FOREWORD

History traces the evolution of the social structure in which the community exists to-day. There are three chief factors at work in this evolution; racial descent, culture drift, and transmission of language: the first of these physiological¹ and not necessarily connected with the other two, whilst those two are not always associated with each other. In the evolution of the social structure the factor of first importance is the transmission of culture, which is not a matter of heredity but due to contact, for culture is learned and reproduced by imitation and not inherited. Culture must be taken in the widest sense to include political, social, and legal institutions, the arts and crafts, religion, and the various forms of intellectual life which show their presence in literature, philosophy, and otherwise, all more or less connected, and all having the common characteristic that they cannot be passed on by physical descent but must be learned in after life. But race, culture, and language resemble one another in so far as it is true that all are multiplex and perpetually interwoven, so that in each the lines of transmission seem rather like a tangled² skein than an ordered pattern; results proceed from a conflicting group of causes amongst which it is often difficult to apportion³ the relative influences.

The culture of modern Europe derives⁴ from that of the Roman Empire, itself the multiple resultant of many forces, amongst which the intellectual life of Hellenism was most effective, but worked into a coherent system by the wonderful power of organization, which was one of the most salient characteristics of that Empire. The whole cultural life of mediæval Europe shows this Hellenistic-Roman culture passed[Pg vi] on, developed, and modified by circumstances. As the Empire fell to pieces the body of culture became subject to varying conditions in different localities, of which the divergence⁵ between the Greek-speaking East and the Latin-speaking West is the most striking example. The introduction of Muslim influence through Spain is the one instance in which we seem to get an alien culture entering into this Roman tradition and exercising a disturbing influence. In fact, this Muslim culture was at bottom essentially⁶ a part of the Hellenistic-Roman material, even the theology of Islam being formulated⁷ and developed from Hellenistic sources, but Islam had so long lived apart from Christendom and its development had taken place in surroundings so different that it seems a strange and alien thing. Its greatest power lay in the fact that it presented the old material in an entirely⁸ fresh form.

It is the effort of the following pages to trace the transmission of Hellenistic thought through the medium of Muslim philosophers and Jewish thinkers who lived in Muslim surroundings, to show how this thought, modified as it passed through a period of development in the Muslim community and itself modifying Islamic ideas, was brought to bear upon the culture of mediæval Latin Christendom. So greatly had it altered in external form during the centuries of its life apart, that it seemed a new type of intellectual life and became a disturbing factor which diverted Christian⁹ philosophy into new lines and tended to disintegrate¹⁰ the traditional theology of the Church, directly leading up to the Renascence which gave the death-blow to mediæval culture: so little had it altered in real substance that it used the same[Pg vii] text-books and treated very much the same problems already current in the earlier scholasticism which had developed independently in Latin Christendom. It will be our effort so to trace the history of mediæval Muslim thought as to show the elements which it had in common with Christian teaching and to account for the points of divergence.

De L. O’L.

1 physiological   

adj.生理学的，生理学上的

参考例句：

• He bought a physiological book.他买了一本生理学方面的书。
• Every individual has a physiological requirement for each nutrient.每个人对每种营养成分都有一种生理上的需要。

2 tangled   

adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了，我梳不动。
• A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。

3 apportion   

vt.（按比例或计划）分配

参考例句：

• It's already been agreed in principle to apportion the value of the patents.原则上已经同意根据专利的价值按比例来分配。
• It was difficult to apportion the blame for the accident.很难分清这次事故的责任。

4 derives   

v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• English derives in the main from the common Germanic stock. 英语主要源于日耳曼语系。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derives his income from freelance work. 他以自由职业获取收入。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 divergence   

n.分歧，岔开

参考例句：

• There is no sure cure for this transatlantic divergence.没有什么灵丹妙药可以消除大西洋两岸的分歧。
• In short,it was an age full of conflicts and divergence of values.总之，这一时期是矛盾与价值观分歧的时期。

6 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

7 formulated   

v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示

参考例句：

• He claims that the writer never consciously formulated his own theoretical position. 他声称该作家从未有意识地阐明他自己的理论见解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This idea can be formulated in two different ways. 这个意思可以有两种说法。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

9 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

10 disintegrate   

v.瓦解，解体，（使）碎裂，（使）粉碎

参考例句：

• The older strata gradually disintegrate.较老的岩层渐渐风化。
• The plane would probably disintegrate at that high speed.飞机以那么高速飞行也许会四分五裂。