21 2 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION 



the middle of the seventh century, 572 years after Buddhism 

 liad arrived there from India. 



The seeds of western cultivation scattered in Persia by 

 learned monks, and by the philosophers of the school of the 

 later Platonists at Athens persecuted by Justinian, had 

 exercised a beneficial influence on the Arabians during their 

 Asiatic campaigns. However imperfect the scientific know- 

 ledge of the Nestorian priests may have been, yet, by its 

 particular medico-pharmaceutical direction, it was the more 

 effectual in stimulating a race of men who had long lived 

 in the enjoyment of the open face of nature, and preserved a 

 fresher feeling for every kind of natural contemplation, than 

 the Greek and Italian inhabitants of cities. That which 

 gives to the epoch of the Arabians the cosmical importance 

 which we are endeavouring to illustrate, is very much con- 

 nected with this feature of the national character. The 

 Arabians are, we repeat, to be regarded as the proper 

 founders of the physical sciences, in the sense which we 

 are now accustomed to attach to the term. 



In the world of ideas, the internal connection and enchain- 

 ment of all thought renders it indeed always difficult to 

 attach an absolute beginning to any particular period of time. 

 Separate points of knowledge, as well as processes by which 

 knowledge may be attained, are, it is true, to be seen scattered 

 in rare instances at an earlier period. How wide is the 

 difference between Dioscorides who separated mercury from 

 cinnabar and the Arabian chemist Djeber; and between 

 Ptolemy as an investigator of optics and Alhazen ! But the 

 foundation of physical studies, and of the natural sciences 

 themselves, first begins when newly opened paths are pursued 

 by many at once, although with unequal success. After the 



