14 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and men of learning were suspected of heresy or worse. An aristocracy 

 of learning has always been more odious to the people than one founded 

 on wealth or birth ; and there is no intolerance like that of the ignorant. 

 Their princes could do no act more popular than to order the destruc- 

 tion of heretical books and manuscripts in the public square. All 

 Hakim's manuscripts were so destroyed after his death to conciliate 

 the people. Works on theology, grammar and medicine were alone 

 spared, with a few treatises on elementary astronomy — for it was neces- 

 sary to be able to calculate the direction in which Mecca lay, the Kibla 

 towards which every Moslem turns his face in prayer. 



In Arabia, in Spain and in Europe, the mass of the people was fa- 

 natical, brutal and ignorant. Dominion over them was gained and held 

 by exciting their passions. The influence of sages, like Bacon and 

 Averroes, of liberal princes, like Hakim and Frederick II., saved learn- 

 ing from extinction; but it has required the experience of centuries to 

 raise the tolerance of new ideas to its present level ; and even now, is not 

 tolerance composed quite as much of indifference as of enlightenment? 

 If the history of the renaissance of art in Italy is closely examined a 

 corresponding ignorance and indifference is exhibited. Where art min- 

 istered to religion, to superstition or to local pride, the multitude was 

 concerned for it. For art as art, only a select few were interested. 



The writings of the Greeks first became known to the Arabs through 

 translations from the Syrian. In the year 431 the Nestorian heresy 

 was condemned at the council of Ephesus. Nestorian priests were 

 banished and dispersed throughout Syria, Persia and the further east, 

 and everywhere carried somewhat of the learning of the west. Under 

 the caliphs they spread from Cyprus to China and outnumbered the 

 Greek and Latin churches. There was a Nestorian bishop in Merv in 

 A. D. 334; and at Herat and Samarkand in A. D. 500. The Kerait 

 Turkomans accepted Christianity about A. D. 1000, as a tribe. A 

 Nestorian christian was superintendent of the city schools of Bagdad 

 under one of the Abbaside caliphs. Until the death of Tamerlane 

 (1405) Nestorians were to be found everywhere throughout the orient. 



It is doubtful whether a single Arab scholar was acquainted with 

 the Greek language, and certain that none of the Moorish doctors were 

 so. The printed volumes of Averroes' Aristotle are a Latin translation 

 of a Hebrew translation of a commentary made on an Arabic translation 

 of a Syriac translation from a Greek text. The meaning of the original 

 was almost lost in its transmigrations through tongues so different in 

 spirit as Greek, Syrian, Arabic, Hebrew and Latin. 



Latin editions of the whole or of parts of Averroes' Aristotle were 

 greatly multiplied in Europe after the invention of printing. During 

 the century 1480-1580 nearly a hundred editions were issued. At 

 Venice alone more than fifty were put forth. It is in Avicenna that 



