# The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart/Volume 1/Part 1/Chapter 1

CHAPTER I.
FROM THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS TO THE PUBLICATION OF BACON'S PHILOSOPHICAL WORKS.
The long interval, commonly known by the name of the middle ages, which immediately preceded the revival of letters in the western part of Europe, forms the most melancholy blank which occurs, from the first dawn of recorded civilisation, in the intellectual and moral history of the human race. In one point of view alone, the recollection of it is not altogether unpleasing, inasmuch as, by the proof it exhibits of the inseparable connexion between ignorance and prejudice on the one hand, and vice, misery, and slavery on the other, it affords, in conjunction with other causes, which will afterwards fall under our review, some security against any future recurrence of a similar calamity.
It would furnish a very interesting and instructive subject of speculation, to record and to illustrate (with the spirit, however, rather of a philosopher than of an antiquary) the various abortive efforts, which, during this protracted and seemingly hopeless period of a thousand years, were made by enlightened individuals, to impart to their contemporaries the fruits of their own acquirements. For in no one age from its commencement to its close, does the continuity of knowledge (if I may borrow an expression of Mr. Harris) seem to have been entirely interrupted: "There was always a faint twilight, like that auspicious gleam which, in a summer's night, fills up the interval between the setting and the rising sun." On the present ​occassion, I shall content myself with remarking the important effects produced by the numerous monastic establishments all over the Christian world, in preserving, amidst the general wreck, the inestimable remains of Greek and Roman refinement; and in keeping alive, during so many centuries, those scattered sparks of truth and of science, which were afterwards to kindle into so bright a flame. I mention this particularly, because, in our zeal against the vices and corruptions of the Romish Church, we are too apt to forget, how deeply we are indebted to its superstitious and apparently useless foundations, for the most precious advantages that we now enjoy.
The study of the Roman Law, which, from a variety of causes, natural as well as accidental, became, in the course of the twelfth century, an object of general pursuit, shot a strong and auspicious ray of intellectual light across the surrounding darkness. No study could then have been presented to the curiosity of men, more happily adapted to improve their taste, to enlarge their views, or to invigorate their reasoning powers; and although, in the first instance, prosecuted merely as the object of a weak and undistinguishing idolatry, it nevertheless conducted the student to the very confines of ethical as well as of political speculation; and served, in the meantime, as a substitute of no inconsiderable value for both these sciences. Accordingly we find that, while in its immediate effects it powerfully contributed, wherever it struck its roots, by ameliorating and systematizing the administration of justice, to accelerate the progress of order and of civilisation, it afterwards furnished, in the farther career of human advancement, the parent stock on which were grafted the first rudiments of pure ethics and of liberal politics taught in modern times. I need scarcely add, that I allude to the systems of natural jurisprudence compiled by Grotius and his successors; systems which, for a hundred and fifty years, engrossed all the learned industry of the most enlightened part of Europe; and which, however unpromising in their first aspect, were destined, in the last result, to prepare the way for that never to be forgotten change in the literary taste of the eighteenth century, "which has ​everywhere turned the spirit of philosophical inquiry from frivolous or abstruse speculations, to the business and affairs of men."
The revival of letters may be considered as coeval with the fall of the Eastern empire, towards the close of the fifteenth century. In consequence of this event, a number of learned Greeks took refuge in Italy, where the taste for literature already introduced by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, together with the liberal patronage of the illustrious House of Medicis, secured them a welcome reception. A knowledge of the Greek tongue soon became fashionable; and the learned, encouraged by the rapid diffusion which the art of printing now gave to their labours, vied with each other in rendering the Greek authors accessible, by means of Latin translations, to a still wider circle of readers.
For a long time, indeed, after the era just mentioned, the progress of useful knowledge was extremely slow. The passion for logical disputation was succeeded by an unbounded admiration for the wisdom of antiquity; and in proportion as the pedantry of the schools disappeared in the universities, that of erudition and philology occupied its place.
Meanwhile an important advantage was gained in the immense stock of materials which the ancient authors supplied to the reflections of speculative men; and which, although frequently accumulated with little discrimination or profit, were much more favourable to the development of taste and of genius than the unsubstantial subtleties of ontology or of dialectics. By such studies were formed Erasmus, Ludovicus ​Vives, Sir Thomas More, and many other accomplished scholars of a similar character, who, if they do not rank in the same line with the daring reformers by whom the errors of the Catholic Church were openly assailed, certainly exhibit a very striking contrast to the barbarous and unenlightened writers of the preceding age.
The Protestant Reformation, which followed immediately after, was itself one of the natural consequences of the revival of letters, and of the invention of printing. But although, in one point of view, only an effect, it is not, on the present occasion, less entitled to notice than the causes by which it was produced.
The renunciation, in a great part of Europe, of theological ​opinions so long consecrated by time, and the adoption of a creed more pure in its principles, and more liberal in its spirit, could not fail to encourage, on all other subjects, a congenial freedom of inquiry. These circumstances operated still more directly and powerfully, by their influence in undermining the authority of Aristotle; an authority which for many years was scarcely inferior in the schools to that of the Scriptures, and which, in some Universities, was supported by statutes, requiring the teachers to promise upon oath, that, in their public lectures, they would follow no other guide.
