18. This treatise of Sanchez bears witness to a deep sense of the imperfections of the received systems in science and reasoning, and to a restless longing for truth, which strikes us in other writers of this latter period of the sixteenth century. Lord Bacon, I believe, has never alluded to Sanchez, and such paradoxical scepticism was likely to disgust his strong mind; yet we may sometimes discern signs of a Baconian spirit in the attacks of our Spanish philosopher on the syllogistic logic, as being built on abstract, and not significant terms, and in his clear perception of the difference between a knowledge of words and one of things.
Logic of Aconcio. 19. What Sanchez promised and Bacon gave, a new method of reasoning, by which truth might be better determined than through the common dialectics, had been partially attempted already by Aconcio, mentioned in the last chapter as one of those highly-gifted Italians who fled for religion to a Protestant country. Without openly assailing the authority of Aristotle, he endeavoured to frame a new discipline of the faculties for the discovery of truth. His treatise, De Methodo, sive Recta Investigandarum Tradendarumque Scientiarum Ratione, was published at Basle in 1558, and was several times reprinted, till later works, those especially of Bacon and Des Cartes, caused it to be forgotten. Aconcio defines logic, the right method of thinking and teaching, recta contemplandi docendique ratio. Of the importance of method, or right order in prosecuting our inquiries, he thinks so highly, that if thirty years were to be destined to intellectual labour, he would allot two-thirds of the time to acquiring dexterity in this art, which seems to imply that he did not consider it very easy. To know anything, he tells us, is to know what it is, or what are its causes and effects. All men have the germs of knowledge latent in them, as to matters cognizable by human faculties; it is the business of logic to excite and develop them: Notiones illas seu scintillas sub cinere latentes detegere aptèque ad res obscuras illustrandas applicare.[1054]
[1054] P. 30.
20. Aconcio next gives rules at length for constructing definitions, by attending to the genus and differentia. These rules are good, and might very properly find a place in a book of logic; but whether they contain much that would vainly be sought in other writers, we do not determine. He comes afterwards to the methods of distributing a subject. The analytic method is by all means to be preferred for the investigation of truth, and, contrary to what Galen and others have advised, even for communicating it to others; since a man can learn that of which he is ignorant, only by means of what is better known, whether he does this himself, or with help of a teacher; the only process being, a notioribus ad minus nota. In this little treatise of Aconcio, there seem to be the elements of a sounder philosophy, and a more steady direction of the mind to discover the reality of things than belonged to the logic of the age, whether as taught by the Aristotelians or by Ramus. It has not however been quoted by Lord Bacon, nor are we sure that he has profited by it.
Nizolius on the principles of philosophy. 21. A more celebrated work than this by Aconcio is one by the distinguished scholar, Marius Nizolius, “De Veris Principiis et Vera Ratione Philosophandi contra Pseudo-Philosophos.” (Parma, 1553.) It owes, however, what reputation it possesses to Leibnitz, who reprinted it in 1670, with a very able preface, one of his first contributions to philosophy. The treatise itself, he says, was almost strangled in the birth; and certainly the invectives of Nizolius against the logic and metaphysics of Aristotle could have had little chance of success in a country like Italy, where that authority was more undoubted and durable than in any other. The aim of Nizolius was to set up the best authors of Greece and Rome and the study of philology against the scholastic terminology. But certainly this polite literature was not sufficient for the discovery of truth: nor does the book keep up to the promise of its title, though, by endeavouring to eradicate barbarous sophistry, he may be said to have laboured in the interests of real philosophy. The preface of Leibnitz animadverts on what appeared to him some metaphysical errors of Nizolius, especially an excess of nominalism, which tended to undermine the foundations of certainty, and his presumptuous scorn of Aristotle.[1055] His own object was rather to recommend the treatise as a model of philosophical language without barbarism, than to bestow much praise on its philosophy. Brucker has spoken of it rather slightingly, and Buhle with much contempt. I am not prepared by a sufficient study of its contents to pass any judgment; but Buhle’s censure has appeared to me somewhat unfair. Dugald Stewart, who was not acquainted with what the latter has said, thinks Nizolius deserving of more commendation than Brucker has assigned to him.[1056] He argues against all dialectics, and therefore differs from Ramus; concluding with two propositions as the result of his whole book:—That as many logicians and metaphysicians as are anywhere found, so many capital enemies of truth will then and there exist; and that so long as Aristotle shall be supreme in the logic and metaphysics of the schools, so long will error and barbarism reign over the mind. There is nothing very deep or pointed in this summary of his reasoning.
