SUMMARY. [xvii] 



fusion of Christianity (when that form of faith was, from political 

 motives, forcibly raised to be the religion of the State of Byzantium) to 

 aid in awakening an idea of the unity of the human race, and by 

 degrees to give to that idea its proper value amid the miserable dissen- 

 sions of religious parties p. 568. 



V. Imqrtion of the Arabs. Effect of a foreign element on the process 

 of development of European civilisation. The Arabs a Semitic primi- 

 tive race susceptible of cultivation, in part dispel the barbarism which 

 for two hundred years had covered Europe, which had been shaken by 

 national convulsions: they not only maintain ancient civilisation, but 

 extend it and open new paths to natural investigation. Geographical 

 figure of the Arabian peninsula. Products of Hadramaut, Yemen and 

 Oman. Mountain chains of Dschebel-Akhdar, and Asyr. Gerrha, 

 the ancient emporium for Indian wares, opposite to the Phoenician settle- 

 ments of Aradus and Tylus. The northern portion of the peninsula was 

 brought into animated relations of contact with other cultivated states 

 by means of the spread of Ai-abian races in the Syro-Palestinian frontier 

 mountainous districts and the lands of the Euphrates. Pre-existing 

 indigenous civilisation. Ancient participation in the general commerce 

 of the universe. Hostile advances to the west and to the east. Hyksos 

 and Ariseus, Prince of the Hyniyarites, the allies of Minus on the Tigris. 

 Peculiar character of the nomadic life of the Arabs, together with their 

 caravan tracks and their populous cities pp. 569-578. Influence of the 

 Nestorians, Syrians, and of the pharmaceutico-medicinal school at 

 Edessa. Taste for intercourse with nature and her forces. The Arabs 

 were the actual founders of the physical and chemical sciences. The 

 science of medicine. Scientific institutions in the brilliant epoch of Al- 

 Mansur. Harun Al-Raschid, Mamun, and Motasem. Scientific intercourse 

 with India. Employment made of the Tscharaka and the Susruta, and 

 of the ancient technical arts of the Egyptains. Botanical gardens at 

 Cordova under the Caliph Abdurrahman, the poet pp. 578-589. Efforts 

 made at independent astronomical observations and the improvement in 

 instruments. Ebn Junis employs the pendulum as a measure of time. 

 The work of Alhazen on the refraction of rays. Indian planetary tables. 

 The disturbance in the moon's longitude recognised by Abul Wefa. 

 Astronomical Congress of Toledo, to M 7 hich Alfonso of Castille invited 

 Eabbis and Arabs. Observatory at Meragha, of Ulugh Beig, the 

 descendant of Timur, at Samarkand and its influence. Measurement 

 of a degree in the plain between Tadmor and Rakka. The Algebra of 

 the Arabs has originated from two currents, Indian and Greek, which 

 long flowed independently of one another. Mohammed Ben Musa, the 

 Chowarezmier. Diophantus, first translated into Arabic at the close of the 

 tenth century, by Abul Wefa Buzjani. By the same path which brought 

 to the Arabs the knowledge of Indian Algebra, they likewise obtained 

 in Persia and on the Euphrates the Indian numerals and the knowledge 

 of the ingenious device of Position, or the employment of the value of 

 position. They transmitted this custom to the Revenue officers in 

 Northern Africa, opposite to the coasts of Sicily. The probability that 

 the Christians of the West were acquainted with Indian numerals earlier 