Luther, who was perfectly aware of the corruptions which the Romish Church had contrived to connect with their veneration for the Stagirite, not only threw off the yoke himself, but, in various parts of his writings, speaks of Aristotle with most unbecoming asperity and contempt. In one very remarkable passage, he asserts, that the study of Aristotle was wholly useless, not only in Theology, but in Natural Philosophy. "What does it contribute," he asks, "to the knowledge of things, to trifle and cavil in language conceived and prescribed by Aristotle, concerning matter, form, motion, and time?" The same ​freedom of thought on topics not strictly theological, formed a prominent feature in the character of Calvin. A curious instance of it occurs in one of his letters, where he discusses an ethical question of no small moment in the science of political economy:—"How far it is consistent with morality to accept of interest for a pecuniary loan?" On this question, which, even in Protestant countries, continued, till a very recent period, to divide the opinions both of divines and lawyers, Calvin treats the authority of Aristotle, and that of the Church, with equal disregard. To the former, he opposes a close and logical argument, not unworthy of Mr. Bentham. To the latter he replies, by shewing, that the Mosaic law on this point was not a moral but a municipal prohibition; a prohibition not to be judged of from any particular text of Scripture, but upon the principles of natural equity. The example of these two Fathers of the Reformation, would probably have been followed by consequences still greater and more immediate, if Melanchthon had not unfortunately given the sanction of his name to the doctrines of the Peripatetic school; but still, among the Reformers in general, the credit of these doctrines gradually declined, and a spirit of research and of improvement prevailed.
The invention of printing, which took place very nearly at the same time with the fall of the Eastern Empire, besides adding greatly to the efficacy of the causes above-mentioned, must have been attended with very important effects of its own, on the progress of the human mind. For us who have been ​accustomed, from our infancy, to the use of books, it is not easy to form an adequate idea of the disadvantages which those laboured under, who had to acquire the whole of their knowledge through the medium of universities and schools;—blindly devoted as the generality of students must then have been to the peculiar opinions of the teacher, who first unfolded to their curiosity the treasures of literature and the wonders of science. Thus error was perpetuated; and, instead of yielding to time, acquired additional influence in each successive generation. In modern times, this influence of names is, comparatively speaking, at an end. The object of a public teacher is no longer to inculcate a particular system of dogmas, but to prepare his pupils for exercising their own judgments; to exhibit to them an outline of the different sciences, and to suggest subjects for their future examination. The few attempts to establish schools, and to found sects, have all (after perhaps a temporary success) proved abortive. Their effect, too, during their short continuance, has been perfectly the reverse of that of the schools of antiquity; for whereas these were instrumental, on many occasions, in establishing and diffusing error in the world, the founders of our modern sects, by mixing up important truths with their own peculiar tenets, and by disguising them under the garb of a technical phraseology, have fostered such prejudices against themselves, as have blinded the public mind to all the lights ​they were able to communicate. Of this remark a melancholy illustration occurs (as M. Turgot long ago predicted) in the case of the French economists; and many examples of a similar import might be produced from the history of science in our country; more particularly from the history of the various medical and metaphysical schools which successively rose and fell during the last century.
With the circumstances already suggested, as conspiring to accelerate the progress of knowledge, another has co-operated very extensively and powerfully; the rise of the lower orders in the different countries of Europe,—in consequence partly of the enlargement of commerce, and partly of the efforts of the Sovereigns to reduce the overgrown power of the feudal aristocracy.
Without this emancipation of the lower orders, and the gradual diffusion of wealth by which it was accompanied, the advantages derived from the invention of printing would have been extremely limited. A certain degree of ease and independence is essentially requisite to inspire men with the desire of knowledge, and to afford the leisure necessary for acquiring it; and it is only by the encouragement which such a state of society presents to industry and ambition, that the selfish passions of the multitude can be interested in the intellectual improvement of their children. It is only, too, in such a state of society, that education and books are likely to increase the sum of human happiness; for while these advantages are confined to one privileged description of individuals, they but furnish them with an additional engine for debasing and misleading the minds of their inferiors. To all which it may be added, that it is chiefly by the shock and collision of different and opposite prejudices, that truths are gradually cleared from that admixture of error which they have so strong a tendency to acquire, wherever the course of public opinion is forcibly constrained and guided within certain artificial channels, marked out by the narrow views of human policy. The diffusion of knowledge, therefore, occasioned by the rise of the lower orders, would necessarily contribute to the improvement of useful ​science, not merely in proportion to the arithmetical number of cultivated minds now combined in the pursuit of truth, but in a proportion tending to accelerate that important effect with a far greater rapidity.
Nor ought we here to overlook the influence of the foregoing causes, in encouraging among authors the practice of addressing the multitude in their own vernacular tongues. The zeal of the Reformers first gave birth to this invaluable innovation; and imposed on their adversaries the necessity of employing, in their own defence, the same weapons. From that moment the prejudice began to vanish which had so long confounded knowledge with erudition; and a revolution commenced in the republic of letters, analogous to what the invention of gunpowder produced in the art of war. "All the splendid distinctions of mankind," as the Champion and Flower of Chivalry indignantly exclaimed, "were thereby thrown down; and the naked shepherd levelled with the knight clad in steel."
