After having preached his religion for forty years, when he felt death was approaching, he declared to his disciples that he had hidden the truth from them under the veil of metaphors, and that all reduced itself to Nothingness, which he said was the first source of all things. That was still worse, so it would seem, than the opinion of the Averroists. Both of these doctrines are indefensible and even extravagant; nevertheless some moderns have made no difficulty about adopting this one and universal Soul that engulfs the rest. It has met with only too much applause amongst the so-called freethinkers, and M. de Preissac, a soldier and man of wit, who dabbled in philosophy, at one time aired it publicly in his discourses. The System of Pre-established Harmony is the one best qualified to cure this evil. For it shows that there are of necessity substances which are simple and without extension, scattered throughout all Nature; that these substances must subsist independently of every other except God; and that they are never wholly separated from organic body. Those who believe that souls capable of feeling but incapable of reason are mortal, or who maintain that none but reasoning souls can have feeling, offer a handle to the Monopsychites. For it will ever be difficult to persuade men that beasts feel nothing; and once the admission has been made that that which is capable of feeling can die, it is difficult to found upon reason a proof of the immortality of our souls.
11. I have made this short digression because it appeared to me seasonable at a time when there is only too much tendency to overthrow natural religion to its very foundations. I return then to the Averroists, who were persuaded that their dogma was proved conclusively in accordance with reason. As a result they declared that man's soul is, according to philosophy, mortal, while they protested their acquiescence in Christian theology, which declares the soul's immortality. But this distinction was held suspect, and this divorce between faith and reason was vehemently rejected by the prelates and the doctors of that time, and condemned in the last Lateran Council under Leo X. On that occasion also, scholars were urged to work for the removal of the difficulties that appeared to set theology and philosophy at variance. The doctrine of their incompatibility continued to hold its ground incognito. Pomponazzi was suspected of it, although he declared himself otherwise; and that very sect of the Averroists survived as a school. It is thought
that Caesar Cremoninus, a philosopher famous in his time, was one of its mainstays. Andreas Cisalpinus, a physician (and an author of merit who came nearest after Michael Servetus to the discovery of the circulation of the blood), was accused by Nicolas Taurel (in a book entitled Alpes Caesae) of belonging to these anti-religious Peripatetics. Traces of this doctrine are found also in the Circulus Pisanus Claudii Berigardi, an author of French nationality who migrated to Italy and taught philosophy at Pisa: but especially the writings and the letters of Gabriel Naudé, as well as the Naudaeana, show that Averroism still lived on when this learned physician was in Italy. Corpuscular philosophy, introduced shortly after, appears to have extinguished this excessively Peripatetic sect, or perhaps to have been intermixed with its teaching. It may be indeed that there have been Atomists who would be inclined to teach dogmas like those of the Averroists, if circumstances so permitted: but this abuse cannot harm such good as there is in Corpuscular philosophy, which can very well be combined with all that is sound in Plato and in Aristotle, and bring them both into harmony with true theology.
[12]. The Reformers, and especially Luther, as I have already observed, spoke sometimes as if they rejected philosophy, and deemed it inimical to faith. But, properly speaking, Luther understood by philosophy only that which is in conformity with the ordinary course of Nature, or perhaps even philosophy as it was taught in the schools. Thus for example he says that it is impossible in philosophy, that is, in the order of Nature, that the word be made flesh; and he goes so far as to maintain that what is true in natural philosophy might be false in ethics. Aristotle was the object of his anger; and so far back as the year 1516 he contemplated the purging of philosophy, when he perhaps had as yet no thoughts of reforming the Church. But at last he curbed his vehemence and in the Apology for the Augsburg Confession allowed a favourable mention of Aristotle and his Ethics. Melanchthon, a man of sound and moderate ideas, made little systems from the several parts of philosophy, adapted to the truths of revelation and useful in civic life, which deserve to be read even now. After him, Pierre de la Ramée entered the lists. His philosophy was much in favour: the sect of the Ramists was powerful in Germany, gaining many adherents among the Protestants, and even concerning itself with theology, until the revival of Corpuscular philosophy, which
caused that of Ramée to fall into oblivion and weakened the authority of the Peripatetics.
