244 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



lar discoveries or general processes of the Arabians, which is important 

 in the history of the Inductive Sciences. 2 



The credit due to the Arabians for improvements in the general 

 methods of philosophizing, is a more difficult question ; and cannot be 

 discussed at length by us, till we examine the history of such methods 

 in the abstract, which, in the present work, it is not our intention to do. 

 But we may observe, that we cannot agree with those who rank their 

 merits high in this respect. We have already seen, that their minds 

 were completely devoured by the worst habits of the stationary period, — 

 Mysticism and Commentation. They followed their Greek leaders, for 

 the most part, with abject servility, and with only that kind of acuteness 

 and independent speculation which the Commentator's vocation im- 

 plies. And in their choice of the standard subjects of their studies, they 

 fixed upon those works, the Physical Books of Aristotle, which have 

 never promoted the progress of science, except in so far as they incited 

 men to refute them ; an effect which they never produced on the Ara- 

 bians. That the Arabian astronomers made some advances beyond 

 the Greeks, we have already stated : the two great instances are, the 

 discovery of the Motion of the Sun's Apogee by Albategnius, and the 

 discovery (recently brought to light) of the existence of the Moon's 

 Second Inequality, by Aboul Wefa. But we cannot but observe in how 

 different a manner they treated these discoveries, from that with which 

 Hipparchus or Ptolemy would have done. The Variation of the Moon, 

 in particular, instead of being incorporated into the system by means 

 of an Epicycle, as Ptolemy had done with the Evection, was allowed, 

 almost immediately, so far as we can judge, to fall into neglect and 

 oblivion : so little were the learned Arabians prepared to take their 

 lessons from observation as well as from books. That in many sub- 

 jects they made experiments, may easily be allowed : there never was 

 a period of the earth's history, and least of all a period of commerce 



• If I might take the liberty of criticising an author who has given a very inter- 

 esting view of the period in question (Mahometanism Unveiled, by the Eev. Charles 

 Forster, 1 829), I would remark, that in his work this caution is perhaps too little 

 observed. Thus, he says, in speaking of Alhazen (vol. ii. p. 270), "the theory of 

 the telescope may be found in the work of this astronomer ;" and of another, " the 

 uses of magnifying glasses and telescopes, and the principle of their construction, 

 are explained in the Great Work of (Eoger) Bacon, with a truth and clearness 

 which have commanded universal admiration." Such phrases would be much 

 too strong, even if used respecting the optical doctrines of Kepler, which were 

 yet incomparably more true and clear than those of Bacon. To employ such 

 language, in such cases, is to deprive °uch terms as theory and principle of all 

 meaning. 