To all these considerations may be added the gradual effects of time and experience in correcting the errors and prejudices which had misled philosophers during so long a succession of ages. To this cause, chiefly, must be ascribed the ardour with which we find various ingenious men, soon after the period in question, employed in prosecuting experimental inquiries; a species of study to which nothing analogous occurs in the history of ancient science. The boldest and most successful of this new school was the celebrated Paracelsus; born in 1493, and consequently only ten years younger than Luther. "It is impossible to doubt," says Le Clerc, in his History of Physic, "that he possessed an extensive knowledge of what ​is called the Materia Medica, and that he had employed much time in working on the animal, the vegetable, and the mineral substances of which it is composed. He seems, besides, to have tried an immense number of experiments in chemistry: but he has this great defect, that he studiously conceals or disguises the results of his long experience." The same author quotes from Paracelsus a remarkable expression, in which he calls the philosophy of Aristotle a wooden foundation. "He ought to have attempted," continues Le Clerc, "to have laid a better; but if he has not done it, he has at least, by discovering its weakness, invited his successors to look out for a firmer basis."
Lord Bacon himself, while he censures the moral frailties of Paracelsus, and the blind empiricism of his followers, indirectly acknowledges the extent of his experimental information: "The ancient sophists may be said to have hid, but Paracelsus extinguished the light of nature. The sophists were only deserters of experience, but Paracelsus has betrayed it. At the same time, he is so far from understanding the right method of conducting experiments, or of recording their results, that he has added to the trouble and tediousness of experimenting. By wandering through the wilds of experience, his disciples sometimes stumble upon useful discoveries, not by reason, but by accident; whence rashly proceeding to form theories, they carry the smoke and tarnish of their art along with them, and, like childish operators at the furnace, attempt to raise a structure of philosophy with a few experiments of distillation."
Two other circumstances, of a nature widely different from those hitherto enumerated, although, probably, in no small degree to be accounted for on the same principles, seconded, with an incalculable accession of power, the sudden impulse which the human mind had just received. The same century which the invention of printing and the revival of letters have made for ever memorable, was also illustrated by the discovery of the New World and of the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope;—events which may be justly regarded as fixing a new ​era in the political and moral history of mankind, and which still continue to exert a growing influence over the general condition of our species. "It is an era," as Raynal observes," which gave rise to a revolution, not only in the commerce of nations, but in the manners, industry, and government of the world. At this period new connexions were formed by the inhabitants of the most distant regions, for the supply of wants which they had never before experienced. The productions of climates situated under the equator were consumed in countries bordering on the pole; the industry of the north was transplanted to the south, and the inhabitants of the west were clothed with the manufactures of the east; a general intercourse of opinions, laws, and customs, diseases and remedies, virtues and vices, was established among men.
"Everything," continues the same writer, "has changed, and must yet change more. But it is a question whether the revolutions that are past, or those which must hereafter take place, have been, or can be, of any utility to the human race. Will they add to the tranquillity, to the enjoyments, and to the happiness of mankind? Can they improve our present state, or do they only change it?"
I have introduced this quotation, not with the design of attempting at present any reply to the very interesting question with which it concludes, but merely to convey some slight notion of the political and moral importance of the events in question. I cannot, however, forbear to remark, in addition to Raynal's eloquent and impressive summary, the inestimable treasure of new facts which these events have furnished for illustrating the versatile nature of man and the history of civil society. In this respect (as Bacon has well observed) they have fully verified the Scripture prophecy, Multi pertransibunt, et augebitur scientia; or, in the still more emphatic words of our English version, "Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." The same prediction may be applied to the ​gradual renewal (in proportion as modern governments became effectual in securing order and tranquillity) of that intercourse between the different states of Europe which had, in a great measure, ceased during the anarchy and turbulence of the middle ages.
In consequence of these combined causes, aided by some others of secondary importance, the Genius of the human race ​seems, all at once, to have awakened with renovated and giant strength from his long sleep. In less than a century from the invention of printing and the fall of the Eastern empire, Copernicus discovered the true theory of the planetary motions, and a very few years afterwards, was succeeded by the three great precursors of Newton—Tycho Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo.
The step made by Copernicus may be justly regarded as one of the proudest triumphs of human reason;—whether we consider the sagacity which enabled the author to obviate, to his own satisfaction, the many plausible objections which must have presented themselves against his conclusions, at a period the theory of motion was so imperfectly understood; or the bold spirit of inquiry which encouraged him to exercise his private judgment, in opposition to the authority of Aristotle,—to the decrees of the Church of Rome,—and to the universal belief of the learned, during a long succession of ages. He appears, indeed, to have well merited the encomium bestowed on him by Kepler, when he calls him "a man of vast genius, and, what is of still greater moment in these researches, a man of a free mind."
