In this place it is of course impossible to enter upon the history of Arab learning; we can only insist upon one single point, namely that (at least in the branches of scholarship which were held in the highest esteem) the culmination was reached early, and they were then treated of in countless works--compendiums, abstracts, commentaries, and versifications--without any particular variation in the subject-matter. How far medicine, natural science, and mathematics were advanced beyond the stage which the Greeks (and it may be, the Hindus) had attained by works written in Arabic I am not in a position to say.[26] The average standard of the very numerous chronicles in Arabic is considerably higher than that of the Latin chronicles of the Middle Ages, because, for one thing, the writers of the former were men in the thick of actual life, some of them indeed men of considerable consequence, while the latter were generally written in monasteries. We even come upon the rudiments of historical criticism, or at least of a comprehensive historical survey. The number of Arabic works containing the biography of eminent men, scholars, poets, and so forth, is positively amazing, as is the wealth of anthologies of every kind, in which poetry alternates with prose. In their works on literary history, again, they are in the habit of giving many specimens of the poems of the particular writers discussed. Among these anthologies and works on the history of literature are some of remarkable merit and of the highest value to us. Furthermore we are much beholden to Arab authors of works on geography. These are almost all based upon actual observation and written with a practical aim; and thus have a great advantage over mere scholastic works. Wherever geography assumes a strictly scientific form, however, it is indebted to the system of Ptolemy. Moslem philosophy (of which the most notable exponents were men of non-Arab descent, Persians, Spaniards, etc., though they all wrote in Arabic as a matter of course) is entirely an emanation from that of Greece, although it rises here and there to the exposition of grand original ideas. The same holds good even of mysticism, which is at bottom in sharp opposition to scientific speculation. Originally an alien growth among the Arabs, with its roots partly in neo-Platonism and Christianity, partly in Hindu and Persian soil, it nevertheless attained a notable development among the Moslems. All speculation was kept within strict limits by the dominant religion. More liberal spirits (of which there were never many) were forced to observe the utmost caution in their utterances; although there was probably more freedom of thought in Islam than in Christian Europe.