t and the sum of his
knowledge and erudition was written in Arabic under the name _Dalalat
al-Hairin_. In Hebrew it is known as _Moreh Nebuchim_, in Latin, as
_Doctor Perplexorum_, and in English as the "Guide of the Perplexed." To
this book we shall now devote our attention. The original Arabic text
was supposed, along with many other literary treasures of the middle
ages, to be lost, until Solomon Munk, the blind _savant_ with clear
vision, discovered it in the library at Paris, and published it. But in
its Hebrew translation the book created a stir, which subsided only with
its public burning at Montpellier early in the thirteenth century. The
Latin translation we owe to Buxtorf; the German is, I believe,
incomplete, and can hardly be said to give evidence of ripe
scholarship.[39]

The question that naturally suggests itself is: What does the book
contain? Does it establish a new system of philosophy? Is it a
cyclopaedia of the sciences, such as the Arab schools of that day were
wont to produce? Neither the one nor the other. The "Guide of the
Perplexed" is a system of rational theology upon a philosophic basis, a
book not intended for novices, but for thinkers, for such minds as know
how to penetrate the profound meaning of tradition, as the author says
in a prefatory letter addressed to Joseph ibn Aknin, his favorite
disciple. He believes that even those to whom the book appeals are often
puzzled and confused by the apparent inconsistencies between the literal
interpretation of the Bible and the evidence of reason, that they do not
know whether to take Scriptural expressions as symbolic or allegoric, or
to accept them in their literal meaning, and that they fall a prey to
doubt, and long for a guide. Maimonides is prepared to lead them to an
eminence on which religion and philosophy meet in perfect harmony.

Educated in the school of Arabic philosophers, notably under the
influence of Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Maimonides paid hero-worship to
Aristotle, the autocrat of the middle ages in the realm of speculation.
There is no question that the dominion wielded by the Greek philosopher
throughout mediaeval times, and the influence which he exercises even
now, are chiefly attributable to the Arabs, and beside them,
pre-eminently to Maimonides. For him, Aristotle was second in authority
only to the Bible. A rational interpretation of the Bible, in his
opinion, meant its interpretation from an Aristotelian point of view.
St