EX BIBLIOTHECA 
 FRANCES A. YATES 
 
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 Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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r.oiixs I nil.OSOPHlt \i. LIBRARY 
 Till INTELLECTUAL 
 
 development of Europe 
 
GEORGE BELL & Si >NS 
 
 LONDON : YORK ST, COVENT GARDEN 
 AND NEW YORK: 66 FIFTH A V KM' K 
 BOMBAY : 53 ESPLANADE ROAD 
 CAMBRIDGE! DEIGHTON BEI.L CO. 
 
HIS TOP V 
 
 OP TH I 
 
 INI 1 LLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT 
 
 EUROPE 
 
 MY 
 
 JOHN WILLIAM DRAPER, M.D.. LL.D. 
 
 former! v nor mou in the university of new york 
 
 ?* OF "A TREATISE ON HUMAN MIYSIOLOCV," "the history of the 
 CONFLICT BETWEEN RRLIGION AND SCIENCE,'' ETC 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 [>ON 
 
 GEORGE BELL & SONS 
 1S99 
 
LONDON I 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM CI OWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 
 STAMFORD S TREK T AND CHARING CROSS. 
 
oo x t e x ra 
 
 0HAP1 KB L 
 
 THF A-.K < »K F\ll M IN I Hi W ) T. Till THUKK A . A < * K -• .' SOUTH 1'HN 
 Oil MORAL j 1TW! OB INTELLECTUAL; EASTERN OK MILITARY. 
 
 THE XoKTIIKRX OK MORAL ATTACK OX TttK fT A LI A If •TtTEM, AXD ITS TKM TOEAKT 
 
 KKrCLAK. 
 
 ($eographiral liuundan- • <»/ Italian Christianity. — Attack* u}»>n it. 
 
 The Sorthcm <>r moral Attach — The I'mperor of tiermany insists on a 
 reformat v at inAi Papacy. — Gerliert^ the repr* tentative of these Idea*, 
 is ma*U Pope. — They are \*>th jtoisoned by the Italians. 
 
 Commencement of the inttlUctual Rejection of the Italian System. — It 
 originates in the Arabian doctrine of the supremacy of Reason over 
 Autht/rity. — The question of Transubstantiation. — Pise and deetlop- 
 uunt <f >ch"lti*tiritui. — Mutiny amomj the Monk*. 
 
 ttnjory VII. f)<»ut N...ti-\ arc , md • uf re s a /,'-'< <r,/< in th> Church. 
 —<>r*-rram*-* the Prnpcno- of ( ',, r.. t any. -Is on the jmint </ establishing 
 a I'ur- j tan Th ocracy. — Th> l'<>}»* < iz> Ce military < nl mmotary 
 Resources tf Kuro}» thnniah ('ru*>il<s Pairo 1 
 
 < BAP1 BB II. 
 
 HIE AOE OF FAITH IN THE V>V>T —(Continued ). 
 tmk wirrr.R* ok intkli.k* tua'. attack 01 tmk Italian ptbtkm. 
 7V intellectual Condition of Christ' .dom contrasted with that of 
 Arabian Sjhtin. 
 
 I>, ')■••) , f Arabian i -t ll-ct . i I>,\u n < s throwjh Fra ice and Sicily. 
 I'rampb >•/ Saracen S j. nr. in Alhazen, and of Philosophy in 
 .//,' / ,n.»-c-.t III. prepares t , -,.nhat th- se Injhonc-s. lit suits 
 
 to Western Europe of the Sack of Constantinople by the Cathidics. 
 
iv 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 The spread of Mohammedan light Literature is followed by Heresy. — 
 The crushing of Heresy in the South of France by armed Force, the 
 Inquisition, mendicant Orders, auricular Confession, and Casuistry. 
 
 The rising Sentiment is embodied in Frederick II. in Sicily. — His 
 Conflict with and Overthrow by the Pope. — Spread of Mutiny among 
 the mendicant Orders .... Page 27 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 the age of faith in the west — (Continued). 
 
 OVERTHROW OF THE ITALIAN SYSTEM BY THE COMBINED INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL 
 
 ATTACK. 
 
 Progress of Irreligion among the mendicant Orders. — Publication of 
 heretical Boohs. — The Everlasting Gospel and the Comment on the 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 Conflict between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. — Outrage upon 
 and death of the Pope. 
 
 The French King removes the Papacy from Borne to Avignon. — Post- 
 mortem Trial of the Pope for Atheism and Immorality. — Causes and 
 Consequences of the Atheism of the Pope. 
 
 The Templars fall into Infidelity. — Their Trial, Conviction, and 
 Punishment. 
 
 Immoralities of the Papal Court at Avignon. — Its return to Borne. — 
 Causes of the great Schism. — Disorganization of the Italian System. — 
 Decomposition of the Papacy. — Three Popes. 
 
 J he Council of Constance attempts to convert the papal Autocracy into a 
 constitutional Monarchy. — It murders John Huss and Jerome of 
 Prague. — Pontificate of Nicolas V. — End of the intellectual influence 
 of the Italian System ... 77 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 the age of faith in the west — (Concluded). 
 
 EFFECT OF THE EASTERN OR MILITARY ATTACK. — GENERAL REVIEW OF THE AGE OF 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 The Fall of Constantinople. — Its momentary Efect on the Italian 
 System, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 General Review of the intellectual Condition in the Age of 
 Faith. — Supernaturalism and its Logic spread all over Europe. — J? 
 is destroyed by the Jews and Arabians. — Its total Extinction. 
 
 The Jewish Physicians. — Tixeir Acquirements and Influence. — Theis 
 Collision with the Imposture-medicine of Europe. — Their Effect on 
 the higher Classes. — Opposition to them. 
 
 Two Impulses, the Intellectual and Moral, operating against the 
 Medieval state of Things. — Doivnfallof the Italian System through the 
 inU //< dual Impulse from the West and the moral from the North. — 
 Action of the former through Astronomy. — Origin of the moral Impulse. 
 — Their conjoint irresistible Effect. — Discovery of the state of Affairs 
 in Italy. — The Writings of Machiavelli. — Wliat the Church had 
 actually done. 
 
 Entire Movement of the Italian System determined from a consideration 
 of the four Revolts against it Page 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 approach of the age of REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 IT IS PRECEDED BY MARITIME DISCOVERT. 
 
 Consideration of the definite Epochs of Social Life. 
 
 Experimental Philosophy emerging in the Age of Faith. 
 
 The Age of Reason ushered in by Maritime Discovery and the rise of 
 European Criticism. 
 
 Maritime Discovery. — The three great Voyages. 
 
 Columbus discovers America. — De Gama doubles the Cape and reaches 
 India. — Magellan circumnavigates the Earth. — The Material and 
 intellectual Results of each of these Voyages. 
 
 Digression on the Social Condition of America. — In isolated human 
 Societies the process of Thought and of Civilization is always the 
 same. — Man passes through a determinate succession of Ideas and 
 embodies them in determinate Institutions. — The state of Mexico and 
 Peru proves the influence of Law in the development of Man. . 151 
 
vi 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 OHAPTEB VL 
 
 APPROACH OF THE AGE <»F EE A SON IN FXBOrfc. 
 
 IT IS PRECEDED BY THE RISE OP CRITICISM. 
 
 Restoration of Ore <1; Literatim and Philosojhy in Italy. — Development 
 of Modern Language s and Hist of Criticism. Lnmin>nt Ihiwj, r to 
 Latin Ideas. 
 
 Invention of Printing. — It revolutioni:< s th> Communication of Know- 
 ledge, esjxcialhj acts on l'u'lic \\'urshij>. "id r> nd> r.< tfte Pulpit 
 second' try. 
 
 TlIE REFORMATION. — Theory of Supererogation and /'.<< of Iudulg> <■•■■. 
 
 — The Flight of Individual Judgment at?> rt* d. — Volitical History of 
 the Origin, Culmination, and Ch"-1; of th U>f><rin>ili oi. — It* l.jf> t* 
 in Italy. 
 
 Causes of the Arrest of the Reformation — Internal Causes in /'/•<</< - 
 tantism. — Esttrnal in tlo Pol,'--y <f How . — Th> (\ t t f , e- H- formation. 
 
 — Inquisition. — .Jesuits. — $>c<^ion of the an at Crit ic<. — Cut minat ion 
 of the Fit format ion in Anori '■ a. — I-'./o rgmce of Individual I.i ! »rty of 
 Thought P;itfc 190 
 
 OHAPTEB VDL 
 
 DIGRESSION ON THE CONDITION OF ENGLAND AT THE END OF THE AOB 
 
 OF FAITH. 
 
 RESULTS rBODUCKD BT THE AGE OF FAITH. 
 
 Condition of England at the Supj>ression of the Monasteries. 
 
 Condition of England at the el se of Hie seventeenth Century. — L<« amo- 
 tion, Literature, Libraries. — Social and private Life of the Laity and 
 Clergy. — Brutality in the Administration of Law. — Profligacy of 
 Literature. — The Theatre, its three Fhases. — Miracle, Moral, and 
 Heal Plays. 
 
 Estimate of the Advance made in the Age of Faith — Comparison with 
 that already made in the Age of Reason ... ... 229 
 
OONTKN I S. 
 
 vii 
 
 (JHAF1 EB viii. 
 Tiir r.vr.' »itan • « »f reason. 
 
 nwitcmiJi «»r AmioRtrr axp n IMRM Of • IU1UMJ trith.- 
 
 DrBrovmT <>r mr. trie r<*utNM «»r BH earth in the ckiverje. 
 
