COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



had been a mere race of wandering shepherds ; 

 in their new abodes they became the founders 

 of mighty empires, — they built cities, endowed 

 schools, collected libraries ; and the traces of 

 their power are still to be seen at Cordova, at 

 Bagdad, and at Delhi." ^ To exhibit the utter 

 superficiality of this explanation, we have only 

 to ask two questions. First, if the Arabs became 

 civilized only because they exchanged their na- 

 tive deserts for Spain, Persia, and India, why 

 did not the same hold true of the Turks, when 

 they exchanged their barren steppes for the 

 rich empire of Constantinople ? Though they 

 have held for four centuries what is perhaps 

 the finest geographical p6sition on the earth's 

 surface, the Turks have never directly aided 

 the progress of civilization. Secondly, how was 

 it that the Arabs ever came to leave their native 

 deserts and to conquer the region between the 

 Pyrenees and the Ganges ? Was it because 

 of a geologic convulsion ? Was it because the 

 soil, the cHmate, the food, or the general aspect 

 of nature had undergone any sudden change ? 

 One need not be a profound student of his- 

 tory to see the absurdity of such a suggestion. 

 It was because their minds had been greatly 

 wrought upon by new ideas — because their 

 conceptions of life, its duties, its aims, its pos- 

 sibilities, had been revolutionized by the genius 

 ^ History of Civilization , vol. i. p. 42. 

 294 



