X. DUCTION SCIENCES. tises of AL GAZEL, and several other of the Arabian CHAP. compositions, have been printed in Latin translations, and are therefore accessible to all. Of these, I have INTRObeen most impressed with the genius and reasonings OF THE of the latter." Al Gazel's philosophy is of the best ARABIAN sort; it exhibits all the Arabian acuteness, injured only by the categories of the Peripatetic school. It aspires to establish the noble principles of the creating Deity; 12 and the immortality of the human soul. When Proclus reasons, you have an obscure subtlety, a labyrinth of phrase, which at times defies comprehension, and seems worthless when understood. In Al Gazel, you see a philosopher reasoning as subtilely, "The Logica and Philosophia of AL GAZEL are printed in one volume, Venice 1506. In this work is the following passage: We say that all utility is vile in comparison of eternal felicity-the felicity of another life. This happiness must depend on the perfection of the soul; which will consist of two things-purity and ornament. To be pure, the soul must be purged from all sordid manners, and be kept from all base phantasies. For its adorning, the certainty of truth should be so depicted on it, as that divine truths may be revealed to it. The mind is a mirror, which cannot be perfect unless the most beautiful forms appear in it.' 12 Al Gazel concludes a chain of subtle reasoning thus It follows, then, that the source of all things is that which is necesse per se; which is ONE entirely; and whose being is from itself. So that HE is the true and pure Being in himself, and the origin of every other. He therefore is perfect and the most perfect. All things whatsoever have their existence from HIM, and the comparison of other beings to HIS Being, is as the comparison of the light of other bodies to the glory of the sun: For the sun shines by itself, and not by another illumining it. As that is the fountain of light to all lucidity, so with HIм, the first Being, are the keys of all science, and from HIM proceed the wisdom and knowlege of every thinking being. He who is blessed for ever, knows all the possible and the contingent. Nothing is so small as to escape HIS notice. But for HIS Comprehension, there is no comparison. Angels are always in the contemplation of HIS perfections, and therefore their delight has no end. From their propinquity to the Lord of Ages, their joy transcends our joy. To obey IIIм, to behold HIM, to love HIм, constitutes their glory and their felicity-and when we shall be separated from this body by death, our enjoyment will be as perfect. That which is now hidden will then be revealed; our happiness will continue for ever; we shall attain to the sublimest truths, and we shall be the companions of the angels in their propinquity to the PRIMEVAL TRUE ONE, not in locality merely, but in affection and beneficence. This passage is taken from Al Gazel's chapter' on the Cause of Universal Being, which is Deus altissimus.' VI. ENGLAND. BOOK but more closely than the Greek, and always with in telligible thought, and from correct facts. He is ever LITERARY striving to base his reasoning on experimental truths. HISTORYOE His work at the same time exercises and improves the understanding, and kindles an ardent curiosity for natural knowlege.13 Some of the Arabian students in time abused their own acuteness, by supporting opinions averse from true philosophy, and incompatible with the happiness of society. These mistaken men, perverting the minds and corrupting the principles of many, excited the disapprobation of the better part of their own people, and made science disreputable and suspected. The jealousy of their government, and the bigotry of their priesthood, were influenced by a perception of the mischief. Persecution followed, and their philosophy ruined itself by its abuse. Turkish barbarism despised it in the East; the brutal savageness of the Moorish temper extinguished it in Africa; and the expulsion of the Mohamedans from Spain, banished it from Europe. The love of knowlege has now wholly deserted the Mussulman mind, and we only know of what the genius of Arabia has been capable, from the dusty treasures of our libraries,15 which 14 13 Al Gazel was called by his countrymen the Imam Alalem, or the Imaum of the world-the man who practised what he taught who of all others feared most to offend his Maker-the Doctor of the spiritual world. Being once asked how he had acquired his extraordinary knowlege, he answered, by never having been ashamed to inquire when I was ignorant.' D'Herbelot, voc. Gazali. 14 Thus Ehl Eltabkek taught that there was no God but the four ele ments-no soul and no life after the present. Abu Moslema was one of his followers. So the Zindikites asserted that there was no Providence, and no resurrection, and that all which we see, and all that exists, is the Deity. Piet. de la Valle. Bayle, 1. p. 38; 3. p. 2767. 15 When I observe how rich the Bodleian library is in Arabic MSS. I am surprised that no one out of its numerous students has attempted to give from them an intelligent history of Arabian literature and science, as the French have done in their Notice des MSS.' X. we, forgetful of our great benefactors, and proud of CHAP. our superior affluence, never pause to examine, and rarely condescend to praise.10 16 INTRO DUCTION OF THE SCIENCES. Some of the Arabians and Persians also cultivated, tho not with much frequency or enthusiasm, NATU- ARABIAN RAL HISTORY. Abu Rehan, a Persian, who is stated Their to have travelled forty years in India, wrote on pre- Natural cious stones. He had been taught by the Bramins, History. and understood the languages both of Hindostan and Greece." Others writ on gems and trees; and several on animals.18 One on hawks and hunting. They were more elaborate in their treatises on agriculture. Ebu Auan collected from every source the best information on this subject.19 AVICENNA, amid the multiplicity of his studies, observed and wrote on animals; and his work was translated into Latin by the celebrated magician or conjurer of the middle ages, but who was really more 16 It may be useful to add the times in which some of the chief Arabian philosophers lived: Albumazar died A.C. 894. 17 He lived in the tenth century.-Casiri Bib. 332. 