LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 123 



Its adoption in Europe is not older than the thir- 

 teenth century, while among the Arabs it was known 

 in the eleventh. The polarity of the magnet is alleg- 

 ed to have been known to Aristotle ; and something 

 like the compass was in use among the Chinese ; 

 but as the Saracens paid considerable attention to 

 navigation, and often undertook long and laborious 

 voyages, history has, with much probability, as- 

 signed to them the discovery of the magnetic needle. 

 Some writers have offered a conjecture that this sin- 

 gular people paved the way for our immortal Newton 

 towards discovering the doctrine of attraction ; but as 

 the astronomical treatises of the famous mathemati- 

 cian Mohammed ibn Musa, upon which this supposi- 

 tion is founded, are not extant, the honour of the 

 English philosopher remains unimpaired. It is wor- 

 thy of remark, that when the historians of the middle 

 ages mention most of these inventions for the first 

 time, they treat them not as novelties but as things 

 in general use ; hence the presumption is, that 

 they were all gradually imported by obscure indi- 

 viduals, and not by men of genius ; and that how- 

 ever much they may have altered our system of war, 

 commerce, science, and education, they were brought 

 by a people familiar with their practice, and from 

 a country where they were already universally 

 known. But whatever may be the claims of the 

 Saracens to the praise of original genius, they formed 

 the link which unites ancient and modern letters. 

 Their schools and academies were the shrines at 

 which the barbarized nations of the West rekindled 

 the torch of science and philosophy ; and thus the 

 ravages occasioned by their wars were, in some de- 

 gree, expiated by their scattering the germs of social 

 and intellectual improvement over the wide regions 



