less able and severe, charged the Peripatetics with corrupting and perverting both reason and religion. The leaders of the band were Robert Fludd, an Englishman, of a singular genius; Jacob Boehmen, a shoemaker of Gorlitz; and Michael Mayer'. These were afterwards succeeded by Jo. Bapt. Helmont, and his son, Francis Mercurius; Christian Knorr, of Rosenroth '; Quirin Kuhlman3; Henry Noll; Julius Sperber; and numerous others, but of unequal rank and fame. Harmony of opinion, among this sort of people, no one would expect. For, as a great part of their system of doctrine depends on a kind of internal sense, on the imagination, and on the testimony of the eyes and the cars, than which nothing can be more fluctuating and fallacious, this sect, of course, had almost as many disagreeing teachers, as it had writers of much note. There

8 For an account of this singular man, to whom our Boehmen owed all his wisdom, see Anth. Wood's Athena Oxoniens. vol. i. p. 610. and Historia et Antiq. Acad. Oxoniensis, lib. ii. p. 390, &c. Concerning Helmont the father, see Henn. Witte, Memoria Philosopho rum; and others. Respecting Helmont the son, see Joach. Fred. Feller, Miscellanea Leibnitianea, p. 226. and Leibnitz's Epistles, vol. iii. p. 353,355. Concerning Boehmen, see Godfr. Arnold, and various others. Respecting the rest, various writers must be consulted.

9 See Jo. Möller's Cimbria Literata, tom. i. p. 376, &c. [He was a learned physician and chemist, wrote much, and ranked high as a physician and a good man. He died at Magdeburg, A. D. 1622, aged 54. Tr.]

[Concerning him, see Brucker's Hist. Critica Philosophia, tom. iv. pt. i. p. 709, &c. Schl.]

2 [As Brucker, who gives account of the preceding Fire Philosophers, is in every body's hands; while the history of Knorr of Rosenroth, must be derived from the more rare Nova Litteraria of Krause, Lips. 1718, p. 191. we shall here offer the reader a brief notice of him. Christian Knorr of Rosenroth was a Silesian nobleman; who, together with no ordinary knowledge of medicine, philology, and theology, possessed a particular acquaint

ance with chemistry and the Kabbala ; and was privy counsellor and chancellor to Christian Augustus, the palsgrave of Sulzbach. He was born in 1636,and died in 1689. His most important work was his Kabbala denudata, in 2 vols. 4to. printed, vol. i. Sulzb. 1678. and vol. ii. Francf. on Mayn, 1684. He also aided the publication of many Rabbinical works: and particularly of the book Sohar, at the Hebrew press in Sulzbach, 1684. fol. Schl.]

3 [See, concerning him, Brucker, loc. cit. p. 706. Arnold's Kirchen- und Ketzerhist. pt. iii. ch. 19. p. 197, &c. and Bayle's Dictionnaire, art. Kuhlmann. Schl.]

4 [He belonged to the gymnasium of Steinfort in Westphalia, was afterwards professor of philosophy at Giessen, and at last, preacher at Darmstadt. He applied himself also to chemistry and medicine, and was a follower of Paracelsus. He wrote, among other things, Systema Hermetica Medicina, and Physica Hermetica; in which there are very many paradoxical propositions. Schl.]

5 [This man also belonged among the Rosicrucians. He was a counsellor at Anhalt-Dessau; and composed many Theosophic tracts, which were published at Amsterdam, in 1660 and 1662. 8vo. He died A. D. 1616. Schl.]

were however, certain general principles, in which they all agreed. They all held, that the only way to arrive at true wisdom, and a knowledge of the first principles of all things, was by analysing bodies by the agency of fire. They all imagined there was a sort of coincidence and agreement of religion with nature; and held that God operates by the same laws, in the kingdom of grace, as in the kingdom of nature: and hence, they expressed their religious doctrines, in chemical terms, as being appropriate to their philosophy. They all held that there is a sort of divine energy or soul diffused through the frame of the universe; which some called Archæus, others the universal spirit, and others by various appellations. They all talked much, and superstitiously, about (what they called) the signatures of things, about the power and dominion of the stars over all corporeal things and even over men, and about magic and demons of various kinds. And finally, they all expressed their obscure and inexplicable ideas, in very unusual and most obscure phraseology.