The establishment of the Copernican system, beside the new field of study which it opened to Astronomers, must have had great effects on philosophy in all its branches, by inspiring those sanguine prospects of future improvement, which stimulate curiosity and invigorate the inventive powers. It afforded to the common sense, even of the illiterate, a palpable and incontrovertible proof, that the ancients had not exhausted the stock of possible discoveries; and that, in matters of science, the creed of the Romish Church was not infallible. In the conclusion of one of Kepler's works, we perceive the influence of these prospects on his mind. "Hæc et cetera hujusmodi latent in pandectis ævi sequentis, non antea discenda, quam librum hunc Deus arbiter seculorum recluserit mortalibus." ​of letters on Metaphysical, Moral, or Political science. The truth is, that little deserving of our attention occurs in any of these departments prior to the seventeenth century; and nothing which bears the most remote analogy to the rapid strides made, during the sixteenth, in mathematics, astronomy, and physics. The influence, indeed, of the Reformation on the practical doctrines of ethics appears to have been great and immediate. We may judge of this from a passage in Melanchthon, where he combats the pernicious and impious tenets of those theologians who maintained, that moral distinctions are created entirely by the arbitrary and revealed will of God. In opposition to this heresy he expresses himself in these memorable words:—"Wherefore our decision is this; that those precepts which learned men have committed to writing, transcribing them from the common reason and common feelings of human nature, are to be accounted as not less divine, than those contained in the tables given to Moses; and that it could not be the intention of our Maker to supersede, by a law graven upon stone, that which is written with his own finger on the table of the heart,"—This language was, undoubtedly, a most important step towards a just system of Moral Philosophy; but still, like the other steps of the Reformers, it was only a return to common sense, and to the genuine spirit of Christianity, from the dogmas imposed on the credulity of mankind by an ambitious priesthood. Many ​years were yet to elapse before any attempts were to be made to trace, with analytical accuracy, the moral phenomena of human life to their first principles in the constitution and condition of man; or even to disentangle the plain and practical lessons of ethics from the speculative and controverted articles of theological systems.
​A similar observation may be applied to the powerful appeals, in the early Protestant writers, to the moral judgment and moral feelings of the human race, from those casuistical subtleties, with which the schoolmen and monks of the middle ages had studied to obscure the light of nature, and to stifle the voice of conscience. These subtleties were precisely analogous in their spirit to the pia et religiosa calliditas, afterwards adopted in the casuistry of the Jesuits, and so inimitably exposed by Pascal in the Provincial Letters. The arguments against them employed by the Reformers, cannot, in strict propriety, be considered as positive accessions to the stock of human knowledge; but what scientific discoveries can be compared to them in value!
From this period may be dated the decline of that worst of ​all heresies of the Romish Church, which, by opposing revelation to reason, endeavoured to extinguish the light of both; and the absurdity (so happily described by Locke) became every day more manifest, of attempting "to persuade men to put out their eyes, that they might the better receive the remote light of an invisible star by a telescope."
In the meantime, a powerful obstacle to the progress of practical morality and of sound policy, was superadded to those previously existing in Catholic countries, by the rapid growth and extensive influence of the Machiavellian school. The founder of this new sect (or to speak more correctly, the systematizer and apostle of its doctrines) was born as early as 1469, that is, about ten years before Luther; and, like that reformer, acquired by the commanding superiority of his genius, an astonishing ascendant (though of a very different nature) over the minds of his followers. No writer, certainly, either in ancient or in modern times, has ever united, in a more remarkable degree, a greater variety of the most dissimilar and seemingly the most discordant gifts and attainments;—a profound acquaintance with all those arts of dissimulation and intrigue, which, in the petty cabinets of Italy, were then universally confounded with political wisdom; an imagination familiarized to the cool contemplation of whatever is perfidious or atrocious in the history of conspirators and of tyrants;—combined with a graphical skill in holding up to laughter the comparatively harmless follies of ordinary life. His dramatic humour has been often compared to that of Molière; but it resembles it rather in comic force, than in benevolent gaiety, or in chastened morality. Such as it is, however, it forms an extraordinary contrast to that strength of intellectual character, which, in one page, reminds us of the deep sense of Tacitus, and in the next, of the dark and infernal policy of Ceesar Borgia. To all this must be superadded a purity of taste, which has enabled him, as an ​historian, to rival the severe simplicity of the Grecian masters, and a sagacity in combining historical facts, which was afterwards to afford lights to the school of Montesquieu.—[The opinion of the Cardinal de Retz on the character and talents of Machiavel is entitled to much attention. It is expressed fully by himself in the following sentences. "Un des plus grands malheurs que l'autorité Despotique des Ministres du dernier siècle ait causé dans l'Etat, c'est la pratique que leurs intérêts particuliers mal entendus y ont introduite, de soutenir toujours le supérieur contre l'inférieur. Cette maxime est de Machiavel, que la plupart des gens qui le lisent n'entendent pas, et que les autres croient avoir été habile, parce qu'il a toujours été méchant. II s'en faut de beaucoup qu'il ne fut habile, et il s'est très souvent trompé, mais en nul endroit à mon opinion plus qu'en celuici.]
