4. Ibn Khaldûn comes forward with a claim to establish a new philosophical discipline, of which Aristotle had no conception. Philosophy is the science of what exists, developed from its own principles or reasons. But what the Philosophers advance, about the high Spirit-world and the Divine Essence, does not correspond thereto: that which they say on these subjects is incapable of proof. We know our world of men much better; and a more certain deliverance may be given regarding it, by means of observation [[204]]and inner mental experience. Here facts permit of being authenticated, and their causes discovered. Now, so far as the latter process is feasible in History, i.e. so far as historical events are capable of being traced back to their causes, and historical laws capable of being discovered, History deserves actually to be called Science and a part of Philosophy. Thus the idea of History as Science clearly emerges. It has nothing to do with curiosity, frivolousness, general benefit, edifying effect &c. It should, although in the service of the higher purposes of life, determine nothing except facts, endeavouring to find out their causal nexus. The work must be done in a critical, unprejudiced spirit. The governing principle which rules here is this,—that the cause corresponds to the effect,—that is to say, that like events presuppose the same conditions, or, that under the same circumstances of civilization the like events will occur. Now, as it is a probable assumption that the nature of men and of society undergoes no change by the advance of time, or no considerable change, a living comprehension of the present is the best means of investigating the past. That which is fully known and is under our very eyes permits us to form retrospective conclusions in regard to the less fully known events of an earlier time: it promises even a glance into the future. In every instance, therefore, tradition must be tested by the present; and if it tells us of things which are impossible now, we must for that very reason doubt its truth. Past and Present are as like one another as two drops of water. If understood absolutely, that might have been said even by Ibn Roshd. But according to Ibn Khaldûn it is only quite generally valid as a principle of research. In detail it [[205]]suffers many a limitation; and in any case it has itself to be established by facts.
5. What then is the subject of History as a philosophical discipline? Ibn Khaldûn answers that it is the Social life,—the collective, material and intellectual culture of Society. History has to show how men work and provide themselves with food, why they contend with each other and associate in larger communities under single leaders, how at last they find in a settled life leisure for the cultivation of the higher arts and sciences, how a finer culture comes into bloom in this way out of rude beginnings, and how again this in time dies away.
The forms of Society which replace one another are, in the opinion of Ibn Khaldûn; 1) Society in the Nomad condition; 2) Society under a Military Dynasty; and 3) Society after the City type. The first question is that of food. Men and nations are differentiated by their economical position, as nomads, settled herdsmen, agriculturists. Want leads to rapine and war, and to subjection to a monarch who will lead them. Thus dynastic authority is developed. This again founds for itself a city, where division of labour or mutual assistance produces prosperity. But this prosperity leads to degenerate idleness and luxury. Labour has in the first place brought about prosperity; but now, at the highest stage of civilization, men get others to labour for them, and often without any direct equivalent, because regard or even servility to the upper classes, and extortionate treatment of the lower, secure success. But, all the same, men are coming to depend upon others. Needs are always growing more clamant, and taxes more oppressive. Rich spendthrifts and tax-payers grow poor, and [[206]]their unnatural life makes them ill and miserable.[1] The old warlike customs have been refined away, so that people are no longer capable of defending themselves. The bond,—formed by a sense of belonging to one community, or the bond of Religion,—by the help of which the necessity and the will of the chief knit the individual members together in older days, is relaxed, for the citizens are not pious. Everything, therefore, is ready to break up from within. And then appears a new and powerful nomad race from the desert, or a people not so greatly over-civilized, but possessed of a firmer public spirit; and it falls upon the effeminate city. Thereafter a new State is formed, which appropriates the material and intellectual wealth of the old culture, and the same history is repeated. It fares with States and the larger associations of men, just as with single families: their history is brought to a close, in from three to six generations. The first generation founds; the second maintains, as perhaps the third or even farther generations also do; the last demolishes. That is the cycle of all civilization.
6. According to August Müller the theory of Ibn Khaldûn is in conformity with the history of Spain, West Africa and Sicily, from the eleventh to the fifteenth century,—from the study of which, in fact, it was taken. His own historical work is a compilation, it is true. In detail he is often at fault, when he criticizes tradition with the help of his theory; but there is an abundance of fine psychological [[207]]and political observation in his philosophical Introduction, and as a whole it is a masterly performance. The ancients never dealt thoroughly with the problem of History. They have bequeathed to us great works of art in their historical compositions, but no philosophical establishment of History as a Science. That mankind, though existing from all eternity, long failed to attain to much of the higher civilization, was explained by elementary occurrences, such as earthquakes, floods, and the like. On the other hand Christian philosophy regarded History with its vicissitudes as the realization of, or the preparation for, the kingdom of God upon the earth. Now Ibn Khaldûn was the first to endeavour,—with full consciousness and in a statement amply substantiated,—to derive the development of human society from proximate causes. The conditions of race, climate, production of commodities, and so on, are discussed, and are set forth in their effect upon the sensuous and intellectual constitution of man and of society. In the course which is run by civilization he finds an intimate conformity to Law. He searches everywhere for natural causes, with the utmost completeness which was possible for him. He also asserts his belief that the chain of causes and effects reaches its conclusion in an Ultimate Cause. The series cannot go on without end, and therefore we argue that there is a God. But this deduction, as he calls it, properly means this,—that we are not in a position to become acquainted with all things and the manner of their operation: it is virtually a confession of our ignorance. Conscious ignorance is even a kind of knowledge; but knowledge should be pursued, as far as possible. In clearing the way for his new science, [[208]]Ibn Khaldûn considers that he has merely indicated the main problems, and merely suggested generally the method and the subject of the science. But he hopes that others will come after him to carry on his investigations and propound fresh problems, with sound understanding and sure knowledge.
Ibn Khaldûn’s hope has been realized, but not in Islam. As he was without forerunners, he remained without successors. But yet his work has been of lasting influence in the East. Many Muslim statesmen who, from the fifteenth century onwards, drove so many a European sovereign or diplomatist to despair, had studied in our philosopher’s school.
2. The Arabs and Scholasticism.
1. To the victor belongs the bride. In the wars which were waged in Spain between Christians and Muslims, the former had often come under the influence of the attractions of Moorish fair ones. Many a Christian knight had celebrated “the nine-days’ religious rite” with a Moorish woman. But besides material wealth and sensual enjoyment, the charm of intellectual culture had also its effect upon the conqueror. And Arab Science thus presented the appearance of a lovely bride to the eyes of many men who felt their want of knowledge.
It was the Jews especially who played the part of matchmakers in the transaction. The Jews had participated in all the transformations of Muslim intellectual culture: many of them wrote in Arabic, and others translated Arabic writings into Hebrew; not a few philosophical works by Muslim authors owe their preservation to the latter circumstance. [[209]]
The development of this Jewish study of philosophy culminated in Maimonides (1135–1204), who sought, chiefly under the influence of Farabi and Ibn Sina, to reconcile Aristotle with the Old Testament. In part he expounded the doctrines of philosophy from the text of revelation, and in part he restricted the Aristotelian philosophy to what belongs to this earth, while a knowledge of that which is above it, had to be gained from the Word of God.