74 MEMOIR OF ARISTOTLE. 





Arabs or Saracens, Aristotle was superstitiously 

 adored, and his philosophy was ardently studied in 

 their schools during upwards of four centuries. His 

 metaphysical niceties were well adapted to the acute 

 mental temperament of that ingenious people. In 

 dispute all parties acknowledged his supremacy, and 

 appealed to his assistance. The doctors of the 

 Mosque easily laid prostrate the most stubborn ar- 

 guments both of Jews and Christians against the 

 truth of the Koran with the resistless artillery of 

 his syllogisms. To translate or produce a commen- 

 tary on his works, appeared to them the highest 

 pitch of excellence to which the genius of man could 

 attain. The most eminent of these oriental exposi- 

 tors, whose fame long resounded even in the schools 

 of Europe, were Alkendi, Alfarabi, Rhazes, Avi- 

 cenna, and Averroes, who, in the felicitous obscu- 

 rity of their opinions, often surpassed their master. 

 When the literature of the Saracens was extinguish- 

 ed at the taking of Bagdad by the Tartars in 1258, 

 the illustration of the Aristotelian philosophy was 

 prosecuted with unabated vigour in the Western 

 Empire. So early as the sixth century, his logic 

 assumed a Latin dress in the translation of Boethius 

 Severinus, the last illustrious Consul of Rome. In 

 this field the venerable Bede has also signalized him- 

 self; and during the middle ages, a few learned 

 monks exercised their ingenuity on the same sub- 

 ject. After a long interval of nearly 700 years, 

 translations and commentaries in the same language 