 I Wl, <i,utiral Attempt to enforce the Geocentric Doctkine that the 
 Earth is the Centre of the Fniv'ree,and the moet imjwrtant Body 
 in it. 
 
 7 A< II i i : '}»«:■.' I ' : . * < (' f t\> >• -i i.« //'.• f '< ;.';•< <>/ ft >*• * / r 
 Sy<t> ,n, and /vtirf/i a email Flanet, eono e gradually int>) 
 
 Prominence. 
 
 StruggU l<t\c n th> /'• r - -iadiral ,inJ Artromrnir.il Parti* — Activity 
 of the Inqui*iii /■' . .< : / o/ But No.— Jmprwomj*ni 0/ (i alii. 1:0. 
 
 INVENTION OF THE TeLESOOEE. — CompUte. Overthrow of the Feeheiaetical 
 Idea. — lii.-'- of Phyeicd Agronomy, — Newton. — liapid <x /i*/ reei>tl- << 
 DfMtlopmtut of all Hraiodtes of Satural Philosophy. 
 
 /' .al EttaWfhmrnt of If"' Ihtctrine that t)i> Fnivtrsr ie uudi r tht do- 
 minion of math^matiral, an. I, t)i> r>J><r> , iitcteeary Lair*. 
 
 I 1 or, m ,.f Man from Ant-.roj-oesutric Idnie to th> I>iscovtry of hie 
 true Position and Insignificance in the Fnircrse. . . Page 252 
 
 OHAPTSB ix. 
 m ft k<»i fan ac.e of reason— (Continued). 
 
 itlRTORY OF THR EARTH. — IIF.R 8CCCEMIVE CHARGES I If THR COURSE OF TIME. 
 
 Oriental and OeeitUufal /' tr re re*jn ting the Forth in Time.— 
 Gradual UY*i/.» ning of the loiter hf MDtMOMtfooJ Farts, and the Hits 
 nf Sri* ntific (1, obujy. 
 
 fwipertonal Manner in irhieh the Problem was eventually sol red, chiefly 
 thr< ugh I VN c , rif t> d trdh 11 at. 
 
 Proof 9 of limitless Duration from inorganic Fact*. — Igneous and Aaueous 
 Rocks. 
 
 Proofs of the name from organic Facte. Suceeeeive Cr<<ifion.< awl /•'..-- 
 MMMpM "' UfM ; Forme, and tht ir contemporaneous Distribution. 
 
 Fvidenrrt of a sUarly declining T> mperature, and, therefore . of a long 
 lime.- Flo Froe. Frmte by Catoetroj.he and by Iaiiv. — Analogy 
 
viii 
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 of Individual and Race Development. — Both arc Jflf 01 iwlnad by 
 unchangeable Law. 
 
 ConrJusion that the Plan of the Universe indicat- s a Multiplicity of 
 Worlds in infinite Sjxice. and a Surc t .*sion of Worlds in infinite 
 Time Pa^e 204 
 
 CHAITKH X. 
 the EUROPEAN AGE OP REASON — (Continued). 
 
 THE NATURE ANI> ULATIOSI OF WAN. 
 
 Position of Man according t<> t!t< //»//..''» utri<* a id G> or.>ntr\<* Theories. 
 
 Of Animal Lin:. — '/"A- transitory .Xatnn <f Uvi ./ /brim, IMffffolll 
 of Plants oud Animal*.- Animals ar> Aggregat* s of Matter <S]»nding 
 Force originally derived from the Su t. 
 
 The OBOAHIG Si:kii:s. — Man 0 Mi L&0T of it. —His PoHUon d. U nni n> d 
 by Anatomical and Physioh>gi<*al Inn stigation of hi* .Y< remit System. — 
 Its triple Form: Automatic, Instinctic*', Intellectual. 
 
 The sane jtrogressive 1 )< v> loj a.> nt is , n in individual Man, in the 
 entire animal S<rits.aud in th< I. if of tin ( il>>hc. — Tin y are all tunlei 
 the Control of an tf<ruaL universal, irnsistible Laic. 
 
 Tin Aim Of Na&U/ft is intilhctual DcVtlojnucnt, and huncin TnftfMtOM 
 must conform thereto. 
 
 Summary of the Investigation of the Posit ion of Man. — Production of 
 Inorganic and Organic Forms by the Sun. — Xature of Animals and 
 their Series. — Anah>git$ and I)>'jl\ relicts bitiC'tn them and Man. — The 
 Soul.-Tlie World * 
 
 C HAPTEB XI. 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON — ( Continued). 
 THE UNION OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
 
 European Progress in the Acquisition of exact Knowledge. — Its Resem- 
 blance to that of Greece. 
 
 Discoveries respecting the Air. — Its mechanical and chemical Properties. 
 — Its Relation to Animals and Plaids. — Tlte Winds. — Meteorology. — 
 Sounds. — Acoustic Phenomena. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ix 
 
 Discoveries respecting th> <>-<an. — Physical and chemical Phenomena. — 
 Tides and Currents. — Clouds. — Decomposition of Water. 
 
 Ihtrov- ri- « n .«/>< rting ,,•> . r mat* ri il Suhst mr. s. — Projr- << <f ( 'hemistnj 
 
 Discoveries respect fa / //<■••,■•/ •// . M ; _j ,» tism. Light, Heat. 
 
 M' hanind I'hilnsnphy an I Li i < - -I'h^i-il Instrument*. — Tht 
 li'nult Must rat t I by the Cotton M i lufartun — >t-<nn-enjine — lilvach- 
 ing — Canal* Hail may*. — Improv m< nt* in tit- C-nstrue(i<m of Ma- 
 rhiiury. — Si«*i<il ( '! t an-je < j-rodu-^ d. — It* Eject <>i intclhctual Activity. 
 
 '/''.• • iti'l- < trihution* <>f variant X<:i and especially of 
 Italy Pago 3GG 
 
 rHAl'IT.K XII. 
 
 OOHCLUBION— T!IK Fl'TURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 Su inmry of f) t c Annum nt present* d in tlii* /•'<< '. respecting the mental 
 Pn-jn «* of Pump. 
 
 I \trli tu I 1> ■ > \ , mi nt « tht Object of Individual Life. — It is also the 
 Result of social Progress. 
 
 Satiou* arrivi >j at Maturity instinctin ly at'nnpt their own intellectual 
 ' '/•-/.«/ 1 izatiun. — Example of the Manner in ichich this has been done in 
 CM— i IH Lap- r/erti.m. — What it has acc-.i nplislitd. 
 
 Tin ( >r ;anizati>n <>/ puHic Int-lUct is th- End to which Europe-sin 
 Cinliztttion is tending . ... . 
 
THE CNTELLECTUAI DEYELOPMENT OF 
 KriinrK. 
 
 CI I A it k ii r. 
 
 tiik a<;i: nr faith iv tin: wkst. THH THREE 
 attacks: ffOBTHEBN OB MORAL; WJGBTKBM OH 
 I NT K I ,LECT U AL ; KASTKRN OR MILITAKV. 
 
 Till: N • ■ ■ - • ; M"i:\l. ATI A K u\ TIIK ITALIAN .SYSTKM, AM' ITS 
 
 TEMPORARY REPULSE. 
 
 ii">jri\]-\ i il .' larie* of It ilian Christianity. — Attacks U)»>n it. 
 
 The Northern or mor<tl Attach. — The Em^ror of ( iermany insists on u 
 reftirm-it I t ■ • Plipflfly. — G er\ ] >ert, the representative of these Ideas, 
 in mn'l'' Toj* , — Thrij are boA voisnned by the Italians. 
 
 Ctnnm> ■'■ u<nt of tlo i nd ll> etual Rejection of the Italian System. It 
 oriai nt in flu \r il>ian tl>rtrw of the supremacy of Rtasnn unr 
 Authority. The tjifstioti of Transulstantiat <on. — Kite ami <lt n loj,- 
 lm nt >f Seht hi ticitm. — Mutiny amomj th> Monks. 
 
 Gregory VII. sjn mt a neously accepts and cnf re. | ,< He form in the Church. 
 
 — ( h'ercnm< > the I t/<>mr of C, r many. — Is on tin /><> nt i J t stahl isliimj 
 a Eur )«an Thutcrncy. — The Toju * sci:< tin military <m<l monetary 
 Resources of Eurojx throwjh the Crusades. 
 
 The realm of an idea may often be defined by geometrical 
 
 Hues. 
 
 It* from Koine, as a centre, two lines be drawn, one of 
 winch passes east ward, ami touches t lie Asia t ie 
 shore of tin- Hosphorus, the othor westward, and ,,;*'.', * ',. ,...,|. 
 crosses the I'vivntrs, nearly all those Mediterra- 1 jS* 1 
 
 noan conn tries lying to tho south of these lines 
 wero living, at tho timo of which we speak, under tho 
 dogma. 44 There is 1 ml one (hxl, and Mohammed II his 
 prophet ;" hut the countries to the north had added to tho 
 
 Vol.. II. I 
 
2 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST [oil. L 
 
 orthodox conception of the Holy Trinity the adoration of 
 
 the Virgin, the worship of images, tin- invocation of saints, 
 and a devout attachment to relies and shrines. 
 I have now to relate how these .lines were pushed 
 
 K«.rc<-B acting forward on Europe, that to the east by military, 
 upon it that to the west by intellectual force. On Rome, 
 as on a pivot, they worked; now opening, now closing, 
 now threatening to curve round at their extremes and 
 compress paganizing Christendom in their clasp; then, 
 through the convulsive throes of the nations they had 
 inclosed, receding from one another and quivering through- 
 out their whole length, hut receding only for an instant, 
 to shut more closely again. 
 
