Indian Sculpture and Painting, Illustrated by Typical Masterpieces, with an Explanation of their Motives and Ideals c11.7

c11.7

"Infinitely destructive and disastrous as it was to life, learning, and civilisation, and especially to the Arab culture, which, as have already seen, maintained itself with such extraordinary vitality in Persia for six centuries, long after the war of Arab conquest had utterly subsided, the Mongol invasion did, perhaps, contain some quickening elements, and the Mongol character, for all its reckless ferocity, some potentialities of good. One of its few good effects was the extraordinary intermixture of remote peoples, resulting in a refreshing of somewhat stagnant mental reservoirs, which it brought about. In Europe it was a cause, if not the chief cause, of the Renaissance, for it thrust the Ottoman Turks out of the obscurity of Khurásán into the prominence of Constantinople, and was thus ultimately responsible for the destruc-