We are told, for example, that Averrhoes, the famous commentator
of Aristotle, who lived in Spain in the twelfth century, did not
know a word of Greek and was obliged to gain his knowledge of the
master through a Syriac translation; or, as others alleged
(denying that he knew even Syriac), through an Arabic version
translated from the Syriac. We know, too, that the famous
chronology of Eusebius was preserved through an Armenian
translation; and reference has more than once been made to the
Arabic translation of Ptolemy's great work, to which we still
apply its Arabic title of Almagest.

The familiar story that when the Arabs invaded Egypt they burned
the Alexandrian library is now regarded as an invention of later
times. It seems much more probable that the library bad been
largely scattered before the coming of the Moslems. Indeed, it
has even been suggested that the Christians of an earlier day
removed the records of pagan thought. Be that as it may, the
famous Alexandrian library had disappeared long before the
revival of interest in classical learning. Meanwhile, as we have
said, the Arabs, far from destroying the western literature, were
its chief preservers. Partly at least because of their regard for
the records of the creative work of earlier generations of alien
peoples, the Arabs were enabled to outstrip their contemporaries.
For it cannot be in doubt that, during that long stretch of time
when the western world was ignoring science altogether or at most
contenting itself with the casual reading of Aristotle and Pliny,
the Arabs had the unique distinction of attempting original
investigations in science. To them were due all important
progressive steps which were made in any scientific field