History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume II (of 2) / Revised Edition

by John William Draper

Improvements in the arts of life.Our obligations to the Spanish Moors in the arts of life are even more marked than in the higher [43] branches of science, perhaps only because our ancestors were better prepared to take advantage of things connected with daily affairs. They set an example of skilful agriculture, the practice of which was regulated by a code of laws. Not only did they attend to the cultivation of plants, introducing very many new ones, they likewise paid great attention to the breeding of cattle, especially the sheep and horse. To them we owe the introduction of the great products, rice, sugar, cotton, and also, as we have previously observed, nearly all the fine garden and orchard fruits, together with many less important plants, as spinach and saffron. To them Spain owes the culture of silk; they gave to Xeres and Malaga their celebrity for wine. They introduced the Egyptian system of irrigation by flood-gates, wheels, and pumps. They also promoted many important branches of industry; improved the manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, iron, steel; the Toledo sword-blades were everywhere prized for their temper. The Arabs, on their expulsion from Spain, carried the manufacture of a kind of leather, in which they were acknowledged to excel, to Morocco, from which country the leather itself has now taken its name. They also introduced inventions of a more ominous kind—gunpowder and artillery. The cannon they used appeared to have been made of wrought iron. But perhaps they more than compensated for these evil contrivances by the introduction of the mariner's compass.

Their commerce.The mention of the mariner's compass might lead us correctly to infer that the Spanish Arabs were interested in commercial pursuits, a conclusion to which we should also come when we consider the revenues of some of their khalifs. That of Abderrahman III. is stated at five and a half million sterling—a vast sum if considered by its modern equivalent, and far more than could possibly be raised by taxes on the produce of the soil. It probably exceeded the entire revenue of all the sovereigns of Christendom taken together. From Barcelona and other ports an immense trade with the Levant was maintained, but it was mainly in the hands of the Jews, who, from the first invasion of Spain by Musa, had ever been the firm allies [44] and collaborators of the Arabs. Together they had participated in the dangers of the invasion; together they had shared its boundless success; together they had held in irreverent derision, nay, even in contempt, the woman-worshippers and polytheistic savages beyond the Pyrenees—as they mirthfully called those whose long-delayed vengeance they were in the end to feel; together they were expelled. Against such Jews as lingered behind the hideous persecutions of the Inquisition were directed. But in the days of their prosperity they maintained a merchant marine of more than a thousand ships. They had factories and consuls on the Tanaïs. With Constantinople alone they maintained a great trade; it ramified from the Black Sea and East Mediterranean into the interior of Asia; it reached the ports of India and China, and extended along the African coast as far as Madagascar. Even in these commercial affairs the singular genius of the Jew and Arabs shines forth. In the midst of the tenth century, when Europe was about in the same condition that Caffraria is now, enlightened Moors, like Abul Cassem, were writing treatises on the principles of trade and commerce. As on so many other occasions, on these affairs they have left their traces. The smallest weight they used in trade was the grain of barley, four of which were equal to one sweet pea, called in Arabic carat. We still use the grain as our unit of weight, and still speak of gold as being so many carats fine.

Obligations to the Khalifs of the West.Such were the Khalifs of the West; such their splendour, their luxury, their knowledge; such some of the obligations we are under to them—obligations which Christian Europe, with singular insincerity, has ever been fain to hide. The cry against the misbeliever has long outlived the Crusades. Considering the enchanting country over which they ruled, it was not without reason that they caused to be engraven on the public seal, "The servant of the Merciful rests contented in the decrees of God." What more, indeed, could Paradise give them? But, considering also the evil end of all this happiness and pomp, this learning, liberality, and wealth, we may well appreciate the solemn truth which these monarchs, in their day of pride [45] and power, grandly wrote in the beautiful mosaics on their palace walls, an ever-recurring warning to him who owes dominion to the sword, "There is no conqueror but God."