 It was as if from the hot sands of Africa invisible 
 arms were put forth, enfolding Europe in their grasp, 
 and trying to join their hands to give to paganizing 
 Christendom a fearful and mortal compression. There 
 were struggles and resistances, hut the portentous hands 
 clasped at last. Historically, we call the pressure that was 
 then made the Reformation. 
 
 Not without difficulty can we describe the convulsive 
 struggles of nations so as to convey a clear idea of the 
 forces acting upon them. J have now to devote many 
 perhaps not uninteresting, certainly not uninstructive, 
 pages to these events. 
 
 In this chapter 1 begin that task by relating the 
 consequences of the state of things heretofore described — 
 the earnestness of converted < ierinany and the immoralities 
 of the popes. 
 
 The Hermans insisted on a reformation among eccle- 
 siastics, and that they should lead lives in 
 taBfarona* 1 " accordance with religion. This moral attack 
 reform in the was accompanied also by an intellectual one, 
 papacy. arising from another source, and amounting to 
 a mutiny in the Church itself. In the course of centuries, 
 and particularly during the more recent evil times, a 
 gradual divergence of theology from morals had taken 
 place, to the dissatisfaction of that remnant of thinking 
 men who here and there, in the solitude of monasteries, 
 compared the dogmas of theology with the dictates of 
 reason. Of those, and the number was yearly increasing, 
 
THE AGE OF Y A M il I N I UK WEST. 
 
 3 
 
 win) had Urn among tlx Arabs in Spain, not a few had 
 become infected with a love of philosophy. 
 
 Whoever compares the tenth and twelfth centuries 
 together cannot fail to remark tin great intellectual 
 .-nivalin- which Kurope was making. Tin- ideas occupying 
 the minds of Christian nun, tie ir v. r\ nun of 1: , . ip , x . arAnco 
 thought, had altogether changed. The earnest- °h i >i>* 1 *<y 
 i • s of the < .< rmans, <•<•] ii in ingling with tin- km »\\ ledge of 
 the Mohammedans, could no longer be diverted from the 
 misty clouds of theological discussion out of which Philo- 
 sophy emerged, not in the Grecian classical vesturo in 
 which she ha»l disappeared at Alexandria, hut in tlio 
 grotesque garb of the cowled and mortified monk. She 
 timidly cam* • hark to t lie worhl as Scholasticism, persuading 
 nn n toconsider, by the light of theirown reason, that dogma 
 which seemed to put common sense at defiance — transub- 
 stantiation. Scarcely ware her whisju-rs heard in the 
 ecclesiastical ranks when a mutiny against ant hority arose, 
 ami since it was necessary to combat that mutiny with 
 
 its own weapons, the Chinch was compelled to give her 
 countenance to Scholastic '1 hcology. 
 
 L : ding himself to th<- demand for morality, and not 
 altogether refusing to join in the intellectual progress, a 
 great man. Hildehraml, brought on an ecclesiastical 
 reform. He raised the papacy to its maximum of power, 
 and prepared the way for his successors to seize the 
 material resources of Ilurope through the Crusades. 
 
 Such is an outline of t he events with which we have 
 m»w to deal. A detailed analysis of those events shows 
 that there were three directions of pressure upon T] ( {hroo 
 Komc. The pressure from the West and that r — <n-< 
 bom tho East were Mohammedan. Their re- upon Rwme * 
 suit ant was a pressure from the North: it was essentially 
 Christian. While those were foreign, this was domestic. 
 It is almost immaterial in what older we consider them; 
 the manner in which I am handling the subject leads me, 
 however, to treat of the Northern pressure first , then of that 
 of tin West, and "ii subsequent pag< s of that of tin' bast. 
 
 It had Income absolutely necessary that something 
 should be done for the reformation of the papacy. Its 
 crimes, such as we have related in Chapter X 1 1.. Vol. 1., 
 
 n 2 
 
4 
 
 THE AGE OF FA 11 II IN I ill; U bl'. 
 
 outraged religious men. To the master-spirit of the 
 Foreign in- movement fur accomplishing this end wo must 
 ?Horn!i«?Kthe closely look. He is the re] >resentat i ve of in- 
 papMj. fluences tliat were presently to exert a most 
 important agency. 
 
 In the train of the Pmiper< »r Otlio 1 1 1., when lie resol ved 
 to put a stop to all this wickedness, was ( lerhert, a French 
 ecclesiastic, born in Auvergne. In his boyhood, while a 
 Uf.- c»r <;<t- scholar in tlie Abbey of Avrillac, he attracted the 
 Ult attention of his superiors; among others, of the 
 
 Count of Barcelona, who t<»ok him to Spain. There he 
 became a proficient in the mathematics, astronomy, and 
 physics of the Mohammedan schools. Ib spoke Arabic 
 His Saracen with the fluency of a Saracen. His residence at 
 education. Cordova, where the khalif patronized all the 
 learning and science of the age, and his subsequent residence 
 in Koine, where he lbund an inconceivable ignorance and 
 immorality, were not lost upon his future life. He esta- 
 blished a school at liheims, where he taught logic, music, 
 astronomy, explained Virgil, Statins, Teivnc<\ and intro- 
 duced what were at that time regarded as wonders, the 
 globe and the abacus. lie laboured to persuade his 
 countrymen that Learning is far to be preferred to the 
 
 sports of the held. He observed the stars through tubes, 
 invented a clock, and an organ played by steam. He 
 composed a work on Rhetoric. A] .pointed Abbot of 
 Bobbio, he fell into a misunderstanding with his monks, 
 and had to retire first to Rome, and then to resume his 
 school at liheims. In the political event- connected with 
 the rise of Hugh Capet, he was again brought into 
 prominence. The speech of the Bishop of Orleans at the 
 Council of Eheims, which was his composition, shows Of 
 how his Mohammedan education had led him to look upon 
 His reproach- the state of things in Christendom: "There is 
 h against the not one at Borne, it is notorious, who know- 
 enough of letters to qualify him for a door-keeper ; 
 with what face shall he presume to teach who has never 
 learned?" He does not hesitate to allude to papal briberies 
 and papal crimes : " If King Hugh's embassadors could 
 have bribed the pope and Crescentius, his affairs had taken 
 a different torn." He recounts the disgraces and crimes of 
 
mi. l] the age of faith in* TBI mr, 5 
 
 Tin- pontiffs: how John XII. had cut off the nose and 
 tongue of John tin- (animal : how Hunifaiv had strangled 
 John XIII. ; how .John X IV. had be< n starved to death in 
 tbo dungeons of tho Castle of St. Angelo. He demands, 
 14 To such monsters, full of all infamy, void of all knowledge, 
 human and divine, are all t In* pre sts of ( h >d to submit — 
 men diM ingui.sln d throughout the world for their learning 
 and Judy lives ' The pout iff w ho so sins against his brother 
 - who. when admonished, n l'uscs to In ar the voice of 
 counsel, is as a publican and a sinner. With a prophetic 
 inspiration of the accusations of tho Reformation, ho asks, 
 44 Is he not Anti-Christ?" He speaks of him as " the Man 
 of Sin," "tin; Mystery of Iniquity." Of Koine he says, 
 with an emphasis doubtless en fo reed by his Mohammedan 
 • \j»erienees, "She has already h-.st the allegiance of the 
 Kast ; Alexandria, Antioeh, Afriea, and Asia are separate 
 from her ; Constantinople has broken loose from her ; the 
 interior of Spain knows nothing of the pope." He says, 
 '• How do your enemies say that, in deposing Arnnlphus, 
 we should have waited for tin* judgment of the Koman 
 1 ishop? Can they say that his judgment is hefore that of 
 fiod which our synod pronounced'.' The Prince of tho 
 Jonnan bishops and of t lie apost l«\s themselves proclaimed 
 that (iod must he obeyed rather than men; ami Paul, tho 
 teacher of the Gentiles, announced anathema to him, though 
 he WON MB iDfld] who should preach a doctrine different 
 to that which had heen delivered. P.. cause tho pontiff 
 II arc llinus o ffe red 1X1061106 to Jupiter, must, therefore, 
 all hishops sacrifice?" In all this there is obviously an 
 insurgent spirit against the papacy, or, rather, against its 
 iniquities. 
 
