# Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclopædia Britannica/Dissertation First/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 civilization, in the intellectual and moral history of the human race. In one point of view alone, the recollection of it is not altogether unpleasing, in as much as, by the proof it exhibits of the inseparable connection 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 occasion, 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 civilization, 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 coëval 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 Boccacio, 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 developement 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 tune?” 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 1498, and consequently only ten years younger than Luther. “It is impossible to doubt,” says Le Clere, in his History of Physic, “that he possessed an extensive of 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 Clere, “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 re​garded 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 connections 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.”
“Every thing,” 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 emphatical 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 when 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 inspir​ing 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.”
I have hitherto taken no notice of the effects of the revival 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 at​tempts 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 lessions 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 acquaint​ance 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 Moliere; 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 Cæsar 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.
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 systematising 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 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 consequences of the prevalence of such a creed among the rulers of mankind were such as might be expected. “Infamous 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 opposite 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 influence of atheism and of superstition.”
And here, may I be permitted to caution my readers against the common error of confounding the double doctrine of Machiavellian politicians, with the benevolent reverence for established opinions, manifested in the noted maxim of Fontenelle,—“that a wise man, even when his hand was full of truths, would often content himself with opening his little finger?” Of the advocates 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, who is duly impressed with the latter, may be compared to the oculist, who, after removing the cataract of his patient, prepares the still irritable eye, by the glimmering dawn of a darkened apartment, for enjoying in safety the light of day.
Machiavel is well known to have been, at bottom, no friend to the priesthood; and his character has been stigmatized by many of the order with the most opprobrious epithets. It is nevertheless certain, that to his maxims the royal defenders of the catholic faith have been indebted for the spirit of that policy which they have uniformly opposed to the innovations of the Reformers. The Prince was a favourite book of the Emperor Charles V.; and was called the Bible of Catharine of Medicis. At the court of the latter, while Regent of France, those who approached her are said to have professed openly its most atrocious maxims; particularly that which recommends to sovereigns not to commit crimes by halves. The Italian cardinals, who are supposed to have been the secret instigators of the massacre of St Bartholomew, were bred in the same school.
It is observed by Mr Hume, that “there is scarcely any maxim in the Prince, which subsequent experience has not entirely refuted.” “Machiavel,” says the same writer, “was certainly a great genius; but having confined his study to the furious and tyrannical governments of ancient times, or to the little disorderly principalities of Italy, his reasonings, ​especially upon monarchical governments, have been found extremely defective. The errors of this politician proceeded, in a great measure, from his having lived in too early an age of the world, to be a good judge of political truth.”
To these very judicious remarks, it may be added, that the bent of Machiavel’s mind seems to have disposed him much more strongly to combine and to generalize his historical reading, than to remount to the first principles of political science, in the constitution of human nature, and in the immutable truths of morality. His conclusions, accordingly, ingenious and refined as they commonly are, amount to little more (with a few very splendid exceptions) than empirical results from the events of past ages. To the student of ancient history they may be often both interesting and instructive; but, to the modern politician, the most important lesson they afford is, the danger, in the present circumstances of the world, of trusting to such results, as maxims of universal application, or of permanent utility.
The progress of political philosophy, and along with it of morality and good order, in every part of Europe, since the period of which I am now speaking, forms so pleasing a comment on the profligate and short-sighted policy of Machiavel, that I cannot help pausing for a moment to remark the fact. In stating it, I shall avail myself of the words of the same profound writer, whose strictures on Machiavel’s Prince I had already occasion to quote. “Though all kinds of government,” says Mr Hume, “be improved in modern times, yet monarchical government seems to have made the greatest advances towards perfection. It may now be affirmed of civilized monarchies, what was formerly said of republics alone, that they are a government of laws, not of men. They are found susceptible of order, method, and constancy, to a surprising degree. Property is there secure, industry encouraged, the arts flourish, and the prince lives secure among his subjects, like a father among his children, There are, perhaps, and have been for two centuries, near two hundred absolute princes, great and small, in Europe; and allowing twenty years to each reign, we may suppose that there have been in the whole two thousand monarchs or tyrants, as the Greeks would have called them. Yet of these there has not been one, not even Philip II. of Spain, so bad as Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, or Domitian, who were four in twelve among the Roman emperors.”
For this very remarkable fact, it seems difficult to assign any cause equal to the effect, but the increased diffusion of knowledge (imperfect, alas! as this diffusion still is) by means of the Press; 3 which, while it has raised, in free states, a growing bulwark against the oppression of rulers, in the light and spirit of the people, has, even under the most absolute governments, ​had a powerful influence—by teaching princes to regard the wealth and prosperity and instruction of their subjects as the firmest basis of their grandeur—in directing their attention to objects of national and permanent utility. How encouraging the prospect thus opened of the future history of the world! And what a motive to animate the ambition of those, who, in the solitude of the closet, aspire to bequeath their contributions, how slender soever, to the progressive mass of human improvement and happiness!
