estimation all through the Middle Ages, was the School of Medicine at Salerno. That school was, as Gibbon expresses it, "the legitimate offspring of the Saracens." It was trained by Arabic professors; it was taught from Arabic books. Towards the year of Christ 1100, a curious little volume was compiled by John of Milan, one of the physicians of this school, and was dedicated to the King of England, but to which is not quite clear: "Anglorum Regi scribit Schola tota Salerni." This volume embodies some of the most approved maxims for health in Latin verses of the kind called Leonine, that is, rhyme according to the favourite fashion of the Middle Ages. Thus put into a popular form, these maxims appear to have enjoyed a high popularity until a recent period. They were annotated with great care by Arnald de Villanova. And to the edition of 1649 is prefixed an elaborate preface by Zacharias Sylvius, a physician of Rotterdam. The second chapter of his preface opens as follows: "There is scarce any physician in Holland but has frequently in his mouth the verses of the Salerno school, or who fails to quote them on every occasion." This, you see, is little more than two centuries ago.

Indeed, as I imagine, no doubt at all can exist that all through the Middle Ages the Arabic school of medicine was greatly superior to the Latin. There is a very able essay upon these points which appeared in the National Review, at New York, in the month of July last.1 I do not know the author's name, but I

1 National Quarterly Review. New York, July, 1865.

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would recommend his essay to any one who might desire further information on this curious subject. He enumerates many of those barbarous modes of medical treatment which prevailed in Christendom through great part of the Middle Ages. I need mention only two-the hoplochrysma, as it was learnedly called, or anointing the instrument which inflicted a wound in the hopes of healing the wound itself; and the supposed cure of scrofulous diseases by the touch of Royalty—a practice which, you may remember, was continued in England even down to the reign of Queen Anne.

The superior skill of the Arabic physicians seems indeed to have been admitted all through the dark period of the Middle Ages. It was mainly at the revival of letters that another appreciation arose. Thus we find Petrarch declare vehemently against the whole Arabic system, both in philosophy and medicine. But his main motive, I think, was national prejudice. In a Latin letter addressed to his friend Giovanni Dondi, he says that he shall not be easily persuaded that any good thing can come out of Arabia. And in another part of his writings, Petrarch goes so far that he says he will not consent to be cured by any medicines if they bear an Arabic name.

I may add that in the darker ages the Saracen professors of medicine may, I think, be traced, not merely along the limits, but in the very heart of Christian Europe. Thus there was published in France fourteen years ago, a very curious record of the visitations of Eude Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, commencing in 1248; and I have found in this the mention of a

Moorish physician on the banks of the Seine, and in a company of Norman monks; "Magister Maurus physicus. It may be observed on the other hand that the skill of the Arabic physicians never extended to Arabia properly so called. Nothing, at least, can be more unfavourable than the account of the healing art, past and present, in that country, recently given by Mr. Palgrave, in his most agreeable and ably written volumes of travel.

Reverting to Avicenna, not in his character of a physician, but of a philosopher, we shall find that he is disposed to distinguish between a higher and a lower spirit or intelligence in man, that is, as I apprehend it, between the life and the soul. He considers the vital spirit not so much as one, but rather as the aggregate of the different vital powers, taking after Galen the brain as the seat of thought, the heart as the seat of courage and other emotions, and the liver as the seat of the animal exertions or powers. In general, Avicenna seems only too ready to assign causes, sometimes with little discretion, for the various phenomena of created beings. But in some passages he shows a deeper humility and a truer wisdom. "This," he says, of one mysterious process, "is among the secrets known to God alone. All glory then be to God, who is the King of all, the source of truth and praise, the aim of our benediction, and the first of all things that have being." Surely such words as these ought to have exempted Avicenna from the vague charges

1

1 Op., vol. i. p. 924.

of impiety and atheism which some writers of the Middle Ages, as William of Auvergne, are, I see, quoted as having with much presumption brought against hir..

The views of Avicenna on our spiritual nature are, however, best deduced from an essay, to which even in the Latin version there is given the title of Almahad. It is a book of some rarity. I endeavoured in vain to obtain a copy in London, but it may be real, as I have read it, in the library of the British Museum. Almahad, then, is the condition or the place to which the soul of man will take its flight after his decease. The supreme happiness to which the soul aspires has here, he says, for obstacle the body. Therefore, in another life, its felicity will be in its separation and enfranchisement from its earthly trammels. Its reward would lie in the nearer contemplation of the Almighty, and of those sublime essences which adore him. On the other hand, its punishment would lie in its exile and its distance from these. Some souls, however, which though perfect in speculation were not perfect in deeds, will be consigned to an intermediate sphere—the Berzach or purgatory-a mean between felicity and suffering. Thus it will be seen that the religious aspirations of Avicenna, although a Mahometan in creed, have none of that material grossness which is commonly ascribed to the Paradise of Mahomet. On the contrary, adopting as they do the doctrine of a purgatory, they appear in close accordance with the teaching of Catholic theologians in that age.

Before I pass from Avicenna, I may mention another

instance which has but lately come to light, of the favour which he found in the West. The present Dean of St. Paul's has printed for the Philo-biblon Society a catalogue of the books of Richard de Gravesend, Bishop of London. It bears date the year of our Lord 1303, and "this I apprehend," adds the Dean, "is the earliest priced catalogue known." Now, one of the entries in it is Liber Avicenna, priced at 57., which, according to the Dean's calculation, is equivalent to about 1507. of our present money. A strong proof of the estimation in which Avicenna was held at that period among the prelates of another creed.

I come now to Averroes. The writings of that philosopher are far more voluminous than those of Avicenna; they had also an influence far more extensive and deep rooted. Like those of his predecessor, they were known to Christian Europe only through the medium of a Latin translation. Of late years, however, the original sources also appear to have been carefully explored. Special notice is due to the learned and able work of M. Ernest Renan, which in its revised and completed form appeared in 1861. It is free, so far as I can trace, from any such unhappy prepossession as on some other and incomparably more important subjects may justly detract so much from the weight belonging to the author; and it gives both the life and the doctrines of Averroes far more fully than within the limits of this lecture I could hope or attempt to do.

In philosophy, Averroes professed himself a follower of Aristotle, whose works-having them before him in an Arabic version of older date-he made the subject