 In the progress of the political movements fierhert was 
 appointed to the archbishopric of Itheims. On Hi ^ ccl . shs _ 
 tins occasion, it is not without interest that we ttaj >i i - 
 ohserve his worldly wisdom. It was desirahlo to mcnt " 
 conciliate the clergy — perhaps it might ho done by tho 
 encouragement of marriage. lie had lived in tho poly- 
 gamic cant of the khalif, whose family had occasionally 
 boasted of more than forty sons and forty daughters. 
 Well then may he say. 41 I prohibit not marriage. 1 
 condemn not second marriages. I do not Manic the eating 
 
6 
 
 TIIK AGE OF FAITH IN' THE WEST. 
 
 of flesh. " His election not only proved unfortunate, but, 
 in the tortuous policy of the times, he was removed from 
 the exercise of liis episcopal functions ami put under inter- 
 dict. The speech of the Roman legate, Leo, who presided 
 at his condemnation, gives us an insight into the nature of 
 his offence, of the intention of Rome to persevere in tier 
 ignorance and superstition, and is an amusing example of 
 ecclesiastical argument : 44 Because the vicars of Peter and 
 their disciples will not have for their teachers a Plato, a 
 Virgil, a Terence, and the rest of tie- herd of ph.l — phers, 
 who soar aloft like the birds of the air. and dive into the 
 depths like the lisle s of the sea, ye say thai they .are not 
 worthy to he doorkeepers, because they know not how to 
 make verses. Peter is, indeed, a door-keeper but of 
 heaven I" He does not deny the systematic bril>ery of the 
 pontifical government, but justifies it. "Did not tie- 
 Saviour receive gifts of the wise men Nor does he deny 
 the crimes of the pontiffs, though he protests against those 
 
 who would expose them, reminding them thai M Bam was 
 cursed for uncovering his father's nakedness." En all this 
 we see the beginning of that struggle between Moham- 
 medan learning and morals and Italian ignorance and 
 crime, which was at last to produce such important results 
 for Europe. 
 
 Once more Gerbert retired to the court of the emperor. 
 It was at the time that Otho III. was contemplating a 
 revolution in the empire and a reformation of the Church. 
 He saw how useful Gerbert might be to his policy, and 
 had him appointed Archbishop of Ravenna. On the 
 Gerbert the death of Gregory V. he issued his decree for the 
 pope. election of Gerbert as pope. The low-born 
 
 French ecclesiastic, thus attaining to the utmost height 
 of human ambition, took the name of Sylvester II. 
 
 But Ronie was not willing thus to surrender her sordid 
 interests ; she revolted. Tusculum, the disgrace of the 
 papacy, rebelled. It required the arms of the emperor to 
 sustain his pontiff. For a moment it seemed as if the Re- 
 formation might have been anticipated by many centuries 
 — that Christian Europe might have been spared the 
 abominable papal disgraces awaiting it. There was a 
 learned and upright pope, an able and youthful emperor ; 
 
CH. I.] THE OF FA I I II IN THE WEST. 
 
 7 
 
 l'Ut Italian rrvm^', in t lie person of Str] ■hania, the wifo 
 of tin- murdered < 'r< scnitiiis. blasted all these expectations. 
 
 From the hand of that outraged and noble criminal, who, 
 
 with more than Human firmness of purpuso, conhl delibe- 
 rately barter her virtu.' for vciip-amr, tho unsuspecting 
 omperor took tho poisoned < up. and left Home p ol(loniII g of 
 only to die. Ho was but twenty-two years of the emptor 
 age. Sylvester, also, was irn-1 rievably ruined 1111,1 
 by the drugs that had been stealthily mixed with his food. 
 Ho soon followed his patron to tho grave. His steam 
 « »rgans, ph ysical experiments, mechanical invent i< >ns, foreign 
 hirth, and want of urt h< »d. .\ y, <•. .ntirmed the awful imputa- 
 tion that he was a necromancer. The mouth of every one 
 was full of stories of mystery and magic in which (Jerbert 
 had borne a part. Afar off in Europe, by their evening 
 firesides, the goblin-scared peasants whispered to one 
 another that in the most secret apartment of the palace at. 
 Koine there was concealed an impish dwarf, who wore a 
 turban, and had a ring that could make him invisible, or 
 give him two different bodies at the same t ime ; that, in 
 the midnight hours, strange sounds had been heard, when 
 no one was within but the pope-; that, while he was 
 among the infidels in Spain, the future pontiff had bartered 
 his soul to Satan, on condition that he would make him 
 Christ's vicar uj>on earth, and now it was plain that both 
 parties had been true to their compact. In their privacy, 
 hollow-eyed monks muttered to one another under their 
 cowls, 14 Homagium diabolo fecit et male finivit." 
 
 To a degree of wickedness almost irremediable had 
 things thus come. The sins of the pontiffs were re- 
 peated, withoul any abatement, in all tho clerical ranks. 
 Simony and concubinage prevailed to an extent that 
 threatened the authority of tho Church over the coarsest 
 minds. Ecclesiastical promotion could in all directions bo 
 obtained by purchase ; in all directions there were priests 
 boasting of il legit i mate families. 1 hit yet. in the 
 Church itself there were men of irreproachable jV.ItlTtThTh.- 
 life, who, like Peter Damiani, lifted up t heir w*'"^ 
 voices against tho prevailing scandal. Ho it 
 was who proved that nearly every priest in Milan had 
 pUTOhaaed Oil preferment and lived with a cneubine. Tho 
 
8 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WIST. 
 
 immoralities thus forced upon the attention of pious men 
 soon began to be followed by consequences that might 
 have been expected. It is but a step from the condemna- 
 tion of morals to the criticism of faith. The developing 
 intellect of Europe could no longer bear the acts or the 
 thoughts that it had heretofore submitted to. The dogma 
 of transubstantiation led to revolt. 
 
 The early lathers delighted to point out the agreement 
 of doctrines flowing from the principles of 
 
 Sreement of Christianity with those of Greek philosophy. 
 ^nHh? 1 '!^ • ^ ur it was assert. -d that a <•< .rivsj •» »ndenco 
 
 an eoogj. p^ wcv]l foftfc all( ] reason exists ; but by degrees 
 as one dogma after another of a mysterious and unintelli- 
 gible kind was introduced, and matters of helief could no 
 longer be co-ordinated with the conclusions of the under- 
 standing, it became necessary to force the latter into a sub- 
 Their gradual ordinate position. The great political interests 
 alienation. involved in these questions suggested the ex- 
 pediency and even necessity of compelling such a subordi- 
 nation by the application of civil ] tower. In this manner, 
 as we have described, in the reign of ( onMantine the 
 Great, philosophical discussions of religious things came to 
 be discountenanced, and implicit faith in the decisions of 
 existing authority required. Philosophy was subjugated 
 and enslaved by theology. We shall now see what were 
 the circumstances of her revolt. 
 
 In the solitude of monasteries there was every induce- 
 ment for those who had become weary of self-examination 
 to enter on the contemplation of the external world. 
 Herein they found a field offering to them endless occupa- 
 tion, and capable of worthily exercising their acuteness. 
 But it was not possible for them to take the first step 
 The mutiny without offending against the decisions esta- 
 ngainst theo- blished by authority. The alternative was 
 
 cos among the 
 
 stealthy proceeding or open mutiny ; but before 
 monks. mutiny there occurs a period of private sugges- 
 tion and another of more extensive discussion. It was 
 thus that the German monk Gotschalk, in the ninth 
 Persecution of century, occupied himself in the profound pro- 
 Gotschaik, blem of predestination, enduring the scourge and 
 death in prison for the sake of his opinion. The presence 
 
THE AGE OV FAITH IN TBI WtSVt 
 
 of t ho Saracens in Spain offend an incessant provocation 
 to the rest less intellect of the West, now rapidly expanding, 
 to indulge itself in sueli forbidden exereises. Arabian 
 philosophy, unseen and silently, was diffusing itself 
 throughout France and Kur<>pe, and churchmen could some- 
 times contemplate a refuge from their enemies among the 
 infidel. In his extremity, Ahelard himself looked forward 
 to a retreat among tho Saracens — a protection from 
 ecclesiast ical persccut i< >n. 
 
 In the conflict with Gotschalk on tho matter of predesti- 
 nation was aln ady foreshadowed the attempt to w]jo ^ 
 set up reason against authority. John Krigena, r.-^.n against 
 who was employed by Ilincmar, tho Arehhishop • Ulll '" n, - V - 
 of 1 1 h e i u i s , i ll that occasion . had already made a pilgrimage 
 to the birthplaces of I'lato and Aristotle, a.K K'J.>, and 
 indulged the hope of uniting philosophy and religion in tho 
 manner proposed by the ecclesiastics who were studying in 
 
 Spain. 
 
 From Eastern sources John Erigena had learned the 
 doctrines <»f the . t< rnity of matter, and even of the crea- 
 tion, with which, indeed, he confounded tho rolm Krigcnjl 
 J>eity himself. He was. therefore, a Pantheist ; :.:.- :<.; • 
 accepting t he ( hieiital id. as ..f emanation and l lMl,,1M "- 
 absorption not only as respects the soul of man, but like- 
 wise all mat. rial things. In his work "On the Nature of 
 Things," his doctrine is, 44 That, as all things were originally 
 contained in (i od, and proceeded from him into the different 
 < lasses by which they are now distinguished, so shall they 
 finally return to him and ho absorbed in the source from 
 which they came; in other words, that as, before the world 
 w ;is en ated, there w as no being but ( lod. and the causes of 
 all things were in him, so, alter t he end of the world, there 
 will be no being but God, and the causes of all things in 
 him." This final resolution he denominated deification, or 
 theosis. IIo even questioned the eternity of hell, saying, 
 with the emphasis of a Saracen, 44 There is nothing eternal 
 but God." It was impossible, under such circumstances, 
 t hat he should not fall under the rebuke of the Church. 
 
 Transubstantiation, as being, of tho orthodox doctrines 
 the least reconcilable to reason, was the first to be attacked 
 by the new philosophers. AYhat was, perhaps, in tho 
 
10 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 beginning, no more than a jocose Mohammedan sarcasm, 
 became a solemn subject of ecclesiastical discus - 
 begiiwon Ct sion. Eri-vna strenm >usl y upheld the doctrino 
 transubstan- 0 f the Stercorists, wh< > deri ved their name from 
 
 1 their assertion that a part of the consecrated 
 
 elements are voided from t lie body in the manner eiistomary 
 with other relics of food; a doctrino denounced by the 
 orthodox, who declared that the priest could i% make God," 
 and that the eocharistic elements are not liable t«> digestion. 
 
