EAST AND WEST 



157 



which were ultimately of Greek origin were re-translated into 

 Greek. For example, the most popular logical textbook of the 

 Middle Ages, the Summulce logicales of Peter of Spain (Pope 

 John XXI), was not only translated into Hebrew, but also into 

 the very language from which its main sustenance had been in- 

 directly derived. From Greek to Greek via Arabic and Latin ! 



Incidentally, this will help the reader to realize the usefulness 

 of studying ancient translations. These give us the best means of 

 appreciating the relative levels of various civilizations at definite 

 periods. We can watch their rise and fall and, so to say, measure 

 them. Streams of knowledge are constantly passing from one 

 civilization into the others, and in the intellectual, even as in the 

 material world, streams do not run upward. From a single trans- 

 lation one could deduce nothing, for its occurrence might be 

 erratic. In the past even as now it was not necessarily the best 

 writings which were translated; indeed some of the worst enjoyed 

 that distinction more than any others. But if we consider the 

 whole mass of translations, we can reconstruct the cultural ex- 

 changes and draw conclusions of the greatest interest. To return 

 to my comparison of mankind with a single man, the activity of 

 translators helps us to evoke the intellectual evolution of the 

 former: we can tell which was the dominating influence at each 

 time, and, so to say, retrace his wandering steps across the schools 

 and the academies of the old world. 



During the twelfth century the three civilizations which exerted 

 the deepest influence upon human thought and which had the 

 largest share in the molding of the future, the Jewish, the Chris- 

 tian, and the Muslim, were remarkably well balanced; but that 

 state of equilibrium could not last very long, because it was due 

 to the fact that the Muslims were going down while the two others 

 were going up. By the end of the twelfth century it was already 

 clear (that is, it would have been clear to any outside observer, 

 as it is to ourselves) that the Muslims would soon be out of the 

 race, and that the competition would be restricted to the Chris- 

 tians and the Jews. Now the latter were hopelessly jeopardized 



