THE DAWN OF MODERN CHEMISTRY 7 



Persia and Syria. Fortunately they were impressed by the Syrian 

 scholarship, and Syrian scholars were given place in the courts of the 

 Caliphs, and such works of the science of the ancient Greeks as were 

 in their possession were translated into Syriac and Arabic, and thus 

 such authors as Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, 

 Zosimus and Aristotle became accessible to Arabian scholars and served 

 as the foundation to the science of the Arabians. 



In the eleventh and twelfth centuries these Syrian schools were in 

 their turn suppressed by Mohammedan fanatics and the Arabians them- 

 selves became the principal guardians of ancient science. Arabian 

 translations of Greek authorities and the works of Arabian commenta- 

 tors, often translated into Latin, became the authoritative sources of 

 medieval science. So completely indeed had the original Greek works 

 disappeared from Europe that later centuries assumed that the Arabians 

 were the originators of much that they merely acquired and transmitted 

 from the ancient Greeks and Egyptians through Syrian and Arabian 

 translations. Arabian physicians, astronomers, mathematicians and 

 alchemists became the teachers of science to the Europe of the middle 

 ages. 



The original literature of the ancient world having practically 

 disappeared from Europe during the early middle ages, science and 

 philosophy had reached a low ebb. The medieval Christian Church was 

 also discouraging in its attitude toward scientific discovery and philo- 

 sophic reasoning. Clerical authorities and the scholastic learning be- 

 came more and more intolerant of dissenting opinions or any kind of 

 free thought. Stagnation in science was the consequence, especially in 

 the natural sciences. In medicine, for example, experiment and inde- 

 pendent observation hardly existed. The works of Avicenna, Averroes, 

 Mesue and other Arabian interpreters of the Greek authors Galen and 

 Hippocrates were the recognized authorities, and even in the universi- 

 ties of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the teaching of medicine 

 consisted in reading and expounding the works of these authors. The 

 works of Galen and Hippocrates themselves were indeed hardly known 

 in their original purity, but as elaborated with infusions of Arabian 

 mysticism and superstitions, symbolism and astrology. 



Other sciences exhibited similar tendencies. Astronomy had de- 

 generated from the rationality of Pythagoras or of Ptolemy into a 

 stereotyped Ptolemaism mixed with astrology. The doctrines of Aris- 

 totle as interpreted and corrupted by similar influences were the ac- 

 cepted natural philosophy. The condition of chemistry was similar. 

 While mining, metallurgy and other ancient arts of chemistry main- 

 tained their continuity in spite of barbarian invasions or Mohammedan 

 conquests, and gradually added to their store of useful facts, the 

 generalizations or theories which have always been essential to great 

 advances in science had deteriorated to a condition which might be 