[1055] Nizolius maintained that universal terms were only particulars—collectivè sumpta. Leibnitz replies, that they are particulars—distributive sumpta; as, omnis homo est animal means, that every one man is an animal; not that the genus man, taken collectively, is an animal. Nec vero Nizolii error his levis est; habet enim magnum aliquid in recessu. Nam si universalia nihil aliud sunt quam singularium collectiones, sequitur, scientiam nullam haberi per demonstrationem, quod et infra colligit Nizolius, sed collectionem singularium seu inductionem. Sed ea ratione prorsus evertuntur scientiæ, ac Sceptici vicere. Nam nunquam constitui possunt ea ratione propositiones perfecte universales, quia inductione nunquam certus es, omnia individue a te tentata esse; sed semper intra hanc propositionem subsistes; omnia illa quæ expertus sum sunt talia; cum vero non possit esse ulla ratio universalis, semper manebit possibile innumera quæ tu non sis expertus esse diversa. Hinc jam patet inductionem per se nihil producere, ne certitudinem quidem moralem, sine adminiculo propositionum non ab inductione, sed ratione universali prudentium; nam si essent et adminicula ab inductione, indigerent novis adminiculis, nec haberetur certitudo moralis in infinitum. Sed certitudo moralis ab inductione sperari plane non potest, additis quibuscunque adminiculis, et propositionem hanc, totum magis esse sua parte, sola inductione nunquam perfectè sciemus. Mox enim prodibit, qui negabit ob peculiarem quondam rationem in aliis nondum tentatis veram esse, quemadmodum ex facto scimus Gregorium a Sancto Vincentio negasse totum esse majus sua parte, in angulis saltem contactûs, alios in infinito; et Thomam Hobbes (at quem virum!) cœpisse dubitare de propositione illa geometrica a Pythagora demonstrata, et hecatombæ sacrificio digna habita; quod ego non sine stupore legi. This extract is not very much to the purpose of the text, but it may please some of those who take an interest in such speculations.
[1056] Dissertation on Progress of Philosophy, p. 38.
Margarita Antoniana of Pereira. 22. The Margarita Antoniana, by Gomez Pereira, published at Medina del Campo in 1554, has been chiefly remembered as the ground of one of the many charges against Des Cartes, for appropriating unacknowledged opinions of his predecessors. The book is exceedingly scarce, which has been strangely ascribed to the efforts of Des Cartes to suppress it.[1057] There is however a copy of the original edition in the British Museum, and it has been reprinted in Spain. It was an unhappy theft, if theft it were; for what Pereira maintained was precisely the most untenable proposition of the great French philosopher—the absence of sensation in brutes. Pereira argues against this with an extraordinary disregard of common phenomena, on the assumption of certain maxims which cannot be true, if they contradict inferences from our observation far more convincing than themselves. We find him give a curious reason for denying that we can infer the sensibility of brutes from their outward actions; namely, that this would prove too much, and lead us to believe them rational beings; instancing among other stories, true or false, of apparent sagacity, the dog in pursuit of a hare, who, coming where two roads meet, if he traces no scent on the first, takes the other without trial.[1058] Pereira is a rejecter of Aristotelian despotism; and observes that in matters of speculation and not of faith, no authority is to be respected.[1059] Notwithstanding this assertion of freedom, he seems to be wholly enchained by the metaphysics of the schools; nor should I have thought the book worthy of notice, but for its scarcity and the circumstance above-mentioned about Des Cartes.
[1057] Biogr. Univ. Brunet, Manuel du Libraire. Bayle has a long article on Pereira, but though he says the book had been shown to him, he wanted probably the opportunity to read much of it.
According to Brunet, several copies have been sold in France, some of them at no great price. The later edition, of 1749, is of course cheaper.