Eminent, however, as the talents of Machiavel unquestionably were, he cannot be numbered among the benefactors of mankind. In none of his writings does he exhibit any marks of that lively sympathy with the fortunes of the human race, or of that warm zeal for the interests of truth and justice, without the guidance of which, the highest mental endowments, when applied to moral or to political researches, are in perpetual danger of mistaking their way. What is still more remarkable, he seems to have been altogether blind to the mighty changes in human affairs, which, in consequence of the recent invention of printing, were about to result from the progress of Reason and the diffusion of Knowledge. Through the whole of his Prince (the most noted as well as one of the latest of his publications) he proceeds on the supposition, that the sovereign has no other object in governing but his own advantage; the very circumstance which, in the judgment of Aristotle, constitutes the essence of the worst species of tyranny. He assumes also ​the possibility of retaining mankind in perpetual bondage by the old policy of the double doctrine; or, in other words, by enlightening the few, and hoodwinking the many;—a policy less or more practised by statesmen in all ages and countries; but which (wherever the freedom of the Press is respected) cannot fail, by the insult it offers to the discernment of the multitude, to increase the insecurity of those who have the weakness to employ it. It has been contended, indeed, by some of Machiavel's apologists, that his real object in unfolding and systematizing the mysteries of King-craft, was to point out indirectly to the governed the means by which the encroachments of their rulers might be most effectually resisted; and, at the same time, to satirize, under the ironical mask of loyal and courtly admonition, the characteristical vices of princes. But, although this hypothesis has been sanctioned by several distinguished names, and derives some verisimilitude from various incidents in the author's life, it will be found, on examination, quite untenable; and accordingly it is now, I believe, very generally rejected. One thing is certain, that if such were actually Machiavel's views, they were much too refined for the capacity of his royal pupils. By many of these his book has been adopted as a manual for daily use; but I have never heard of a single instance, in which it has been regarded by this class of students as a disguised panegyric upon liberty and virtue. The question concerning the motives of the author is surely of little moment, when experience has enabled us to pronounce so decidedly on the practical effects of his precepts.
"About the period of the Reformation," says Condorcet, "the principles of religious Machiavelism had become the only creed of princes, of ministers, and of pontiffs; and the same opinions had contributed to corrupt philosophy. What code, indeed, of morals," he adds, "was to be expected from a system, of which one of the principles is,—that it is necessary to support the morality of the people by false pretences,—and that men of enlightened minds have a right to retain others in the chains from which they have themselves contrived to escape!" The fact is ​44 DISSERTATION. PART FIRST. perhaps stated in terms somewhat too unqualified ; but there are the best reasons for believing, that the exceptions were few, when compared with the general proposition. [The Christian charity of John Calvin, in judging of the Eoman Pontiffs, does not seern to have exceeded that of Condorcet. " Ad homines autem si veniamus, satis scitur quales reperturi simus Christi vicarios ; Julius, scilicet, et Leo, et Clemens, et Paulus Chris- tianas fidei Columnae erunt, primique religionis interpretes, qui nihil aliud de Christo tenuerunt nisi quod didicerant in schola Luciani. Sed quid tres aut quatuor Pontifices enumero, quasi vero dubium sit qualem religionis speciem professi sint jampri- dem Pontifices cum toto Cardinalium collegio ? Primum enim arcanae illius Theologias quae inter eos regnat, caput est; millum esse Deum; casterum, quaecunque de Christo scripta sunt docentur mendacia esse et imposturas." 1 ] The consequences of the prevalence of such a creed among the rulers of mankind were such as might be expected. " In- famous crimes, assassinations, and poisonings, (says a French historian,) prevailed more than ever. They were thought to be the growth of Italy, where the rage and weakness of the oppo- site factions conspired to multiply them. Morality gradually disappeared, and with it all security in the intercourse of life. The first principles of duty were obliterated by the joint influ- ence of atheism and of superstition." 2 And here, may I be permitted to caution my readers against the common error of confounding the double doctrine of Machi- avellian politicians, with the benevolent reverence for established opinions, manifested in the noted maxim of Pontenelle, " that a wise man, even when his hand was full of truths, would often content himself with opening his little finger ?" Of the advo- cates for the former, it may be justly said, that "they love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil;" well knowing (if I may borrow the words of Bacon) " that the open day-light doth not shew the masks and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately as candle-light." The philosopher, on the other hand, w T ho is duly impressed with the
* ↑ Philogical Inquiries, Part iii. chap. i.
* ↑ Dr. Robertson, from whom I quote these words, has mentioned this cahnge as the glory of the present age, meaning, I presume, the period which elapsed since the time of Montesquieu. By what steps the philosophy to which he alludes took its rise from the systems of jurisprudence previously in fashion, will appear in the sequel of this Discourse.
