622 COSMOS. 



tioii assumed by this study in its scientific establishment 35 

 the basis of experiment. It still remains briefly to consider 

 the influence exercised by the revival of classical literature, at 

 the close of the fourteenth century, on the deepest sources of 

 the mental life of nations, and, therefore, on the general con- 

 templation of the universe. The individuality of certain 

 highly-gifted men had contributed to increase the rich mass 

 of facts possessed by the world of ideas. The susceptibility 

 of a freer intellectual development already existed when Greek 

 literature, driven from its ancient seats, acquired a firm footing 

 in western lands, under the favouring action of apparently 

 accidental relations. 



The Arabs in their classical studies had remained strangers 

 to all that appertains to the inspiration of language ; their 

 studies being limited to a very small number of the writers 

 of antiquity, and in accordance with their strong national 

 predilection for natural investigation, principally to the physi- 

 cal books of Aristotle, to the Almagest of Ptolemy, the bota- 

 nical and chemical treatises of Dioscorides, and the cosmologi- 

 cal fancies of Plato. The dialectics of Aristotle were blended 

 by the Arabs with the study of Physics, as in earlier times, in 

 the Christian mediaeval age they were with that of theology. 

 Men borrowed from the ancients what they judged susceptible 

 of special application, but they were far removed from appre- 

 hending the spirit of Hellenism in its general character, from 

 penetrating to the depths of the organic structure of the lan- 

 guage, from deriving enjoyment from the poetic creations of 

 the Greek imagination, or of seeking to trace the marvellous 

 luxuriance displayed in the fields of oratory and historical 

 composition. 



Almost two hundred years before Petrarch and Boccacio, 

 John of Salisbury and the Platonic Abelard had already exer- 

 cised a favourable influence with reference to an acquaintance 

 with certain works of classical antiquity. Both possessed the 

 power of appreciating the charm of writings in which freedom 

 and order, nature and mind, were constantly associated 

 together; but the influence of the aesthetic feeling awakened 

 by them, vanished without leaving a trace, and the actual merit 

 of having prepared in Italy a permanent resting place for the 

 muses exiled from Greece, and of having contributed most 

 powerfully to re-establish classical literature, belongs of right to 



