They
learnt wider, juster views of man and virtue, which I cannot help
believing must have had great effect in weakening in their minds their
old, exclusive, and bigoted notions, and in paving the way for the great
outburst of free thought, and the great assertion of the dignity of
humanity, which the fifteenth century beheld. They opened a path for
that influx of scientific knowledge which has produced, in after
centuries, the most enormous effects on the welfare of Europe, and made
life possible for millions who would otherwise have been pent within the
narrow bounds of Europe, to devour each other in the struggle for room
and bread.
But those Arabic translations of Greek authors were a fatal gift for
Egypt, and scarcely less fatal gift for Bagdad. In that Almagest of
Ptolemy, in that Organon of Aristotle, which the Crusaders are said to
have brought home, lay, rude and embryotic, the germs of that physical
science, that geographical knowledge which has opened to the European
the commerce and the colonisation of the globe. Within three hundred
years after his works reached Europe, Ptolemy had taught the Portuguese
to sail round Africa; and from that day the stream of eastern wealth
flowed no longer through the Red Sea, or the Persian Gulf, on its way to
the new countries of the West; and not only Alexandria, but Damietta and
Bagdad, dwindled down to their present insignificance.
Pages:
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166