* ↑ The writings of Erasmus probably contributed still more than those of Luther himself to the progress of the Reformation among men of education and taste; but, without the co-operation of bolder and more decided characters than his, little would to this day have been effected in Europe among the lower orders. "Erasmus imagined," as is observed by his biographer, "that at length, by training up youth in learning and useful knowledge, those religious improvements would gradually be brought about, which the princess, the prelates, and the divines of his days could not be persuaded to admit or to tolerate."—(Jortin, p. 279.) In yielding, however, to this pleasing expectation, Erasmus must have flattered himself with the hope, not only of a perfect freedom of literary discussion, but of such reforms in the prevailing modes of instruction, as would give complete scope to the energies of the human mind:—for, where books and teachers are subjected to the censorship of those who are hostile to the dissemination of truth, they become the most powerful of all auxiliaries to the authority of established errors. It was long a proverbial saying among the ecclesiastics of the Romish Church, that "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it;" and there is more truth in the remark, than in most of their sarcasms on the same subject.
* ↑ Ludovicus Vives was a learned Spaniard, intimately connected both with Erasmus and More; with the former of whom he lived for some time at Lonvain; "where they both promoted literature as much as they could, though not without great opposition from some of the divines."—Jortin, p. 255. "He was invited into England by Wolsey in 1523: and coming to Oxford, he read the Cardinal's lecture on Humanity, and also lectures of Civil Law, which Henry VIII. and his Queen, Catherine, did him the honour of attending."—(Ibid. p. 207.) He died at Bruges in 1554. In point of good sense and acuteness, wherever he treats of philosophical questions, he yields to none of his contemporaries; and in some of his anticipations of the future progress of science, he discovers a mind more comprehensive and sagacious than any of them. Erasmus appears, from a letter of his to Budæus, (dated in 1521,) to have foreseen the the brilliant career which Vives, than a very young man, was about to run. "Vives in stadio literario, non minus feliciter quam gnaviter decertat, et si satis ingenium hominis novi, non conquiescet, donec omnes a tergo reliquerit."—For this letter, (the whole of which is peculiarly interesting, as it contains a character of Sir Thomas More, and an account of the extraordinary accomplishments of his daughters,) see Jortin's Life of Erasmus, vol. ii. p. 366, et seq.
* ↑ See Note A.
* ↑ Born 1483, died 1546.
* ↑ In one of his letters he writes thus: "Ego simpliciter credo, quod impossibile sit ecclesiam reformari, nisi funditus canones, decretales, scholastica theologia, philosphia, logica, et nune habentur, eradicentur, et alia instituantur."—Brackeri Hist. Crit. Phil. tom. iv. p. 95.
* ↑ For a specimen of Luther's scurrility against Aristotle, see Bayle, Art. Luther, Note HH. In Luther's Colloquia Mensalia we are told, that "he abhorred the school-men, and called them sophistical locusts, caterpillars, frogs, and lice." From the same work we learn, that "he hated Aristotle, but highly esteemed Cicero, as a wise and good man."—See Jortin's Life of Erasmus, p. 121.
* ↑ "Nihil adjumenti ex ipso haberi posse non solum ad theologiam sen sacras literas, verum etiam and ipsam naturalem philosophiam. Quid enim juvet ad rerum cognitionem, si de materia, forma, motu, tempore, nugari et cavillari queas verbis ab Aristotle conceptis at præscriptis?"—Bruck. Hist. Phil. tom. iv. p. 101. The following passage to the same purpose is quoted by Bayle: "Non mihi persuadebitis, philosophiam esse garrulitatem illam de materia, motu, infinito, loco, vacuo, tempore, quæ ferè in Aristototele sola discimus, talis quæ nec intellectum, nec affectum, nec communes homoinum mores quidquam juvent; tantum contentionibus serendis, seminandisque idonea."—Bayle. Art. Luther, Note HH. I borrow from Bale another short extract from Luther: "Nihil ita ardet animus quàm histrionem illum, (Aristotelem,) qui tam verè Græca larva ecclesiam lusit, multis revlare ignominiamque ejus cunctis ostendere, si otium esset. Habeo in manus comment-ariolos in 1. Physicorum, quibus fabulam Aristæi denuò agere statui in meum istum Protea (Aristotelem). Pars crucis meæ vel maxima est, quod videre cogor fractrum optima ingenia, bonis studiis nata, in istis cœnis vitam agere, et operam perdere."—Ibid. That Luther was deeply skilled in the scholastic philosophy we learn from very high authority, that of Melanchthon; who tells us farther, that he was strenous partisan of the sect of Nominalists, or, as they were then generally called, Terminists.—Bruck. tom. iv. pp. 93, 94, et seq.
* ↑ See Note B.
* ↑ "Et Melanchthoni quidem præcipue debetur conservatio philosophiæ Aristotelicæ in academiis protestantium. Scripsit is compendia plerarumque disciplinarum philosophoæ Aristotelicæ, quæ in Academiis diu regnuarunr."—Heineccii, Elem. Hist. Phil. § ciii. See also Bayle's Dict., Art. Melanchthon.
