subject have collected: I consider that Arab influence during the
first period is best explained by the new wealth of Greek thought
which the Arabs appropriated and transmitted to Europe. These new
discoveries were the attainments of Greece in the natural sciences and
in logic: they extended the scope of dialectic and stimulated the rise
of metaphysical theory: the latter, in combination with ecclesiastical
dogma and Greek science, became such a system of thought as that
expounded in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas. Philosophy remained the
handmaid of religion and Arab influence first served only to complete
the ecclesiastical philosophy of life.

Eventually, however, the methods of interpretation and criticism,
peculiar to the Arabs when dealing with Aristotle became of no less
importance than the subject matter of their inquiries. This form of
criticism was developed from the emphasis which Islam had long laid
upon the value of wisdom, or recognition of the claims of reason.
Muhammedan tradition is full of the praises of wisdom, which it also
originally regarded as the basis of religion. Reason, however,
gradually became an independent power: orthodoxy did not reject reason
when it coincided with tradition, but under the influence of
Aristotelianism, especially as developed by Averroës, reason became a
power opposed to faith. The essential point of the doctrine was that
truth was twofold, according to faith and according to reason. Any one
who was subtle enough to recognise both kinds of truth could preserve
his orthodoxy: but the theory contained one great danger, which was
immediately obvious to the Christian church. The consequent struggle
is marked by the constant connection of Arab ideas with the
characteristic expressions of Christian feeling; these again are
connected with the outset of a new period, when the pioneers of the
Renaissance liberate the West from the chains of Greek ecclesiastical