 And now, a.d. 1050, Berengar erf Tours prominently 
 opinions of brought forward the controversy respecting the 
 Berengar of real presence. The question had been forinula- 
 lolir8 * rized by Hadbert under the term t ran substantia- 
 tion, and the opinions entertained respecting the Bacred 
 
 elements greatly differed; mere fetish notions being 
 entertained by some, by others the mosl transcendental 
 ideas. In opposition to Kadbert and the orthodox party, 
 who asserted that those elements ceased to be what to the 
 senses they appeared, and actually beeaine transformed 
 into the body and blood of the Saviour, Berengar held that, 
 though there is a real presence in them, thai presence is 
 of a spiritual nature. These heresies wen- e< .n<lenme<l In- 
 repeated councils, Berengar himself being offered the 
 choice of deatli or recantation. EJe wisely preferred the 
 latter, but more wisely resumed his offensive doctrines as 
 soon as he had escaped from the hands of his persecutors. 
 As might be supposed from the philosophical indefensibility 
 of the orthodox doctrine, Berengar's < 'pini< »ns, which, indeed, 
 issued from those of Erigena, made themselves felt in the 
 
 highest ecclesiastical regions, and. from the 
 roe pope ° . . . . ry ° _ TT 
 
 privauiy manner in whieh Ore^ory \ JI. dealt with the 
 adopts them. h eres i arcn? there is reason to believe that he him- 
 self had privately adopted the doctrines thus condemned. 
 
 But it is in Peter Abelard that we find the repre- 
 sentative of the insurgent spirit of those times. The love 
 of Heloisa seems in our eyes to be justified by his extra- 
 Peter Abelard ordinary intellectual power. In his Oratory, 
 amoDgtbeiu- " The Paraclete," the doctrines of faith and the 
 ' mysteries of religion were without any restraint 
 
 discussed. No subject was too profound or too sacred for 
 his contemplation. By the powerful and orthodox influence 
 
CH. I.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE TOST. 
 
 11 
 
 of St. Bernard, "a morigerous and mortified monk," the 
 opinions of A belard were brought under the rebuke of the 
 authorities. In vain he appealed from the Council of 
 Sens to Borne ; the power of St. Bernard at Borne was 
 ji;iraiii"unt. " He malos void tin- whole Chris- st. it. maul 
 tian faith by at 0 in ]»t i n lT to c« »iu J >reheiid t ho alUck>i ,,M11 - 
 
 nature of God 1 1 i r< «u - 1 1 hum.in reason. He ascends op 
 into lb awn ; In- s dow n into lull. Nothing can elude 
 him. either in the height above or in the nethermost 
 depth*. His hi;.! s]»r< id over the whole earth. He 
 boasts that lie has disciples in Koine itself, even in the 
 College of Cardinals. He draws the whole earth after 
 him. It is timo, therefore, to silence him by apostolic 
 authority." Su« h was the rejx.it of t ; « Council of Sens 
 to Koine, A.K 1 1 1". 
 
 Perhaps it was not so much the public accusation that 
 Al - lard denied the doctrine of the Trinity, as his asser- 
 tion of the supremacy of reason- which dearly betrayed 
 bin intention of I n iking the thraldom of authority that 
 insured his condemnation. It was impossible to restrict 
 the rising discussions wit h in their proper sphere, or to keep 
 them from the perilous ground of ecclesiastical n. i„ K ,k'..s :c 
 history. Abelard in his work entitled k4 Sic et : • N "" " 
 N n," sets forth tho contradictory opinions of tho fathers, 
 and exhibits their discord and strifes on gnat doctrinal 
 
 points, thereby insinuating how little of unity there was 
 m the Church. It was a work suggesting a great deal 
 
 more than it actually stated, and was inevitably calculated 
 to draw down upon its author the indignation of those 
 whose interests it touched. 
 
 Out of the discussions attending these events sprang 
 the celebrated doctrines of Nominalism and , . . 
 
 _ . . _ Scholastic 
 
 Kealism, though the terms themselves seem not pi losophy, 
 to have been introduced till the end of the rt * 1 * 
 twelfth century. The hValists thought that the general 
 I J pel Of things had a n al existence; the Nominalists, 
 that they were merely a mental abstraction expressed by 
 a won 1 .. It was therefore the < >ld (J rook dispute revived. 
 Of the Nominalists. Roscelin of ( ompiegne, a N,. n . holism 
 little before \.t>. 11<><>, was the first distin- " , |:, ,h - n ' 
 guishe.l advocate; his materiali 'ing vi.ws. as might be 
 
12 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WI ST. [CB. I. 
 
 expected, drawing upon him the reproof of the Church. 
 In this contest, Anselm, the Aivhl >ish< >p of Canterbury, 
 attempted to harmonize reason in subordination to faith, 
 and again, by his example, demonstrated the necessity of 
 submitting all such questions to the decision of tho 
 human intellect. 
 
 The development of scholastic philosophy, which dales 
 from the time of Erigena, was accelerated by two distinct 
 causes: the dreadful materialization into whieh, in 
 Europe, all sacred things had fallen, and the 
 Sjuin ]">!•<<- 1M illustrious example of the Mohammedans, who 
 JJ^IjH""^ already, by their physical inquiries, had com- 
 menced a career destined to end in brilliant 
 results. The Spanish universities were filled with eccle- 
 siastics from many parts of Kurope. I\ ter tlie Venerable, 
 the friend and protector of Abelard, who had spenl much 
 time in Cordova, and not only spoke Arabic fluently, but 
 actually translated the Koran into Latin, mentions that, 
 on his first arrival in Spain, he found several learned 
 men, even from England, studying astronomy. The 
 reconciliation of many of the dogmas of authority with 
 common sense was impossible for men of understanding. 
 Could the clear intellect of such a statesman as Hu- 
 debrand be for a moment disgraced by accepting the 
 received view of a doctrine like that of transubMantiation? 
 His great difficulty was to reconcile what had been 
 rendered orthodox by the authority of the Church with 
 the suggestions of reason, or even with that reverence for 
 holy things which is in the heart of every intelligent 
 man. In such sentiments, we find an explanation of the 
 lenient dealings of that stern ecclesiastic with the heretic 
 Berengar. He saw that it was utterly impossible to offer 
 any defence of many of the materialized dogmas of the 
 age, but then those dogmas had been put forth as absolute 
 truth by the Church. Things had come to the point at 
 which reason and theology must diverge ; yet the Italian 
 KiseofScho- statesmen did not accept this issue without an 
 lasticTheo- additional attempt, and, under their permission, 
 Scholastic Theology, which originated in the 
 scholastic philosophy of Erigena and his followers, sought, 
 in the strange union of the Holy Scriptures, the Aristo- 
 
CH. I.] TBM kQM OF FAITH EH TBI WW. 13 
 
 telian Philosophy, and Pantheism, to construct a scientific 
 basis for Christianity. Heresy was to be combated with 
 the weapons of tin- heretics, ami a co-ordination of autho- 
 rity and reason effected. I'ndcr such auspices scholastic 
 philosophy pervaded the schools, giving to some of them, 
 as the University of Paris, a fictitious reputation, ami 
 leading to the foundation of others in other cities. Jt 
 answered the object of its politic promoters in a doublo 
 way, f<»r it raised around the orthodox theology an immense 
 and impenetrable bulwark «»f wltat seemed to he profound 
 learning, and also diverted the awakening mind of 
 Western Kurope to occupations which, if profitless, were 
 yet exciting, and without danger to the existing state of 
 things. In that manner was put otV for a time the 
 inevitable day in which philosophy and theology wnv t<> 
 be brought int . mortal conflict with each other. It was 
 doubtless seen by Ilildebrand and his followers that, 
 though Berengar had set the example of protesting 
 against the principle that the decision of a majority of 
 voters in a council or other collective body should ever be 
 received as ascertaining absolute truth, yet so great was 
 the unc. it . i i 1 1 1 y of the principle which the ^ 
 sch< »last ie philosophy was toUlided, so Ullde- t. ic , s in tli- 
 
 termined its mental exercise, so ineffectual the JJflJJJJjj 
 
 results to which it could attain, that it was 
 unlikely for a lone; time to disturb the unity of doctrine 
 in the Church. W hile men were reasoning round and 
 round again in the same vicious circle without finding 
 any escape, and indeed without seeking any, delighted 
 with the dexterity of their movements, but never con- 
 sidering whether they were making y real advance, it 
 Was unnecessary to anticipate inconvenience from their 
 pr< igress. 
 
 Ib re was the difficulty. The decisions of tlie Church 
 were asserted to be infallible and irrevocable; her phi- 
 losophy, if such it can be called as must be 
 the case with any philosophy reposing upon a sophica/ 0 " 
 final revelation from God — was stationary. But JJ^ JV^jf 
 the awakening mind of the West was dis- 
 playing, in an unmistakable way, its propensity to 
 advane.-. As one who rides an unruly horse will some- 
 
14 THE AGE OF FAITH IX THE VTHT. ~CH. 1 
 
 times divert him from a oan ar which could not be 
 checked by main force by reining him round and round, 
 and thereby exhausting liis spirit and strength, and 
 keeping liim in a narrow spaee, so tin- wanton ellbrts of 
 the mind may be guided, if they cannot be checked. 
 These principles of policy answered their object for a time, 
 until metaphysical were changed f«»r physical discussions. 
 Then it became impossible to divert tin- onward move- 
 ment, and on the first great question arising that of fchfi 
 iigure and place of the earth a question dang< n»us to the 
 last decree, since it inicrentialh included the determi- 
 nation of the position of man in the univ«-i>e, theology 
 Buffered an irretrievable defeat. Between her and phi- 
 losophy there was thenceforth no other issue than a 
 mortal duel. 
 