§ 31. This contest between the chemical and the Peripatetic philosophers subsided, when a new method of philosophizing was brought forward by two great men of France; namely, Peter Gassendi, professor of mathematics at Paris, and canon of the church at Digne; a man of erudition, well acquainted with the belles lettres, eloquent also, and deeply versed in all branches of mathematics, astronomy, and other sciences; and René des Cartes (Renatus Cartesius), a French chevalier and soldier; a man of an acute and subtle genius, but much inferior to Gassendi in literary and scientific acquirements. Gassendi, in the year 1624, forcibly and ingeniously attacked Aristotle and the Aristotelians, by publishing some Exercitations against Aristotle but the work excited so much resentment, and was procuring him so many enemies, that he, from his love of peace and tranquillity, desisted from continuing the publication. Hence, only two books of the work which he projected against Aristotle were published; the other five, (for he intended to embrace the whole subject in seven books,) were suppressed in their birth. He likewise, in an appropriate work, attacked

VOL. IV.

• See Bougerell, Vie de Gassendi, p. 17. 23.

E

Fludd, and through him, the Rosicrucian Brethren: which was not unacceptable to the Aristotelians. At length, he pointed out to others, though cautiously and discreetly, and himself entered upon, that mode of philosophizing, which ascends by slow and timid steps, from what strikes the senses to what lies beyond their reach, and prosecutes the knowledge of truth, by observation, attention, experiment, reflection on the movements and the laws of nature; that is, from the contemplation of particular events and changes in nature, endeavours gradually to elicit some general ideas. In these inquiries, he called in the aid, especially of the mathematics, as being the most certain of all sciences; and neglected metaphysics, the precepts of which he regarded as so dubious, that a man eager after truth, cannot confide without fear in but very few of them 8.

§ 32. Des Cartes philosophized in a very different manner. For he abandoned the mathematics, which he at first had made his chief dependance, and betook himself to general ideas, or to metaphysics, in order to come at that truth which was the object of his pursuit. Calling in the aid, therefore, of a few very simple positions, which the very nature of man seems almost to dictate to him spontaneously, he first endeavoured to form in his own mind distinct ideas of souls, bodies, God, matter, the universe, space, and of the principal objects of which the universe is composed. Combining these ideas together, and reducing them to a scientific form or system, he applied them to the correction, improvement, and solid establishment of the other parts of philosophy; always taking care, that what followed or was brought out last, should coincide with what went before, and seem spontaneously to arise from it. Scarcely had he brought his reflections before the public,

7 [The title of his book was: Examen Philosophiae Fluddance, sive Exercitatio epistolica, in qua principia philosophia Roberti Fluddi reteguntur, et ad recentes illius libros adversus Marinum Mersennum (a friend of Gassendi) scriptos respondetur, cum aliquot observationibus coelestibus. Paris, 1613. 8vo. Schl.]

8 Those who wish farther information on this subject, may consult his

Institutiones Philosophiae; a diffuse performance, which fills the two first volumes of his works, [published by Sorbierre, in 6 vols. fol. A.D. 1658.] Throughout these Institutes it seems to be his main object to show, that the opinions of the philosophers, both ancient and modern, on most subjects, derived by them from the precepts of metaphysics, have little of certainty and solidity.

