TEE RENAISSANCE OF SCIENCE. 17 



Physics and Metaphysics » * * * " jfo one for fifteen hundred years has 

 been able to add anything to his writings, or to find in them an error of any 

 moment " * ♦ * " He should rather be called divine than human " » » * 

 " The doctrine of Aristotle is the sovereign truth, for his intelligence is the 

 limit of human understanding." 



A portion of this praise may be laid to the Arab habit of high sound- 

 ing eulogy which made their ruling princes, 'the Shadow of God'; 

 but the wisest of the pagans, and the christian doctors of all times, 

 have praised him in almost equivalent terms. 



Aristotle, in my opinion, stands almost alone in philosophy. — Cicero (106- 

 43 B. C). 



Aristotle, Nature's private secretary, dipping his pen in intellect. — Eusebiua 

 (264-349 A. D.). 



Whenever the divine wisdom of Aristotle has opened its mouth, the wisdom 

 of others, so it seems to me, is to be disregarded. — Dante (1265-1321). 



Aristotle was a man beside whom no age has an equal to place. — Hegel 

 (1770-1831). 



By a singular chance "the greatest of inductive philosophers became 



the hero of a recklessly deductive age" (Eobinson). By a still more 



singular chance he became the corner-stone of Eoman Catholic theology. 



The Stagirite agrees with Catholic theism, though not with the Pen- 

 tateuch, in saying that God is without parts or passions, but there his agree- 

 ment ceases. Excluding such a thing as Divine interference with all Nature, 

 his theology, of course, excludes the possibility of revelation, inspiration, 

 miracles and grace. (Benn: Greek Philosophers, i, p. 312.) 



Towards the end of the twelfth century a war on philosophy was set 

 on foot throughout the Moslem world. A theological reaction like that which 

 followed the Council of Trent (1545-63) in the Latin Church sought to conquer 

 lost territory by dint of argumentation and violence. * * * Escaping more 

 and more from the control of the Arab race, essentially skeptic in inclination, 

 islamism came by accidents of history to be the especial charge of races prone 

 to fanaticism — the Berbers, Spanish, Persians and Turks — and took on the 

 form of an austere and exclusive dogmatism. Islamism in general suffered 

 the fate which befell Catholism in Spain; which would have befallen that of all 

 Europe if the religious revival of the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the 

 seventeenth century had succeeded in stifling all national development.* 



The doctrines expounded by Arab writers were exoteric — intended 

 for the mass of men. They taught their esoteric doctrines by word 

 of mouth, or, occasionally, in works not confided to the multitude. 

 Algazel, in his 'Logic,' declares that opinions which he does not share 

 are there exposed, and that in his book on the contradictions of the 

 philosophers his true views are to be found. The problems that he 

 dismisses as insolvable in his published works are resolved in this book 

 of esoteric doctrine. Abd-el-Melik Ibn-Wahib of Seville would not 

 even converse on delicate subjects, 'so that, in his writings, one does 



* Renan : Averroes et I'averroisme, Chapter I. Like all general state- 

 ments this one requires completion in order to be exact in all its details; the 

 Persians, for instance, were never austere or dogmatic, so far as I know. 



VOL. LXIV. — 2. 



