A V E R 11 O E S. 



99 



prince, after consulting the leaders of the sacer- 

 1 order, yielded to the petition of his subjects, 





\verroes. The 



"~"\" ' dotal order, yiel 



and Averroes again emerged from obscurity to the 

 honourable places which he had formerly held. Du- 

 ring the remainder of his life, he resided at Morocco, 

 where he died about the beginning of the 13th cen- 

 tury, probably in 1206. 



The natural dispositions of Averroes are described 

 by almost all authors as having been superlatively 

 amiable. As a judge, he acted with uniform impar- 

 tiality, prudence and integrity, and with such gentle- 

 ness and feeling, that when the laws required the pu- 

 nishment of death to be inflicted, he was never able 

 to pronounce the sentence. Though born to an 

 ample fortune, and though he enjoyed situations of 

 great emolument, he was a pattern of frugality, mo- 

 deration, and temperance. His liberality was unlimit- 

 ed, particularly to men of letters, whose circumstan- 

 ces did not enable them to gratify their inclination for 

 study ; and it was a favourite maxim of his, that 

 wealth could never be better employed, than in con- 

 verting enemies into friends. His patience and for- 

 giveness of injuries deserve to be recorded. On a 

 certain occasion, during a public lecture, one of his 

 auditors went up to him, and whispered in his ear a 

 most provoking insult. Not in the least disconcert- 

 ed, the philosopher betrayed no emotion either of sur- 

 prise or resentment, but merely signified, by an incli- 

 nation of the head, that he had heard what was said to 

 him. The circumstance would never have been known ; 

 but the person who had offered him the affront, w:is 

 so astonished at his equanimity and forbearance, that 

 he could not refrain from making an apology more 

 public than the offence, and testifying that no reta- 

 liation could have mortified him so deeply as the su- 

 periority of mind evinced by Averroes. 



His character as a philosopher would before this 

 time have been forgotten, had not the extravagant 

 encomiums of his admirers been transcribed by the 

 historians of succeeding ages. His unbounded admi- 

 ration of Aristotle is only one among many proofs 

 of the defective erudition of the times in which he 

 lived. The works of the Grecian philosopher and 

 his commentators were the sole object of study, be- 

 cause scarcely any other writings worthy of perusal 

 were known. These wonderful productions Aver- 

 s, who was ignorant of Greek, had no opportu- 

 nity of examining, except through the medium of ve- 

 ry incorrect translations into his native tongue ; and 

 he constantly displays an entire ignorance of the 

 works of all other philosophers. He did not know 

 the difference between Protagoras and Pythagoras ; 

 and the titles by which he refers to the works of 

 Plato, are perfectly ludicrous. [Lud. Viv.) He is 

 .generally obscure, and full of contradictions ; always 

 abundantly dogmatical, and sometimes so arrogant, 

 that we cannot help questioning the accounts which 

 have descended to us of his urbanity and mildness. 

 Among other subjects, he wrote on medicine, with 

 the theory of which he is said to have been well ac- 

 quainted ; but it is remarkable, that though he often 

 combated the opinions of his predecessor and rival 

 Avicenna, he cautiously abstained from naming him. 

 It i< understood that he contributed to eradicate some 



medical prejudices. It had long been an undisputed Averroes. 

 maxim, that blood-letting, if practised before the v ""~ *~V~ ' 

 fourteenth year, invariably proves fatal. Averroes 

 ventured to bleed a child of his own not above seven 

 years of age, who had been seized with an inflamma- 

 tion of the lungs, and the experiment, having termi- 

 nated happily, demonstrated the fallacy of the opi- 

 nion, by which physicians had hitherto been restrain- 

 ed from hazarding a method of cure which is obvious- 

 ly indicated by the symptoms of inflammatory dis- 

 eases. The work which gained him the greatest 

 credit was entitled Destructiones Destructionum, and 

 was intended as a refutation of the errors of Algazel, 

 who denied that the world is in any sense the work 

 of God. . This occasional defender of the faith, how- 

 ever, is accused of propagating heresies not less fla- 

 grant than those of Algazel. He maintained that 

 there is only one understanding, absolutely the same, 

 diffused among all the individuals of the human race. 

 He rejected the Christian religion partly on account 

 of the mystery of the eucharist, which he derided, 

 [quia Christian gens stolidissima, Deum Jaciunt et 

 comedunt ;) but his chief objection to our faith was, 

 that it admits the creation of the world, which he 

 pronounced an impossibility. He insisted that the 

 divine providence cannot extend to individual object;. 

 He believed that all spiritual existences have conti- 

 nued from eternity unchanged. He despised tlir 

 Jewish religion as an assemblage of puerile observan- 

 ces ; and Mahometanism he said was but a swinish 

 faith, because it gave a free licence to sensual indul- 

 gences. He denied that there could be a future state 

 of rewards and punishments. He has often been char- 

 ged with atheism ; not, however, we think with great- 

 er reason than there is to extend the accusation to Aris- 

 totle and the other philosophers who asserted the eter- 

 nity of the world ; an opinion which the ancients 

 thought consistent with theism, but which both Chris- 

 tians and Mahometans have concurred in reprobating 

 as atheistical. Erasmus speaks of him with great in- 

 dignation, stigmatizing him by the severe epithets 

 impius xi rjif JcT<t^T8?. Petrarch was for some 

 time engaged in preparing a confutation of his writ- 

 ings. 



The understandings of Albertus, Scotus, and Aqui- 

 nas, must have been singularly constituted ; other- 

 wise we cannot easily account for the avidity with 

 which they gave their days and nights to the perusal 

 and re-perusal of this self-contradictory author, and 

 for that defect of perspicacity, or else that faculty of 

 explaining things away, which saved them the horror 

 of being shocked by the detection of his impieties. 



Perhaps, however, Averroes may have been as 

 much misrepresented by his Latin translators, as Ari- 

 stotle was by the Arabian interpreters. The rabbins 

 and schoolmen, who made his works known in Eu- 

 rope, were more remarkable for their zeal than for 

 their ability ; and the world is little indebted to them 

 for the slovenly manner in which they executed their 

 unprofitable task. See Leo Afric. De Vir. illustr. 

 apud Arab. Lud. Vives de Caus. Corrupt. Artium. 

 CkI. Rhodigin. Auiiq. Led. Hottinger. Bibl. 

 T/ieolog. D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orient. Bayle Did. 

 Hitter, el C/it. (a) 



