468
HISTORY OF PRINTING.
ing the flux of time, to retain their station as the masters of eloquence and song -, and those exquisite statues, the Venus and the Apollo, still command our admiration as perfect models of what is chaste, and serere, and beautiful in the art of sculpture. The ancients nobly dis- tinguished themselves also in those more rigorous exercises of the understanding which are de- manded by pure mathematics; in proof of which it is sufficient to quote the name of Eu- clid, and of Archimedes whose discoveries in geometry and mixed science entitle him to be regarded as the Newton of all antiquity ; but it was reserved fur the moderns to invent a calculus — a new and more profound arithmetic, which was called for by a more exact acquaintance with nature herself, and was to be applied to that more improved state of natural science which is peculiar to later times: we allude to the doctrine of fluxions, or the differential method of Newton and Leibnitz ; since culti- vated, and applied to physical astronomy with Scat success by the French, and especially by 1 Place.
One instance, out of many, in natural science, may suffice to convince the reader to what ab- surd and extravagant notions the mind can recon- cile itself, when once permitted to rove into the regions of imagination, unrestrained by that strict and scientific method, so successfully pointed out by lord Bacon. Cosmas Indop- leustes, who lived so late as the sixth century, affirmed that the earth was an oblong plane, sur- rounded by an impassable ocean ; an immense mountain in the form of a cone, or sugar-loaf, placed in the north, was the centre around which the sun, moon, and stars daily revolved: the shape of this mountain, and the slanting motion of the sun, accounted for the variable length of the days, and the changes of the seasons. The heavens were supposed to be an immense arch, one side of which rested on the earth, and the other on two mighty pillars beyond the sea; under this vault a multitude of angelic beings were employed in guiding the motion of the stars. Such was the theory which gravely pre- sented itself for adoption, seven or eight centu- ries later in the world than Euclid, Archimedes, and Apollonius !
Aristotle was the founder of the Peripatetic* school, the philosophy of which held the minds of men in a kind of intellectual bondage for about two thousand years.
Up to the time of lord Bacon, Aristotie still maintained, in a veir great degree, his dominion in the realms of philosophy — a dominion which, at some periods, had been scarcely less absolute over the minds of men, and far wider and more lasting than ever his renowned pupil Alexander was able to secure over their bodies. Aristotle's works were the great text-book of knowledge.
- A word •ignUylng to tcutk aioui, became it «u cus-
toDiwy for the diadples to ttndy and dispute as they wallied in the Lpnum, t place of Athens, which was ao. propiiated to their asc.
and his logic was the only weapon of trotk. Men's minds, instead of simply studying natnre, were in an endless ferment about occult qualitiK and imaginary essences; little was talked of but intention and remission, proportion and degree, infinity, formality, quiddity, individuality, and innumerable other abstract notions. The Latin tongue, which was employed by these scholas- tics, was converted into a barbarous jargoD, which a Roman would not have understood; and, in the end, the most sectarian bitterness was produced, sometimes ending in bloody con- tests. The rage for disputation which now began to prevail, in consequence of the spread of this philosophy, induced the council of Latens, under pope Innocent III., to proclaim a pro- hibition of the use of the physics and meta- physics of Aristotle; but awml as were then the thunders of the Vatican, they were not mighty enough to dethrone him from that despotism over men's minds, which, by long custom, had now rendered itself almost omnipotent. In England, his doctrines were cherished with as great an eagerness as elsewhere. From about Uie end of the twelfth century the very name of Aristotle operated like a charm; his wntings had obtained universal circulation, and in some of the universities of Europe, statutes were framed which required the professors to promise, on oath, that in their public lectures on philosophy they would follow no other guide !
From this period till the close of the sixteenth century, though the authority of Aristotie still continued in the schools, the minds of men were gradually preparing to shake off his yoke, and a more propitious era was fast approaching. The revival of learning in the fifteenth century, the invention of the art of printing, and the Reform- ation, had done much to prepare the world for that new light which was afterwards to be cast over the fields of science, hitherto covered with darkness, and peopled only with airy and delu- sive phantoms. In opposition to the system that was neld by Aristotie and his followers, which made the earth the centre of the universe, Co-
Semicus had revived the ancient Pythagorean octrine of the earth's motion round the sun, and had discovered the true theory of the planets. Galileo, Kepler, Gassendi, and others, who lived at the same time with Bacon, were acquiring a well earned fame by their improve- ments in geometry and physics; and the whole world of science already sighed to be redeemed from the darkness of the middle ages, and the bondage of the schools.
It was reserved, however, for Francis Bacon, lord Verulam, to break the spell of the mighty enchanter of Stagira, and to give a final blow to the scholastic philosophy; — to make one grand and general attempt to deliver men's minds from the bondage of two thousand years; — to assert the right of that reason with which the benifi- cent Creator has endowed man, as above all authority merely human; — and to sketch the outline of one grand and comprehensive plan, that should include in it the endless varieties of
