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Discovery of Sulphuric Acid.

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399 alum, and saltpetre. He sets forth its corrosive power, and He solves shows how it may be made to dissolve even gold itself, by blem of adding a portion of sal-ammoniac. Djafar may thus be con- table gold. sidered as having solved the grand alchemical problem of obtaining gold in a potable state. Of course, many trials must have been made on the influence of this solution on the animal system, respecting which such extravagant anticipations had been entertained. The disappointment that ensued was doubtless the cause that the records of these trials have not descended to us.

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With Djafar may be mentioned Rhazes, born A.D. 860, phy- Rhazes dissician-in-chief to the great hospital at Bagdad. To him is due phuric acid. 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 quicklime. As a curious Bechil disdiscovery made by the Saracens may be mentioned the experi- phosphoment of Achild Bechil, who, by distilling together the extract rus. of urine, clay, lime, and powdered charcoal, obtained an artificial carbuncle, which shone in the dark "like a good moon." This was phosphorus.

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And now there arose among Arabian physicians a correct- Geological ness of thought and breadth of view altogether surprising. It Avicenna. 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

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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 indicate the was too brittle to be of any use. A mere catalogue of some of attainment the works of Avicenna will show the then existing state of the

His works

of the

times.

Effect of the search for the elixir on

medicine.

Arabian mind:-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 Encyclopædia of Human Knowledge, in 20 volumes, etc. etc. The perusal of such a catalogue is sufficient to excite profound attention when we remember what was the contemporaneous state of Europe.

The pursuit of the elixir made a well-marked impression upon Arab experimental science, confirming it in its medical practical 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 constitution 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 such 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.

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This last sentiment it was which brought Europe and Africa tween Eu- into intellectual collision. The Saracen and Hebrew physi

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Africa.

cians had become thoroughly materialized. Throughout Chris- rope and tendom 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 circumstances of the conflict that ensued between material philosophy on the 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.

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VOL. I.

Influence of the

Arabians.

Worship of relics and

images.

THE

CHAPTER XIV.

THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST-(Continued).

IMAGE-WORSHIP AND THE MONKS.

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 emancipation of the Popes from the Emperors of Constantinople, the usurpation of power by a new dynasty in France, the reconstruction of a Roman empire in the West.

It was the dispute respecting the worship of images which led to those great events. The acts of the Mohammedan khalifs and of the iconoclastic or image-breaking emperors occasioned that dispute.

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 substituted for them were immersed in fetichism. An observance of certain ceremonials constituted a religious life; there seems to have been no perception of morality. 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 medicines had performed. But especially were painted or graven images of

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holy personages supposed to be endowed with such powers. They had become objects of actual worship. The facility with which the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, had given an aristocratic fashion to this idolatry, showed that the old Pagan ideas had never really died out, and that the degenerated populations received with approval the religious conceptions of their great predecessors. The early Christian Fathers believed that painting and sculpture were forbidden by the Scriptures, and that they were therefore wicked arts; and, though the second Council of Nicæa asserted that the use of images had always been adopted by the Church, there are abundant facts to prove that the actual worship of them was not indulged in until the fourth century, when on the occasion of its occurrence in Spain, it was condemned by the Council of Illiberis. During the fifth century the practice of Its rapid spread in introducing images into churches increased, and in the sixth Christenit had become prevalent. The common people, who had never been able to comprehend doctrinal mysteries, found their religious wants satisfied in turning to these effigies. With singular obtuseness, they believed that the saint was present in his image, though hundreds of the same kind were in existence, and each having an equal and exclusive right to the spiritual presence. The doctrine of invocation of departed saints, which assumed prominence in the fifth century, was greatly strengthened by these graphic forms. Pagan idolatry had reappeared.

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At first the simple cross was used as a substitute for the Simple amulets and charms of remoter times; it constituted a fetich placed by able to expel evil spirits, and even Satan himself. This being, who had become singularly debased from what he was in the noble Oriental fictions, was an imbecile and malicious, though not a malignant spirit, affrighted not only at pieces of wood framed in the shape of a cross, but at the form thereof made with the finger in the air. A subordinate demon was supposed to possess every individual at his birth, but this was cast out by baptism. When, in the course of time, the cross became a crucifix, offering a representation of the dying Redeemer, it might be supposed to have gathered increased virtue; and soon, in addition to that adorable form, were introduced.

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