THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 251 



individual intellectual character of a few highly gifted men 

 had contributed to the augmentation of the riches of the 

 world of ideas. The susceptibility to a more free intel- 

 lectual development existed at the period when Grecian 

 literature, favoured by many apparently accidental relations, 

 oppressed and driven from its ancient seats, sought a more 

 secure resting-place in western lands. The Arabians in 

 their classical studies had remained strangers to all that 

 belongs to the inspiration of language. Those studies were 

 limited to a very small number of ancient writers ; and in 

 accordance with the strong national predilection for the 

 pursuit of natural knowledge, were principally directed to 

 Aristotle's books of Physics, Ptolemy's Almagest, the bo- 

 tany and chemistry of Dioscorides, and the cosmological 

 phantasies of Plato. The dialectics of Aristotle were 

 associated by the Arabians with physical, as they were by 

 the earlier portion of the Christian middle ages with 

 theological, studies. In both cases, men borrowed from the 

 ancients what they judged available for particular applica- 

 tions; but they were far indeed from apprehending the 

 genius of Greece as a whole, from penetrating the organic 

 structure of its language, from delighting in its poetic 

 creations, and from searching out its admirable treasures 

 in the fields of oratory and historical writing. 



Almost two centuries before Petrarch and Boccaccio, 

 John of Salisbury and the platonising Abelard had exercised 

 a beneficial influence in reference to acquaintance with some 

 of the works of classical antiquity. Both felt the beauty 

 and the charm of writings in which nature and mind, 

 freedom, and subjection to measure, order, and harmony are 



VOL. IT. s 



