4o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



life. Owing to the misrule of his successor in the regency of Morocco, 

 the discontented people earnestly petitioned the ruler of the Faithful 

 to restore their former governor, whose mildness and wisdom had se- 

 cured to them so high a degree of prosperity and so many blessings. 

 After much deliberation Averroes was restored to freedom, reinstated 

 in his positions of honor, where his moral virtues, his amiability, his 

 justice, and his humanity, were exercised to the advantage of his fel- 

 low-beings. He secured the love, the applause, the admiration, and 

 gratitude of the people over whom he ruled, and we are told that 

 happiness gilded the evening of his days, his sun sank gently beneath 

 an unclouded horizon, and his memory was a radiant halo, not unlike 

 the roseate twilight that sometimes lingers along the western sky, the 

 charming influence of which can only be felt and contemplated with 

 emotions of grateful delight. And thus it was that Averroes closed 

 his eventful life in the year of grace 1198, being but about a twelve- 

 month previous to the death of his patron Almansur, with whom the 

 political power of the Moslems terminated, as did the study of the 

 liberal sciences with the death of Averroes. 



He was evidently a man of dignity, rectitude, and nobility ; a 

 wise and humane judge ; a devoted student ; a profound scholar ; and, 

 though surrounded by the luxuries of a royal court, yet simple, tem- 

 perate, almost rigidly abstemious in his mode of life. 



As a medical writer Averroes was the author of two works which 

 are still extant ; one being the "Koullyath," or "Kulliyyat," which is 

 better known as the " Colliget " or " Summary " ; the other is a com- 

 mentary on the medical poem or cantica of Avicenna. The " Colli- 

 get," which is his principal work, was dedicated to Abdelech, the Mi- 

 ramamolin of Morocco, and contains a digest of the whole science of 

 medicine, being divided into seven books. It contains but little that 

 is original, though we find him speaking of his own experiences. He 

 is said to be the first to state that small-pox occurs in the human con- 

 stitution but once in a lifetime. His anatomy is copied entirely from 

 Galen. His commentary on the cantica of Avicenna was considered 

 to be the best introduction to medicine that had ever appeared. 



Some time ago I picked up a curious little duodecimo entitled 

 " Averroeana," being a transcript of several letters from " Averroes, an 

 Arabian philosopher at Corduba, in Spain, to Metrodorus, a young Gre- 

 cian nobleman, student at Athens," in the years 1149 and 1150. Also 

 " several letters from Pythagoras to the King of India," etc., etc. " The 

 whole containing matters highly philosophical, physiological, Pytha- 

 gorical, and medicinal. The work having been long concealed, is now 

 put into English for the benefit of mankind, and the rectification of 

 learned mistakes." London, 1695. 



P. Grinau tells us, in his prefatory letter, that his friend Petit, 

 who had for many years resided in Andalusia, gave him the book, 

 which he says was written by Averroes's own hand, and that it had 



