SCHOLASTIC PRELUDE TO MODERN SCIENCE. 739 



retired from the field. Three thousand disciples carried Abelard's 

 fame and doctrine into every country of Europe. But the rage for 

 definition and dialectics led Abelard into the heresies of Beren^ar and 

 Roscelin, and he was silenced and consigned to the cloister. 



These controversies had fairly roused the spirit of metaphysics, and 

 several champions appeared on either side : when an unexpected dis- 

 covery added tenfold fuel to the flame. 



Athens had been for centuries the university of the Roman world. 

 The narrow policy of Justinian closed her schools, and the teachers 

 were scattered throughout the world. A learned colony had settled 

 at Edessa on the borders of Syria and Mesopotamia, and founded a 

 flourishing school of Greek science and philosophy. In process of time 

 Edessa fell before the conquering Moslem. The dynasty of the Abas- 

 sides came from Khorassan, where learning had long been held in 

 honor. Almanzor, and his successor Haroun-al-Raschid, founded 

 schools at Bagdad, and diligently sought out the monuments of Greek 

 learning, and caused them to be translated into Arabic ; and its liter- 

 ature was enriched by translations of the Greek works on mathemat- 

 ics, astronomy, mechanics, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, Dios- 

 corides, and especially Aristotle and the neo-Platonists. 



Africa and Spain rejected the Abasside dynasty, but equally culti- 

 vated the arts and sciences. Colleges and schools were founded in 

 every city of Spain. Magnificent libraries contained translations of 

 all the Greek masterpieces. Thus for three centuries, while Europe 

 was plunged into the lowest depth of barbarism, the arts and the sci- 

 ences flourished in the Mohammedan world from Khorassan to the 

 Ebro. Then arose a great series of Moslem doctors and philosophers, 

 Alkendi, Alfarabi, Gazali, and especially Ibn-Sina, Ibn-Badja, Ibn- 

 Thofail, and Ibn-Roshd, known to the infidels respectively as Avicenna, 

 Avempace, Abubazer, and Averroes. These men annotated and com- 

 mented upon the entire works of Aristotle. 



The same spirit of inquiry agitated the Jewish world. In the 

 eighth century the Karaites broke away from the Talmud, and asserted 

 the right of reason to judge faith. To combat the growing heresy, 

 the school of Sora was founded near Bagdad, and they were equally 

 obliged to cultivate dialectics. Saadia (892-943) made a strong effort 

 to reconcile reason and revelation. 



The Jews in Spain were equally active, and the philosophy of Ibn- 

 Gebirol (Avicebron), rejected by his own nation, convulsed the Chris- 

 tian schools. In the twelfth century an orthodox reaction began. 

 Juda Hallevi denied the power of reason to judge religious mysteries. 

 Jewish philosophy reached its highest point in Moses Maimonides. 



Thus, by a curious coincidence the Jewish, the Christian, and the 

 Mohammedan worlds were simultaneously immersed in dialectics, and 

 agitated and convulsed by the perennial conflict between reason and 

 faith. 



