Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning/Chapter 11
CHAP. XI.
Of the Learning of the Ancient Chaldeans and Arabians.
The Chaldeans and the Arabs are the People that lie next in Sir William Temple's Road. We may pronounce with some Certainty, 1. That the Chaldean Astronomy could not be very valuable, since, as we know from Vitruvius, and others, they had not discovered that the Moon is an Opake Body. Whether their Astronomical Observations were older than their Monarchy, is uncertain: If they were not, then in Alexander the Great's Time they could not challenge an Antiquity of above Five or Six Hundred Years. I mention Alexander, because he is said to have sent vast Numbers of Observations from Babylon, to his Master Aristotle. The Assyrian Monarchy, of which the Chaldean might not improperly be called a Branch, pretends, indeed, to great Antiquity: Great Things are told of Ninus and Semiramis, who is more than once mentioned by Sir William Temple, in these Essays, for her Victories, and her Skill in Gardening; but these Accounts are, very probably, fabulous, for the following Reasons.
Till the Time of Tiglath-Pileser and Pul, we hear no News of any Assyrian Monarchs in the Jewish History. In Amraphel's Time, who was overthrown by Abraham and his Family, in the Vale of Siddim, the Kings of Chaldea seem to have been no other than those of Canaan, Captains of Hords, or Heads of Clans: And Amraphel was Tributary to Chedorlaomer King of Elam, whose Kingdom lay to the East of Babylon, beyond the River Tigris. Chushan Rishathaim King of Mesopotamia, who was overthrown some Ages after by Othoniel, the Israelitish Judge, does not seem to have been a mighty Prince: It may be said, indeed, that he was General to some Assyrian Monarch; but that is begging the Question, since there is nothing which can favour such an Assertion in the Book of Judges.
But when the Assyrians and Babylonians come once to be mentioned in the Jewish History, they occurr in almost every Page of the Old Testament. There are frequent Accounts of Pul, Tiglath-Pileser, Shalmanezer, Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-merodach, Belshazzar; and who not? But these Kings lived within a narrow Compass of Time; the oldest of them but a few Ages before Cyrus. This would not suit with that prodigious Antiquity which they challenged to themselves. The Truth is, Herodotus, who knew nothing of it, being silent, Ctesias draws up a new Scheme of History, much more pompous; and from him, or rather, perhaps, from Berosus, who was Contemporary with Manetho, and seems to have carried on the same Design for Chaldea, which Manetho undertook for Egypt, Diodorus Siculus, Pompeius Trogus, Eusebius, Syncellus, and all the Ancients that take notice of the Assyrian History, have afterwards copied.
Ctesias knew he should be straitned to find Employment for so many Kings for Thirteen Hundred Years; and so he says, they did little memorable after Semiramis's Time. Sir William Temple employs them in Gardening. As if it were probable that a great Empire could lie still for above a Thousand Years; or that no Popular Generals should wrest the Reins out of the Hands of such drowzy Masters in all that Time. No History but this can give an Instance of a Family that lasted for above a Thousand Years, without any Interruption: And of all its Kings, not one is said to reign less than Nineteen, but some Fifty five Years. The healthiest Race that ever was heard of; of whom, in Thirteen Hundred Years, not one died an untimely Death. If any Thing can be showed like this in any other History, Sacred or Profane, it will be easie to believe whatsoever is asserted upon this Subject.
