i8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



not find, as in those of other philosophers, secret matters only to be 

 expounded after they are dead. ' Avicenna explains the views of others 

 and conceals his own, and avows that beside his published works he 

 has written a treatise in which he has expounded philosophy ' according 

 to Nature and Eeason alone.' This was his Oriental Philosophy, now 

 lost, if indeed it was ever current. On this declaration of Avicenna, 

 Eoger Bacon comments : ' ' The naked truth cannot be told. Avicenna 

 well knew that the envy and pride of his rivals, and the folly of the 

 multitude forced him to speak like all the world in his published works, 

 and he knew that he could only think the pure doctrine of Science for 

 the few," The 'pure' doctrine of Avicenna was a pure pantheism — 

 God was identified with the revolving spheres. Bacon expressly 

 rejected this identification without ever knowing what Avicenna 's last 

 word was. 



Students flocked to schools wherever the desired instruction was 

 provided, as indeed, they always had done. In the sixth century 'Lis- 

 more's learned isle,' off the bleak Scottish coast of Oban, was visited 

 by scholars from every part of Europe. In the twelfth, the Moorish 

 universities held some students from countries as distant as England 

 as well as many from Italy and France. To seek for the situations 

 of the foci of learning in different centuries would be a curious inquiry. 

 The excursion would extend from Turkistan to Tunis and Toledo. 



Consider also the narrations of the voyages of travelers that began 

 to be current. Benjamin of Tudela (1173) visited regions so distant 

 as Samarkand and India. Jean Carpin, the Franciscan, was sent 

 (1246) by Pope Innocent IV. on a mission to the Tartars, and Kubru- 

 quis (1253) to the same people by St. Louis. Marco Polo returned 

 from China and India in 1295. Sir John Mandeville's travels in the 

 orient (in the middle of the fourteenth century) were recorded by him 

 in three languages and were copied everywhere in Europe. Consider, 

 also, that well traveled trade routes existed throughout the nearer east 

 and that the products of all the orient were familiar to the cities of 

 Italy and southern France. The minds of men were opened by the 

 recitals of the experiences of returning travelers. Abbey schools and 

 great universities were everywhere to be found. The learning of the 

 time was within the reach of multitudes. 



What the mathematical courses in the English universities were, 

 even in the sixteenth century, is illustrated by a curious passage from 

 the Oxford lectures of Sir Henry Savile (1549-1622) : ''By the grace 

 of God, gentlemen hearers, I have performed my promise; I have re- 

 deemed my pledge. I have explained, according to my ability the 

 definitions, postulates, axioms and the first eight propositions of the 

 Elements of Euclid ' ' — eight propositions ! Dante in the Convito gives 

 the classic scheme of studies in European universities slightly modified 



