78 SCIENCE AND THE HUMAN MIND 



The classical period of Arabian science may be 

 said to date from the tenth century, beginning with 

 the medical work of Rhazes, who practised in Baghdad 

 and compiled many encyclopaedic text-books. Fifty 

 years later, the great physician and philosopher 

 Avicenna, a native of Bokhara, wandered from court 

 to court among the rulers of Eastern Asia, vainly 

 seeking some place of settlement where he could find 

 an opening for his talents and carry on his literary 

 and scientific labours in peace and safety. His 

 " Canon," or compendium of medicine, afterwards 

 became the text-book of medical study in the European 

 universities, and up to the year 1650 it was still used 

 in the schools of Louvain and Montpellier. 



But any prospect of the establishment of a stable 

 Arabian civilization was put an end to by the internal 

 quarrels of the Mahommedan princes and generals, 

 and by the gradual disintegration and destruction of 

 the gifted, noble and old-established families of Arabia 

 itself. These pure Arabs were the original conquerors, 

 and had provided the necessary governors, soldiers and 

 administrators for the vast empire which had been 

 put together so rapidly. With the accession of the 

 Abbaside Caliphs and the transference of the capital 

 to Baghdad, the real power passed into the hands of 

 a series of Persian, Tartar, and Turcoman ministers 

 and slaves. Gradually the distant provinces, one 

 after another, separated themselves from the weak, 

 overgrown and heterogeneous Empire, re-created 

 their native characters and reasserted their political 

 independence. The countries nearest the capital 

 have never recovered from the prolonged vicissitudes 

 of a line of impotent tyrants, with its fatal insecurity 



