Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

The study of scientific progress requires us again to notice the wonderful use which Providence makes of the three original elements of post-diluvian humanity in the execution of infinite designs. The Arabians were a Shemitic race, raised into power in near neighborhood to the heritage of Ham, and were the contributors of numerous mental stores which were happily adapted yet further to augment the superiority of Japhet. These children of Ishmael existed at a gloomy period, and performed a most important work. They drew from the last living sources of Grecian wisdom, and directed numerous new tributaries into the great central current of civilization.

Arabia is the most westerly of the three peninsulas of southern Asia, a position remarkably favorable to political influence and commercial enterprise. The Mohammedans were an energetic and intelligent people, whose ancestors led a nomadic life for more than a thousand years; but from the middle of the ninth century they rose rapidly in the appreciation and extension of ennobling science. The same race who, two centuries before, had fearfully ravaged the great conservatory of learning at Alexandria, themselves became the most ardent admirers of the muses, and were unequaled proficients in the very studies they had previously, in their bigoted fury, so nearly annihilated. They garnered Greek manuscripts with the greatest assiduity, and became sufficiently masters of their import, to set a proper estimate on these valuable relics of ancient knowledge.

To the Arabian mathematicians, we are indebted for most valuable improvements in arithmetic, if not in fact for its invention. They also transmitted to Europe the knowledge of algebra; and rendered still more important service to geometrical science, by preserving many works of the ancients, which, but for them, had been inevitably lost. The elements of Euclid, with other valuable treatises, were all transmitted to posterity by their means. The Arabian mathematicians of the middle ages were the first to apply to trigonometry the method of calculation which is now generally adopted. Astronomy, optics, and mechanics were cultivated with no less success; and to the Arabs especially must be accredited the origin of chemistry, that science which has been productive of so many invaluable results. This gave them a better acquaintance with nature than the Greeks or the Romans ever possessed, and was applied by them most usefully to all the necessary arts of life. "Alchemy" is an Arabic term, denoting a knowledge of the substance or composition of a thing. The transmutation of common metals into gold and silver, and the discovery of a universal medicine, were futile pursuits; but they led to the method of preparing alcohol, aqua-fortis, volatile alkali, vitriolic acid, and many other chemical compounds, which might have remained much longer unknown but for the persevering labors and patient experiments of the mediæval alchemists.

History records many laudable efforts on the part of the Arabians in cultivating the natural sciences. Abou-al-Ryan-Byrouny, who died in the year 941, traveled forty years for the purpose of studying mineralogy; and his treatise on the knowledge of precious stones, is a rich collection of facts and observations. Aben-al-Beïthar, who devoted himself with equal zeal to the study of botany, traversed all the mountains and plains of Europe, in search of plants. He afterward explored the burning wastes of Africa, for the purpose of describing such vegetables as can support the fervid heat of that climate; and finally passed into the remote countries of Asia. The animals, vegetables, and fossils common to the three great portions of earth then known, underwent his personal inspection; and he returned to his native West loaded with the spoils of the South and East.

Nor were the arts cultivated with less success, or less enriched by the progress of natural philosophy. A great number of inventions which, at the present day, add to the comforts of life, are due to the Arabians. Paper is an Arabic production. It had long, indeed, been made from silk in China, but Joseph Amrou carried the process of paper-making to his native city, Mecca,A. D. 649, and caused cotton to be employed in the manufacture of it first in the year 706. Gunpowder was known to the Arabians at least a century before it appeared in European history; and the compass also was known to them in the eleventh century. From the ninth to the fourteenth century, a brilliant light was spread by literature and science over the vast countries which had submitted to the yoke of Islamism. But the boundless regions where that power once reigned, and still continues supreme, are at present dead to the interests of science. Deserts of burning sand now drift where once stood their academies, libraries, and universities; while savage corsairs spread terror over the seas, once smiling with commerce, science, and art. Throughout that immense territory, more than twice as large as Europe, which was formerly subjected to the power of Islamism, and enriched by its skill, nothing in our day is found but ignorance, slavery, debauchery and death.

Herein we have a striking illustration of the wonder-working of Providence. At a time when the nations of Europe were sunk in comparative barbarism, the Arabians were the depositaries of science and learning; when the Christian states were in infancy, the fair flower of Islamism was in full bloom. Nevertheless, the sap of the Mohammedan civilization was void of that vitality and of those principles which alone insure eternal progress, therefore was it requisite that the whole system should be transferred and exhausted on a more productive field, in order to secure the desired end.