13. Meanwhile sundry Protestant theologians, deviating as far as they could from Scholastic philosophy, which prevailed in the opposite party, went so far as to despise philosophy itself, which to them was suspect. The controversy blazed up finally owing to the rancour of Daniel Hoffmann. He was an able theologian, who had previously gained a reputation at the Conference of Quedlinburg, when Tilemann Heshusius and he had supported Duke Julius of Brunswick in his refusal to accept the Formula of Concord. For some reason or other Dr. Hoffmann flew into a passion with philosophy, instead of being content to find fault with the wrong uses made thereof by philosophers. He was, however, aiming at the famous Caselius, a man esteemed by the princes and scholars of his time; and Henry Julius, Duke of Brunswick (son of Julius, founder of the University), having taken the trouble himself to investigate the matter, condemned the theologian. There have been some small disputes of the kind since, but it has always been found that they were misunderstandings. Paul Slevogt, a famous Professor at Jena in Thuringia, whose still extant treatises prove how well versed he was in Scholastic philosophy, as also in Hebrew literature, had published in his youth under the title of Pervigilium a little book 'de dissidio Theologi et Philosophi in utriusque principiis fundato', bearing on the question whether God is accidentally the cause of sin. But it was easy to see that his aim was to demonstrate that theologians sometimes misuse philosophical terms.
14. To come now to the events of my own time, I remember that when in 1666 Louis Meyer, a physician of Amsterdam, published anonymously the book entitled Philosophia Scripturae Interpres (by many persons wrongly attributed to Spinoza, his friend) the theologians of Holland bestirred themselves, and their written attacks upon this book gave rise to great disputes among them. Divers of them held the opinion that the Cartesians, in confuting the anonymous philosopher, had conceded too much to philosophy. Jean de Labadie (before he had seceded from the Reformed Church, his pretext being some abuses which he said had crept into public observance and which he considered intolerable) attacked the book by Herr von Wollzogen, and called it pernicious. On the other hand Herr Vogelsang, Herr van der Weye and some
other anti-Cocceïans also assailed the same book with much acrimony. But the accused won his case in a Synod. Afterwards in Holland people spoke of 'rational' and 'non-rational' theologians, a party distinction often mentioned by M. Bayle, who finally declared himself against the former. But there is no indication that any precise rules have yet been defined which the rival parties accept or reject with regard to the use of reason in the interpretation of Holy Scripture.
15. A like dispute has threatened of late to disturb the peace in the Churches of the Augsburg Confession. Some Masters of Arts in the University of Leipzig gave private lessons at their homes, to students who sought them out in order to learn what is called 'Sacra Philologia', according to the practice of this university and of some others where this kind of study is not restricted to the Faculty of Theology. These masters pressed the study of the Holy Scriptures and the practice of piety further than their fellows had been wont to do. It is alleged that they had carried certain things to excess, and aroused suspicions of certain doctrinal innovations. This caused them to be dubbed 'Pietists', as though they were a new sect; and this name is one which has since caused a great stir in Germany. It has been applied somehow or other to those whom one suspected, or pretended to suspect, of fanaticism, or even of hypocrisy, concealed under some semblance of reform. Now some of the students attending these masters had become conspicuous for behaviour which gave general offence, and amongst other things for their scorn of philosophy, even, so it was said, burning their notebooks. In consequence the belief arose that their masters rejected philosophy: but they justified themselves very well; nor could they be convicted either of this error or of the heresies that were being imputed to them.
16. The question of the use of philosophy in theology was debated much amongst Christians, and difficulty was experienced over settling the limits of its use when it came to detailed consideration. The Mysteries of the Trinity, of the Incarnation and of the Holy Communion gave most occasion for dispute. The new Photinians, disputing the first two Mysteries, made use of certain philosophic maxims which Andreas Kessler, a theologian of the Augsburg Confession, summarized in the various treatises that he published on the parts of the Socinian philosophy. But as to their metaphysics, one might instruct oneself better therein by reading