IN THE SCIENCES.
MARVELOUS INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY OF MOORS AND JEWS.--MOORS
EXCEL THE JEWS IN THE SCIENCES.--THEY INTRODUCE THE MATHEMATICAL
SCIENCES.--THEIR PROGRESS IN ASTRONOMY.--ABSURD REFUTATIONS BY THE
CHRISTIAN CLERGY.--THEIR RESEARCHES INTO CHEMISTRY, ZOOLOGY AND
GEOLOGY.--THEY ANTICIPATE MODERN DISCOVERIES.--EUROPE'S INGRATITUDE.
We turn next in our review of the intellectual labors of the Moors
and Jews in Spain, during the period that extends from the beginning
of the eighth to the end of the fifteenth century, to an examination
of their position in the sciences. The deplorably benighted state of
contemporaneous Europe prepares us to expect little or nothing in this
noblest department of human knowledge, and our surprise is therefore so
much the greater as we gaze upon, and ponder over, the mighty strides
made by the Moors and by the Jews on the highways of science. The
impetus in this special branch seemed to have come from the Arabs. The
few words of Ali, the fourth Arabian caliph: "Eminence in science is
the highest honor; he dies not who gives life to learning," seems to
have taken as deep roots within the minds of the Arabians, and to have
yielded far more precious fruits, than did the Koran the vast volume of
his distinguished father-in-law; Mohammed.
For centuries the Arab-Moors led the world in this department. Here the
Jews cannot lay claim to rivalry; they were collaborators, but nothing
more. In justice to the Jews, however, we shall add, that there are
some who differ from us in our conclusion. Some give to the Jews an
equal rank with the Moors, others claim that the point under discussion
is still debatable. And we must not treat their objection lightly. We
must not forget that in treating of these scientists of Spain, we are
dealing with men known under Arabic names; beyond a knowledge of their
scientific works we know little or nothing about them. Concerning their
religion, history maintains a commendable silence; the Mohammedans
preferring, at this period, the ink of science to the blood of martyrs.
Knowing of the scientific scholars nothing more than that their works
are written in Arabic, and that their names are Arabic, the canons of
criticism will not permit us to conclude that a scientist who writes
in Arabic, and whose name is Arabic, is necessarily also a Mohammedan
by faith. The records give incontestable proof that many and many of
the distinguished Jewish scholars of that period wrote in Arabic, and
went under an Arabic name, who, but for a chance article of work from
their pen upon a Hebrew subject, might have been classed to-day as
Arab-Moors by race and Mohammedan by creed. Be this as it may. That
point will never be definitely settled, and as long as a doubt remains,
the Arab-Moors may justly claim the benefit of the doubt, and the
Jews shall be the last to contest their claims of superiority in the
sciences during the Middle Ages over every other race or creed.
Entering upon our subject, and beginning at the root of the tree of
science, we make the pleasing discovery that to the Arab-Moors of Spain
belongs the honor of having been the first to generally introduce
in Europe, for scientific and industrial and commercial purposes,
the science of arithmetic. Had they achieved nothing else, the
introduction of this most needful of all the branches of mathematics
alone, would have entitled them to a distinguished place among the
world's benefactors. That introduction was the starting point of
a new progress. Its use and development made possible the higher
mathematics and analytical mechanics and astronomy, and every other
science discovered since, and hailed with delight. Little do we think
to-day when we pride ourselves on the startling achievements of our
astronomers and meteorologists and other scientists, when we speak of
the miracles they work in space and time, of the ascensions they make
to the remotest of the nebulæ, and of their holding communion there
with stars and worlds and solar systems whose light has not yet reached
the earth, little do we think when we speak of electricity obeying our
every wish, and of steam yoked in our service, and of the countless
other wonders of modern science, little do we think that for all these
blessings we are lastingly indebted to the Arab-Moors, and to their
assistants, the Jews, for their faithful labors in mathematics. Little
do we think that we are pronouncing Arabic words when we speak of the
"zero" or the "cipher", the "naught,"--that most important of all
figures, upon which the most needful of all arithmetical contrivances
is based--the decimal system. And when we remember that the prosperity
and progress of every country in Europe dates from the introduction
of the Arabian figures[22] and when we realize the clumsiness and
uselessness of the Hebrew and Greek and Latin alphabet figures, in
vogue in Europe before the entrance of the Arab-Moors into Spain, and
when we try to work out a problem of multiplication, say ninety-nine
multiplied by ninety-nine, in accordance with the notation of the
Arabic nine digits and cipher, and then, in accordance with the Roman
alphabet figures, XCIX times XCIX, then, perhaps, will we most readily
give thankful praise to those to whom Europe owes so magnificent a
boon--to those who, with so simple an invention, opened the avenues of
prosperity and loosened the fetters that had shackled the advance of
science.
[22] In Germany and England not until the fifteenth century,
and hence their backwardness till then.