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

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

Review of the works of Alhazen.Among such writers is Alhazen; his date was about A.D. 1100. It appears that he resided both in Spain and Egypt, but the details of his biography are very confused. Through his optical works, which have been translated into Latin, he is best known to Europe. He corrects the theory of vision. He was the first to correct the Greek misconception as to the nature of vision, showing that the rays of light come from external objects to the eye, and do not issue forth from the eye, and impinge on external things, as, up to his time, had been supposed. His explanation does not depend upon mere hypothesis or supposition, but is plainly based upon anatomical investigation as well as on geometrical discussion. Determines the function of the retina. He determines that the retina is the seat of vision, and that impressions made by light upon it are conveyed along the optic nerve to the brain. Though it might not be convenient, at the time when Alhazen lived, to make such an acknowledgment, no one could come to these [46]conclusions, nor, indeed, know anything about these facts, unless he had been engaged in the forbidden practice of dissection. Explains single vision.With felicity he explains that we see single when we use both eyes, because of the formation of the visual images on symmetrical portions of the two retinas. To the modern physiologist the mere mention of such things is as significant as the occurrence of an arch in the interior of the pyramid is to the architect. But Alhazen shows that our sense of sight is by no means a trustworthy guide, and that there are illusions arising from the course which the rays of light may take when they suffer refraction or reflexion. It is in the discussion of one of these physical problems that his scientific greatness truly shines forth. Traces the course of a ray of light through the air. He is perfectly aware that the atmosphere decreases in density with increase of height; and from that consideration he shows that a ray of light, entering it obliquely, follows a curvilinear path which is concave toward the earth; and that, since the mind refers the position of an object to the direction in which the ray of light from it enters the eye, the result must be an illusion as respects the starry bodies; they appear to us, to use the Arabic term, nearer to the zenith than they actually are, and not in their true place. Astronomical refraction. We see them in the direction of the tangent to the curve of refraction as it reaches the eye. Hence also he shows that we actually see the stars, and the sun, and the moon before they have risen and after they have set—a wonderful illusion. He shows that in its passage through the air the curvature of a ray increases with the increasing density, and that its path does not depend on vapours that chance to be present, but on the variation of density in the medium. The horizontal sun and moon. To this refraction he truly refers the shortening, in their vertical diameter, of the horizontal sun and moon; to its variations he imputes the twinkling of the fixed stars. The apparent increase of size of the former bodies when they are in the horizon he refers to a mental deception, arising from the presence of intervening terrestrial objects. Explains the twilight. He shows that the effect of refraction is to shorten the duration of night and darkness by prolonging the visibility of the sun, and considering [47] the reflecting action of the air, he deduces that beautiful explanation of the nature of twilight—the light that we perceive before the rising and after the setting of the sun—which we accept at the present time as true. Determines the height of the atmosphere. With extraordinary acuteness, he applies the principles with which he is dealing to the determination of the height of the atmosphere, deciding that its limit is nearly 58 ½ miles.

All this is very grand. Shall we compare it with the contemporaneous monk miracles and monkish philosophy of Europe? It would make a profound impression if communicated for the first time to a scientific society in our own age. Nor perhaps does his merit end here. If the Book of the Balance of Wisdom, for a translation of which we are indebted to M. Khanikoff, the Russian consul-general at Tabriz, be the production of Alhazen, of which there seems to be internal proof, it offers us evidence of a singular clearness in mechanical conception for which we should scarcely have been prepared, and, if it be not his, at all events it indisputably shows the scientific acquirements of his age. The weight of the air. In that book is plainly set forth the connexion between the weight of the atmosphere and its increasing density. The weight of the atmosphere was therefore understood before Torricelli. This author shows that a body will weigh differently in a rare and in a dense atmosphere; that its loss of weight will be greater in proportion as the air is more dense. Principles of hydrostatics. He considers the force with which plunged bodies will rise through heavier media in which they are immersed, and discusses the submergence of floating bodies, as ships upon the sea. He understands the doctrine of the centre of gravity. Theory of the balance. He applies it to the investigation of balances and steelyards, showing the relations between the centre of gravity and the centre of suspension—when those instruments will set and when they will vibrate. He recognizes gravity as a force; asserts that it diminishes with the distance; but falls into the mistake that the diminution is as the distance, and not as its square. Gravity; capillary attraction; the hydrometer. He considers gravity as terrestrial, and fails to perceive that it is universal—that was reserved for Newton. He knows correctly the [48] relation between the velocities, spaces, and times of falling bodies, and has very distinct ideas of capillary attraction. He improves the construction of that old Alexandrian invention, the hydrometer—the instrument which, in a letter to his fair but pagan friend Hypatia, the good Bishop of Ptolemais, Synesius, six hundred years previously, requests her to have made for him in Alexandria, as he wishes to try the wines he is using, his health being a little delicate. Tables of specific gravities. The determinations of the densities of bodies, as given by Alhazen, approach very closely to our own; in the case of mercury they are even more exact than some of those of the last century. I join, as, doubtless, all natural philosophers will do, in the pious prayer of Alhazen, that, in the day of judgment, the All-Merciful will take pity on the soul of Abur-Raihân, because he was the first of the race of men to construct a table of specific gravities; and I will ask the same for Alhazen himself, since he was the first to trace the curvilinear path of a ray of light through the air. Though more than seven centuries part him from our times, the physiologists of this age may accept him as their compeer, since he received and defended the doctrine now forcing its way, of the progressive development of animal forms. The theory of development of organisms. He upheld the affirmation of those who said that man, in his progress, passes through a definite succession of states; not, however, "that he was once a bull, and was then changed to an ass, and afterwards into a horse, and after that into an ape, and finally became a man." This, he says, is only a misrepresentation by "common people" of what is really meant. The "common people" who withstood Alhazen have representatives among us, themselves the only example in the Fauna of the world of that non-development which they so loudly affirm. At the best they are only passing through some of the earlier forms of that series of transmutations to which the devout Mohammedan in the above quotation alludes.

