200 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION, 
But military troubles, the curse of the world, interfere again, 
and by the order of the great Cesar the knowledge collected for 
centuries is dissipated in a day, and the great Library of 
Alexandria is a thing of the past. Civilization was put back 
hundreds of years. Stored-up knowledge, that even now might 
solve problems, was used as fuel for baths, to wash the outside 
dirt off bigots and ruffians, who wanted. the ablution applied to 
their besotted minds. But let us skip a horrid period of darkness, 
during which knowledge and exactitude of thought travelled into 
Spain, when the Arabs, Moors, and the Jews (a thinking race) 
held the Science of the world. 
All the knowledge of mathematics and medicine seems at -this 
time to have been absorbed by the Jews. One Jewish physician, 
resident in Spain, objected to visit the Khan of Bokhara although 
offered a fabulous fee, because he could not leave his library, and 
its transit would cost too much. The civilization of Spain must 
now have been far in advance of later times, and the schools 
of learning better endowed, and more efficient in their teaching. 
Whilst London and Paris were stinking villages, without any 
thought of sanitation, Granada was lovely with its hanging 
gardens, scented fountains, beautiful architecture, and a degree of -— 
refinement demonstrated to us by the lovely views of the 
Alhambra. 
And now we come by a strange irony of history to a time in 
which the very descendants of the men who destroyed that 
glorious repository of knowledge, the Alexandrine Museum, come 
to the front themselves, and start us on our career of present 
science. Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Columbus, Vasco de Gama, 
all bearing Latin names, are pioneers so near our own times as to 
be our bosom friends. Who does not know the story of the 
swinging lamp of Galileo, of the vacuum of Toricelli, and of the 
laboured thought which for the second time within historic times 
pronounced the world round? Yet, how few of us, who know 
these facts as children’s tales, can understand the wealth of 
intellect that was used up to prepare them for our easy grasp. 
Time prevents my going into an elaborate description of the 
Copernican system. It practically lays down the same laws that 
we have to day. At this period the whole condition of Scientific 
