32 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



goods with Constantinople, the Black Sea, the ports of China, 

 India, and thence with the interior of Asia, also with Japan, 

 Madagascar, and the eastern coasts of Africa ; and last, not 

 least, books were written on the principles of TRADE. In the 

 high social state which the Arabs enjoyed, prosperity and 

 wealth increased to a prodigious extent a natural result of 

 industry and trade. The tales of the " Arabian Nights " throw 

 great light upon the thrifty customs of the people, who had 

 put aside warlike and predatory habits, to become peaceful 

 traders and merchants, cleanly, gentle, and sociable. The 

 revenue of the Spanish Khalif, Abderrahman III., was no less 

 than FIVE and a half MILLIONS STERLING a sum which 

 exceeded the entire revenue of all the sovereigns of Europe ; 

 and this enormous taxation was lightly borne owing to the 

 extension of trade and the increase of wealth in the com- 

 munity. (Drapers Intellectual Development^) 



All these improvements gradually, though slowly, spread 

 from Spain and Sicily into the south of France, and next 

 into Italy the rest of Europe remaining in its uncivilised 

 condition for ages universal war and rapacity tearing it from 

 end to end. There, the people continued to live in huts, to 

 feed on roots, vetches, and beans, to clothe in untanned skins; 

 to vegetate in abject poverty and dirt, without industry and 

 commerce to speak of until the Crusades. Up to the XVIth 

 century the great ladies and princesses of Europe had gowns 

 which lasted for years, the uncleanliness and strong smell of 

 which were concealed by the use of penetrating perfumes. 



The fact of capital importance to note here, is the RISE, 

 for the first time in the annals of the world, OF INDUSTRY 

 and commerce on a large scale, and these were not carried 

 on by slaves or slave-labour, but by free men. The in- 

 dustrial spirit which is destined to revolutionise the world 

 has already done so within the confines of Islam. It will 

 spread into Europe, and bring momentous changes. The 

 Saracens will lose the fruit of their progress, as the Romans 

 and the Greeks have lost theirs, by the invasion of a host of 

 irresistible barbarians, the Christians, whose fanaticism, as 

 ruthless in Spain as it had been at Alexandria at the bidding 

 of Cyril (415), and in Rome at the bidding of Gregory I. 



