the Royal Society.
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long; feeing, I am confident, I have said nothing, but what was before very well known, and what passes about in common Discourse.
Sect. XXI. The Philosophy of the Arabians.I did on purpose omit the learned Age of the Arabians, in its proper Place; because I was resolved, as I came down, to keep my self as near as I could, within the Bounds of Christendom. But I shall now add, concerning them, that their Studies also were principally bent upon expounding Aristotle, and the Greek Physicians. They were, without Question, men of a deep and subtile Wit; which is a Character, that (it may be) in all Ages has belonged more justly to the Tempers of the Southern, than of the Northern Countries. Of this they have left many noble Testimonies behind them; so many, that (if we believe some worthy and industrious Men of our own Nation, who have searched into their Monuments) they might even almost be compared to Rome and Athens themselves. But they enjoyed not the Light long enough: It brake forth upon the Point of their greatest Conquests; it mainly consisted, in understanding the Ancients; and what they would have done, when they had been weary of them we cannot tell: For that Work was not fully over, before they were darkened by that, which made even Greece it self barbarous, the Turkish Monarchy. However, that Knowledge, which they had, is the more remarkable, because it sprang up, in that Part of the World, which has been almost always perversly unlearned. For methinks, that small Spot of civil Arts, compared to their long Course of Ignorance, before and after, bears some Resemblance with that Country it self; where there are some few little Vallies, andWells,