Encouraged by their success in arithmetic, they turned towards a higher
branch of mathematics and gave to Europe the science of numbers and
quantity, and named it algebra ("al'jabara," to bind parts together).
Whether, as some claim, the Arab-Moors obtained their knowledge of
algebra from their schools in Bagdad or Damascus, who, in their turn,
had derived it from the Hindoos, or whether, as others claim, the Jews,
in their diligent translations from the early Greek geometricians into
Arabic, must have come across, and followed up the algebraic trace,
which is supposed to exist in the treatise of Diaphantus (350 A.
C.), or whether the Moorish claim be the true one, that the honor of
having invented algebra belongs to one of their own mathematicians,
who flourished about the middle of the ninth century, to Mohammed ben
Musa, or Moses,[23] whoever the inventors be of this valuable branch
of mathematics, unanimity of opinion prevails concerning one point,
and that is, the Arab-Moors and Jews first introduced algebra into
Europe. Still more Ibn Musa (or Ben Moses) developed it to the solution
of quadratic equations, and Ibn Ibrahim (Ben Abraham) to the solution
of cubic equations, Ibn Korrah (or Ben Korah) to the application of
algebra to geometry, laying thus the foundation of analytical geometry.
Geometry led them to trigonometry, which they elevated to a practical
science by substituting sines for chords and by establishing formulas
and tables of tangents and cotangents and secants and cosecants. From
trigonometry Al Baghadadi advanced to land surveying, and wrote on it a
treatise so excellent, that by some it has been declared to be a copy
of Euclid's lost work on that subject.
[23] A copy of this Arabic work is preserved in the
Bodleian library at Oxford, bearing a date of transcription
corresponding to the year 1342.
The unbiased student, who searches diligently among the achievements of
the Moors and Jews, will soon detect, not only a systematic contrivance
on the part of the literature of Europe to put out of sight our
obligations to them in science, but a bold effort, wherever a chance
presents itself, to wrest their hard toil from them, and bestow it
upon some one, who is not so unfortunate as to be Saracen or Jew. But
"injustice founded on religious rancor and national conceit cannot be
perpetuated forever." The real truth can not be much longer hidden, and
if the chapters of this volume have no other effect than simply to do
justice to the memory of those who have toiled and who have suffered,
that we may enjoy, to-day, the blessings of our civilization, we shall
regard our labors amply rewarded.
We have digressed. Let us return to our theme. They toiled for science
sake, not for fame. They looked for none. When Spain itself, indebted
to them for all her blessings, repays so miserably their faithful
services, why should they look to Europe for recognition? "High minds,"
it has been truly said, "are as little affected by such unworthy
returns for services, as the sun is by those fogs which the earth
throws up between herself and his light."[24]
[24] T. Moore's "Life of Sheridan," Vol. 2 Chap. iv.
And so, expecting no thanks, and working for none, they advanced,
with their present achievements as stepping stones, to the study of
astronomy. And marvelous, almost incredible, is their success in this
department. They determine the altitude of celestial bodies by means
of the astrolabe. They register all the stars in their heaven, giving
to those of the first magnitudes the names they still bear on our
celestial maps and globes, writing thus indelibly their impress upon
the celestial heaven, though it be denied them in the literature of
Europe. They give us the words "azimuth," "zenith," "nadir," "almanac,"
and others. They compute time by the oscillations of the pendulum,
and determine the true length of the year. They discover the theory
of the refraction of light and ascertain the curvilinear path of a
ray of light through the air. They explain the horizontal sun and
moon, and why we see those bodies before they have risen and after
they have set. They measure the height of the atmosphere and determine
it to be nearly fifty-eight and one half miles. They give the true
theory of the twilight, and of the twinkling of the stars. They not
only know the spheroidal form of the earth, but approximately its
diameter and circumference. Averroes discovers the spots upon the sun.
Kepler alludes honorably to the observations of Levi ben Gerson, and
Copernicus to those of Profiat Duran, and Laplace accepts Ibn Musa's
proof of the diminution of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, and
Ibn Junis' proof of the obliquity of the ecliptic. They invent the
first pendulum clock. They build the first observatory in Europe, the
Giralda, (1196 A. C.) turned into a belfry after the expulsion of the
Moors and Jews. They almost discover the laws of gravity, considering
it terrestrial, reserving it for Newton to teach that it is universal.
Rabbi Isaac ben Sid prepares for Alphonso X., king of Castile, new
astronomical tables, for which Alphonso takes the credit, names them
the Alphonsine tables, and is modest enough to remark: "That if God had
called him (the king) into His councils when He created the universe,
things would have been in a better and simpler order."
The Church, in the meanwhile, does her best to refute the "ungodly
scientific teachings" of the Moors and Jews. The argument of the
"Sohar" that the earth revolves upon its own axis and around the
sun (a Jewish teaching in the twelfth century, anticipating that of
Copernicus), the shining lights of the church nail to the ground with
clinchers from the Bible such as these: "The sun runneth about from
one end of the heaven to the other," and "the foundations of the earth
are so firmly fixed that they cannot be moved." The absurdity of the
existence of the antipodes they prove to their full satisfaction
in this manner: "It is impossible that any inhabitants exist on
the opposite side of the earth, since no such race is recorded by
Scriptures among the descendants of Adam." Again, "we are told by St.
