THE AitABS. 587 



nevertheless, the zoological history of Avicenna, in the pos- 

 session of the Royal Library at Paris, differs from Aristotle's 

 work on the same subject.* As a botanist we must name Ibn- 

 Baithar of Malaga, whose travels in Greece, Persia, India, 

 and Egypt, entitle him to be regarded with admiration for 

 the tendency he evinced to compare together, by independent 

 observations, the productions of different zones in the east 

 and west.f The point from whence all these efforts ema- 

 nated was the study of medicine, by which the Arabs long 

 ruled the Christian schools, and for the more perfect develop- 

 ment of which Ibn-Sina, (Avicenna,) a native of Aschena 

 near Bochara, Ibn-Roschd (Averroes) of Cordova, the 

 younger Serapion of Syria, and Mesue of Maridin on the 

 Euphrates, availed themselves of all the means yielded by 

 the Arabian caravan and sea trade. I have purposely enume- 

 rated the widely removed birth-places of celebrated Arabian 

 literati, since they are calculated to remind us of the great 



science, although the cares of government have withdrawn us from it; 

 we have delighted in spending our time in the careful reading of excel- 

 lent works, in order that our soul might be enlightened and strengthened 

 by exercise, without which the life of man is wanting both in rule and 

 in freedom (ut animee clarius vigeat instrumentum in acquisitione 

 scientiae, sine qua mortalium vita non regitur liberaliter). Libros 

 ipsos tamquam prsemium amici Caesaris gratulantur accipite, et ipsos 

 antiquis philosophorum operibus, qui vocis vestrse ministerio reviviscunt, 

 aggregantes in auditorio vestro." (Compare Jourdain, pp. 169-178, and 

 Friedrich von Eaumer's excellent work Geschichte der Hohenstaufen^ 

 Bd. iii. 1841, s. 413.) The Arabs have served as a uniting link between 

 ancient and modern science. If it had not been for them and their love 

 of translation, a great portion of that which the Greeks had either formed 

 themselves, or derived from other nations, would have been lost to 

 succeeding ages. It is when considered from this point of view, that 

 the subjects which have been touched upon, though apparently merely 

 linguistic, acquire general cosmical interest. 



* Jourdain, in his Traductions d'Aristote, pp. 135-138, and 

 Schneider, Adnot. ad Aristotelis de Animalibus Hist. lib. ix. cap. 15, 

 speak of Michael Scot's translation of Aristotle's Historia Animalium, 

 and of a similar work by Avicenna (Manuscript No. 6493, in the Paris 

 Library). 



t Onlbn-Baithar, see Sprengel, Gesch. der Arzneykunde,^. ii. 1823, 

 g. 468 ; and Eoyle, On the Antiquity of Hindoo Medicine, p. 28. We 

 have possessed, since 1840, a German translation of Ibn-Baithar, under 

 the title Grosse Zusammenstellung uber die Krafte der bekannten 

 einfachen Heil- und Nahrungs-mittel., translated from the Arabic by 

 J. v. Sontheimer, 2 B'andes. 



