[726] Buhle, ii. 462.
Melanchthon countenances him. 8. The name of Aristotle was sovereign in the continental universities; and the union between his philosophy, or what bore that title, and the church, appeared so long established, that they must stand or fall together. Luther accordingly, in the commencement of the Reformation, inveighed against the Aristotelian logic and metaphysics, or rather against those sciences themselves; nor was Melanchthon at that time much behind him. But time ripened in this, as it did in theology, the disciple’s excellent understanding; and he even obtained influence enough over the master to make him retract some of that invective against philosophy, which at first threatened to bear down all human reason. Melanchthon became a strenuous advocate of Aristotle, in opposition to all other ancient philosophy. He introduced into the university of Wittenberg, to which all protestant Germany looked up, a scheme of dialectics and physics, founded upon the peripatetic school, but improved, as Buhle tells us, by his own acuteness and knowledge. Thus in his books logic is taught with a constant reference to rhetoric; and the physical science of antiquity is enlarged by all that had been added in astronomy and physiology. It need hardly be said, that the authority of Scripture was always resorted to as controlling a philosophy, which had been considered unfavourable to natural religion.[727]
[727] Buhle, ii. 427.
His own philosophical treatises. 9. I will not contend, after a very cursory inspection of this work of Melanchthon, against the elaborate panegyric of Buhle; but I cannot think the Initia Doctrinæ Physicæ much calculated to advance the physical sciences. He insists very fully on the influence of the stars in producing events which we call fortuitous, and even in moulding the human character; a prejudice under which this eminent man is well known to have laboured. Melanchthon argues sometimes from the dogmas of Aristotle, sometimes from a literal interpretation of Scripture, so as to arrive at strange conclusions. Another treatise, entitled De Animâ, which I have not seen, is extolled by Buhle as comprehending not only the psychology but the physiology also of man, and as having rendered great service in the age for which it was written. This universality of talents, and we have not yet adverted to the ethics and dialectics of Melanchthon, enhanced his high reputation; nor is it surprising, that the influence of so great a name should have secured the preponderance of the Aristotelian philosophy in the protestant schools of Germany for more than a century.
Aristotelians of Italy. 10. The treatise of the most celebrated Aristotelian of his age, Pomponatius, on the immortality of the soul, has been already mentioned. In 1525 he published two books, one on incantations, the other on fate and free-will. They are extremely scarce, but, according to the analysis of Brucker, indicate a scheme of philosophy by no means friendly to religion.[728] I do not find any other of the Aristotelian school who falls within the present thirty years, of sufficient celebrity to deserve mention in this place. But the Italian Aristotelians were divided into two classes; one to which Pomponatius belonged, following the interpretation of the ancient Greek scholiasts, especially Alexander of Aphrodisea; the other, that of the famous Spanish philosopher of the twelfth century, Averroes, who may rather be considered an heresiarch in the peripatetic church, than a genuine disciple of its founder. The leading tenet of Averrhoism was the numerical unity of the soul of mankind, notwithstanding its partition among millions of living individuals.[729] This proposition, which it may seem difficult to comprehend, and which Buhle deems a misapprehension of a passage in Aristotle, natural enough to one who read him in a bad Arabic version, is so far worthy of notice, that it contains the germ of an atheistical philosophy, which spread far, as we shall hereafter see, in the latter part of this century, and in the seventeenth.
[728] Brucker, iv. 166.
[729] See Bayle, Averroes, note E, to which I omitted to refer on a former mention of the subject, p. 98.
University of Paris. 11. Meantime the most formidable opposition to the authority of Aristotle sprung up in the very centre of his dominions; a conspiracy against the sovereign in his court itself. For, as no university had been equal in renown for scholastic acuteness to that of Paris, there was none so tenacious of its ancient discipline. The very study of Greek and Hebrew was a dangerous innovation in the eyes of its rulers, which they sought to restrain by the intervention of the civil magistrate. Yet here, in their own schools, the ancient routine of dialectics was suddenly disturbed by an audacious hand.
New logic of Ramus. 12. Peter Ramus (Ramée) a man of great natural acuteness, an intrepid, though too arrogant a spirit, and a sincere lover of truth, having acquired a considerable knowledge of languages as well as philosophy in the university, where he originally filled, it is said, a menial office in one of the colleges, began publicly to attack the Aristotelian method of logic, by endeavouring to substitute a new system of his own. He had been led to ask himself, he tells us, after three years passed in the study of logic, whether it had rendered him more conversant with facts, more fluent in speech, more quick in poetry, wiser, in short, any way than it had found him; and being compelled to answer all this in the negative, he was put on considering, whether the fault were in himself, or in his course of study. Before he could be quite satisfied as to this question, he fell accidentally upon reading some dialogues of Plato; in which, to his infinite satisfaction, he found a species of logic very unlike the Aristotelian, and far more apt, as it appeared, to the confirmation of truth. From the writings of Plato, and from his own ingenious mind, Ramus framed a scheme of dialectics, which immediately shook the citadel of the Stagyrite; and, though in itself it did not replace the old philosophy, contributed very powerfully to its ultimate decline. The Institutiones Dialecticæ of Ramus were published in 1543.
It meets with unfair treatment. 13. In the first instance, however, he met with the strenuous opposition which awaits such innovators. The university laid their complaint before the parliament of Paris; the king took it out of the hands of the parliament, and a singular trial was awarded as to the merits of the rival systems of logic, two judges being nominated by Goveanus, the prominent accuser of Ramus, two by himself, and a fifth by the king. Francis, it seems, though favourable to the classical scholars, whose wishes might generally go against the established dialectics, yet, perhaps, from connecting this innovation with those in religion, took the side of the university; and after a regular hearing, though, as is alleged, a very partial one, the majority of the judges pronouncing an unfavourable decision, Ramus was prohibited from teaching, and his book was suppressed. This prohibition, however, was taken off a few years afterwards, and his popularity as a lecturer in rhetoric gave umbrage to the university. It was not till some time afterwards that his system spread over part of the continent.[730]