[1] Realism derived from the doctrine, ascribed to Plato by Aristotle, that “universals,” the ideas of species, etc., exist independently of individual objects, and existed before them. This is “Extreme Realism,” put in the formula, universalia ante rem. Nominalism was the doctrine that only individuals have real existence, and that ideas of species are but names. There was an intermediate position, that of Aristotle, that universals exist in individual objects—universalia in re. This, known as Moderate Realism, is but a verbal compromise, which does not concede the Realist claim. The motive for that lay in the religious bias to claim for ideas, or “spiritual” concepts, a higher validity and reality than it accords to “material” things. The same tendency expressed itself in the Moslem doctrine that the Koran is uncreated and eternal. [↑]
[2] See the author’s Short History of Freethought, 2nd ed. ii, 34 sq.: and Montaigne and Shakespeare, 2nd ed. pp. 191, 196, 198 sq. [↑]
Chapter II
PROGRESS OF ANTI-CHRISTIAN THOUGHT
§ 1. The Physical Sciences
It was primarily the growth of physical science, from the middle of the sixteenth century, that gave solidity and permanence to the new movements of rationalistic revolt aroused by the spectacle of the Reformation and the strifes it engendered. That spectacle, and in general the wars of religion which followed, tended more to make scoffers or skeptics than to develop constructive rationalism. One of the conclusions forced on statesmanlike minds by the religious wars in France was that “a peace with two religions was better than a war with none”; and the seventeenth century there began with a strong though secretive tendency among the idle classes to what in the next century became universally known as the Voltairean temper. In the seventeenth, however, it was still almost wholly denied the use of printing; and under this disadvantage it must have fared ill were it not for the new studies which at once developed and buttressed the spirit of inquiry. They built up a new habit of mind, the surest obstacle to dogma.
Were men wont to develop their beliefs logically, the teaching of Copernicus alone, when once accepted, would have broken up the orthodox faith, which at nearly every point implied the geocentric theory. Giordano Bruno, recognizing this, wove on the one hand the Copernican principle into his restatement of the ancient doctrine of the infinity of the universe, and on the other hand derided alike Catholicism and Protestantism. But a comprehensive philosophy is not the kind of propaganda that first “comes home to men’s business and bosoms”: the line of practical disturbance lay through exact science; and it is in the practical and experimental work of Galileo that Copernicanism begins (1616–38) strongly to stir the educated intelligence of Europe. Bacon and Bodin, like Luther, had rejected it as theoretically propounded. It was the telescopic discoveries of Galileo that staggered the skeptics and alarmed the Church.
The need for a solid discipline as a grounding for rationalism is made clear by the aberrations of many of the earlier religious doubters. Bodin, as we have seen, held fanatically by witchcraft; and he likewise accepted astrology, as did many half-developed Italian freethinkers who rejected the ideas of demons and sorcery, and doubted much concerning the Bible. Men reasoned on such matters by the light of their training, of what seemed to be probability, and of scanty evidence, in matters where the traditional hypotheses could be properly checked only by minute and patient scrutiny. Thus the disbelievers in astrology were as a rule bigoted Christians who, like Luther, merely rejected it as unscriptural, while Melanchthon leant to the belief. Of the early English Protestants many theologically rejected it as regards the moral life, while assenting to the theory of astral influence on men’s affairs in other regards. Only with new science could come the rational challenge; and even men like Bacon, who consciously strove after scientific method, remained partly prepossessed by the old belief in astral forces. The word “influence,” in this sense, constantly appears in all kinds of Tudor and early Stuart literature.