Antiquity was often delighted to cast a halo of mythical glory around its illustrious names. The immortal works of this great philosopher seemed to entitle him to more than mortal honors. A legend into the authenticity of which we will abstain from inquiring, asserted that his mother, Perictione, a pure virgin, suffered an immaculate conception through the influence of Apollo. The god declared to Ariston, to whom she was about to be married, the parentage of the child.
John William DraperI have to deplore the systematic manner in which the literature of Europe has continued to put out of sight our obligations to the Muhammadans. Surely they cannot be much longer hidden. Injustice founded on religious rancour and national conceit cannot be perpetuated forever. The Arab has left his intellectual impress on Europe. He has indelibly written it on the heavens as any one may see who reads the names of the stars on a common celestial globe.
John William DraperThe scientific study of Nature tends not only to correct and ennoble the intellectual conceptions of man; it serves also to ameliorate his physical condition.
John William DraperIs it at all surprising that the number of those who hold the opinions of the Church in light esteem should so rapidly increase? How can that be received as a trustworthy guide in the invisible, which falls into so many errors in the visible?
John William Draper