In the bright constellation of scholars, historians, artists, and wits, who shed so strong a lustre on Italy during that splendid period of its history which commences with the revival of letters, it is surprising how few names occur, which it is possible to connect, by any palpable link, with the philosophical or political speculations of the present times. As an original and profound thinker, the genius of Machiavel completely eclipses that of all his contemporaries. Not that Italy was then destitute of writers who pretended to the character of philosophers; but as their attempts were, in general, limited to the exclusive illustration and defence of some one or other of the ancient systems for which they had conceived a predilection, they added but little of their own to the stock of useful knowledge; and are now remembered chiefly from the occasional recurrence of their names in the catalogues of the curious, or in works of philological erudition. The zeal of Cardinal Bessarion, and of Marsilius Ficinus, for the revival of the Platonic philosophy, was more peculiarly remarkable; and, at one time, produced so general an impression, as to alarm the followers of Aristotle for the tottering authority of their master. If we may credit Launoius, this great revolution was on the point of being actually accomplished, when Cardinal Bellarmine warned Pope Clement VIII. of the peculiar danger of shewing any favour to a philosopher whose opinions approached so nearly as those of Plato to the truths revealed in the Gospel. In what manner Bellarmine connected his conclusions with his premises, we are not informed. To those who are uninitiated in the mysteries of the conclave, his inference would certainly appear much less logical than that of the old Roman Pagans, who petitioned the Senate to condemn the works of Cicero to the flames, as they predisposed the minds of those who read them for embracing the Christian faith.
By a small band of bolder innovators, belonging to this golden age of Italian literature, the Aristotelian doctrines were more directly and powerfully assailed. Laurentius Valla, Marius Nizolius, and Franciscus Patricius, have all of them transmitted their names to pos​terity as philosophical reformers, and, in particular, as revolters against the authority of the Stagirite. Of the individuals just mentioned, Nizolius is the only one who seems entitled to maintain a permanent place in the annals of modern science. His principal work, entitled Antibarbarus, is not only a bold invective against the prevailing ignorance and barbarism of the schools, but contains so able an argument against the then fashionable doctrine of the Realists concerning general ideas, that Leibnitz thought it worth while, a century afterwards, to republish it, with the addition of a long and valuable preface written by himself.
At the same period with Franciscus Patricius, flourished another learned Italian, Albericus Gentilis, whose writings seem te have attracted more notice in England and Germany than in his own country. His attachment to the reformed faith having driven him from Italy, he sought an asylum at Oxford, where he published, in 1588, a book de Jure Belli; and where he appears to have read lectures on Natural Jurisprudence, under the sanction of the University. His name has already sunk into almost total oblivion; and I should certainly not have mentioned it on the present occasion, were it not for his indisputable merits as the precursor of Grotius, in a department of study which, forty years afterwards, the celebrated treatise De Jure Belli et Pacis was to raise to so conspicuous a rank among the branches of academical education. The avowed aim of this new science, when combined with the anxiety of Gentilis to counteract the effect of Machiavel’s Prince, by representing it as a warning to subjects rather than as a manual of instruction for their rulers, may be regarded as satisfactory evidence of the growing influence, even at that era, of better ethical principles than those commonly imputed to the Florentine Secretary.
​The only other Italian of whom I shall take notice at present, is Campanella; a philosopher now remembered chiefly in consequence of his eccentric character and eventful life, but of whom Leibnitz has spoken in terms of such high admiration, as to place him in the same line with Bacon. After looking into several of his works with some attention, I must confess, I am at a loss to conceive upon what grounds the eulogy of Leibnitz proceeds; but as it is difficult to suppose, that the praise of this great man was, in any instance, the result of mere caprice, I shall put it in the power of my readers to judge for themselves, by subjoining a faithful translation of his words. I do this the more willingly, as the passage itself (whatever may be thought of the critical judgments pronounced in it), contains some general remarks on intellectual character, which are in every respect worthy of the author.
“Some men, in conducting operations where an attention to minutiæ is requisite, discover a mind vigorous, subtile, and versatile, and seem to be equal to any undertaking how arduous soever. But when they are called upon to act on a greater scale, they hesitate and are lost in their own meditations; distrustful of their judgment, and conscious of their incompetency, to the scene in which they are placed: men, in a word, possessed of a genius rather acute than comprehensive. A similar difference may be traced among authors. What can be more acute than Descartes in Physics, or than Hobbes in Morals! And yet, if the one be compared with Bacon, and the other with Campanella, the former writers seem to grovel upon the earth,—the latter to soar to the Heavens, by the vastness of their conceptions, their plans, and their enterprises, and to aim at objects beyond the reach of the human powers. The former, accordingly, are best fitted for delivering the first elements of knowledge, the latter for establishing conclusions of important and general application.”
​The annals of France, during this period, present very scanty materials for the History of Philosophy. The name of the Chancellor De l’Hopital, however, must not be passed over in silence. As an author, he does not rank high; nor does he seem to have:at all valued himself on the careless effusions of his literary hours; but, as an upright and virtuous magistrate, he has left behind him a reputation unrivalled to this day. His wise and indulgent principles on the subject of religious liberty, and the steadiness with which he adhered to them, under circumstances of extraordinary difficulty and danger, exhibit a splendid contrast to the cruel intolerance, which, a few years before, had disgraced the character of an illustrious Chancellor of England. The same philosophical and truly catholic spirit distinguished his friend, the President de Thou; and gives the principal charm to the justly admired preface prefixed to his history. In tracing the progress of the human mind during the sixteenth century, such insulated and anomalous examples of the triumph of reason over superstition and bigotry, deserve attention, net less than what is due, in a history of the experimental arts, to Friar Bacon’s early anticipation of gun-powder, and of the telescope.