 Though Erigena is the true founder of Seh< -last ieism, 
 course of Roscelin, already mentioned as renewing the 
 Scholasticism. question of Platonic Universals, has been con- 
 sidered by some to be entitled to that distinction. After 
 him, AVilliani of Chani])eaux opened a sell. ..1 ot'b.gie in 
 Paris, a.d. 1109, and from that time the University made 
 it a prominent study. On the rise of the mendicant 
 orders, Scholasticism received a great impulse, perhaps, as 
 has been affirmed, because its disputations suited their 
 illiterate state; Thomas Aquinas, the Dominican, and 
 Duns Scotus, the Franciscan, founding rival schools, which 
 wrangled for three centuries. In Italy, Scholasticism 
 never prevailed as it did in France and elsewhere, and at 
 last it died away, its uselessness, save in the political result 
 before mentioned, having been detected. 
 
 The middle of the eleventh century ushers in an epoch 
 for the papacy and for Europe. It is marked 
 the papacy by an attempt at a moral reformation in the 
 :igu ^ st l ^ cse Church — by a struggle for securing for the 
 pressures. p a p aC y independence both of the Emperors oi 
 Germany and of the neighbouring Italian nobles — thus 
 far the pope being the mere officer of the emperor, and 
 often the creature of the surrounding nobility — by the 
 conversion of the temporalities of the Church, heretofore 
 indirect, into absolute possessions, by securing territ< 
 given "to the Church, the blessed Peter, and the Roman 
 
OB. L] IBM Affll OK FAITH IN THE WEST. 15 
 
 republic" to t lit.i first of these 1 -i o • tl • -i. t r i« -s. excluding the 
 last. As events proceeded, these minor affairs 
 converged, and out of their onion arose the SrSmcSL 
 
 Lrn-at conflict of the imperial . i t - 1 papal powers ,r - l ' ; \"' " U] " 
 
 . * . MBM power, 
 
 fur supremacy. Tin* same policy which lia<l 
 
 hUrn-.-ili-d in depriving tin- h'omau |>» opl.- of any voice in 
 
 appoint ncnts of ]im|.cs - which had secularized the ( 'hureh 
 
 in Italy, for a while sei/.d all the material resources of 
 
 Europe through the device of tho Crusades, and nearly 
 
 established a papal autocracy in all Kurope. These 
 
 political events demand from us notice, since from them 
 arose int< lleetual conscipienc. s of the utinos importance. 
 
 The second Lateran Council, under Nicolas II., aceom- 
 plishcd the result of vesting the elective power for the 
 papacy in the cardinals. Thai was a j^reat revolution. 
 
 It was this oonmci] which gave to Berene;ar liis choice 
 U twei n dea tli ami recantation. There were at this period 
 tin., powon engaged in Italy — tho Imperial, Three parties 
 tho Church party, and tho Italian nobles. For in h ll > 
 the Mkfl of K^mmg tli.- last in check — since it was the 
 n< i rest, it required the most unremitting attention 
 1 1 lldehrand had advised the pop * v. ho v. • re his immediate 
 predecessors to Use the Normans, who were settled in the 
 south of tho peninsula, by whom tho lands of tho nobles 
 were devastated. Thus t he ditlioult ies of their position led 
 the popes to a repetition of their ancient policy; and as 
 they bad, in old times, sought the protection of the 
 Frank ish kings, so now they sought that of tho Normans. 
 I'.ut in the midst of the dissensions and tumults of the 
 times, a e;icat man \v;is emer^in^ I lildehrand, who, with 
 almost superhuman self-denial, apiin and a«;ain uii.iobr.md 
 Abstained from making himself pope. On the becomespopc. 
 death of Alexander II. his opportunity came, and, with 
 acceptable force, he was raised to that dignity, A.I>. 107.}. 
 
 Scarcely was Ilildehrand Pope (ire^ory VII. when he 
 vigorously proceeded to carry into effect the nildebrand 
 policy ho had been preparing during the pon- r. ^..ivrHona 
 tificates of his predecessors. In many respects 
 the tines were propitious. The blameless lives of tho 
 German popes had cast a veil of oblivion over the 
 abominations of their Italian predecessors. Ilildehrand 
 
16 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. 1. 
 
 addressed himself to tear out every vestige <>f simony and 
 concubinage with a remorseless hand. That task must be 
 finished "before he could hope to accomplish his grand 
 project of an ecclesiastical autocracy in Kurope, with the 
 pope at its head, and the clergy, huth in their persons and 
 property, independent of the civil power. It was plain 
 that, apart from all moral considerations, the supremacy 
 Necessity of °* ^ >()in( ' i ]1 SU( 'h a system altogether turned on 
 xlibacyof the celihacy of the clergy. If marriage was 
 the clergy. permitted to the ecclesiastic, what was to 
 prevent him from handing down, as an hereditary pos- 
 session, the wealth and dignities he had obtained. Jr 
 such a state of things, the central government at Rome 
 necessarily st ot»d at every disadvantage against the local 
 interests of an individual, and still more so if many in- 
 dividuals should combine Together to promote, in common, 
 similar interests. But very differenl would it be if 
 promotion must be looked for from home - very different 
 as regards the hold upon public sentiment, if such a 
 descent from father to son was absolutely prev< nted, and 
 a career fairly opened to all, irrespective of their station in 
 life. To the Church it was to the last degree important 
 that a man should derive his advancement from her, not 
 from his ancestor. In the trials to which she was per- 
 petually exposed, there could be no doubt that by such 
 persons her interests would be best served. 
 
 In these circumstances Gregory VII. took his course. 
 The synod held at Rome in the first year of his pontificate 
 
 . , denounced the marriage of the cIci'ltv. enforcing 
 
 It is enforced . . . 
 
 'its decree by the doctrine that the efficacy of 
 the sacraments altogether depended on their being ad- 
 ministered by hands sinless in that respect, and made all 
 communicants partners in the pastoral crime. With a 
 provident foresight of the coming opposition, he carried 
 out the policy he had taught his predecessors of con- 
 The o e ciliating the Normans in the south of Italy, 
 seethe though he did not hesitate to resist them, by 
 fiie^ d orm P mI tlie of ttie Countess Matilda, when they 
 dared to touch the possessions of the Church. 
 It was for the sake of this that the Norman invasion of 
 England under William the Conqueror had already been 
 
CH. I.] THK AG | OF FAITH IN TUM Wl ST. 
 
 17 
 
 approved of, a consecrated standard and a ring containing 
 a hair from the head of St. Peter sent him, ami per- 
 mission given for the replacement of Saxon bishops and 
 other dignitaries by Normans. It was not forgotten how 
 great had been the gains to the papacy, three centuries 
 before, by changing the dynasty <»t' tin* Franks; and thus 
 tho policy of an Italian town gave I permanent impress 
 to the history of Kncjand. Ilildebrand foresaw that the 
 sword nf tin- Italian-N«»rman would It wanted to carry 
 out his projected ends. He did not hesitate to authorize 
 t he overthrow of a Saxon dynasty by the LYench-Norman, 
 that he might i «• more sure of the fidelity of that sword. 
 Without tho countenance of the pop- , the N rman could 
 never have consolidated his power, nor even held his 
 ground in Kngland. 
 
 From these movements of tie- papaey sj -r.-niLC the con- 
 
 Bioi with the Bmperoori of Germany respecting xtecariH* 
 investitures. The Hi shop of Milan — who, it ooooe min g 
 appears, had perjured himself in the quarrel 
 respecting concubinage — had been excommunicated by 
 Alexander II. The imperial council appointed as his 
 Mieeossor one Godfrey; the pope had nominated Atto. 
 Hereupon Alexander had summoned the emperor to 
 appear before him on a charge <»f .simony, and errant ing 
 investitures without his approbation. While the matter 
 was yet in abeyance, Alexander died; but (iregory took 
 up tho contest. A synod ho had assembled ordered that, 
 if any one should accept investiture from a layman, both 
 the giver and receiver should he excommunicated. Tho 
 pretence against lay-inv< stiture was that it was ;> usurpa- 
 tion of a papal right, and that it led to the appointment 
 of evil and ignorant men; the reality was a determination 
 to extend papal power, by making Koine the fountain of 
 emolument. (iregory, by his movements, had thus 
 brought upon himself three antagonists — the imperial 
 power, the Italian nobles, and the married clergy. Tho 
 latter, unscrupulous and exasperated, met him with his 
 own weapons, not hesitating to calumniate his friendship 
 with the Countess Matilda. It was also suspected that 
 they wore connected with the outrage perpetrated by tho 
 nobles that took placo in Koine. On Christinas night, a.d. 
 vor,. II. c 
 
18 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. I. 
 