19 Casiri has given a good and full account of the Arabian writers on agriculture, p. 323. One author places the first use of COFFEE at Mecca, in 859. The Arabs called it Cahue, from a word signifying abstinence, because it enabled them to bear watchings and hunger. Ib 173. Casiri Bib. 48-51; and Pref. p. 9. BOOK a wizard in his attainments than in his powers.20 In this the Arabian philosopher has curiously marked LITERARY the moral difference of animals.21 Some of his obserHISTORY OF vations are peculiar,22 but these works have the interest of shewing us the vast superiority of modern science. ENGLAND. His treatise on the SOUL was highly estimated,23 and is certainly superior to any former philosophical work on that subject. It contains a few physical observations, and much Arabian acuteness, but is too much in the scholastic style of thought and 24 20 This was the redoubted Michael Scot. The printed title of the work expresses it to be 'The book of Avicenna on Animals, translated from Arabic into Latin by Magister Michael Scot,' who thus addresses it to the German emperor: Frederic! Lord; Emperor of the World! receive, devoté, this book of Michael Scot. May it be a grace to thy head and a torques to thy neck!' 6 21 Thus: Some animals have very little anger, as the cow; others shew vehement folly and sharp rage, as the boar: some are pious and clean, as the camel; or cunning in their wicked motions, like the serpent. Lions are brave and magnanimous. Wolves, strong, ingenious, surly and savage. Foxes display ingenuity, but with evil designs. Dogs have fury, but are laborious, and are useful to men. Some animals are very astute and familiar, as apes and elephants. Others bashful and cautious, as the goose. Some, like the peacock, are envious and great admirers of their own beauty; and others, like the camel and the ass, have very good memories. Avic. de Animal. p. 29. 22 He attempts Physiognomy: The eyes chiefly shew the character of the soul. If the lacrymale domesticum is of a moderate size, it marks astuteness: if it has much flesh, as sometimes in the kite, it shews an evil subtlety. He who has eyebrows hanging over, is envious. Middlingsized eyes indicate goodness and purity. If extending forwards, they shew a fool; if deep-seated, subtlety. A man who can keep his eyes open a long time without a feeling of shame, is silly. Tremulous eyes imply levity of mind.' Avicenna Animal. p. 29. He refers to his master, Aristotle, the opinion that the arteries begin from the heart; and to others, that the veins originate from the liver. He remarks that after he is 40 days old the infant can laugh, and that this is the first action which the rational soul performs in his body. After two months the babe dreams. Avic. Anim. p. 9. 23 The Latin translation thus closes: Here ends the golden work on the Soul, of Avicenna; corrected diligently, and ended at Padua, by two regular canons of St. Augustin's monastery.' 24 Thus he remarks on the lucid phosphorence of some bodies, that the - particles of rotten oak, some worms, and a few insects, shine in the dark; so do the eyes of lions and serpents; and says, I have seen an hen's egg, a dead locust, and a dead caterpillar, exhibit this effect.' p. 11. reasoning to be interesting or useful now. Some brief CHAP. notices of it will be inserted in the notes.25 X. DUCTION SCIENCES. The Arabs were acquainted with the property of INTROthe MAGNET to turn towards the north, and had ap- OF THE plied it to navigation in the twelfth century. But ARABIAN whether it was their own discovery, or derived from Egypt, India, or China, or elsewhere, has not yet become known.26 They studied the Greek ARITHMETIC.27 25 He considers the powers of the mind to be of three sorts: 1st. The vegetative, which causes the first perfection of its natural and instrumental body in its growth and nutrition. 2d. The sensitive, which is capable of apprehending particular things and moves the will. 3d. The rational soul, which deliberates and forms universal notions, judges and acts. The vegetative has three forces, the nutritive, the augmentative and the generative. The sensitive two general ones; the motive and the apprehending. The motive power commands and comprises the vis appetiva and desiderativa, and the irascibilis. The apprehending is twofold; that which acts externally by its senses, and that which acts internally in its apprehensions of sensible forms and of the intentiones sensibilium, or that which the soul apprehends de sensibili, altho the exterior sense should not perceive it. Thus the sheep conceives the intentio, the reason why it ought to fear the wolf and to fly from him, altho his sense does not in any manner feel it. He distinguishes the imaginativa of the mere vital soul from the cogitiva of the rational or human one, and considers this to be a faculty stationed in the middle cavity of the brain. He places the memorial power in its posterior cavity. He defines imagination to be that which abstracts the form from the matter; so that whether the material subject were absent or destroyed, the being of its form would be permanent in the imagination. He maintains that the soul does not cease to be at death, and that it does not transmigrate into other bodies; and he thinks that it vivifies the animal from the heart.He opposes those who say that the brain is every thing. He gives to the liver the regulation of the nutritive force, but considers the heart to be the first principle from which that chiefly flows, and by which the other actions are done in the limbs and even the principium sensus. Avic. de An. P. 1-28. 26 On reading the treatise of ALBERTUS MAGNUS on the loadstone, I found its polar tendency thus mentioned there. He says, that in a book of stones, which had Aristotle's name, but of which he had only seen some extracts, it is said, 'That a corner of the magnet had the property of taking iron ad Zoron, that is, to the north, and that sailors used it. The opposite corner draws it ad Afron, that is, to the south; and if we bring iron near to the Zoron point, the iron turns itself to the north; and if the opposite one, it moves itself directly to the south,' Alb. Mag. de Mineralibus, p. 12. It is a mistake of Cavallo to say, that the compass is men- · tioned by the Islandic Ara Frode. Alfarabius mentions this in his Opusculun de Scientiis: Et alia |