228 EPOCHS IN THE HISTORY OF THE CONTEMPLATION 



ways, to advance the mathematical part of natural know- 

 ledge, and to facilitate the access to fields which without 

 these aids must have remained unopened, in astronomy, in 

 optics, in physical geography, in thermometrics, and in the 

 theory of magnetism. 



In studying the history of nations, the question has often 

 been raised, what would have been the effect on the course 

 of events if Cartilage had conquered Borne, and had sub- 

 jected to its dominion the European West : "Wilhelm von 

 Humboldt ( 36 ) has remarked, that " we might ask with 

 equal justice, what would have been the state of our present 

 intellectual cultivation, if the Arabs had continued the 

 exclusive possessors of science as they were for a long 

 period, and had spread themselves permanently over the 

 West ? In both cases it appears to me we can scarcely 

 doubt that the result would have been less favourable. It 

 is to the same causes which led to the Eoman universal 

 empire, namely, to the Eoman mind and character and not 

 to external accidents, that we owe the influence of the 

 Bomans on our civil institutions, our laws, our languages, 

 and our civilization. Through this beneficial influence, and 

 in consequence of our belonging to a kindred race, we have 

 been enabled to receive the impression of the Grecian mind 

 and Grecian language ; whereas the Arabians only attached 

 themselves to the scientific results of Greek investigation in 

 natural history, physics, astronomy, and pure mathematics." 

 The Arabians, by sedulous care in preserving the purity of 

 their native idiom, and by the ingenuity of their figurative 

 modes of speech, knew how to lend to the expression of 

 their feelings, and to the enunciation of noble and sage 