The Arabians, with all this physical knowledge, do not appear to have been in possession of the thermometer, though they knew the great importance of temperature [49] measures, employing the areometer for that purpose. They had detected the variation in density of liquids by heat, but not the variation in volume. In their measures of time they were more successful; they had several kinds of clepsydras. A balance clepsydra is described in the work from which I am quoting. The pendulum clock. But it was their great astronomer, Ebn Junis, who accomplished the most valuable of all chronometric improvements. He first applied the pendulum to the measure of time. Laplace, in the fifth note to his Systeme du Monde, avails himself of the observations of this philosopher, with those of Albategnius and other Arabians, as incontestable proof of the diminution of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. Astronomical works of Ebn Junis. He states, moreover, that the observation of Ebn Junis of the obliquity of the ecliptic, properly corrected for parallax and refraction, gives for the year A.D. 1000 a result closely approaching to the theoretical. He also mentions another observation of Ebn Junis, October 31, A.D. 1007, as of much importance in reference to the great inequalities of Jupiter and Saturn. The Arabic numerals. I have already remarked that, in the writings of this great Arabian, the Arabic numerals and our common arithmetical processes are currently used. From Africa and Spain they passed into Italy, finding ready acceptance among commercial men, who recognised at once their value, and, as William of Malmesbury says, being a wonderful relief to the "sweating calculators;" an epithet of which the correctness will soon appear to any one who will try to do a common multiplication or division problem by the aid of the old Roman numerals. It is said that Gerbert—Pope Sylvester—was the first to introduce a knowledge of them into Europe; he had learned them at the Mohammedan university of Cordova. It is in allusion to the cipher, which follows the 9, but which, added to any of the other digits, increases by tenfold its power, that, in a letter to his patron, the Emperor Otho III., with humility he playfully but truly says, "I am like the last of all the numbers."

Arabian philosophy.The overthrow of the Roman by the Arabic numerals foreshadowed the result of a far more important—a political—contest between those rival names. But, [50] before showing how the Arabian intellect pressed upon Rome, and the convulsive struggles of desperation which Rome made to resist it, I must for a moment consider the former under another point of view, and speak of Saracen philosophy. The writings of Algazzali. And here Algazzali shall be my guide. He was born A.D. 1058.

Let us hear him speak for himself. He is relating his attempt to detach himself from the opinions which he had imbibed in his childhood: "I said to myself, 'My aim is simply to know the truth of things; consequently, it is indispensable for me to ascertain what is knowledge.' Now it was evident to me that certain knowledge must be that which explains the object to be known in such a manner that no doubt can remain, so that in future all error and conjecture respecting it must be impossible. The certitude of knowledge. Not only would the understanding then need no efforts to be convinced of certitude, but security against error is in such close connexion with knowledge, that, even were an apparent proof of falsehood to be brought forward, it would cause no doubt, because no suspicion of error would be possible. Thus, when I have acknowledged ten to be more than three, if any one were to say, 'On the contrary, three is more than ten, and to prove the truth of my assertion, I will change this rod into a serpent,' and if he were to change it, my conviction of his error would remain unshaken. His manœuvre would only produce in me admiration for his ability. I should not doubt my own knowledge.