POMPONAZIO. 575 deceived." He argued, " If there is a will superior to mine, why should I be responsible for my acts and deeds? Now a will, a superior order exists, therefore all that happens must be in accord- ance with a preordained cause : whether I do right or wrong there is neither merit nor sin." In his treatise De Incantationibus he argued away all miracles. The bones of a dog would effect cures as readily as the relics of a saint if the patient's imagination enter- tained the same belief in them. Like Peter of Abano, moreover, he held that everything is according to the order of nature ; revo- lutions of empires and religions follow the course of the stars ; thaumaturgists are but skilful physicists who foresee the occult influences at w^ork and profit by the suspension of ordinary laws to found new religions ; when the influences cease, miracles cease, religions decay, and incredulity would triumph if renewed con- junctions of the planets did not cause fresh prodigies and new thaumaturgists. All this was far worse than anything for which Cecco d'Ascoli suffered, but Pomponazio escaped his fate by cau- tiously excepting the Christian faith.* In fact, the only work which gave him serious trouble was his treatise De Immortalitate Animce, written after the Lateran de- nunciation, in 1516, which Prierias informs us ought rather to have been entitled u De Mortalitate" In this it is true that he rejects the Averrhoist theory of a universal intelligence as unwor- thy of refutation through its monstrous and unintelligible fatuity ;
- Concil. Lateran. V. Sess. vm. (Harduin. IX. 1719).— Ripoll IV. 373.— Renan,
pp.53, 363. — P. Pomponatii Tract, de Immort. Animae c. xiv. — Cantu, I. 179-81. — Bayle, s. v. Pomponace, Note D. The device by which philosophers escaped responsibility for their philosophy is illustrated by the concluding words of Agostino Nifo's treatise Be Ccelo et Mundo, in 1514 : "In qua omnibus pateat me omnia esse locutum ut phylosophum : quae vero viderentur Sanctse RomanaB Ecclesiae dissonare illico revocamus, asserentes ea incuria nostra proficisci non autem a malitia, quare nostras has interpraetationes omnes et quascunque alias in quibusvis libris editis Sanctae RomanaB Ecclesiae submittimus." And so Marsilio Ficino— " Nos autem in omnibus quae scribiinus eatenus affirmari a nobis aliisque volumus quatenus Cbristianorum theologorum con- cilio videatur" — De Immort. Animae, Lib. xviii. c. 5. Pomponazio winds up his treatise on the immortality of the soul with " Haec itaque sunt quae mihi in hac materia dicenda videntur. Semper tamen in hoc et in aliis subjiciendo sedi Apostolicae " — De Immort. Animae c. xv.
