XIV.
GASSENDI. 1592–1655.
GASSENDI, one of the most eminent men, and, what is more to the purpose, the most meritorious philosophic writer of France in the seventeenth century, claims the unique honour of being the first directly to revive in modern times the teaching of Plutarch and Porphyry. Other minds, indeed, of a high order, like More and Montaigne, had, as already shown, implicitly condemned the inveterate barbarism. But Gassendi is the writer who first, since the extinction of the Platonic philosophy, expressly and unequivocally attempted to enlighten the world upon this fundamental truth.
He was born of poor parents, near Digne, in Provence. In his earliest years he gave promise of his extraordinary genius. At nineteen he was professor of philosophy at Aix. His celebrated “Essays against the Aristotleians” (Exercitationes Paradoxicæ Adversus Aristoteleos) was his first appearance in the philosophic world. Written some years earlier, it was first published, in part, in the year 1624. It divides with the Novum Organon of Francis Bacon, with which it was almost contemporary, the honour of being the earliest effectual assault upon the old scholastic jargon which, abusing the name and authority of Aristotle, during some three or four centuries of mediæval darkness had kept possession of the schools and universities of Europe. It at once raised up for Gassendi a host of enemies, the supporters of the old orthodoxy, and, as has always been the case in the exposure of falsehood, he was assailed with a torrent of virulent invective. Five of the Books of the Exercitationes, by the advice of his friends, who dreaded the consequences of his courage, had been suppressed. In the Fourth Book, besides the heresy of Kopernik (which Bacon had not the courage or the penetration to adopt), the doctrine of the eternity of the Earth had been maintained, as already taught by Bruno; while the Seventh, according to the table of contents, contained a formal recommendation of the Epicurean theory of morals, in which Pleasure and Virtue are synonymous terms.
In the midst of the obloquy thus aroused the philosopher devoted himself, by way of consolation, to the study of anatomy and astronomy, as well as to literary studies. “As the result of his anatomical researches he composed a treatise to prove that man was intended to live upon vegetables, and that animal food, as contrary to the human constitution, is baneful and unwholesome.”[117] He was the first to observe the transit of the planet Mercury over the Sun’s disc (1631), previously calculated by Kepler. He next appears publicly as the opponent of Descartes in his Disquisitiones Anticartesianæ (1643)—a work justly distinguished, according to the remark of an eminent German critic, as a model of controversial excellence. The philosophic world was soon divided between the two hostile camps. It is sufficient to observe here that Descartes, whatever merit may attach to him in other respects, by his equally absurd and mischievous paradox that the non-human species are possessed only of unconscious sensation and perception, had done as much as he well could to destroy his reputation for common sense and common reason with all the really thinking part of the world. Yet this “animated machine” theory, incredible as it may appear, has recently been revived by a well-known physiologist of the present day, in the very face of the most ordinary facts and experience—a theory about which it needs only to be said that it deserves to be classed with some of the most absurd and monstrous conceptions of mediævalism. As though, to quote Voltaire’s admirable criticism, God had given to the lower animals reason and feeling to the end that they might not feel and reason. It was not thus, as the same writer reminds us, that Locke and Newton argued.[118]
In 1646 Gassendi became Regius Professor of Mathematics in the University of Paris, where his lecture-room was crowded with listeners of all classes. His Life and Morals of Epikurus (De Vitâ et Moribus Epicuri), his principal work, appeared in the year 1647. It is a triumphant refutation of the prejudices and false representations connected with the name of one of the very greatest and most virtuous of the Greek Masters, which had been prevalent during so many ages. Neither his European reputation, nor the universal respect extorted by his private as well as public merits, could corrupt the simplicity of Gassendi; and his sober tastes were little in sympathy with the luxurious or literary trifling of Paris:—
“He had only with difficulty resolved to quit his southern home, and being attacked by a lung complaint, he returned to Digne, where he remained till 1653. Within this period falls the greater part of his literary activity and zeal in behalf of the philosophy of Epikurus, and simultaneously the positive extension of his own doctrines. In the same period Gassendi produced, besides several astronomical works, a series of valuable biographies, of which those of Kopernik and Tycho Brahe are especially noteworthy. He is, of all the most prominent representatives of Materialism, the only one gifted with a historic sense, and that he has in an eminent degree. Even in his Syntagma Philosophicum he treats every subject, at first historically from all points of view.... Gassendi did not fall a victim to Theology, because he was destined to fall a victim to Medicine. Being treated for a fever in the fashion of the time, he had been reduced to extreme debility. He long, but vainly, sought restoration in his southern home. On returning to Paris he was again attacked by fever, and thirteen fresh blood-lettings ended his life. He died October 24th, 1655.”
Lange, from whom we have quoted this brief notice, proceeds to vindicate his position as a physical philosopher:—
“The reformation of Physics and Natural Philosophy, usually ascribed to Descartes, was at least as much the work of Gassendi. Frequently, in consequence of the fame which Descartes owed to his Metaphysics, those very things have been credited to Descartes which ought properly to be assigned to Gassendi. It was also a result of the peculiar mixture of difference and agreement, of hostility and alliance, between the two systems that the influences resulting from them became completely interfused.”[119]
Although of extraordinary erudition his learning did not, as too often happens, obscure the powers of original thought and reason. Bayle, writing at the end of the seventeenth century, has characterised him as “the greatest philosopher amongst scholars, and the greatest scholar amongst philosophers;” and Newton conceived the same high esteem for the great vindicator of Epikurus.[120]