of the African Philosopher Inn KuALpUwn. 399 
Boox VI.—Of Sciences and their encyclopedial division. 
This book is not divided into a regular number of chapters, but contains, 
in about fifty neat paragraphs, a most elaborate compendium of all the 
sciences at that time cultivated by the Arabs; laid open and subdivided 
into regular classes, by means of a highly systematic method, which would 
do honour even to the first encyclopedist of our age. Among these pa- 
ragraphs, the most remarkable for profound learning and extensive erudi- 
tion, are those that expound algebra, the mathematics, astronomy, navi- 
gation, natural history, and chemistry. This sixth book is wanting in 
most of the copies, and forms a considerable portion of the third part of 
the Mokaddameh or Prolegomena. 
From this summary or outline we may form some idea of the information 
conveyed by these Prolegomena. Moreover, all the chapters and para- 
graphs are interspersed with a great number of select examples and curious 
anecdotes, drawn from the annals of the Arabs, the Persians, the Berbers, 
and other ancient and modern nations. Few oriental learned works, there- 
fore, can be compared to this masterly composition ; nor can any other have 
so great aclaim to the honour of a complete translation into a European 
language. Were my life not so far advanced, and had not adverse fortune 
lately checked my literary ardour, I should perchance have taken courage to 
translate into French, or Italian at least, this First Part of Ipn Knatptn’s 
excellent performance. But what dol say? My zeal makes me almost 
forget that I have irretrievably lost the latter half of this first part, together 
with nearly the whole of the second. 
The style, however, in which the original is composed, may possibly deter 
more than one Arabic scholar from a similar attempt. Excessively laconic, 
it often becomes obscure and scarcely intelligible, by the too abrupt tran- 
sitions, and frequent omissions of intermediate ideas. The Turks have a very 
_ good translation of these Prolegomena, or rather a commented paraphrase, 
whose author, the famous Monammep ParizApru, has attempted to 
remedy the inconvenience alluded to, by not only developing the ideas of 
the original, but also adding a great many elucidations and separate remarks 
of his own. By these additions, the interpretation has swollen to a volume 
at least two-thirds larger than the original. This work of ParizAprEn is 
continually studied throughout the Othmdnli empire, not only by all the 
ministers and statesmen of the Porte, but likewise by the Greek princes, and 