Contemporary with these great men was Bodin (or Bodinus), an eminent French lawyer, who appears to have beer one of the first that united a philosophical turn of thinking with an extensive knowledge of jurisprudence and of history. His learning is often ill digested, and his conclusions still oftener rash and unsound: yet it is but justice to him to acknowledge, that, in his views of the philosophy of law, he has approached very nearly to some leading ideas of Lord Bacon; while, in his refined combinations of historical facts, he has more than once struck into a train of speculation, bearing a strong resemblance to that afterwards pursued by Montesquieu. Of this resemblance, so remarkable an instance oc​curs in his chapter on the moral effects of Climate, and on the attention due to this circumstance by the legislator, that it has repeatedly subjected the author of the Spirit of Laws (but in my opinion without any good reason) to the imputation of plagiarism. A resemblance to Montesquieu, still more honourable to Bodinus, may be traced in their common attachment to religious as well as to civil liberty. To have caught, in the sixteenth century somewhat of the philosophical spirit of the eighteenth, reflects less credit on the force of his mind, than to have imbibed, in the midst of the theological controversies of his age, those lessons of mutual forbearance and charity, which a long and sad experience of the fatal effects of persecution has to this day so imperfectly taught to the most enlightened nations of Europe.
As a specimen of the liberal and moderate views of this philosophical politician, I shall quote two short passages from his Treatise De la République, which seem to me objects of considerable curiosity, when contrasted with the general spirit of the age in which they were written. The first relates to liberty of conscience, for which he was a strenuous and intrepid advocate, not only in his publications, but as a member of the Etats Géneraux, assembled at Blois in 1576. “The mightier that a man is (says Bodin) the more justly and temperately he ought to behave himself towards all men, but especially towards his subjects. Wherefore the senate and people of Basil did wisely, who, having renounced the Bishop of Rome’s religion, would not, upon the sudden, thrust the monks and nuns, with the other religious persons, out of their abbeys and monasteries, but only took order, that, as they died, they should die both for themselves and their successors, expressly forbidding any new to be chosen in their places, so that, by that means, their colleges might, by little and little, by the death of the fellows, be extinguished. Whereby it came to pass, that all the rest of the Carthusians, of their own accord, forsaking their cloisters, yet one of them all alone for a long time remained therein, quietly and without any disturbance, holding the right of his convent, being never enforced to change either his place, or habit, or old ceremonies, or religion before by him received. The like order was taken at Coire in the diet ​of the Grisons; wherein it was decreed, that the ministers of the reformed religion should be maintained of the profits and revenues of the church, the religious men nevertheless still remaining in their cloisters and convents, to be by their death suppressed, they being now prohibited to choose any new instead of them which died. By which means, they which professed the new religion, and they who professed the old, were both provided for.’’
The aim of the chapter from which I have extracted the foregoing passage, is to shew, that “it is a most dangerous thing, at one and the same time, to change the form, laws, and customs of a commonwealth.” The scope of the author’s reasonings may he judged of from the concluding paragraph.
“We ought then, in the government of a well ordered estate and commonwealth, to imitate and follow the great God of Nature, who in all things proceedeth easily, and by little and little; who of a little seed causeth to grow a tree for height and greatness, right admirable, and yet for all that insensibly; and still by means conjoining the extremities of nature, as by putting the spring between winter and summer, and autumn betwixt summer and winter, moderating the extremities of the terms and seasons, with the self-same wisdom which it useth in all other things also, and that in such sort, as that no violent force or course therein appeareth.”
​Notwithstanding these wise and enlightened maxims, it must be owned, on the other hand, that Bodin has indulged himself in various speculations, which would expose a writer of the present times to the imputation of insanity. One of the most extraordinary of these, is his elaborate argument to prove, that, in a well constituted state, the father should possess the right of life and death over his children;—a paradox which forms an unaccountable contrast to the general tone of humanity which characterizes his opinions. Of the extent of his credulity on the subject of witchcraft, and of the deep horror with which he regarded those who affected to be sceptical about the reality of that crime, he has left a lasting memorial in a learned and curious volume entitled Démonomanie; while the eccentricity of his religious tenets was such, as to incline the candid mind of Grotius to suspect him of a secret leaning to the Jewish faith.
In contemplating the characters of the eminent persons who appeared about this era, nothing is more interesting and instructive, than to remark the astonishing combination, in the same minds, of the highest intellectual endowments, with the most deplorable aberrations of the understanding; and even, in numberless instances, with the most childish superstitions of the multitude. Of this apparent inconsistency, Bodinus does not furnish a solitary example. The same remark may be extended, in a greater or less degree, to most of the other celebrated names hitherto mentioned. Melanchthon, as appears from his letters, was an interpreter of dreams, and a caster of nativities; and Luther not only sanctioned, by his autho​rity, the popular fables about the sexual and prolific intercourse of Satan with the human race, but seems to have seriously believed that he had himself frequently seen the archenemy face to face, and held arguments with him on points of theology. Nor was the study of the severer sciences, on all occasions, an effectual remedy against such illusions of the imagination. The sagacious Kepler was an astrologer and a visionary; and his friend Tycho Brahe, the Prince of Astronomers, kept an idiot in his service, to whose prophecies he listened as revelations from above. During the long night of Gothic barbarism, the intellectual world had again become, like the primitive earth, “without form and void;” the light had already appeared; “and God had seen the light that it was good;” but the time was not yet come to “divide it from the darkness.”
In the midst of the disorders, both political and moral, of that unfortunate age, it is pleasing to observe the anticipations of brighter prospects, in the speculations of a few individuals. Bodinus himself is one of the number; and to his name may be added that of his country​man and predecessor Budæus. But, of all the writers of the sixteenth century, Ludovicus Vives seems to have had the liveliest and the most assured foresight of the new career on which the human mind was about to enter. The following passage from one of his works would have done no discredit to the Novum Organon: “The similitude which many have fancied between the superiority of the moderns to the ancients, and the elevation of a dwarf on the back of a giant, is altogether false and puerile. Neither were they giants, nor are we dwarfs, but all of us men of the same standard,—and we the taller of the two, by adding their height to our own: Provided always, that we do not yield to them in study, attention, vigilance, and love of truth; for, if these qualities be wanting, so far from mounting on the giant’s shoulders, we throw away the advantages of our own just stature, by remaining prostrate on the ground.”
