294 PHYSICAL SCIENCE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 



give themselves up to the guidance of Aristotle and 

 other dogmatists. Their military habits had accus- 

 tomed them to look to a leader ; their reverence for 

 the book of their law had prepared them to accept 

 a philosophical Koran also. Thus the Arabians, 

 though they never translated the Greek poetry, 

 translated, and merely translated, the Greek philo- 

 sophy ; they followed the Greek philosophers with- 

 out deviation, or, at least, without any philosophical 

 deviations. They became for the most part Aristo- 

 telians ; studied not only Aristotle, but the com- 

 mentators of Aristotle ; and themselves swelled the 

 vast and unprofitable herd. 



The philosophical works of Aristotle had, in 

 some measure, made their way in the east, before 

 the growth of the Saracen power. In the sixth 

 century, a Syrian, Uranus 15 , encouraged by the love 

 of philosophy manifested by Cosroes, had translated 

 some of the writings of the Stagirite; about the 

 same time, Sergius had given some translations in 

 Syriac. In the seventh century, Jacob of Edessa 

 translated into this language the Dialectics, and 

 added Notes to the work. Such labours became 

 numerous ; and the first Arabic translations of Aris- 

 totle were formed upon these Persian or Syriac 

 texts. In this succession of transfusions, some mis- 

 takes must inevitably have been introduced. 



The Arabian interpreters of Aristotle, like a 

 large portion of the Alexandrian ones, gave to the 

 15 Deg. iv. 196. 



