CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY, MIDDLE AGES 69 



evaded during more liberal eras, while obscurantist rulers continued to 

 threaten the learned with its literal application. This was, however, the 

 cause of a certain restraint invariably characterizing Arabian research, at least 

 in form; the scientists preferred to give their works — even the most independ- 

 ent — the appearance of commentaries on the writings of some famous scien- 

 tist of antiquity. In philosophy and natural science it was naturally Aristotle, 

 in medicine Galen, who was made to represent the authority on whom 

 the work was based, and at the same time the screen behind which the Ara- 

 bian scientists saved themselves in the event of the authorities' finding the 

 results of their research work inadmissible. During the most brilliant period 

 of Arabian research it was certainly possible for original and great thoughts 

 to be disguised beneath these commentaries on ancient writings, but the 

 danger of slavish imitation lay in the method itself, and for more than five 

 hundred years the science of the East was drowned in an utterly soulless 

 amplification of ancient authorities. 



Experimental method introduced iyito science 

 The Arabian contribution to the development of the exact sciences has been 

 most important in the spheres of mathematics and astronomy, in which they 

 received impulses not only from Greek, but also from Hindu quarters — the 

 so-called "Arabic numerals," which are now universally used, were bor- 

 rowed by the Arabs from India — and, further, geography, a study which 

 the Arabs applied to the investigating of several unknown regions, medicine, 

 particularly pharmacology and, in connexion therewith, botany, and, finally, 

 chemistry, which they were the first to raise to the rank of a science. Chem- 

 istry, indeed, is experimental science above all others, and with it experi- 

 menting as a scientific method was introduced and developed by the Arabs. 

 This contribution alone is such as to ensure to Arabic science a place of 

 honour in the history of research. Experimenting, in which the research- 

 worker himself interferes with the course of events in nature and arranges 

 that course with a view to having a specific question answered — this, the 

 most certain method whereby the obedience of natural phenomena to law 

 can be proved, was unknown to ancient research. Even Archimedes himself 

 was no experimental physicist, eminent though he was as a practical en- 

 gineer, while Galen's vivisections, as well as those of his Alexandrian prede- 

 cessors, had rather the character of observations of live animals than of 

 actual experiments. As a matter of fact, however, the experimental method 

 is very ancient and has its origin in a number of experiences of various kinds 

 which survived in different classes of people before science adopted their 

 methodic system and employed it for obtaining results in exact research 

 work. Thus every type of peoples has practised magical experiments based 

 on the preparation of charms, which are concocted out of the most extraor- 

 dinary ingredients and are used as love-potions, elixirs of life, enchant- 



