[B. Commentators of Aristotle.]
The Arabians, moreover, made a point for the most part of studying the writings of Aristotle very diligently, and of availing themselves more especially both of his metaphysical and logical writings, and also of his Physics; they occupied themselves particularly with multiplying commentaries on Aristotle, and developing still further the abstract logical element there present. Many of these commentaries are still extant. Works of this kind are known in the West, and have been even translated into Latin and printed; but much good is not to be got from them. The Arabians developed the metaphysics of the understanding and a formal logic. Some of the famous Arabians lived as early as the eighth and ninth centuries; their progress was therefore very rapid, for the West had as yet made very little advance in culture.
Alkendi, who wrote a commentary on the Logic, flourished in and about A.D. 800, under Almamun.[7] Alfarabi died in 966; he wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s Organon, which were made diligent use of by the Scholastics, and was also author of a work “On the Origin and Division of the Sciences.” It is related of him that he read through Aristotle’s treatise On Hearing forty times, and his Rhetoric two hundred times, without getting at all tired of them;[8] he must have had a good stomach. The very physicians made a study of philosophy, and formulated theories; among them was Avicenna (b. A.D. 984, d. A.D. 1064), who belonged to Bokhara, to the east of the Caspian Sea; he wrote a commentary on Aristotle.[9] Algazel (d. A.D. 1127 at Bagdad) wrote compendiums of logic and metaphysics; he was a sceptic of great ability, with a powerful mind of the Oriental cast; he held the words of the Prophet to be pure truth, and wrote Destructio Philosophorum.[10] Tofail died in Seville in A.D. 1193.[11] Averroës, who died A.D. 1217, was specially distinguished as the commentator of Aristotle.[12]
The acquaintance of the Arabians with Aristotle has this interest in history that it was thus that Aristotle first became known also in the West. The commentaries on Aristotle and the collections of passages from his writings become thus for the Western world a fountain of philosophy. Western nations long knew nothing of Aristotle, excepting through such retranslations of his works and translations of Arabian commentaries on them. For such translations were made from Arabic into Latin by Spanish Arabs, and especially by Jews in the south of Spain and Portugal and in Africa; there was often even a Hebrew translation between.
[C. Jewish Philosophers.]
With the Arabians are closely connected the Jewish philosophers, among whom the above-mentioned Moses Maimonides held a distinguished place. He was born at Cordova, in Spain, A.D. 1131 (Anno Mundi 4891, or, according to others, 4895), and lived in Egypt.[13] Besides More Nevochim, which has been translated into Latin, he composed other works; of him and other Jews much more of a literary character might be said. In their philosophy a strong Cabalistic element, on the one hand, makes itself felt throughout, in astrology, geomancy, &c.; on the other hand, we find in Moses Maimonides, as in the Fathers, that the foundation is laid in history. He deals with this in a strictly abstract system of metaphysics, which is connected, in Philo’s fashion, with the Mosaic books and their interpretation. We find in these Jewish philosophers proofs brought forward that God is One, that the world was created, and that matter is not eternal; Maimonides also speaks of the nature of God. The unity of God is dealt with as it was among the ancient Eleatics and the Neo-Platonists; to prove, namely, that not the Many, but the self-begetting and self-abrogating One is the truth.[14]
SECTION TWO
The Scholastic Philosophy