t cities of Asia and Africa. His
library contained four hundred thousand volumes, superbly bound and
illuminated.

Throughout the Mohammedan dominions in Asia, in Africa, and in Spain,
the lower order of Mussulmen entertained a fanatical hatred against
learning. Among the more devout--those who claimed to be orthodox--there
were painful doubts as to the salvation of the great Khalif
Al-Mamun--the wicked khalif, as they called him--for he had not only
disturbed the people by introducing the writings of Aristotle and other
Greek heathens, but had even struck at the existence of heaven and
hell by saying that the earth is a globe, and pretending that he could
measure its size. These persons, from their numbers, constituted a
political power.

Almansor, who usurped the khalifate to the prejudice of Hakem's son,
thought that his usurpation would be sustained if he put himself at
the head of the orthodox party. He therefore had the library of Hakem
searched, and all works of a scientific or philosophical nature carried
into the public places and burnt, or thrown into the cisterns of the
palace. By a similar court revolution Averroes, in his old age--he died
A.D. 1193--was expelled from Spain; the religious party had triumphed
over the philosophical. He was denounced as a traitor to religion.
An opposition to philosophy had been organized all over the Mussulman
world. There was hardly a philosopher who was not punished. Some
were put to death, and the consequence was, that Islam was full of
hypocrites.

Into Italy, Germany, England, Averroism had silently made its way.
It found favor in the eyes of the Franciscans, and a focus in the
University of Paris. By very many of the leading minds it had been
accepted. But at length the Dominicans, the rivals of the Franciscans,
sounded an alarm. They said it destroys all personality, conducts
to fatalism, and renders inexplicable the difference and progress
of individual intelligences. The declaration that there is but one
intellect is an error subversive of the merits of the saints, it is
an assertion that there is no difference among men. What! is there no
difference between the holy soul of Peter and the damned soul of Judas?
are they identical? Averroes in this his blasphemous doctrine denies
creation, providence, revelation, the Trinity, the efficacy of prayers,
of alms, and of litanies; he disbelieves in the resurrection and
immortality; he places the summum bonum in mere ple