46 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE. 



pieces through dirt, vermin, and wear want of sani- 

 tation bringing in frequent plagues. 



V. The people of Islam were lifting themselves up 

 by the unchecked cultivation of SCIENCE ; 



Whereas Europe, then on a par with what Russia 

 was until Peter I., or what Abyssinia is now, was 

 withering in the science of MONK MIRACLES and 

 monkish philosophy. 



VI. Particularly striking are the high acquirements 

 of the Saracens and Jews. They applied mathematics 

 to ASTRONOMY AND PHYSICS ; measured the obliquity 

 of the ecliptic, the length of a degree, the earth's radius 

 and circumference, corrected astronomical tables by 

 systematic observations, left Arabian names indelibly 

 written on the firmament, taught geography by the 

 use of globes, measured time by pendulum oscillations ; 



Whereas the FLATNESS OF THE EARTH, the denial of 

 the antipodes, the solidity of the firmament, were 

 asserted in Europe, and those who doubted were dealt 

 with as heretics. 



VII. DISEASES in Saracenic lands were considered 

 and treated as NATURAL EFFECTS of physical causes. 

 The patient sought the assistance of the physician and 

 the surgeon, who prescribed medicine or performed an 

 operation ; 



Whereas Christian Europe was taught to consider 

 disease as a SUPERNATURAL VISITATION, which was 

 to be cured by miracle, exorcism, pilgrimage to the 

 nearest shrine, and trust to the efficacy, not of the 

 lancet of the leech or the bandage of the surgeon, 

 but of relics, charms, amulets, talismans, all more or 

 less in the keeping of the ecclesiastics who made their 

 administration a source of boundless profit, as they 

 did with the sale of indulgences later on. So in- 

 grained was the belief in supernaturalism that a 

 man like Francis Bacon believed in talismans and 

 witchery. 



VIII. Men of intellect and LEARNING were honoured 

 throughout Islam ; 



