110 THE NEW ERA 



and culture which it created were still alive when the 

 Arabs overran Persia in the seventh century. As 

 soon as the early Mohammedan rigorism relaxed, as 

 it shortly did, the Arab rulers of Persia absorbed its 

 civilization ; and there was now a great Arabian 

 civilization, which swept along North Africa and 

 conquered Spain. In Syria the Arabs had found the 

 old Greek literature, and they carried Aristotle's 

 works to Spain and cultivated science and philosophy 

 with zeal. In the tenth century, when Europe was 

 in its most barbaric phase since the New Stone Age, 

 there was a magnificent Moorish civilization in Spain. 

 In spite of the fierce religious hostility, on the 

 Christian side, this could not fail to influence the 

 rest of Europe, and during the eleventh and twelfth 

 centuries it had a considerable effect. Jews were the 

 natural intermediaries between the two. They were 

 welcomed, and won distinction, in Spain. But even 

 Christian scholars went as near as they dared to pick 

 up crumbs of Moorish wisdom. Pope Sylvester II, 

 one of the first medieval scientists, learned his 

 geometry and mechanics there. Thus Euclid and 

 Aristotle and other Greek writers became known 

 again in Europe. A vast amount was learned from 

 the Moors. The contact with the Mohammedans 

 through the Crusades of the thirteenth century also 

 helped, though it was much less important. 



These things coincided with the internal develop- 

 ment in Europe which we have described. The 

 Scholastic Philosophy was evolved, largely as an 

 answer to Aristotle and the Moors. Germs of science 

 began to sprout. Roger Bacon plainly shows (as 

 Copernicus does later) that he got his ideas from the 

 Greeks. There was now a little more direct com- 



