ics according to Aristotle, many a Jewish student of
philosophy derived much accurate information. It was not, however,
through his attacks on philosophy that Ghazzali's authority was
established among Jewish thinkers of the middle ages, but through the
ethical teachings in his theological works. He approached the ethical
idea of Judaism to such an extent that some supposed him to be actually
drifting in that direction."

Although Ghazzali was a Persian, both by race and birthplace, most of
his works are composed in Arabic, that language being as familiar to
Muhammadan theologians as Latin to those of Europe in the Middle Ages.
One of his most important works is the "Tahafut al falasifah,"
"Destruction of the Philosophers," which the great Averroes endeavoured
to refute. Somewhat in the style of Mr. Balfour's "Defence of
philosophic doubt," Ghazzali attempts to erect his religious system on
a basis of scepticism. He denies causation as thoroughly as Hume, but
asserts that the divine mind has ordained that certain phenomena shall
always occur in a certain order, and that philosophy without faith is
powerless to discover God. Although chiefly famous in the West as a
philosopher, he himself would probably have repudiated the title. He
tells us that his object in studying philosophy was to confute the
philosophers. His true element was not philosophy but religion, with
which his whole being was penetrated, and which met all his spiritual
needs. Even in his most heterogeneous studies he always kept before him
one aim--the confirmation, spread, and glorification of Islam.

It is true that more than one of his contemporaries accused him of
hypocrisy, saying that he had an esoteric doctrine for himself and his
private circle of friends, and an exoteric for the vulgar. His Sufistic
leanings might lend some colour to this accusation, it being a
well-known Sufi habit to cloak their teaching under a metaphorical veil,
wine representing the love of God, etc., as in Hafiz and Omar Khayyam.
Against this must be set the fact that in his autobiography written near
the close of his life, he constantly refers to his former works, which
he would hardly have done had he been conscious of any striking
discrepancy between his earlier and his later teaching. There is no
reason to doubt his previously-quoted statement that he "studied
philosophy in order to refute the philosophers."

He was, at any rate, intensely indignant at having his orth