I pass over, without any particular notice, the names of some French logicians who flourished about this period, because, however celebrated among their contemporaries, they do not seem to form essential links in the History of Science. The bold and persevering spirit with which Ramus disputed, in the university of Paris, the authority of Aristotle, and the persecutions he incurred by this philosophical heresy, entitle him to an honourable distinction from the rest of his brethren. He was certainly a man of uncommon acuteness as well as eloquence, and placed in a very strong light some of the most vulnerable parts of the Aristotelian logic; without, however, exhibiting any marks of that deep sagacity which afterwards enabled Bacon, Descartes, and Locke, to strike at the very roots of the system. His copious and not inelegant style as a writer, recommended his innovations to those who were disgusted with the barbarism of the schools; while his avowed partiality for the reformed ​faith (to which he fell a martyr in the massacre of Paris), procured many proselytes to his opinions in all the Protestant countries of Europe. In England his logic had the honour, in an age of comparative light and refinement, to find an expounder and methodiser in the author of Paradise Lost; and in some of our northern universities, where it was very early introduced, it maintained its ground till it was supplanted by the logic of Locke.
It has been justly said of Ramus, that, “although he had genius sufficient to shake the Aristotelian fabric, he was unable to substitute any thing more solid in its place:” but it ought not to be forgotten, that even this praise, scanty as it may now appear, involves a large tribute to his merits as a philosophical reformer. Before human reason was able to advance, it was necessary that it should first be released from the weight of its fetters.
It is observed, with great truth, by Condorcet, that, in the times of which we are now speaking, “the science of political economy did not exist. Princes estimated not the number of men, but of soldiers in the state;—finance was merely the art of plundering the people, without driving them to the desperation that might end in revolt;—and governments paid no other attention to commerce but that of loading it with taxes, of restricting it by privileges, or of disputing for its monopoly.”
​The internal disorders then agitating the whole of Christendom, were still less favourable to the growth of this science, considered as a branch of speculative study. Religious controversies everywhere divided the opinions of the multitude;—involving those collateral discussions concerning the liberty of conscience, and the relative claims of sovereigns and subjects, which, by threatening to resolve society into its first elements, present to restless and aspiring spirits the most inviting of all fields for enterprise and ambition. Amidst the shock of such discussions, the calm inquiries which meditate in silence the slow and gradual amelioration of the social order, were not likely to possess strong attractions, even to men of the most sanguine benevolence; and, accordingly, the political speculations of this period tum almost entirely on the comparative advantages and disadvantages of different forms of government; or on the still more alarming questions concerning the limits of allegiance and the right of resistance.
The dialogue of our illustrious countryman Buchanan, De Jure Regni apud Scotos, though occasionally disfigured by the keen and indignant temper of the writer, and by a predilection (pardonable in a scholar warm from the schools of ancient Greece and Rome) for forms of policy unsuitable to the circumstances of modern Europe, bears, nevertheless, in its general spirit, a closer resemblance to the political philosophy of the eighteenth century, than any composition which had previously appeared. The ethical paradoxes afterwards inculcated by Hobbes as the ground-work of his slavish theory of government, are anticipated and refuted; and a powerful argument is urged against that doctrine of Utility which has attracted so much notice in our times. The political reflections, too, incidentally introduced by the same author in his History of Scotland, bear marks of a mind worthy of a better age than fell to his lot. Of this kind are the remarks with which he closes his narrative of the wanton cruelties exercised in punishing the murderers of James the First. In reading them, one would almost imagine, that one is listening to the voice of Beccaria or of Montesquieu. “After this manner,’’ says the historian, “was the cruel death of James still more cruelly avenged. For punishments so far exceeding the measure of humanity, have less effect in deterring the multitude from crimes, than in rousing them to greater efforts, both as actors and as sufferers. Nor do they tend so much to intimidate by their severity, as by their frequency to diminish the terrors of the spectators. The evil is more peculiarly great, when the mind of the criminal is hardened against the sense of pain; for in the judgment of the unthinking vulgar, a stubborn confidence generally obtains the praise of heroic constancy.”
After the publication of this great work, the name of Scotland, so early distinguished ​over Europe by the learning and by the fervid genius of her sons, disappears for more than a century and a half from the History of Letters.—But from this subject, so pregnant with melancholy and humiliating recollections, our attention is forcibly drawn to a mighty and auspicious light which, in a more fortunate part of the island, was already beginning to rise on the philosophical world.
* ↑ Philological Inquiries, Part III, chap. i.
