415

Chap. 4-] Anderst Writings on the Arts destroyed.

baths at Rome, and the apparatus of Anthemius , by which last it wasadapted to a very novel purpose as a motive agent, thus exhibiting re-sources in its appplication that could only be derived from experience—we cannot divest ourselves of the idea that the ancients were better ac-quainted with the mechanical properties of steam and its application to thearts than is commonly supposed.

But for the destruction of the numerous libraries of the ancients, someof which contained volumes that treated on every subject, we should havebeen intimately acquainted with their arts and machinery ; and but forthe logic of Omar, a we might have been in possession of those treatiseson mechanics that Ctesibius studied, and which supplied Heron with ma-terials for the Spiritalia; for the latter refers to inventions and writings ofBis predecessors, and admits having incorporated some of their produc-tions with his own. Possibly the very books out of which he selected theapplications of steam No. 179 and No. 180 might now have been extant.The destruction of such works as these was a severe loss to the world.Had they been saved, the state of society would not, in the followingages, have been so greatly degenerated, nor would the arts have sunk toso low an ebb. Mechanics have therefore as much reason, if not more, todepiore the loss of those volumes that treated on the subjects of their pur-suits, as learned men have to regret the destruction of those that relatedto literature only. It was also easier to replace the latter than the former—to revive the literature than the arts of the ancients ; for reflections onhistory, politics, morals, literature, romance, &c. are more or less commonto our race in all times, and in every age men will be found to clothethem, or selections of them, in glowing language ; whereas mechanicalinventions, though often brought about by the observance of commonfacts, are frequently the results of fortuitous thoughts which local occur-rences or singulär circumstances induce, and if once lost can hardly berevived, except by congenial minds under similar circumstances. Besides,it is not by the mere arresting an idea as it floats through the mind thatdiscoveries or improvements in mechanism are effected : on the contrary,it requires to be cultivated and matured by refiection ; the accuracy of thedevice suggested by it has to be tested by models, and these by experi-ment, before the incipient thought becomes embodied in a working ma-chine. '

* Aroma, his general, having taken Alexandria, wrote for directions respecting thedisposition of the famous library which it had been the pride of the Ptolemies to collect.The reply was—if the writings agreed with the doetrines of the Koran, they were use-less; and if they did not, they ought to be destroyed. The argument was irresistible,and the whole were burnt.