freedom of speculation, so different from the repressive orthodoxy of the Turkish dynasties in Asia, and defended the system in their writings, the rulers officially were enforcing amongst the multitude of their subjects the severest orthodoxy and the most reactionary system of jurisprudence, so reactionary that it was never admitted by the Asiatic sultans. The first great leader of philosophical thought in Muwahhid Spain was _Ibn Tufayl_ (d. 581 = 1185), who was wazir and court physician under the Muwahhid Abu Yaqub (A.H. 558-580). His teaching was in general conformity with that of Ibn Bajja (Avempace), but the mystic element is much more strongly marked. He admits ecstasy as a means of attaining the highest knowledge and of approaching God. But in Ibn Tufayl’s teaching this knowledge differs very much from that aimed at by the Sufis: it is mystic philosophy rather than mystic theology. The beatific vision reveals the Agent Intellect and the chain of causation reaching down to man and then back again to itself. In his views as to the need of removing the doctrines of philosophy from the multitude he shows the same principles as Ibn Bajja, which are those which came to be recognised as the proper official attitude under the Muwahhids, and defends them in a romance called _Hayy b. Yaqzan_, “the Living One son of the Wakeful,” the work by which his name is best remembered. In this story we have the picture of two islands, one inhabited by a solitary recluse who spends his time in contemplation and thereby raises his intellect until he finds that he is able to apprehend the eternal verities which are in the One Active intellect. The other island is inhabited by ordinary people who are occupied in the commonplace incidents of life and follow the practices of religion in the form known to them. In this way they are content and happy, but fall far short of the complete and perfect happiness of the recluse on the other island. In course of time the recluse, who is perfectly well aware of the neighbouring island and its inhabitants, begins to feel great pity for them in that they are excluded from the more perfect felicity which he enjoys, and in an honest desire for their welfare, goes over to them and preaches the truth as he has found it. For the most part he is quite unintelligible to them, and the only result is that he produces confusion, doubt, and controversial strife amongst those whom he desired to benefit, but who are incapable of the intellectual life which he has led. In the end he returns to his island convinced that it is a mistake to interfere with the conventional religion of the multitude.