Volume I Part 36 (1/2)
[Sidenote: Rhazes discovers sulphuric acid.]
[Sidenote: Bechil discovers phosphorus.]
With Djafar may be mentioned Rhazes, born A.D. 860, physician-in-chief to the great hospital at Bagdad. To him is due the first description of the preparation and properties of sulphuric acid. He obtained it, as the Nordhausen variety is still made, by the distillation of dried green vitriol. To him are also due the first indications of the preparation of absolute alcohol, by distilling spirit of wine from quick-lime. As a curious discovery made by the Saracens may be mentioned the experiment of Achild Bechil, who, by distilling together the extract of urine, clay, lime, and powdered charcoal, obtained an artificial carbuncle, which shone in the dark ”like a good moon.” This was phosphorus.
[Sidenote: Geological views of Avicenna.]
[Sidenote: His works indicate the attainment of the times.]
And now there arose among Arabian physicians a correctness of thought and breadth of view altogether surprising. It might almost be supposed that the following lines were written by one of our own contemporaries; they are, however, extracted from a chapter of Avicenna on the origin of mountains. This author was born in the tenth century. ”Mountains may be due to two different causes. Either they are effects of upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effect of water, which, cutting for itself a new route, has denuded the valleys, the strata being of different kinds, some soft, some hard. The winds and waters disintegrate the one, but leave the other intact. Most of the eminences of the earth have had this latter origin. It would require a long period of time for all such changes to be accomplished, during which the mountains themselves might be somewhat diminished in size. But that water has been the main cause of these effects is proved by the existence of fossil remains of aquatic and other animals on many mountains.” Avicenna also explains the nature of petrifying or incrusting waters, and mentions aerolites, out of one of which a sword-blade was made, but he adds that the metal was too brittle to be of any use. A mere catalogue of some of the works of Avicenna will indicate the condition of Arabian attainment. 1. On the Utility and Advantage of Science; 2. Of Health and Remedies; 3. Canons of Physic; 4.
On Astronomical Observations; 5. Mathematical Theorems; 6. On the Arabic Language and its Properties; 7. On the Origin of the Soul and Resurrection of the Body; 8. Demonstration of Collateral Lines on the Sphere; 9. An Abridgment of Euclid; 10. On Finity and Infinity; 11. On Physics and Metaphysics; 12. An Encyclopaedia of Human Knowledge, in 20 vols., etc., etc. The perusal of such a catalogue is sufficient to excite profound attention when we remember the contemporaneous state of Europe.
[Sidenote: Effect of the search for the elixir on practical medicine.]
The pursuit of the elixir made a well-marked impression upon Arab experimental science, confirming it in its medical application. At the foundation of this application lay the principle that it is possible to relieve the diseases of the human body by purely material means. As the science advanced it gradually shook off its fetichisms, the spiritual receding into insignificance, the material coming into bolder relief.
Not, however, without great difficulty was a way forced for the great doctrine that the influence of substances on the const.i.tution of man is altogether of a material kind, and not at all due to any indwelling or animating spirit; that it is of no kind of use to practise incantations over drugs, or to repeat prayers over the mortar in which medicines are being compounded, since the effect will be the same, whether this has been done or not; that there is no kind of efficacy in amulets, no virtue in charms; and that, though saint-relics may serve to excite the imagination of the ignorant, they are altogether beneath the attention of the philosopher.
[Sidenote: Medical conflict between Europe and Africa.]
It was this last sentiment which brought Europe and Africa into intellectual collision. The Saracen and Hebrew physicians had become thoroughly materialized. Throughout Christendom the practice of medicine was altogether supernatural. It was in the hands of ecclesiastics; and saint relics, shrines, and miracle-cures were a source of boundless profit. On a subsequent page I shall have to describe the circ.u.mstances of the conflict that ensued between material philosophy on one side, and supernatural jugglery on the other; to show how the Arab system gained the victory, and how, out of that victory, the industrial life of Europe arose. The Byzantine policy inaugurated in Constantinople and Alexandria was, happily for the world, in the end overthrown. To that future page I must postpone the great achievements of the Arabians in the fulness of their Age of Reason. When Europe was hardly more enlightened than Caffraria is now, the Saracens were cultivating and even creating science. Their triumphs in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, proved to be more glorious, more durable, and therefore more important than their military actions had been.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Continued_).
IMAGE-WORs.h.i.+P AND THE MONKS.
_Origin of_ IMAGE-WORs.h.i.+P.--_Inutility of Images discovered in Asia and Africa during the Saracen Wars.--Rise of Iconoclasm._
_The Emperors prohibit Image-wors.h.i.+p.--The Monks, aided by court Females, sustain it.--Victory of the latter._
_Image-wors.h.i.+p in the West sustained by the Popes.--Quarrel between the Emperor and the Pope.--The Pope, aided by the Monks, revolts and allies himself with the Franks._
THE MONKS.--_History of the Rise and Development of Monasticism.--Hermits and Coen.o.bites.--Spread of Monasticism from Egypt over Europe.--Monk Miracles and Legends.--Humanization of the monastic Establishments.--They materialize Religion, and impress their Ideas on Europe._
[Sidenote: Influence of the Arabians.]
The Arabian influence, allying itself to philosophy, was henceforth productive of other than military results. To the loss of Africa and Asia was now added a disturbance impressed on Europe itself, ending in the decomposition of Christianity into two forms, Greek and Latin, and in three great political events--the emanc.i.p.ation of the popes from the emperors of Constantinople, the usurpation of power by a new dynasty in France, the reconstruction of the Roman empire in the West.
The dispute respecting the wors.h.i.+p of images led to those great events.
The acts of the Mohammedan khalifs and of the iconoclastic or image-breaking emperors occasioned that dispute.
[Sidenote: Wors.h.i.+p of relics and images.]
[Sidenote: Its rapid spread in Christendom.]
Nothing could be more deplorable than the condition of southern Europe when it first felt the intellectual influence of the Arabians. Its old Roman and Greek populations had altogether disappeared; the races of half-breeds and mongrels subst.i.tuted for them were immersed in fetichism. An observance of certain ceremonials const.i.tuted a religious life. A chip of the true cross, some iron filings from the chain of St.
Peter, a tooth or bone of a martyr, were held in adoration; the world was full of the stupendous miracles which these relics had performed.