* ↑ It was in consequence of this mode of conducting education, by means of oral instruction alone, that the different sects of philosophy arose in ancient Greece; and it seems to have been with a view of counteracting the obvious inconveniences resulting from them, that Socrates introduced his peculiar method of questioning, with an air of sceptical diffidence, those whom he was anxious to instruct; so as to allow them, in forming their conclusions, the complete and unbiased exercise of their own reason. Such, at least, is the apology offered for the apparent indecision of the Academic school, by one of its wisest, as well as most eloquent adherents. "As for the other sects," says Cicero, "who are bound in fetters, before they are able to form any judgment of what is right ot true, and who have been led to yield themselves up, in their tender years, to the guidance of some friend, or to the captivating eloquence of the tender whom they have first heard, they assume to themselves the right of pronouncing upon questions of which they are completely ignorant; adhering to whatever creed the wind of doctrine may have driven them, as if it were the only rock on which their safety depended."—Cic. Lucullus, 3
* ↑ "The sacred books were, in almost all the kingdoms and states of Europe, translated into the language of each respective people, particularly in Germany, Italy, France, and Britain."—(Moshein's Eccles. Hist. vol. iii. p. 265.) The effect of this single circumstance in multiplying the number of readers and of thinkers, and in giving a certain stability to the mutable forms of oral speech, may be easily imagined. The vulgar translation of the Bible into English, is pronounced by Dr. Lowth to be still to be still the best standard of our language.
* ↑ "Ilfæc nostra (ut sæpe diximus) felicitatis cujusdam sumt potius quam facultatis, et potius temporis partus quam ingenii."—Nov. Org. lib. i. c. xxiii.
* ↑ Histoire de la Médecine , (à la Haye, 1729.) p. 819.
* ↑ "Neque omittenda est prophetia Danielis de ultimis mundi temporibus; multi pertransibunt, et augebilur scientia: Manifeste innuens et significans, esse in fatis, id est, in providentia, ut pertransitus mundi (qui per tot longin-quas navigationes impletur plane, aut jam in opere esse videtur) et augmenta scientiarum in eandem ætatem incidant."—Nov. Org. lib. i. § xciii.
* ↑ Such as the accidental inventions of the telescope and of the microscope. The powerful influence of these inventions may be easily conceived, not only in advancing the sciences of astronomy and of natural history, but in banishing many of the scholastic prejudices then universally prevalent. The effects of the telescope, in this respect, have been often remarked, but less attention has been given to those of the microscope—which, however, it is probable, contributed not a little to prepare to the way for the modern revival of the Atomic or Corpuscular Philosophy, by Bacon, Gassendi, and Newton. That, on the mind of Bacon, the wonders disclosed by the microphone produced a strong impression in favour of the Epicurean physics, may be inferred from his own words: "Perspicillium (microscopicum) si vidisset Democritus, exsiluisset forte; et modum videndi Atomum (quem ille invisibilem omnino affirmavit) inventum fuisse putasset."—Nov. Org. lib. § 39. We are told in the Life of Galileo, that when the telescope was invented, some individuals carried to so great a length their devotion to Aristotle, that they positively refused to look through that instrument: so averse were they to open their eyes to any truths inconsistent with their favourite creed.—(Vital del Galileo, Venezia, 1744.) It is amusing to find some other followers of the Stagirite, a very few years afterwards, when they found it impossible any longer to call in question the evidence of sense, asserting that it was from a passage in Aristotle (where he attempts to explain why stars become visible in the daytime when viewed from the bottom of a deep well) that the invention of the telescope was borrowed. The two facts, when combined together, exhibit a truly characteristical portrait of one of the most fatal weaknesses incident to humanity; and form a moral apalogue, daily exemplified on subjects of still nearer and higher interest than the phenomena of the heavens. In ascribing to accident the inventions of the telescope and of the microscope, I have expressed myself in conformity to common language; but it ought not to be overlooked, that an invention may be accidental with respect to the particular author, and yet may be the natural result of the circumstances of society at the period when it took place. As to the instruments in question, the combination of lenses employed in their structure is so simple, that it could scarcely escape the notice of all the experimenters and mechanicians of that busy and inquisitive age. A similar remark has been made by Condorcet concerning the invention of printing. "L'invention de l'imprimiere a sans doute avancé le progrès de l'espèce humaine; mais cette invention étoit elle-même dune suite de l'usage de la lecture répandu dans un grand nombre de pays."—Vie de Turgot.
* ↑ Epit, Astron, Copernic.
* ↑ "Proinde sic statuimus, nihilo minus divina præceceptaesse ea, quæ a sensu communi et naturæ judicio mutuani docti homines gentiles literis mandarunt, quam quæ extant in ipsis saxeis Mosis tabulis. Neque ille ipse cælestis Pater pluris a nobis fieri eas leges voluit, quas in saxo scripsit, quam quas in ipsos animorum nostrorum sensus impresserat." Not having it in my power at present to consult Melanchthon's works, I have transcribed the foregoing paragraph on the authority of a learned German Professor, Christ. Meiners. See his Historia Doctrinœ de Vero Deo. Lemgoviæ, 1780, p. 12.