* ↑ Dr Robertson, from whom I quote these words, has mentioned this change as the glory of the present age, meaning I presume, the period which has 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 mien 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 Princes, 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 Louvain; “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 of Humanity, and also lectures of Civil Law, which Henry VIII. and his Queen, Catharine, 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 brilliant career which Vives, then 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, donee onmes 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, philosophia, logica, ut nunc habentur, eradicentur, et alia instituantur.” Bruckeri 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 Schoolmen, 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 baberi posse non solum ad theologiam seu sacras literas, verum etiam ad ipsam naturalem philosophiam. Quid enim juvet ad rerum cognitionem, si de materia, forma, motu, tempore, nugari et cavillari queas verbis ab Aristotele conceptis et præcscriptis?” 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 Aristotele sola discimus, talia quæ nec intellectum, nec affectum, nec communes hominum mores quidquam juvent; tantum contentionibus serendis, seminandisque idonea.” Bayle, Art. Luther, Note HH. I borrow from Bayle another short extract from Luther: “Nihil ita ardet animus, quàm histrionem illum, (Aristotelem,) qui tam verè Græca larva ecclesiam lusit, multis revelare, ignominiamque ejus cunctis ostendere, si otium esset. Habeo in manus commentariolos in I. Physicorum, quibus fabulam Aristæi denuò agere statui in meum istum Protea (Aristotelem). Pars crucis meæ vel maxima est, quod videre cogor fratrum 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 a strenuous partizan 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 disciplmarum philosophiæ Aristotelicæ, quæ in Academiis diu regnarunt.” Heineccii, Elem. Hist. Phil. § ciii. See also Bayle’s Dictionary, 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 unbiassed 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 other sects,” says Cicero, “who are bound in fetters, before they are able to form any judgment of what is right or 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 teacher 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.” (Mosheim’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 the best standard of our language.
* ↑ “Hæc nostra (ut sæpe diximus) felicitatis cujusdam sunt potius quam facultatis, et potius temporis partus quam ingenii.” Nov. Org. Lib. i. c. 23.
* ↑ Histoire de la Médecine, (à la Haye, 1729,) p. 819.
* ↑ “Neque omittenda est prophetia Danielis de ultimis mundi temporibus; multi pertransibunt et augebitur scientia: Manifeste innuens et significans, esse in fatis, id est, in providentia, ut pertransitus mundi (qui per tot longinquas navigationes impletur plane, aut jam in opere esse videtur) et augmenta scientiarum in eandem ætatem incidant.” Nov. Org. Lib. 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 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 microscope produced a strong impression in favour of the Epicurean physics, may be inferred from his own words. “Perspicillum (microscopicum) si vidisset Democritus, exsiluisset forte; et modum videndi Atomum (quem ille invisibilem omnino affirmavit) inventum fuisse putasset.” Nov. Org. Lib. ii. § 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. (Vita 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 day-time 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 apologue, 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 Condorçet concerning the invention of printing. “L’invention de l’Imprimerie a sans doute avancé le progrès de l’espéce humaine ; mais cette invention étoit elle-même une suite de l’usage de la lecture répandu dans un grand nombre de pays.” Vie du Turgot.
* ↑ Epit. Astron. Copernic.
* ↑ Proinde sic statuimus, nihilo minus divina præcepta esse ea, quæ a seusu communi et naturæ judicio mutuati docti homines gentiles literis mandarunt, quam quæ extant in ipsis saxeis Mosis tabulis. Neque ille ipse cælestis Pater pluris a nobis ficri 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 Doctrinæ 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 te 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 approaches 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. Theolog. Lib. ix. and x.) et ea docent, quæ si sectatores inveniant moralia omnia susque deque miscere, et revelationem ipsam inutilem omnino et ineflicacem reddere possent.” (Lampredi Florentini Juris Naturæ 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 moralisers,” 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.” Mosheim’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 hi 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 dirigendi intentionem, reservationis mentalis, peccati philosophici, quibus Jesuitæ etiamnum mirifice delectantur.” Heinecc. Elem. Histor. Phil. § cii. See also the references. With respect tothe 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 Developement 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 Hofman, 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.
* ↑ “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 perhaps and basest in the country, governs a kingdom, with no other view than the advantage of himself and his family.” Aristotle’s Politics, Book vi. chap. x. See Dr Gillies’s Translation.
* ↑ See Note C.
* ↑ Millot.
* ↑ How strange is the following misrepresentation of Fontenelle’s fine and deep saying, by the comparatively coarse hand of the Baron de Grimm! “Il disoit, que s’il êut tenu la vérité dans ses mains comme un oiseau, il l’auroit etouffée, tant il regardoit le plus beau présent du ciel inutile et dangereux pour le genre humain.” (Mémoires Historiques, &c. par le Baron de Grimm. Londres, 1814. Tome I. p. 340.) Of the complete inconsistency of this statement, not only with the testimony of his most authentic biographers, but with the general tenor both of his life and writings, a judgment may be formed from an expression of D’Alembert, in his very ingenious and philosophical parallel between Fontenelle and La Motte. “Tous deux ont porté trop loin leur revolte décidée, quoique douce en apparence, contre les dieux et les lois du Parnasse ; mais la liberté des opinions de la Motte semble tenir plus intimement à l’intérêt personnel qu’il avoit de les soutenir ; et la liberté des opinions de Fontenelle à l’intérêt général, peut être quelquefois mal entendu, qu’il prenoit au progrès de la raison dans tous les genres.” What follows may be regarded in the light of a comment on the maxim above quoted: “La finesse de la Motte est plus développée, celle de Fontenelle laisse plus à deviner à son lecteur. La Motte, sans jamais en trop dire, n’oublie rien de ce que son sujet lui présente, met habilement tout en œuvre, et semble craindre perdre par des réticences trop subtiles quelqu’un de ses avantages ; Fontenelle, sans jamais être obscur, excepté pour ceux qui ne meritent pas même qu’on soit clair, se menage à la fois et le plaisir de sous-entendre, et celui d’espérer qu’il sera pleinement entendu par ceux qui en sont dignes.” Eloge de la Motte.