The Arabians were the aggressive conservators of talent rather than the productive agents of genius; and it must be confessed that they neither had the presentiment, nor have been direct harbingers of any of the great inventions which have placed modern society so far above the ancients. They greatly aggregated and improved the details of knowledge, but discovered none of the fundamental solutions which have totally changed the scientific world. At the needful moment, a new system came suddenly into existence, and spread rapidly from the Indus to the Tagus, under the victorious crescent. Apparently indigenous in every clime, its monuments arose in India, along the northern coast of Africa, and among the Moors in Spain. At Bagdad and Cairo, Jerusalem and Cordova, Arabian taste and skill flourished in all their magnificence. It is said that no nation of Asia, Africa, or Europe, either ancient or modern, has possessed a code of rural regulations more wise, just, and perfect, than that of the Arabians in Spain; nor has any nation ever been elevated by the wisdom of its laws, the intelligence, activity, and industry of its inhabitants, to a higher pitch of agricultural prosperity. Agriculture was studied by them with that perfect knowledge of the climate, the soil, and the growth of plants and animals, which can alone reduce empirical experience into a science. Nor were the arts cultivated with less success, or less enriched by the progress of natural philosophy. What remains of so much glory? Probably not ten persons living are in a situation to take advantage of the manuscript treasures which are inclosed in the library of the Escurial. Of the prodigious literary riches of the Arabians, what still exist are in the hands of their enemies, in the convents of the monks, or in the royal collections of the West. The instant they had brought forward all the wealth of the East, and planted it where by a fruitful amalgamation great and wide benefits could be produced, then Charles Martel, the hammer, heading the progressive progeny of Japhet, broke down the might of Shem, and repelled his offspring forever toward the sombre domain and fortunes of Ham.

In this connection, we should consider the use which Providence made of Feudalism, that great military organization of the middle ages. It pre-eminently conduced to greater centralization and unity among civilizing powers. After having destroyed the majesty and influence of the Germanic and imperial royalty which Pepin and Charlemagne had revived over the ruins of the Roman world, it rapidly declined and gave place ultimately to popular liberty. "Feudality," says Guizot, "has been a first step out of barbarism—the passage from barbarism to civilization: the most marked character of barbarism is the independence of the individual—the predominance of individualism; in this state every man acts as he pleases, at his own risk and peril. The ascendancy of the individual will and the struggle of individual forces, such is the great fact of barbarian society. This fact was limited and opposed by the establishment of the feudal system of government. The influence alone of territorial and hereditary property rendered the individual will more fixed and less ordered; barbarism ceased to be wandering; and was followed by a first step, a surpassing step toward civilization."

Feudalism engendered new institutions, and they entered deeply into the spirit of progress. Such were, for example, the Court of Peers and the Establishments of St. Louis, wherein the first trial was made toward a uniform legislation for the whole nation. The Crusades form also a conspicuous feature in the political activity of the Japhetic nations during the middle ages. The great movement that induced western Europe to rush to the East had, by no means, the expected results; yet its consequences became numerous and beneficial. Oppressing Shem was repulsed in a new direction, and great wealth of science was attained through his avaricious and violent hands. Thus the turbulent energy of the military classes, which threatened the progress of civilization, was exhausted in a distant land; and at the same time the different races of Europe were made to know each other better, and to banish all mental hostility, by uniting in one uniform devotion to a lofty design. Another great consequence of the Crusades was the change of territorial property, the sale of the estates of the nobles, and their division among a great number of smaller proprietors. Hence the feudal aristocracy was weakened, and the lower orders arose with acquired immunities, ennobled by the spirit of independence, and protected by municipal laws.

To excel in arms, not in arts, was the ambition of the crusading knights; and if they gazed for a while with stupid amazement upon the classic treasures of the East, it was only to calculate the vastness of their booty, and to collect force for the campaign. Blind frenzy often characterized the instruments, but infinite wisdom was in the purpose which governed them. The Crusades contributed to the stability of governments, the organization of institutions, the cultivation of arts, the emancipation of thought, and the enlargement of the various realms of science. Had they not accomplished the needful preparation, under the guidance of Providence, the influx of literature into Europe consequent upon the fall of Constantinople would have been worse than in vain. It was, therefore, wisely ordained that these romantic expeditions should not be occasions for the acquisition of knowledge which would transcend the capacities of its agents; but of preparatory changes fitted to facilitate the adaptation and profitable application of eastern elements, when, on the vast expanse of the West, the full time should arrive for them to be completely introduced. The Crusades tended to confirm and extend pre-existing impressions; to import rather than to originate knowledge. For any considerable proficiency in literature or art, unknown to pilgrims in the East, we search in vain previous to the fifteenth century; but, as we have seen, their importations of scientific elements were neither few nor small. If the twelfth and thirteenth centuries were the age of the Crusades, the following two were not less the age of improvement growing out of the conflicts in Palestine. They were perpetuated as the popular watchword of chivalry and theme of romance, till Tasso embodied the thrilling annals in his immortal poem, which even in his age ceased not to glow in the common mind. Nor was the fourteenth century in the least a vacuum between the Crusades and the revival of literature and science; it was but slightly productive in original material, but its spirit was permeating, and formed a necessary link between cause and effect, be the connection however remote. Such is the golden thread which extends through all the web of passing events, leading on to the accomplishment of one grand design. In like manner, minstrels formed an integrant part of the Crusade retinue, by whose happy interposition a more than imaginary union was formed between martial exploits and poetical conceptions. Thenceforth the recollection of those enthusiastic adventures summoned up a train of highly romantic associations, by which the ideal world was greatly enlarged and peopled with new orders of captivating creatures, capable of an endless series of fruitful suggestions. Furthermore, the occupation of the eastern empire was productive of much advantage to the mental culture of the West. Persecuted scholars sought refuge and employment beyond the Alps, where they repaid the hospitality they received with such wisdom as they possessed.