when a considerable number of discerning men, in most countries of Europe, who had been long dissatisfied with the dust and darkness of the schools, approved and embraced them, and wished to have des Cartes recommended to the studious youth, and the Peripatetics set aside. On the other hand, the whole tribe of Peripatetics, aided by the clergy, who feared that religion was in danger from some secret plot, raised a prodigious dust, to prevent the new philosophy from supplanting the old; and to carry on the war with better success, they bitterly taxed the author of it, not only with the grossest errors, but also with downright atheism. This will appear the less surprising, if we consider, that the Aristotelians fought, not so much for their system of philosophy as for their own advantages, their honours and emoluments. The Theosophists, Rosicrucians, and Chemists seemed to enter the contest with more calmness: and yet there was not one of them who did not regard the doctrines of the Peripatetics, vain and injurious to piety as they were, as far more tolerable than the Cartesian discoveries. The result of this long contest was, that the wiser part of Europe would not indeed give themselves up entirely to the philosophy of des Cartes alone, yet in conformity with his example, they resolved to philosophize more freely than before, and to renounce their servitude to Aristotle.

§ 33. The great men contemporary with des Cartes very generally applauded his plan and purpose of philosophizing without subjecting himself to a guide or master, of proceeding circumspectly and slowly from the first dictates of nature and reason to things more complex and difficult, and of admitting nothing till it was well examined and understood. Nor was there an individual who did not acknowledge that he was the author of many brilliant and very useful discoveries and demonstrations. But some of them looked upon his positions respecting the causes and principles of natural things, as resting, for the most part, on mere conjecture; and considered the ground-work of his whole system, namely, his definitions or

9 Here should be read, besides the others who have written the history of des Cartes and his philosophy, Hadrian Baillet's Life of des Cartes, in

French, printed at Paris, 1691, 2 vols. 4to. Add the Nouveau Dictionnaire Histor. et Crit. tom. iii. p. 39.

ideas of God, the first cause, of matter and spirit, of the essential nature of things, of motion and its laws, and of other similar subjects, as either uncertain, or leading to dangerous errors, or contrary to experience. At the head of these was his countryman, Peter Gassendi; who had attempted to lower the credit of the Aristotelians and the Chemists before des Cartes; and who was his equal in genius, much his superior in learning, and most expert in all branches of mathematics. He endeavoured to overthrow those metaphysical principles which des Cartes had made the foundation of his whole system; and in opposition to his natural philosophy, set up another, which was not unlike the old Epicurean, but far more perfect, better, and more solid, and founded on experience and the testimony of the senses'. The followers of this new and very sagacious teacher were not numerous, and were far outnumbered by the Cartesian host; yet it was a select band, and pre-eminent for attainments and ardour in mathematical and physical knowledge. Among his countrymen Gassendi had few admirers: but among their neighbours, the English, who at that time were much devoted to physical and mathematical studies, he had many more adherents. Even those English philosophers and theologians, who combatted Thomas Hobbes, (whose doctrines more resembled those of Gassendi than they did those of des Cartes,) and who, in order to confute him, revived the Platonic philosophy, such as William [Benjamin] Whichcot, Theophilus Gale, Ralph Cudworth, Henry Moore, and others, did not hesitate to associate Plato with Gassendi, and to put such a construction upon the latter, as to make him appear the friend of the former".

1 See, in particular, his Disquisitio Metaphysica, seu Dubitationes et Înstantia adversus Cartesii Metaphysicam et Responsa; which was first published in 1641, and is inserted in the third volume of his works, p. 283, &c. A neat compendium of his whole system of philosophy, was drawn up by Francis Bernier, a celebrated French physician: Abregé de la Philosophie de Gassendi, Lyons, 1684. 8 vols. 12mo. From this compendium, the views of this great man may be more easily learned than from his own writings,

which are not unfrequently designedly ambiguous and equivocal, and likewise overloaded with various learning. The Life of Gassendi, was not long since carefully written by Bougerell, one of the Fathers of the Oratory, Paris, 1737. 12mo. concerning which, see Biblioth. Françoise, tom. xxvii. p. 353, &c.

2 See the remarks we have made, in the Preface to Cudworth's Intellectual System, g. 2. a. and in many places of our Notes to that work: [in the Latin translation, by Dr. Mosheim. Tr.]