Page:Arabic Thought and Its Place in History.djvu/38

 where the Aristotelian metaphysics and phychologypsychology [sic] were assumed as an established and unquestionable basis of knowledge. It was impossible for churchmen, educated in this atmosphere, to do otherwise than accept these principles, just as it is impossible for us to admit that the body of a saint can be in two places at once, our whole education training us to assume certain limitations of time and space, although a devout Muslim of Morocco can believe it and honours two shrines as each containing the body of the same saint who, he believes, in his life time had power of over-passing the limitations of space. The general postulates of the later Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy were firmly established in the fourth century in Alexandria and its circle, and were no more open to question than the law of gravity or the rotundity of the earth would be to us. It was known that there were people who questioned these things, but it could only be accounted for by blind ignorance in those who had not received the benefits of an enlightened education. The Christians were no more able to dispute these principles than anyone else. They were perfectly sincere in their religion, many articles of faith which present considerable difficulty to the modern mind presented no difficulty to them; but it was perfectly obvious that the statements of Christian doctrine must be brought into line with the current theory of philosophy, or with self evident truth as they would have termed it. It shows a strange lack of historical imagination when we talk