|

<21 June 1918> |

| |

|

During the eleventh century, when Europe lay | steeped in the blackest night of the Dark Ages, a | revival of learning was in full bloom in that ancient | cradle of civilisation, the Plateau of Iran, | "The Land of | Light," which we to-day know as Persia. Its | high water mark was reached in the person of Abu Ali | Ibn Sina, a profound and world famed scholar more | commonly known in Europe by the latinised version of | his name - Avicenna. But more familiar | to the Western World to-day than Avicenna himself is | his disciple Omar Khayyam - Omar the | Tent-maker. He was the most gorgeous flower of his | time. Born in poor circumstances, at about the | opening of the eleventh century, he was fortunate, in | his school days, in making the acquaintance of Nizam | ul Mulk, who afterwards became Vizier to the Sultan, | Malik Shah, and was able to advance his old | schoolmate to the post of Astronomer Royal (to | anglicise the title of the office he enjoyed). Omar, | despite his heresies and his love of wine, held the | post for the better half of his long life, which was | spent in astronomical, mathematical and philosophic | studies, in the composition of his Rubaiyat, or | quatrains, and, above all, in deep and devout worship | of the "shallow cup." According to the theories of | the saloon smashing fraternity, he should have died | young. As a matter of fact ~~ or, rather, of more or | less reputable rumour, he died at the age of 109 | years. Whether he would have lived either longer, or | happier, without the help, or hindrance, of wine is, | of course, an entirely different matter. His full | name was nearly as long as the term of his natural | life. Ghiyas Uddin Abul Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al | Khayyami seems rather a mouthful for a mere modern to | remember but in those days such things were common, | and after all, Omar's father had little else to give | his son.

|

Khayyam was a man of many parts. In addition to | his mathematical text books, which were universally | used in Persia, he wrote upon medicine, meteorology, | the silting of rivers, and natural science generally. | Probably his works upon these subjects exist | somewhere today, but to the average modern they are | as dead as were his Rubaiyat before they were | translated and given re-birth by Fitzgerald.

|

The four hundred years following the Mahommedan | era were centuries of glory for Islam. In the day of | Omar its star was at the zenith. One by one Syria, | Egypt, Africa and Spain, Persia and India, over-run | by the hosts of the Prophet, had been offered the | three-fold choice - the Koran, | tribute, or the sword. For the most part they had | chosen the Koran. In the wake of Mahommedan military | power came Mahommedan scholarship. Through centuries | which, in Europe, were marked by black ignorance, the | glorious light that was kindled in the Golden Age of | Ancient Greece was preserved in the Mahommedan | universities of Spain - the oldest | universities in Europe (in the modern sense of the | term). But the soul of Europe was not dead. It blazed | up in the glorious rebirth of the Italian | Renaissance, and by a curious irony of Fate, the most | precious flower of the Renaissance was in full bloom | in the year 1492 - a year famous for | two events. The first of these was the discovery of a | new world by Columbus. The other was the final | extinction of one of the crowning glories of the old | world - the Kingdom of Granada, the | last remnant of the Caliphate of Cordova.

|

Leonardo da Vinci, the sublime painter, was then | in his fortieth year and his crowded life ran another | 27 summers before his death. He was to the Italian | Renaissance what Khayyam was to the Persian revival | of the eleventh century. Both were apostles of | freedom of thought: both anticipated the methods and | ideals of modern science. Da Vinci's imagination | teemed with visions of the marvellous achievements of | the present day. The steam-boat, the flying machine, | breech-loading cannon, and mincing machines were | amongst the problems to which he applied himself. He | anticipated modern scientists in his speculations | upon animal classification, the laws of gravitation, | the principle of the camera, the wave theory of | light, the principle of canal construction, the | circulation of the blood, and a score of minor | matters. His studies of anatomy, which were | undertaken, in the spirit of thoroughness that | characterised his whole work, as an adjunct to his | drawings of the human form represent the earliest | serious investigations in this direction, at least | since ancient times.

|

That his mind was that of the modern scientist is | exampled by his favorite expressions - | | etc.

|

Of the art of Leonardo we will say little | - just now. The marvellous painted drama | "The Last | Supper," the haunting features of | | "Mona Lisa," and | the inimitable | "Head of Christ" are close friends to | every lover of the beautiful things of Earth. Our | particular concern just now is the mind of the man | - the mind that first grasped the | concepts of modern science and modern humanism. For | Leonardo's scientific speculations were by no means | mere mechanics, any more than his pictures were mere | paint. They were enlivened by a keen enthusiasm in | the cause of humanity. | he declared. The | of infants (which he ascribed to the | use of swaddling bands) and the sufferings of lower | animals were the subjects of frequent expressions of | sympathy. Consideration for the weak and defenceless | were by no means common virtues in the nineteenth | century.

|

So far we have stressed the points of coincidence | between Leonardo da Vinci and Omar Khayyam. But at | the same time there yawns a great gulf betwixt them. | The philosophy of da Vinci is the creed of youth | triumphant, the creed of a man and of an age that | believed in a New Heaven and a New Earth. Omar's song | is the swan-song of a dying world. Leonardo believed | with all his soul in the | He firmly believed that one day | mankind would leave the school-room by a more hopeful | door that the one by which it entered. Omar had come | to the conclusion that the school room was not even | worth the entering - that human | existence was a bad joke perpetrated by a malicious | deity. Any really great mind must, now and again, | feel in sympathy with Khayyam.

|

|

|

Comforting, in a doleful sort of way is the | Khayyam wine philosophy to the fighter who, with | bloody head, battered armour, and sick sense of | defeat, staggers out of the conflict. Thus indeed was | it with Khayyam's self. Though perhaps he knew it not | he stood almost the last upon the battlefield of a | lost cause, like Arthur at Morgarten. The ancient | world was doomed, and Khayyam was the Last of the | Ancients. Leonardo da Vinci, on the other hand, | looked forward into vistas of New Worlds. He was the | First of the Moderns - the John the | Baptist of the Age of Science.