be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but superstition dismounts all these, and erecteth an absolute monarchy in the minds of men.[1] Therefore atheism did never perturb[2] states; for it makes men wary of themselves, as looking no further: and we see the times inclined to atheism (as the time of Augustus Cæsar) were civil[3] times. But superstition hath been the confusion of many states, and bringeth in a new primum mobile, that ravisheth all the spheres of government. The master of superstition is the people; and in all superstition wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order. It was gravely said by some of the prelates in the council of Trent,[4] where the doctrine of the schoolmen bare great sway, that the schoolmen were like astronomers, which did feign eccentrics[5] and epicycles,[6] and such engines[7] of orbs, to
- ↑ "Sickness and sorrows come and go, but a superstitious soule hath no rest." Robert Burton. The Anatomy of Melancholy. Partition 3. Section 4. Member 1. Subsection 3.
- ↑ Perturb. To disturb greatly; to unsettle; to confuse.
"What folk ben ye that at myn horn comynge
Pertourben so my feste with cryinge?"
Chaucer. The Knightes Tale. ll. 47–48. - ↑ Civil. Tranquil, well-governed, orderly.
"the round-up roared world
Should have shook lions into civil streets,
And citizens to their dens."
Shakspere. Antony and Cleopatra. v. 1. - ↑ The Council of Trent, summoned to meet at Trent in the Austrian Tyrol, March 15, 1545, was the parting of the ways between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
- ↑ Eccentric. A circle not having the same centre as another.
- ↑ Epicycle. A little circle whose centre is on the circumference of a greater circle.
- ↑ Engine. Artifice, contrivance, device.
"Nor did he scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in hell."
Milton. Paradise Lost. I. 749–751.