* ↑ It is observed by Dr. Cudworth, that the doctrine which refers the origin of moral distinctions to the arbitrary appointment of the Deity, was strongly reprobated by the ancient fathers of the Christian church, and that it crept up afterward in the scholastic ages; Occam being among the first that maintained, that there is no act evil, but as it is prohibited by God, and which cannot be made good, if it be commanded by him. In this doctrine he was quickly followed by Petrus Alliacus, Andreas de Novo Castro, and others. See Treatise of Immutable Morality. It is pleasing to remark, how very generally the heresy here ascribed to Occam is now reprobated by good men of all persuasions. The Catholics have even begun to recriminate on the Reformers as the first broachers of it; and it is to be regretted, that in some of the writings of the latter, too near approachers to it are to be found. The truth is, (as Burnet long ago observed,) that the effects of the Reformation have not been confined to the reformed churches;—to which it may be added, that both Catholics and Protestants have, since that era, profited very largely by the general progress of the sciences and of human reason. I quote the following sentence from a highly respectable Catholic writer on the law of nature and nations:—"Qui rationem exsulare jubent a moralibus præceptis quæ in sacris literis traduntur, et in absurdam enormemque Lutheri sententiam imprudentes incidunt (quam egregie et elegantissime refutavit Melchior Canus Loc. Thelog. lib. ix. and x.) et ea docent, quæ si sectatores inveniant moralia omnia susque deque miscere, et revelationem ipsam inutilem omnino et inefficacem reffere possent."—(Lamperdi Florentini Juris Naturœ et Gentium Theoremata, tom. ii. p. 195. Pisis, 1782.) For the continuation of the passage, which would do credit to the most liberal Protestant, I must refer to the original work. The zeal of Luther for the doctrine of the Nominalists had probably prepossessed him, in his early years, in favour of some of the theological tenets of Occam; and afterwards prevented him from testifying his disapprobation of them so explicitly and decidedly as Melanchthon and other reformers have done.
* ↑ "The theological system (says the learned and judicious Mosheim) that now prevails in the Lutheran academies, is not of the same tenor or spirit with that which was adopted in the infancy of the Reformation. The glorious defenders of religious liberty, to whom we owe the various blessings of the Reformation, could not, at once, behold the truth in all its lustre, and in all its extent; but, as usually happens to persons that have been long accustomed to the darkness of ignorance, their approaches towards knowledge were but slow, and their views of things but imperfect."—(Maclaine's Transl. of Mosheim. London, 2d ed. vol. iv. p. 19.) He afterwards mentions one of Luther's early disciples, (Amsdorff,) "who was so far transported and infatuated by his excessive zeal for the supposed doctrine of his master, as to maintain that good works are an impediment to salvation." Ibid. p. 39. Mosheim, after remarking that "there are more excellent rules of conduct in the few practical productions of Luther and Melanchthon, than are to be found in the innumerable volumes of all the ancient casuists and moralizers," candidly acknowledges, "that the notions of these great men concerning the important science of morality were far from being sufficiently accurate or extensive. Melanchthon himself, whose exquisite judgment rendered him peculiarly capable of reducing into a compendious system the elements of every science, never seems to have thought of treating morals in this manner; but has inserted, on the contrary, all his practical rules and instructions, under the theological articles that relate to the law, sin, free-will, faith, hope, and charity."—Mosheiin's Eccles. Hist. vol. iv. pp. 23, 24. The same author elsewhere observes, that "the progress of morality among the reformed was obstructed by the very same means that retarded its improvement among the Lutherans; and that it was left in a rude and imperfect state by Calvin and his associates. It was neglected amidst the tumult of controversy; and, while every pen was drawn to maintain certain systems of doctrine, few were employed in cultivating that master science which has virtue, life, and manners for its objects."—Ibid. pp. 120, 121.
* ↑ "Et tamen ni doctores, angelici, cherubici, seraphici non modo universam philosophiam ac theologiam erroribus quam plurimis inquinarunt; verum etiam in philosophiam moralem invexere sacerrima ista principia probabilismi, methodi dirifjendi intentionem, reservations mentalis, peccati philosophici, quibus Jesuitce etiamnum mirifice delectantur."—Heinecc. Elem. Histor. Phil. § cii. See also the references. With respect to the ethics of the Jesuits, which exhibit a very fair picture of the general state of that science, prior to the Reformation, see the Provincial Letters; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. iv. p. 354; Dornford's Translation of Putter's Historical Development of the Present Political Constitution of the Germanic Empire, vol. ii. p. 6; and the Appendix to Penrose's Bampton Lectures.
* ↑ I have said, the decline of this heresy for it was by no means immediately extirpated even in the reformed churches. "As late as the year 1598, Daniel Hoffman, Professor of Divinity in the University of Helmstadt, laying hold of some particular opinions of Luther, extravagantly maintained, that philosophy was the mortal enemy of religion; that truth was divisible into two branches, the one philosophical, and the other theological; and that what was true in philosophy, was false in theology."—Mosheim, vol. iv. p. 18.
* ↑ [Memoires du Cardinal de Retz. Liv. iii. (1650).]
* ↑ "There is a third kind of tyranny, which most properly deserves that odious name, and which stands in direct opposition to royalty; it takes place when one man, the worst and perhaps the basest in the country, governs a kingdom, with no other view than the advantage of himself and and his family."—Aristotle's Politics, Book iv. chap. x. See Dr. Gillie's Translation.
* ↑ See Note C.