History of the conflict between religion and science / by John William Draper.

  • Draper, John William, 1811-1882.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of the conflict between religion and science / by John William Draper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    173/410 (page 141)
    The Spanish khalifs had surrounded themselves with all the luxuries of Oriental life. They had magnificent palaces, enchanting gardens, seraglios filled with beau- tiful women. Europe at the present day does not offer more taste, more refinement, more elegance, than might have been seen, at the epoch of which we are speaking, in the capitals of the Spanish Arabs. Their streets were lighted and solidly paved. The houses were frescoed and carpeted; they were warmed in winter by furnaces, and cooled in summer with perfumed air brought by underground pipes from flower-beds. They had baths, and libraries, and dining-halls, fountains of quicksilver and water. City and country were full of conviviality, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin. Instead of the drunken and gluttonous wassail orgies of their North- ern neighbors, the feasts of the Saracens were marked by sobriety. Wine was prohibited. The enchanting moonlight evenings of Andalusia were spent by the Moors in sequestered, fairy-like gardens or in orange- groves, listening to the romances of the story-teller, or engaged in philosophical discourse; consoling themselves for the disappointments of this life by such reflections as that, if virtue were rewarded in this world, we should be without expectations in the life to come; and recon- ciling themselves to their daily toil by the expectation that rest will be found after death—a rest never to be succeeded by labor. In the tenth century the Khalif Hakem II. had made beautiful Andalusia the paradise of the world. Chris- tians, Mussulmen, Jews, mixed together without re- straint. There, among many celebrated names that have descended to our times, was Gerbert, destined sub- sequently to become pope. There, too, was Peter the Venerable, and many Christian ecclesiastics. Peter