the Peninsula, and enriched with their knowledge the already gigantic stock of scientific facts, the result of years of study and experiment by the brightest minds in the most highly intellectual and cultivated society of Europe. Neither national nor religious prejudice proscribed the fruits produced by the labors of the philosophical observer. The contributions of the skeptic, the Christian, the Jew, and the Worshipper of Fire were received with the same respect and rewarded with the same liberality as were those of the orthodox Moslem. The enterprising surgeons and pharmacists of Moorish Spain travelled, studied, and pursued their investigations in every country which promised a profitable return to their industry or their researches. The academies of the Peninsula were illumined by the genius and the erudition of such great writers and operators as the Bakhtichous, Masués, and Serapions, the Nestorian pioneers of medicine and surgery; Honein-Ibn-Ishak, Albategnius, Abu-Yusuf-al-Kendi, Tsabit-Ibn-Korra, Ibn-Bothan, Ibn-Sina, Abu-Bekr-Mohammed, of Persia; Ibn-al-Heitsam, Al-Hazen, Abul-Mena-Ibn-Naso, of Egypt; Ibn-al-Mathran, Ibn-al-Dakhnar, Ibn-Khalifa, Abd-al-Atif, Djimal-al-Dire, of Syria; Ibn-al-Djezzar, Constantine Africanus, and Edrisi, of Barbary. These names, famous in the annals of the profession, and gathered from every quarter of the Mohammedan world, are equalled if not surpassed in renown by those of Moorish Spain. The schools in the empire of Islam, already celebrated, were also rendered doubly illustrious by many other distinguished scholars of scarcely inferior ability, whose talents and discoveries produced a revolution in the practice of every department of medical science. All of the institutions where it was taught were not public. Many were established by practising physicians, who had also their private hospitals. The sons adopted the profession of their fathers for many consecutive generations, and added to the learning obtained by example and experience the natural advantages derived from the hereditary transmission of genius and skill.