 1075, in the midst of a violent rain, while the pope was 
 Outrage on administering the communion, a band of soldiers 
 Hildebrand. burst into the church, seized (Jregory at tho 
 altar, stripped and wounded him, and. haling him on 
 horseback behind one of the soldiers, carried him off to a 
 stronghold, from which he was rescued by the populace. 
 But, without wavering for a moment, the undaunted 
 pontiff pressed on his conflict with the imperial power, 
 summoning Henry to Home to account for his delin- 
 quencies, and threatening his excommunication if ho 
 should not appear before an appointed day. In haste, 
 under the auspices of the king, a synod was assembled at 
 Worms; charges against tho pope of licentious life, 
 bribery, necromancy, simony, murder, atheism, were in- 
 troduced and sentence of deposition pronounced against 
 him. On his side, Gregory assembled tho third Lateran 
 Council, a.d. 107'''. placed King Henry under interdict, 
 absolved his subjects from allegiance, and deposed him. 
 
 A series of Constitutions, clearly defining tho 
 the position new bases of the papal system, was published. 
 g™J® They were to the following etVeet : "That the 
 
 Eoman pontiff can alone be called universal; 
 that he alone has a right to depose bishops ; that his 
 legates have a right to preside over all bishops in a 
 general council ; that he can depose absent prelates ; that 
 he alone has a right to use imperial ornaments ; that 
 princes are bound to kiss his feet, and his only ; that he 
 has a right to depose emperors ; that no synod or council 
 summoned without his commission can be called general ; 
 that no book can be called canonical without his authority ; 
 that his sentence can be annulled by none, but that he may 
 annul the decrees of all ; that the Roman Church has been, 
 is, and will continue to be infallible ; that whoever dissents 
 from it ceases to be a catholic Christian, and that subjects 
 may be absolved from their allegiance to wicked princes." 
 The powder that could assert such resolutions was near its 
 culmination. 
 
 And now was manifest the superiority of the spiritual 
 over the temporal power. The quarrel with Henry went 
 on, and, after a hard struggle and many intrigues to draw 
 the Normans over to him, that monarch was compelled to 
 
Till. ACE OF FAITH IN TIIK Wi:>T. 
 
 19 
 
 ral mit,and in the depth of winter to cross the snowy Alps, 
 under circumstances of unparalleled hardship, ^dove^m™ 
 to seek ahsolution from his adve rsary. Then th< King ot 
 ensued the scene at Canosa — a penitent in white Qermany - 
 raimenl standing in tlic dn n \ simw ufilm-o wink-nlays, 
 January 1077, cold and fasting at t lie gate, seeking pardon 
 and reconciliation of the inexorable pontiff ; that penitent 
 was the King of Germany. Then ensued the dramatic 
 seem- at the sacrament, in which the gray-haired DOntifl 
 called upon Heaven t < > s t ii k < • 1 1 : m dead on (he spot if ho 
 were not innocent <>f the crimes of which he had heen 
 acctis( d, and dared the guilty monarch to do the same. 
 
 \\ boerer will reflect on these inter* sting events cannot 
 fail to discern two important conclusions. The e^du^ng 
 tone of thought throughout Ktirope had changed from these 
 within the last three ages ; ideas were entertained, evcnto - 
 doctrines originated or controverted, a policy conceived 
 and attempted altogether in advance of the old times. 
 
 Int< Hi et , 1 oth among the clergy and the laity, had under- 
 gone a great development. lint the peculiar character of 
 the papal power is also ascertained- that it is worldly, 
 and the result of the policy of man. The outrage on 
 Hildehrand shows how that power had diminished at 
 its centre, hut the victory over Henry that it maintained 
 its strength at a distance. Natural forces diminish as 
 the distance increases ; t his unnatural force displayed an 
 opposite property. 
 
 (iregon had carried his point. He had not only hcaten 
 l>acl< the Northern at tack, hut had estahlished the supremacy 
 of the ecclesiastical over the temporal power, « , . 
 
 j . a - ... I # Jr » Culmination 
 
 ana that point, with lntlexihle resolution, ho *.f o.r 1, si- 
 maintained, though in its consequences it cost a8ticaI power * 
 Germany a civil war. But, while ho was thus unyielding 
 in Ids temporal policy, there is reason to suppose" that he 
 W9M not without misgivings in his theological helief In 
 the war hetween Henry and his rival Kodolph, (ireirorv 
 eompelh d hy pnlicy to he at first neutral. He occupied 
 himself with the Kucharistic controversy. This Fri , mlf , hi of 
 U;,s at the time that he was associated with mi<M>r.m!i ° 
 
 Berengar, irhe lived with him for a year, Nor " i!,; " n ^ r 
 
 4id the pope think it unworthy of himself to pat forth 
 
20 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WS9T. [CH. i. 
 
 in excuse of the heretic, a vision, in which the Virgin Mary 
 had asserted the orthodoxy of Berengar ; but, as his quarrel 
 with King Henry went on to new excommunications and 
 depositions, a synod of bishops presumed to condemn him 
 as a partisan of Berengar and a necromancer. On the 
 election of Gilbert of Havenna as antipope, Gregory, 
 without hesitation, pushed his principles to their con- 
 sequences, denouncing kingship ;ls a wicked and diabolical 
 usurpation, an infraction of the equal rights of man. 
 
 „ Hereupon Henry determined to destroy him or 
 
 rne German * -i -it ^^ • • ' t 1 
 
 contest rc- to be destroyed ; and desoending again into Italy, 
 
 Burned. AJ( ^ njS 1 , fur three slice, ssiw years laid siege to 
 
 Borne. In vain the amoroiu -Matilda, with more than the 
 devotion of an ally, endeavoured to succour her helraguercd 
 friend. The city surrendered to Henry at Christmas, 
 A.D. 1084. With his antipope he entered it. receiving 
 from his hands the imperial crown. The Norman allies 
 of Hildebrand at last approached in strength. The em- 
 peror was compelled to retreat. A feeble attempt to hold 
 the city was made. The Normans took it by surprise, and 
 released Gregory from his imprisonment in the Castle 
 of St. Angelo. An awful scene ensued. Some conflicts 
 between the citizens and the Normans occurred; a battle 
 in the streets was the consequence, and Rome was pillaged, 
 sacked, and fired. Streets, churches, palaces, were left a 
 heap of smoking ashes. The people by thousands were 
 massacred. The Saracens, of whom there were multitudes 
 
 in the Norman army, were in the Eternal City 
 medans am ~ at last, and, horrible to be said, were there as 
 KK?°i2 a "the hired supporters of the Vicar of Christ. 
 
 Matrons, nuns, young women, were denied. 
 Crowds of men, women, and children were carried off and 
 sack of Home sold as slaves. It was the treatment of a city 
 and death of' taken by storm. In consternation, the pontiff 
 the pope. with his infidel deliverers retired from the ruined 
 capital to Salerno, and there he died, a.d. 1085. 
 
 He had been dead ten years, when a policy was entered 
 npon by the papacy which imparted to it more power than 
 The Crusades a ^ ^ e exertions of Gregory. The Crusades were 
 
 instituted by a French pope, Urban II. Un- 
 popular in Italy, perhaps by reason of his foreign birth, 
 
B* I.] 
 
 r UK AGE OF FAITH IN THE WIST. 
 
 21 
 
 ho arous< 1 his native country for the* recovery of the Holy 
 Laud. He began his career in a lnanner not now unusual, 
 interfering in a quarrel between Philip of Franco and his 
 wife, taking the pari of tin* latter, as experience had .shown 
 if was always advisable for a pope to do. Soon, however, 
 he devoted 1 1 is at trillion to Mum- tiling more i in } »« »rtant than 
 these matrimonial broils. It srrins that a Kuropean 
 
 crusado was ii r>t distinctly conceived of and its value 
 most completely comprehended by Gerbert, to whom, 
 douhtle s , his Mohammedan experiences had suggested 
 it. In the first year of his pontificate, he wrote an epistle, 
 in the name of the Church of Jerusalem, to the Church 
 throughout the world, exhorting Christian soldiers to conio 
 to her relief either with arms or money. It a id been 
 subsequent ly contrmplatrd by Cregory VII. For many 
 years, pilgrimages to bah-stine had hern on the increase; 
 a very lucrative export trade in relies from that country 
 had arisen; crowds from all parts of Kurope had of late 
 made their way to Jerusalem, for thr singular purpose of 
 being present at the great assize which the Scriptures 
 were supposed to prophesy would soon take place in the 
 Valley of Jehoshaphat. The Mohammedans had inflicted 
 on t Ip so pi. .lis persons much maltreatment, being unable 
 to comprehend the purport of their extraordinary journey, 
 and probably pen riving a necessity of putting some 
 restriction upon the intlux of such coiintle-s multitudes. 
 Peter tho Hermit, who had witnessed the barbarities to 
 which his Christian brethren were exposed, and the 
 abominations of the holy places now in the hands of the 
 infidel, rowed Europe, bynifl preaching, to a frantic state ; 
 
 Midi 1 1 .in. if the I 'ouncil of ( lcnnont, a.i». 1095, 
 gave authority to the Holy W ar. " It is the will .r'.'i^lont 
 of Cod." was the unanimous shout of the conn- ,l 
 cil and the populace. The periodical shower of 
 shotting stars was seen with remarkable brilliancy on 
 April 25th, and mistaken by the council for a celestial 
 monition that the Christians must precipitate themselves 
 in liko manner on tho East. From this incident we may 
 p'-rreive how little ih«-re was sf inspiration in the.se 
 blundering and violent ecclesiastical assemblages; the 
 nOUMlJ th.it they can be brought to a scientific test their 
 
22 THE AGE OF FAITH IN HIE WEST. [OH. I. 
 
 true nature is detected. As a preliminary exercise, a 
 ferocious persecution of the .lews of France had hurst 
 forth, and the blood and tortures of multitudes offered a 
 tardy expiation for the crimes that their ancestors had 
 committed at the Crucifixion in Jerusalem, more than a 
 thousand years previously. 
 
