1 6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



whole of Europe. "The French poems of the trouveres were, in less 

 than a century, familiar in translations into German, Swedish, Nor- 

 wegian, Icelandic, Flemish, Dutch, Bohemian, Italian and Spanish. 

 A work composed at Morocco or Cairo was known at Paris or Cologne 

 in less time than is now-a-days required for an important book pub- 

 lished in Germany to cross the Ehine" (Renan). To this intellectual 

 movement the commerce of the Jews powerfully contributed. If there 

 were any demand for a particular manuscript they promptly supplied 

 it. Books of science were, naturally, not multiplied with the same 

 rapidity as works on medicine and philosophy, but whatever demands 

 existed were supplied. A knowledge of Latin was widely spread among 

 the Jews. In the thirteenth century Solomon of Barcelona reproves 

 his co-religionaries of Provence for neglecting the study of Hebrew in 

 their eagerness to acquire the Eoman tongue. 



Civic toleration has seldom been carried further than among the 

 Arabs in Spain. Cordova was preeminently the city of learning; 

 Seville of gaiety and music. Jews, Mohammedans and Christians were 

 on the same official footing and spoke the same language. Hebrew and 

 Spanish were often written in Arabic characters. John of Seville, a 

 christian bishop, translated the Bible into Arabic. In spite of the 

 opposition of the clergy mixed marriages were not very infrequent. 

 This fact indicates that toleration had already begun to penetrate the 

 mass of the people ; yet this must not be taken as a general conclusion, 

 for at the slightest sign religious feuds broke forth. It is probably more 

 true to conclude that tolerance was the mark of liberal princes. Jews 

 and Christians had a place among the Moors so long as their interests 

 did not clash. There was no real learning among the masses in Spain 

 or in Europe in the days of ignorance. The courts of princes, on the 

 other hand, were alive with intellectual curiosity. 



Nothing was easier, however, than for a learned man to get a hear- 

 ing in Moslem countries before other men of his class. The case was 

 much the same at European universities. Any mosque would serve 

 the Moslem doctor for an audience-hall, and as nearly all mosques had 

 endowed schools attached to them, hearers were provided from the 

 outset. If the teacher was eloquent, pupils flocked to hear him by 

 hundreds. The subjects taught were jurisprudence, logic, philosophy, 

 medicine, mathematics, astronomy. All except the first were derived 

 directly from the Greeks, or from Arab commentators. Of Greek 

 literature, poetry, drama, the Arabs were absolutely ignorant. They 

 did not even know the distinction between Greek tragedy and comedy. 



We may perhaps judge of the authority of Aristotle among them 

 by quoting from Averroes 's edition of his works : 



" The author of this book," says the Arab commentator, is " Aristotle, 

 wisest of the Greeks, who both founded and completed the sciences of Logic, 



