the people of india.
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Grecian writers. That the impulse was not stronger or more permanent, is owing, perhaps, to the partial use which they made of this great instrument of national improvement. If, instead of contenting themselves with meagre translations of some of the Greek philosophers, they had studied Plato and Xenophon, Homer and Thucydides, in the original, a flame of generous liberty might have been kindled, and a new direction might have been given at that period to the views and feelings of the people of the East, the possible effects of which up to the present day it is impossible to calculate.[1] The Arabs pursued a very different course in
- ↑ Gibbon observes on this point:—“The Moslems deprived themselves of the principal benefits of a familiar intercourse with Greece and Rome, the knowledge of antiquity, the purity of taste, and the freedom of thought. Confident in the riches of their native tongue, the Arabians disdained the study of any foreign idiom. The philosophers of Athens and Rome enjoyed the blessings and asserted the rights of civil and religious freedom. Their moral and political writings might have gradually unlocked the fetters of eastern despotism, diffused a liberal spirit of inquiry and toleration, and encouraged the Arabian sages to suspect that their caliph was a tyrant, and their prophet an impostor. To the thirst of martyrdom, the vision of paradise, and the belief of predestination, we must ascribe the invincible enthusiasm of the prince and people; and the sword of the Saracens became less formidable when their youth was drawn away from the camp to the college, when the armies of the faithful presumed to read and reflect. Yet the foolish vanity of the Greeks was jealous of their studies, and reluctantly imparted the sacred fire to the barbarians of the East.” These Moslems were only the neighbours of the lower empire,
