CHAPTER XI.
IN THE SCIENCES.
MARVELOUS INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF MOORS AND JEWS.—MOORS EXCEL THE JEWS IN THE SCIENCES.—THEY INTRODUCE THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES.—THEIR PROGRESS IN ASTRONOMY.—ABSURD REFUTATIONS BY THE CHRISTIAN CLERGY.—THEIR RESEARCHES INTO CHEMISTRY, ZOOLOGY AND GEOLOGY.—THEY ANTICIPATE MODERN DISCOVERIES.—EUROPE'S INGRATITUDE.
We turn next in our review of the intellectual labors of the Moors and Jews in Spain, during the period that extends from the beginning of the eighth to the end of the fifteenth century, to an examination of their position in the sciences. The deplorably benighted state of contemporaneous Europe prepares us to expect little or nothing in this noblest department of human knowledge, and our surprise is therefore so much the greater as we gaze upon, and ponder over, the mighty strides made by the Moors and by the Jews on the highways of science. The impetus in this special branch seemed to have come from the Arabs. The few words of Ali, the fourth Arabian caliph: "Eminence in science is the highest honor; he dies not who gives life to learning," seems to have taken as deep roots within the minds of the Arabians, and to have yielded far more precious fruits, than did the Koran the vast volume of his distinguished father-in-law; Mohammed.
For centuries the Arab-Moors led the world in this department. Here the Jews cannot lay claim to rivalry; they were collaborators, but nothing more. In justice to the Jews, however, we shall add, that there are some who differ from us in our conclusion. Some give to the Jews an equal rank with the Moors, others claim that the point under discussion is still debatable. And we must not treat their objection lightly. We must not forget that in treating of these scientists of Spain, we are dealing with men known under Arabic names; beyond a knowledge of their scientific works we know little or nothing about them. Concerning their religion, history maintains a commendable silence; the Mohammedans preferring, at this period, the ink of science to the blood of martyrs. Knowing of the scientific scholars nothing more than that their works are written in Arabic, and that their names are Arabic, the canons of criticism will not permit us to conclude that a scientist who writes in Arabic, and whose name is Arabic, is necessarily also a Mohammedan by faith. The records give incontestable proof that many and many of the distinguished Jewish scholars of that period wrote in Arabic, and went under an Arabic name, who, but for a chance article of work from their pen upon a Hebrew subject, might have been classed to-day as Arab-Moors by race and Mohammedan by creed. Be this as it may. That point will never be definitely settled, and as long as a doubt remains, the Arab-Moors may justly claim the benefit of the doubt, and the Jews shall be the last to contest their claims of superiority in the sciences during the Middle Ages over every other race or creed.
Entering upon our subject, and beginning at the root of the tree of science, we make the pleasing discovery that to the Arab-Moors of Spain belongs the honor of having been the first to generally introduce in Europe, for scientific and industrial and commercial purposes, the science of arithmetic. Had they achieved nothing else, the introduction of this most needful of all the branches of mathematics alone, would have entitled them to a distinguished place among the world's benefactors. That introduction was the starting point of a new progress. Its use and development made possible the higher mathematics and analytical mechanics and astronomy, and every other science discovered since, and hailed with delight. Little do we think to-day when we pride ourselves on the startling achievements of our astronomers and meteorologists and other scientists, when we speak of the miracles they work in space and time, of the ascensions they make to the remotest of the nebulæ, and of their holding communion there with stars and worlds and solar systems whose light has not yet reached the earth, little do we think when we speak of electricity obeying our every wish, and of steam yoked in our service, and of the countless other wonders of modern science, little do we think that for all these blessings we are lastingly indebted to the Arab-Moors, and to their assistants, the Jews, for their faithful labors in mathematics. Little do we think that we are pronouncing Arabic words when we speak of the "zero" or the "cipher", the "naught,"—that most important of all figures, upon which the most needful of all arithmetical contrivances is based—the decimal system. And when we remember that the prosperity and progress of every country in Europe dates from the introduction of the Arabian figures[22] and when we realize the clumsiness and uselessness of the Hebrew and Greek and Latin alphabet figures, in vogue in Europe before the entrance of the Arab-Moors into Spain, and when we try to work out a problem of multiplication, say ninety-nine multiplied by ninety-nine, in accordance with the notation of the Arabic nine digits and cipher, and then, in accordance with the Roman alphabet figures, XCIX times XCIX, then, perhaps, will we most readily give thankful praise to those to whom Europe owes so magnificent a boon—to those who, with so simple an invention, opened the avenues of prosperity and loosened the fetters that had shackled the advance of science.
Encouraged by their success in arithmetic, they turned towards a higher branch of mathematics and gave to Europe the science of numbers and quantity, and named it algebra ("al'jabara," to bind parts together). Whether, as some claim, the Arab-Moors obtained their knowledge of algebra from their schools in Bagdad or Damascus, who, in their turn, had derived it from the Hindoos, or whether, as others claim, the Jews, in their diligent translations from the early Greek geometricians into Arabic, must have come across, and followed up the algebraic trace, which is supposed to exist in the treatise of Diaphantus (350 A. C.), or whether the Moorish claim be the true one, that the honor of having invented algebra belongs to one of their own mathematicians, who flourished about the middle of the ninth century, to Mohammed ben Musa, or Moses,[23] whoever the inventors be of this valuable branch of mathematics, unanimity of opinion prevails concerning one point, and that is, the Arab-Moors and Jews first introduced algebra into Europe. Still more Ibn Musa (or Ben Moses) developed it to the solution of quadratic equations, and Ibn Ibrahim (Ben Abraham) to the solution of cubic equations, Ibn Korrah (or Ben Korah) to the application of algebra to geometry, laying thus the foundation of analytical geometry. Geometry led them to trigonometry, which they elevated to a practical science by substituting sines for chords and by establishing formulas and tables of tangents and cotangents and secants and cosecants. From trigonometry Al Baghadadi advanced to land surveying, and wrote on it a treatise so excellent, that by some it has been declared to be a copy of Euclid's lost work on that subject.
The unbiased student, who searches diligently among the achievements of the Moors and Jews, will soon detect, not only a systematic contrivance on the part of the literature of Europe to put out of sight our obligations to them in science, but a bold effort, wherever a chance presents itself, to wrest their hard toil from them, and bestow it upon some one, who is not so unfortunate as to be Saracen or Jew. But "injustice founded on religious rancor and national conceit cannot be perpetuated forever." The real truth can not be much longer hidden, and if the chapters of this volume have no other effect than simply to do justice to the memory of those who have toiled and who have suffered, that we may enjoy, to-day, the blessings of our civilization, we shall regard our labors amply rewarded.
We have digressed. Let us return to our theme. They toiled for science sake, not for fame. They looked for none. When Spain itself, indebted to them for all her blessings, repays so miserably their faithful services, why should they look to Europe for recognition? "High minds," it has been truly said, "are as little affected by such unworthy returns for services, as the sun is by those fogs which the earth throws up between herself and his light."[24]