* ↑ Voltaire, Essay on Universal History.
* ↑ Essay on Civil Liberty.
* ↑ Ibid.
* ↑ His Discussiones Peripateticæ were printed at Venice in 1571. Another work, entitled Nova de Universis Philosophia, also printed at Venice, appeared in 1593. I have never happened to meet with either; but from the account given of the author by Thuanus, he does not seem to have attracted that notice from his contemporaries, to which his learning and talents entitled him. (Thuan. Hist. Lib. cxix. xvii.) His Discussiones Peripateticæ, are mentioned by Brucker in the following terms: “Opus egregium, doctum, varium, luculentum, sed invidia odioque in Aristotelem plenum satis superque.” (Hist. Phil. Tom. IV. p. 425.) The same very laborious and candid writer acknowledges the assistance he had derived from Patricius in his account of the Peripatetic philosophy.—-“In qua tractatione fatemur egregiam enitere Patricii doctrinam, ingenii elegantiam prorsus admirabilem, et quod primo loco ponendum est, insolitam veteris philosophiæ cognitlonem, cujus ope nos Peripateticæ disciplinæ historiæ multoties lucem attulisse, grati suis locis professi sumus.” Ibid. p. 426.
* ↑ Antibarbarus, sive de Veris Principiis et Vera Ratione Philosophandi contra Pseudo-philosophos. Parmæ, 1553. “Les faux philosophes,” dit Fontenelle, “etoient tous les scholastiques passés et présens ; et Nizolius s’élève avec la dernière hardiesse contre leurs idées monstrueuses et leur langage barbare. La longue et constante admiration qu’on avoit cu pour Aristote, ne prouvoit, disoit-il, que la multitude des sots et la durée de la sottise.” The merits of this writer are much too lightly estimated by Brucker. See Hist. Phil. Tom. IV. Pars I. pp. 91, 92.
* ↑ The claims of Albericus Gentilis to be regarded as the father of Natural Jurisprudence, are strongly asserted by his countryman Lampredi, in his very judicious and elegant work, entitled, Juris Publici Theoremata, published at Pisa in 1782. “Hic primus jus aliquod Belli et esse et tradi posse excogitavit, et Belli et Pacis regulas explanavit primus, et fortasse in causa fuit cur Grotius opus suum conscribere aggrederetur; dignus sane qui præ ceteris memoretur, Italiæ enim, in qua ortus erat, et unde Juris Romani disciplinam hauserat, gloriam auxit, effecitque ut quæ fuerat bonarum artium ommnium restitutrix et altrix, eadem esset et prima Jurisprudentiæ Naturalis magistra.”
* ↑ Born 1568, died 1639.
* ↑ Leibnit. Opera, Vol. vi. p. 303, Ed. Dutens.—It is probable that, in the above passage, Leibnitz alluded more to the elevated tone of Campanella’s reasoning on moral and political subjects, when contrasted with that of Hobbes, than to the intellectual superiority of the former writer above the latter. No philosopher, certainly, has spoken with more reverence than Campanella has done, on various occasions, of the dignity of human nature. A remarkable instance of this occurs in his eloquent comparison of the human hand with the organs of touch in other animals. (Vide Campan. Physiolog. cap. xx. Art. 2.) Of his Political Aphorisms (which form the third part of his treatise on Morals), a sufficient idea for our purpose is conveyed by the concluding corollary, “Probitas custodit regem populosque; non autem indocta Machiavellistarum astutia.” On the other hand, Campanella’s works abound with immoralities and extravagancies far exceeding those of Hobbes. In his idea of a perfect commonwealth (to which he gives the name of Civitas Solis), the impurity of his imagination, and the unsoundness of his judgment, are equally conspicuous. He recommends, under certain regulations, a community of women; and, in every thing connected with procreation, lays great stress on the opinions of astrologers.
* ↑ Magistrat au-dessus de tout eloge ; et d’après lequel on a jugé tous ceux qui ont osé s’asscoir sur ce même tribunal sans avoir son courage ni ses lumières.” Henault, Abrégé Chronologique.
* ↑ “One cannot help admiring,” says Dr Jortin, “the decent manner, in which the illustrious Thuanus hath spoken of Calvin:” Acri vir ac vehementi ingenio, et admirabili facundia præditus; tum inter protestantes magni nominis Theologus.” (Life of Erasmus, p. 555.) The same writer has remarked the great decency and moderation with which Thuanus speaks of Luther. Ibid. p. 113.
* ↑ Born 1530, died 1596.
* ↑ See, in particular, the preface to his book, entitled Methodus ad facilem Historiarum cognitionem.
* ↑ See the work De la République, passim. In this treatise there are two chapters singularly curious, considering the time when they were written; the second and third chapters of the sixth book. The first is entitled Des Finances; the second, Le Moyen d’empêcher que les Monnoyes soyent alterées de Prix ou falsifiées. The reasonings of the Author on various points there treated of will be apt to excite a smile among those who have studied the Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations; but it reflects no small credit on a lawyer of the sixteenth century to have subjected such questions to philosophical examination; and to have formed so just a conception, as Bodin appears evidently to have done, not only of the object, but of the importance of the modern science of political economy. Thuanus speaks highly of Bodin’s dissertations De re Monetaria, which I have never seen.—The same historian thus expresses himself with respect to the work De Republica: “Opus in quo ut omni scientiarum genere non tincti sed imbuti ingenii fidem fecit, sic nonnullis, qui recte judicant, non omnino ab ostentationis innato genti vitio vacuum se probavit. Hist. Lib. cxvii. ix.
