period merely substituted the Bible for the Aristotelian physics, based their theories on arguments drawn from the Mosaic account of the Creation, and, while they were half awake to the value of experimentation, had but little dealing with it in the actual development of their hypotheses.
The great representatives of these conflicting strains of thought were Campanella and Bacon, for both of whom Comenius had a profound admiration.[1] The two books of the Novum Organum had appeared in 1620, and in the same year Campanella’s De sensu rerum et magia was published at Frankfort, where his Prodromus Philosophiae had been published three years previously. These three works were read with great interest by Comenius; but, while he had a great regard for Bacon and alludes to him continually, he remained in reality little affected by the Inductive Philosophy. Though dimly conscious that Bacon was on the right path, and attracted by the notion of penetrating to the inmost essence of things,[2] he was but slightly impressed by the experimental side of the question. In his Great Didactic, which professes to be founded on an analysis of natural processes, he never mentions Bacon’s name, and his method of procedure is based almost entirely on analogy, often of a far-fetched nature.
While Bacon was not free from the fantastic notions of his age, Campanella is their representative, and with him Comenius has far more in common. “I could easily show that our Prometheus stole a large part of his false beacon-lights from Campanella’s heaven,” wrote Des Marets in 1668,[3] and, though he was no friendly critic, it must be confessed that his appreciation was a just one. We need not be surprised, therefore, find Comenius dealing with essences, principles, and similar monstrosities of Physics.
- ↑ Campanellam et Verulamium, philosophiæ restauratores gloriosos. Pansophici Libri Delineatio.—Op. Did. Omn. i. 442.
- ↑ Verulamius mirabili suo organo rerum naturas intime scrutandi modum infallibilem detexit.—Ibid. i. 426.
- ↑ Facile ostenderem nostrum Prometheum magnam partem suorum ignium fatuorum ex illius cœlo suffuraturum fuisse.—Antirrheticus, p. 37 (quoted by Bayle).
