I have shown in the preceding chapter how the earlier scholastics, or the Mutazilites, as they are called, were finally crushed by the orthodox party. The later scholastics, or the philosophers, form the subject of this note. The Khalif Mamun (813-833 A.D.), a notorious free-thinker, was the first to give an impulse to philosophic researches. It was then that Greek philosophical works were translated into Arabic. The Greek author most patronized was Aristotle, partly, because his empirical method accorded with the positive tendencies of the Arab mind better than the pure idealism of Plato; and, partly, because his system of logic was considered an useful auxiliary in the daily quarrels between the rival theological schools. It was quite natural that Aristotle should be thus followed. "The Musalman mind was trained in habits of absolute obedience to the authority of fixed dogmas. The Muslims did not so much wish to discover truth as to cultivate their own intellect. For that purpose, a sharp and subtle systematist like Aristotle was the very man they required."[176] Some idea of the range of subjects then discussed may be gained from an account given by the Arab historian, Masoudi, of a meeting held under the Presidentship of Yahya, one of the famous Barmecide family.[177] Yahya thus addressed the meeting: "You have discussed at length the theory of concealment (Al-Kumun) and manifestation (Al-Zahur), of pre-existence and creation, of duration and stability, of movement and quiescence, of the union and separation (of the Divine substance), of existence and non-existence, of bodies and accidents, of the approval and the refutation (of the Isnads of the Traditions), of the absence or the existence of attributes in God, of potential and active force, of substance, quantity, modality and relation, of life and annihilation. You have examined the question as to whether the Imam rules by divine right, or by popular election; you have had an exhaustive discussion on metaphysical subjects, in their principles and corollaries. Occupy yourselves to-day with the subject of love," &c.