the Abbassides, awakening from this mental lethargy, found
leisure and felt curiosity for the acquisition of profane science. This
spirit was first encouraged by the caliph Almansor, who, besides his
knowledge of the Mahometan law, had applied himself with success to
the study of astronomy. But when the sceptre devolved to Almamon, the
seventh of the Abbassides, he completed the designs of his grandfather,
and invited the muses from their ancient seats. His ambassadors at
Constantinople, his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, collected the
volumes of Grecian science at his command they were translated by the
most skilful interpreters into the Arabic language: his subjects were
exhorted assiduously to peruse these instructive writings; and
the successor of Mahomet assisted with pleasure and modesty at the
assemblies and disputations of the learned. "He was not ignorant," says
Abulpharagius, "that they are the elect of God, his best and most useful
servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational
faculties. The mean ambition of the Chinese or the Turks may glory in
the industry of their hands or the indulgence of their brutal appetites.
Yet these dexterous artists must view, with hopeless emulation, the
hexagons and pyramids of the cells of a beehive: [52] these
fortitudinous heroes are awed by the superior fierceness of the lions
and tigers; and in their amorous enjoyments they are much inferior to
the vigor of the grossest and most sordid quadrupeds. The teachers of
wisdom are the true luminaries and legislators of a world, which,
without their aid, would again sink in ignorance and barbarism." [53]
The zeal and curiosity of Almamon were imitated by succeeding princes of
the line of Abbas: their rivals, the Fatimites of Africa and the
Ommiades of Spain, were the patrons of the learned, as well as the
commanders of the faithful; the same royal prerogative was claimed by
their independent emirs of the provinces; and their emulation diffused
the taste and the rewards of science from Samarcand and Bochara to Fez
and Cordova. The vizier of a sultan consecrated a sum of two hundred
thousand pieces of gold to the foundation of a college at Bagdad, which
he endowed with an annual revenue of fifteen thousand dinars. The fruits
of instruction were communicated, perhaps at different times, to six
thousand disciples of every degree, from the son of the noble to that of
the mechanic: a sufficient allowance was