* ↑ See Note D.
* ↑ Book iv.chap.iii.—The book from which this quotation is taken was published only twenty-three years after the murder of Servetus at Geneva; an event which leaves so deep a stain on the memory not only of Calvin, but on that of the milder and more charitable Melanchthon. The epistle of the latter to Bullinger, where he applauds the conduct of the judges who condemned to the flames this incorrigible heretic, affords the most decisive of all proofs, how remote the sentiments of the most enlightened Fathers of the Reformation were from those Christian and philosophical principles of toleration, to which their noble exertions have gradually, and now almost universally, led the way.
* ↑ Ibid.—The substance of the above reflection has been compressed by Bacon into the following well known aphorisms. “Time is the greatest innovator; shall we then not imitate time? “What innovator imitates time, which innovates so silently as to mock the sense?” The resemblance between the two passages is still more striking in the Latin versions of their respective authors. “Deum igitur præpotentem naturæ parentem imitemur, qui omnia paulatim: namque semina perquam exigua in arbores excelsas excrescere jubet, idque tam occultè ut nemo sentiat.” Bodinus. “Novator maximus tempus; quidni igitur tempus imitemur? “Quis novator tempus imitatur, quod novationes ita insinuat, ul sensus fallant?” Bacon. The Treatise of Bodin De la République (by far the most important of his works) was first printed at Paris in 1576, and was reprinted seven times in the space of three years. It was translated into Latin by the author himself; with a view chiefly (as is said) to the accommodation of the scholars of England, among whom it was so highly esteemed, that lectures upon it were given in the University of Cambridge, as early as 1580. In 1579, Bodin visited London in the suite of the Duc d’Alençon; a circumstance which probably contributed not a little to recommend his writings, so very soon after their publication, to the attention of our countrymen. In 1606, the treatise of The Republic was done into English by Richard Knolles, who appears to have collated the French and Latin copies so carefully and judiciously, that his version is, in some respects, superior to either of the originals. It is from this version, accordingly, that I have transcribed the passages above quoted; trusting, that it will not be unacceptable to my readers, while looking back to the intellectual attainments of our forefathers, to have an opportunity, at the same time, of marking the progress which had been made in England, more than two centuries ago, in the arts of writing and of translation. For Dr Johnson’s opinion cf Knolles’s merits as an historian, and as an English writer, see the Rambler, No. 123.
* ↑ De la Démonomanie des Sorciers. Par J. Bodin Angevin, à Paris, 1580. This book, which exhibits so melancholy a contrast to the mental powers displayed in the treatise De la République, was dedicated by the author to his friend, the President de Thou; and it is somewhat amusing to find, that it exposed Bodin himself to the imputation of being a magician. For this we have the testimony of the illustrious historian just mentioned. (Thuanus, Lib. cxvii. ix.) Nor did it recommend the author to the good opinion of the Catholic church, having been formally condemned and prohibited by the Roman Inquisition. The reflection of the Jesuit Martin del Rio on this occasion is worth transcribing. “Adeo lubricum et periculosum de his disserere, nisi Deum semper, et catholicam fidem, ecclesiæque Romanæ censuram tanquam cynosuram sequaris.” Disquisitionum Magicarum, Libri Sex. Auctore Martino del Rio, Societatis Jesu Presbytero. Venet. 1640, p. 8.
* ↑ Epist. ad Cordesium, (quoted by Bayle.)
* ↑ Jortin’s Life of Erasmus, p. 156.
* ↑ See Note E.
* ↑ See the Life of Tycho Brahe, by Gassendi.
* ↑ I have allotted to Bodin a larger space than may seem due to his literary importance; but the truth is, I know of no political writer, of the same date, whose extensive and various and discriminating reading appears to me to have contributed more to facilitate and to guide the researches of his successors; or whose references to ancient learning have been more frequently transcribed without acknowledgment. Of Iate, his works have fallen into very general neglect; otherwise it is impossible that so many gross mistakes should be current about the scope and spirit of his principles. By many he has been mentioned as a zealot for republican forms of Government (probably for no better reason than that he chose to call his book a Treatise De Republica): whereas, in point of fact, he is uniformly a warm and able advocate for monarchy; and, although no friend to tyranny, has, on more than one occasion, carried his monarchical principles to a very blameable excess. (See, in particular, chapter fourth and fifth of the Sixth Book.) On the other hand, Grouvelle, a writer of some note, has classed Bodin with Aristotle, as an advocate for domestic slavery. “The reasonings of both,” he says, “are refuted by Montesquieu.” (De l’autorité de Montesquieu dans la Révolution présente. Paris, 1789.) Whoever has the curiosity to compare Bodin and Montesquieu together, will be satisfied, that, on this point, their sentiments were exactly the same; and that, so far from refuting Bodin, Montesquieu has borrowed from him more than one argument in support of his general conclusion. The merits of Bodin have been, on the whole, very fairly estimated by Boyle, who pronounces him “one of the ablest men that appeared in France during the sixteenth century.” “Si nous voulons disputer à Jean Bodin la qualité d’écrivain éxact et judicieux, laissons lui sans controverse, un grand génie, un vaste savoir, une mémoire et une lecture prodigieuses.”
