The Middle Ages,
which spared themselves the trouble of induction and free inquiry, can
have no right to impose upon us their dogmatical verdict in a matter of
such vast importance.
To the study of man, among many other causes, was due the tolerance and
indifference with which the Mohammedan religion was regarded. The
knowledge and admiration of the remarkable civilization which Islam,
particularly before the Mongol inundation, had attained, was peculiar
to Italy from the time of the Crusades. This sympathy was fostered by
the half-Mohammedan government of some Italian princes, by dislike and
even contempt for the existing Church, and by constant commercial
intercourse with the harbors of the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean.
It can be shown that in the thirteenth century the Italians recognized
a Mohammedan ideal of nobleness, dignity, and pride, which they loved
to connect with the person of a Sultan. A Mameluke Sultan is commonly
meant; if any name is mentioned, it is the name of Saladin. Even the
Osmanli Turks, whose destructive tendencies were no secret, gave the
Italians only half a fright, and a peaceable accord with them was
looked upon as no impossibility.
The truest and most characteristic expression of this religious
indifference is the famous story of the Three Rings, which Lessing has
put into the mouth of his Nathan, after it had been already told
centuries earlier, though with some reserve, in the 'Hundred Old
Novels' (nov.
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