Their settlement in the countries they had subdued, the unlimited resources which their wide-spread conquests placed within their reach, and probably the leisure which their almost universal dominion afforded, speedily led to a change in their character in relation to literary pursuits, of which the more enlightened nations of the West are still reaping the advantage. It was about the middle of the seventh century that Omar committed the famous library of Alexandrea to the flames: before the end of the eighth, literature began to enjoy the munificent patronage of the caliphs of the Abbassidan race, who superinduced upon the stern fanaticism of the followers of the Prophet the softening influences of learning; and, by an anomaly in the history of mankind, the most valuable lessons in science and the arts have been received from a people who pursued with relentless hostility the religion and liberties of every other nation. The Greeks were the most distinguished patrons of literature and science. Among them philosophy found its earliest home, and the arts are commonly supposed to have sprung up chiefly under their fostering care, though modern researches have shown that much of their knowledge was derived from still more ancient sources. Their {245} philosophy, though greatly improved by them, was borrowed from the mysteries of the Egyptian priests and the Persian magi. Their system of the universe, which made the nearest approach to the more correct discoveries of modern times, was previously known to the learned Hindus; and it may admit of question whether their whole mythology, allowing for the additions which a chastened and vivid imagination would make to it, had not its prototype in some Asiatic religio-philosophical system. A learned writer on the erudition of the Asiatics says, that the whole of the theology of the Greeks, and part of the philosophy of modern scientific research, may be found in the Hindu Vedas. He adds, "That most subtile spirit which Newton suspected to pervade natural bodies, and to lie concealed in them so as to cause attraction and repulsion, the emission, reflection, and refraction of light, electricity, calefaction, sensation, and muscular motion, is described by the Hindus as a fifth element, endued with those very powers; and the Vedas abound with allusions to a force universally attractive, which they chiefly attribute to the sun." The extension, therefore, of the Arabian victories over the Eastern world, and their entire command, after the overthrow of the Greek empire, of the resources possessed by that people, {246} gave them access to all the literary stores then in existence.