* ↑ See, in particular, his Method of Studying History, chap. vii. entitled, Confutatio eorum qui quatuor Monarchias Aureaque Secula statuerunt. In this chapter, after enumerating some of the nmiost important discoveries and inventions of the moderns, he concludes with mentioning the art of printing, of the value of which he seems to have formed a very just estimate. “Una Typographia cum omnibus veterum inventis certare facile potest. Itaque non minus peccant, qui à veteribus aiunt omnia comprehensa, quam qui illos de veteri multarum artium possessione deturbant. Habet Natura scientiarum thesauros innumerabiles, qui nullis ætatibus exhauriri possunt.” In the same chapter Bodinus expresses himself thus: “Ætas illa quam auream vocant, si ad nostram conferatur, ferrea videri possit.”
* ↑ The works of Budæus were printed at Basle, in four volumes folio, 1557. My acquaintance with them is much too slight to enable me to speak of them from my own judgment. No scholar certainly stood higher in the estimation of his age. “Quo viro,” says Ludovicus Vives, “Gallia acutiore ingenio, acriore judicio, exactiore diligentia, majore eruditione nullum unquam produxit; hac vero ætate nec Italia quidem.” The praise bestowed on him by other contemporary writers of the highest eminence is equally lavish.
* ↑ Vives de Caus. Corrupt. Artium, Lib. i. Similar ideas occur in the works of Roger Bacon: “Quanto juniores tanto perspicaciores, quia juniores posteriores successione temporum ingrediuntur labores priorum.” (Opus Majus, Edit. Jebb. p. 9.) Nor were they altogether overlooked by ancient writers. “Veniet tempus, quo ista quæ latent nunc in lucem dies extrahet, et longioris ævi diligentia. Veniet tempus, quo posteri nostri tam aperta nos ignorasse mirabuntur.” (Seneca, Quæst. Nat. Lib. vii. c. 25.) This language coincides exactly with that of the Chancellor Bacon; but it was reserved for the latter to illustrate the connection between the progress of human knowledge, and of human happiness; or (to borrow his own phraseology) the connection between the progress of knowledge, and the enlargement of man’s power over the destiny of his own species. Among other passages to this purpose, See Nov. Org. Lib. i, cxxix.
* ↑ To the accomplishments of Ramus as a writer, a very flattering testimony is given by an eminent English scholar, by no means disposed to overrate his merits as a logician. “Pulsa tandem barbarie, Petrus Ramus politioris literature: vir, ausus est Aristotelem acrius ubique et liberius incessere, universamque Peripateticam philosophiam exagitare. Ejus dialetica exiguo tempore fuit apud plurimos summo in pretio, maxime eloquentiæ studiosos, idque odia scholasticorum, quorum dictio et stylus ingrata fuerant auribus Ciceronianis.” Logicæ Artis Compendium, Auctore R. Sanderson, Episc. Lincoln, pp. 250, 251. Edit. Decima. Oxon. The first edition was printed in 1618.
* ↑ Dr Barrow, in one of his mathematical lectures, speaks of Ramus in terms far too contemptuous. “Homo, ne quid gravius dicam, argutulus et dicaculus.”—“Sane vix indignationi meæ tempero, quin illum accipiam pro suo merito, regeramque validius in ejus caput, quæ contra veteres jactat convicia.” Had Barrow confined this censure to the weak and arrogant attacks made by Ramus upon Euclid (particularly upon Euclid’s definition of Proportion), it would not have been more than Ramus deserved; but it is evident he meant to extend it also to the more powerful attacks of the same reformer upon the logic of Aristotle. Of these there are many which may be read with profit even in the present times. I select one passage as a specimen, recommending it strongly to the consideration of those logicians who have lately stood forward as advocates for Aristotle’s abecedarian demonstrations of the syllogistic rules. “In Aristotelis arte, unius præcepti unicum exemplum est, ac sæpissime nullum: Sed unico et singulari exemplo non potest artifex effici; pluribus opus est et dissimilibus. Et quidem, ut Aristotelis exempla tantummodo non falsa sint, qualia tamen sunt? Omne b est a: omne c est b: ergo omne c est a. Exemplum Aristotelis est puero à grammaticis et oratoribus venienti, et istam mutorum Mathematicorum linguam ignoranti, novum et durum: et in totis Analyticis istâ non Atticâ, non Ionicâ, non Doricâ, non Æolicâ, non communi, sed geometricâ linguâ usus est Aristoteles, odiosâ pueris, ignotâ populo, à communi sensu remotâ, à rhetoricæ usu et ab humanitatis usu alienissimâ.” (P. Rami pro Philosophica Parisiensis Academiæ Disciplina Oratio, 1550.) If these strictures should be thought too loose and declamatory, the reader may consult the fourth chapter (De Conversionibus) of the seventh book of Ramus’s Dialectics, where the same charge is urged, in my opinion, with irresistible force of argument.
* ↑ Præfervidum Scotorum ingenium.
* ↑ That, at the end of the sixteenth century, the Scotish nation were advancing not less rapidly than their neighbours, in every species of mental cultivation, is sufficiently attested by their literary remains, both in the Latin language, and in their own vernacular tongue. A remarkable testimony to the same purpose occurs in the dialogue above quoted; the author of which had spent the best years of his life in the most polished society of the Continent. “As often,” says Buchanan, “as I turn my eyes to the niceness and elegance of our own times, the ancient manners of our forefathers appear sober and venerable, but withal rough and horrid.”—“Quoties oculos ad nostri temporis munditias et elegantiam refero, antiquitas illa sancta et sobria, sed horrida tamen, et nondum satis expolita, fuisse videtur.” (De Jure Regni apud Scotos.) One would think, that he conceived the taste of his countrymen to have then arrived at the ne plus ultra of national refinement, Aurea nunc, olim sylvestribus horrida dumis.