THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST--(_Continued_). THE WESTERN OR INTELLECTUAL ATTACK ON THE ITALIAN SYSTEM. _The intellectual Condition of Christendom contrasted with that of Arabian Spain._ _Diffusion of Arabian intellectual Influences through France and Sicily.--Example of Saracen Science in Alhazen, and of Philosophy in Algazzali.--Innocent III. prepares to combat these Influences.--Results to Western Europe of the Sack of Constantinople by the Catholics._ _The spread of Mohammedan light Literature is followed by Heresy.--The crushing of Heresy in the South of France by armed Force.--The Inquisition, mendicant Orders, auricular Confession, and Casuistry._ _The rising Sentiment is embodied in Frederick II. in Sicily.--His Conflict with and Overthrow by the Pope.--Spread of Mutiny among the mendicant Orders._ [Sidenote: The pressure from the West upon Rome.] A pressure upon the Italian system had meantime been arising in the West. It was due to the presence of the Arabs in Spain. It is necessary, therefore, to relate the circumstances of their invasion and conquest of that country, and to compare their social and intellectual condition with the contemporary state of Christendom. [Sidenote: Barbarism of Europe.] From the barbarism of the native people of Europe, who could scarcely be said to have emerged from the savage state, unclean in person, benighted in mind, inhabiting huts in which it was a mark of wealth if there were bulrushes on the floor and straw mats against the wall; miserably fed on beans, vetches, roots, and even the bark of trees; clad in garments of untanned skin, or at the best of leather--perennial in durability, but not conducive to personal purity--a state in which the pomp of royalty was sufficiently and satisfactorily manifested in the equipage of the sovereign, an ox-cart, drawn by not less than two yokes of cattle, quickened in their movements by the goads of pedestrian serfs, whose legs were wrapped in wisps of straw; from a people, devout believers in all the wild fictions of shrine-miracles and preposterous relics; from the degradation of a base theology, and from the disputes of ambitious ecclesiastics for power, it is pleasant to turn to the south-west corner of the continent, where, under auspices of a very different kind, the irradiations of light were to break forth. The crescent in the West was soon to pass eastward to its full. But I must retrace my steps through four centuries, and resume the description of the Arabian movement after the subjugation of Africa, as related in the former volume, Chapter XI.