If therefore the Chaldean Learning was no older than their Monarchy, it was of no great Standing, if compared with the Egyptian. The Account of Nebuchadnezzar's Dream, in the 2d. Chapter of Daniel, shews the Chaldean Magick to have been downright Knavery; since Nebuchadnezzar might reasonably expect that those should tell him what his Dream was, who pretended to interpret it when it was told them; both equally requiring a super-natural Assistance: Yet there lay their chiefest Strength; or, at least, they said so: Their other Learning is all lost. However, one can hardly believe that it was ever very great, that considers how little there remains of real Value, that was learnt from the Chaldeans. The History of Learning is not so lamely conveyed to us, but so much would, in all probability, have escaped the general Ship wrack, as that, by what was saved, we might have been able to guess at what was lost. If the Learning of these Ancient Chaldeans came as near that of the Arabs as their Countries did, one may give a very good Judgment of its Extent. Sir William Temple observes, that Countries little exposed to Invasions, preserve Knowledge better than others that are perpetually harrassed by a Foreign Enemy; and by Consequence, whatsoever Learning the Arabs had, they kept; unless we should suppose that they lost it through Carelesness. We never read of any Conquests that pierced into the Heart of Arabia the Happy, Mahomet's Country, before the Beginning of the Saracen Empire. It is very strange therefore, if, in its Passage through this noble Country, inhabited by a sprightly, ingenious People, Learning, like Quick-Silver, should run through, and leave so few of its Influences behind it. It is certain that the Arabs were not a learned People when they over-spread Asia: So that when afterwards they translated the Grecian Learning into their own Language, they had very little of their own, which was not taken from those Fountains. Their Astronomy and Astrology was taken from Ptolemee, their Philosophy from Aristotle, their Medicks from Galen; and so on. Aristotle and Euclid were first translated into Latin, from Arabick Copies; and those Barbarous Translations were the only Elements upon which the Western School-men and Mathematicians built. If they learnt any thing considerable elsewhere, it might be Chymistry and Alchemy from the Egyptians; unless we should say that they translated Synesius, or Zosimus, or some other Grecian Chymists.
Hence it follows, that the Arabs borrowed the greatest part, at least, of their Knowledge from the Greeks, though they had much greater Advantages of Communicating with the more Eastern Parts of the World, than either Greeks or Romans ever had. They could have acquainted us with all that was rare and valuable amongst those Ancient Sages. The Saracen Empire was under one Head in Almanzor's Time; and was almost as far extended Eastward as ever afterwards. His Subjects had a free Passage, from the Tagus to the Ganges; and being united by the common Bond of the same Religion, the Brachmans, some of whom did, in all probability, embrace the Mahometan Faith, would not be shy of revealing what they knew, to their Arabian Masters. By this Means, the Learning of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, Indians, Greeks and Arabs, ran in one common Channel. For several Ages, Learning was so much in Fashion amongst them, and they took such Care to bring it all into their own Language, that some of the learnedest Jews, Maimonides in particular, wrote in Arabick, as much as in their own Tongue. So that we might reasonably have expected to have found greater Treasures in the Writings of these learned Mahometans, than ever were discovered before: And yet those that have been conversant with their Books say, that there is little to be found amongst them, which any Body might not have understood as well as they, if he had carefully studied the Writings of their Grecian Masters. There have been so many Thousands of Arabick and Persick MSS. brought over into Europe, that our learned Men can make as good, nay, perhaps, a better Judgment of the Extent of their Learning, than can be made, at this distance, of the Greek. There are vast Quantities of their Astronomical Observations in the Bodleian Library, and yet Mr. Greaves and Dr. Edward Bernard, two very able Judges, have given the World no Account of any Thing out of them, which those Arabian Astronomers did not, or might not have learnt from Ptolemee's Almagest, if we set aside their Observations which their Grecian Masters taught them to make; which, to give them their due, Dr. Bernard commends, as much more valuable than is commonly believed, in a Letter to Dr. Huntingdon, printed in the Philosophical Transactions, containing their Observations of the Latitudes of Twenty of the most eminent of the Fixed Stars. We owe, indeed, to them alone the Way of Counting by Ten Cyphers, ascending beyond Ten in a Decuple Proportion; which is of unspeakable Use in Astronomical and Algebraical Calculations, and, indeed, in all Parts of Arithmetick. The Use of Chymistry in Physick, together with some of the most considerable Chymical Preparations, which have led the Way to most of the late Discoveries that have been made in that Art, and in Natural Philosophy by its Means, have been unanimously ascribed to the Arabs by those Physicians that have studied their Books (y).(y) Vide Morhosii Epist. ad Langelottum. Though, in Strictness, the whole Arabian Learning, with all their Inventions, what, and how great soever they were, may be reckoned as Modern, according to Sir William Temple's Computation. But I am willing to give it up, and content my self with what has been done by the learned Men of these two last Ages, since the Greeks brought their Learning along with them into Italy, upon the Taking of Constantinople by the Turks. At least, this is evident, that the old Arabian Learning could never be any one of those Fountains from whence the Grecian might have been drawn; and so can never be urged as such by those who give an Account of the History of Learning.