Paul that all men are made to live '_upon_ the face of the earth,'
from which it clearly follows that they can not live upon more faces
than one or upon the back." Again, "how could men exist on the other
side of the earth, since on the day of judgment, being on the other
side, they could not see the Lord ascending through the air?" Ergo, the
teachings of the Church alone are the true theories of this universe,
"concerning which it is not lawful for a Christian to doubt."
But the Moors and Jews treated with contempt this puerile opposition,
little thinking that the Church of "Love unto all men" has stronger
and more convincing weapons than tongue and pen to prove her points.
They persevered in their path so well begun. They turned to the
physical sciences. They originated chemistry. They discovered some
of the most important reagents, such as the nitric, sulphuric and
hydrochloric acids, and alcohol, which still bears its Arabic name.
They knew the chemical affinities of gold, silver, copper, iron, tin,
lead and quicksilver. They invented various apparatus for distillation,
sublimation, fusion, filtration, etc. They constructed tables of
specific gravities. In geology, Abu Othman wrote a valuable work. In
zoology, the following extract from a chapter of Avicenna (Ibn Sinai
or Ben Sinai) on the origin of the mountains, which reads as if it
were written by one of the most advanced geologists of our day, will
best indicate the heights to which they attained in this science.
"Mountains" said Ibn Sinai (980-1037), "may be due to two different
causes. Either they are upheavals of the crust of the earth, such as
might occur during a violent earthquake, or they are the effects 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. That water
has been the main cause of these facts is proved by the existence of
fossil remains of aquatic and other animals on many mountains."[25]
[25] Sometimes, not without surprise, we meet with ideas which
we flatter ourselves have originated in our own times. Thus
our modern doctrines of evolution and development were taught
in their schools. In fact, they carried them much farther
than we are disposed to do, extending them even to inorganic
and mineral things. The fundamental principle of alchemy
was the natural process of development of metalline bodies.
"When common people," says Al-Khazini, writing in the twelfth
century, "hear from natural philosophers that gold is a body
which has attained to perfection of maturity, to the goal of
completeness, they firmly believe that it is something which
has gradually come to that perfection by passing through the
forms of all other metallic bodies, so that its gold nature
was originally lead, afterward it became tin, then brass,
then silver, and finally reached the development of gold; not
knowing that the natural philosophers mean, in saying this,
only something like what they mean when they speak of man, and
attribute to him a completeness and equilibrium in nature and
constitution--not that man was once a bull, and was changed
into an ass, and afterward into a horse, and after that into
an ape, and finally became a man."
--"_Conflict between Religion and Science," by Draper, Chap.
IV._
But little has been cited here concerning the position of the Moors
and Jews in the sciences. The field is too vast and the scope of this
volume will not permit us to enter into greater details. He that would
have fuller knowledge upon this theme let him peruse the following
works, to which I am largely indebted for the facts stated above.
"Geschichte der Arabischen Aerzte and Naturforscher," Wuestenfeld;
"Conquest of Spain," "Book V.," by Coppe; "Eastern Caliphate,"
Stanislaus Guyard; "History of Algebra," Phillip Kelland; "History
of Arithmetic," George McArthur; "Astronomy," R. A. Proctor; "The
Intellectual Development of Europe," Draper; "Conflict Between Religion
and Science," Draper; "Rationalism in Europe," Lecky.
Yet, even though our synoptical review has been brief we have seen
and heard enough to understand fully why in the year 1492, and within
the realm of Spain, Wisdom mourns and Knowledge wails, and Science is
broken-hearted and Europe trembles. Anguish seizes upon our soul at
the thought, yet a little while, and all this wondrous intellectual
advance, so active and so promising will be torn off the soil of
Europe, root and all, and darkness, cruel darkness, ignorance, cruel
ignorance, will ascend the throne once more and usher into the scenes
of life stagnation, corruption, suffering, despair.
For science and for humanity's sake we venture to approach the princes
of the realm and prelates of the church and plead for mercy. "No!" is
the stern reply of Ferdinand and Isabella, "Spain is polluted by the
presence of the accursed Moors and Jews." "Avaunt!" shouts Cardinal
Ximenes, "Catholicism is in danger where Moorish and Jewish brain is
at work." "Mercy ye ask for," fairly shrieks the Grand Inquisitor
Torquemada, "the Church knows no mercy for the Moorish and Jewish
infidel dogs. Begone, or their fate is yours."
We are not yet prepared for death. Our task is not yet done. Many a
Moorish and Jewish achievement remains still to be spoken of, and so we
shall hasten our review, while yet we may speak of their position in
literature.