 It does not fall within my plan to give a detailed 
 description of the Crusades. It is enough to say that, 
 though the clergy had promised tin- protection of God to 
 every one who would thus come to his assistance— an 
 ample reward Cor their pious work in t his life, and 1 he hap- 
 The first cm- piness of heaven in the next — Urban's crusade 
 sade. failed not only disastrously, but hideously, so 
 
 far as the ignorant rabbles, under Peter the Hermit and 
 Walter the Penniless, were Concerned. Nevertheless, 
 
 under the better-organized expeditions that s i followed, 
 
 Jerusalem was captured, July 15th, a.i». L099. The long 
 and ghastly line of bones whitening the road through 
 Hungary to the Kast showed how different a thing it was 
 for a peaceable and solitary pilgrim, with his staff, and 
 wallet, and scallop-shell, to beg his way, and a disorderly 
 rabble of thousands upon tin rasands to rush forward without 
 any subordination, any organization, trusting only to the 
 providence of God. The van of the Crusades consisted of 
 two hundred and seventy-live thousand men, accompanied 
 by eight horses, and preceded by a goat and a goose, into 
 which some one had told them that the Holy Ghost had 
 entered. Driven to madness by disappointment and 
 famine— expecting, in their ignorance, that every town 
 the} 7 came to must be Jerusalem — in their extremity they 
 laid hands on whatever they could. Their track was 
 marked by robbery, bloodshed, and fire. In the first 
 crusade more than half a million of men died. It was far 
 more disastrous than the Moscow 7 retreat. 
 
 But still, in a military sense, the first crusade accom- 
 stormingof plished its object. The capture of Jerusalem, 
 Jerusalem. as m ight be expected under such circumstances, 
 was attended by the perpetration of atrocities almost 
 beyond belief. What a contrast to the conduct of the 
 Arabs! When the Khalif Omar took Jerusalem, A.D. 637, 
 he rode into the city by the side of the Patriarch 
 
THI age OF FAITH U Tin: WEST. 
 
 23 
 
 Sophronius, conversing with him on its antiquities. At 
 the hour of prayer, he declined to perform his devotions 
 in the Church of the BeBUITOOtiOfflL, in which he chanced to 
 be, but prayed on the steps of the Church of Constantine ; 
 44 for," said ho to the patriarch, 44 had I done so, the Mus- 
 selmen in a future age would have infringed the treaty, 
 under colour of imitating my example.'' But, in the 
 capture by the Crusaders, the brains of young children 
 wi-iv dashed ,,ut against the walls; infants were thrown 
 over the battlements; every woman that could bo seized 
 was viul.tt. -.1 ; men were roasted at tires; some were ripped 
 open, to see it" they ha«l swallowed gold; the .lews were 
 driven into their sy nap »gue, and there burnt; a massacre 
 of nearly 70,000 persons took place ; and the pope's legate 
 was seen " partaking in t he t riuinph.'' 
 
 It h id I km ii expected by I he |»olit leians who lirst projected 
 tliese wars that they would heal the divisions of ,. iilitlc a pi _ 
 the Latin and ( ire. k ehn relies, and give hirth to Miitaof the 
 a European republic, under the spiritual presi- trufladt8 - 
 dencyof the pope* In tliese respects they proved a failure 
 it dors not appear that the popes themselves personally 
 had ever any living faith in the result. Not one of them 
 ever joined a crusade; and the Church, as a corporation, 
 took care to emhark very little money in these under- 
 takings. Bat) though they did not answer to the original 
 intention, they gave, in an indirect way, a wonderful 
 stimulus to the papal power. I nder the plausible pre- 
 tences otVered by them, the pope obtained < ;ivc t0 i> l( , 1M1J 
 control over the person of every Christian man J'," n c "'"J" 1 uf 
 from the highest to the lowest. The cross once money In Bo* 
 taken, all civil control over the Crusader ceased r, ' Iie - 
 — he became the man of the Church. Under those pre- 
 tences, also, a right was imperceptibly acquired of raising 
 revenue in all parts of Europe; even the clergy might, 
 be assessed. A drain was thus established on the re- 
 sources of distant nations for an object wliich no man 
 dared to gainsay; if he adventured 00 any such thing, he 
 must encounter the odium of an infidel — an atheist. A 
 steady stream of money flowed into Italy. Nor was it 
 alone by this taxation of every Christian nation without 
 permission of its government this empire within every 
 
24 
 
 Tin-; AGE OF FAITH IN HIE WE-F. 
 
 [CH. U 
 
 empire — immense wealth accrued to the projectors, while 
 the infatuation could be kept up, by the diminished rato 
 at which land could he obtained, l'omains were thrown 
 into the market: there were few purchasers except the 
 Church. Immense domains were also given away by 
 weak-minded sinners, and those on the point of death, for 
 the salvation of their souls. Thus, all things consider. .], 
 the effect of the Crusades, though not precisely that 
 which was expected, was nf singular advantage to the 
 Church, giving it a commanding strength it had never 
 1 ief< >re p< issessed. 
 
 In their resistance to the German attack the popes 
 never hesitated at any means. Thry pmmpti-d IVinco 
 J Tenry to rcvult against their gival antagonist, his fatlier; 
 they intervened, not to rebuke, but to abet him, when be 
 threw his fatlier into prison and deprived him of the 
 
 necessaries of Hie. They carried their vengeance beyond 
 the grave. When the aged emperor, broken in heart, 
 escaped from their torment, and was honourably buried 
 by the Bishop of Liege, that prelate was forthwith ex- 
 communicated and compelled to di>inter the crpse. Pmt 
 ciimes like these, against which human nature revolts, 
 Hosistanceof meet with retribution. 1 his same Prince 
 Henry v. Henry, becoming Henry V., was forced by cir- 
 cumstances to resume Ids lather's 'juariel, and to refuse to 
 yield his right of granting invest itures. He marched upon 
 Rome, and at the point of the sword compelled his adver- 
 sary, Pope Paschal II., to surrender all the possessions and 
 royalties of the Church — compelled him to crown him 
 emperor — not, however, until the pontiff had been sub- 
 jected to the ignominy of imprisonment, and brought into 
 condemnation among his own party. 
 
 Things seemed to be going to ruin in Pome, and such 
 must inevitably have been the issue, had not an extra- 
 Bernard of neous influence arisen in Bernard of Clairvaux, 
 sUmi-Ht X s *° wnom Europe learned to look up as the 
 the second beater down of heresies, theological and political, 
 crusade. jj e ^ eQn a p U pji 0 f William of Champeaux, 
 the vanquished rival of Abelard, and Abelard he hated 
 with a religious and personal hate. He was a wonder- 
 worker. He excommunicated the flies which infested a 
 
rn. L 
 
 THE A<jE OF FAITH IN III! WI8T. 
 
 church— they all fell down dead and were swept out by 
 the basketful. He has been described as " the mellifluous 
 I'M-t. r. whose works aiv n.it > « i • ntilic, hut full of unction.'' 
 He could not tolerate the principle at the basis of Abe- 
 lard's philosophy thcass< it i« »n of the suj»reinaey of reason. 
 < »f Arnold of Urescia wlio carried that principle to its 
 political « "lisequences, and declared that the riches and 
 power of the eh rgy were inconsistent with their profession 
 — ho was tho accuser and punisher. Bernard preached 
 a nevr crusade, authenticating his power by miracles, 
 affirmed 1" be not inferior to those of our Saviour; pro- 
 mising to him who should slay an unbeliever happiness 
 in this life and Paradise in the lif to come. 1(sfiilur< 
 This second crusade w;is conducted by kings, 
 and inc luded fanat ic ladies, dressed in t he armour of men ; 
 but it ended in ruin. 
 
 It. was reserved for the only Kngl ishman who ever 
 attained to tie* papacy to visit Borne with the punishment 
 she had so often inflicted upon others. Nicolas l>r«ak- 
 spear — Adrian IV. — put tho Eternal City under interdict, 
 thereby ending the republic which the partisans of Arnold 
 of I'rescia had set up. lint in thi-> be was greatly aided 
 by a change of sentiment in many of the inhabitants of 
 Kome, who had found to their cost that it was more 
 profitable for their city to be the centre of Christianity 
 than the seat of a phantom republic. an equivalent 
 
 for his coronation by \drian, r'redcriek Barbarossa agreed 
 to surrender to tho Church Arnold of Brescia. With 
 imheenl haste, the moment she had obtained Mlirdorof 
 possrs-ion of her arch-enemy she put him to Arn-.Uoi 
 death — not delivering him over to the secular Bre8Cia * 
 arm, as tho custom had fo en, but murdering him with her 
 own hand. Seven centuries hav- clap>cd, and the blood 
 of Arnold is still crying from the ground for retribution. 
 Notwithstanding a new the third crusade, things went 
 from bad to worse in the Holy Land. Saladin had re- 
 taken Jerusalem, \.n. 11*7. Uarbarossa was drowned in a 
 
 river in Pisidia. Riohard of England was treacherously 
 
 imprison ed ; nor did the pope interfere for m r th of Fre- 
 this brave soldier of the Cross. In the mean- dorlck u - 
 time, the Ilmperors of ( iermany had acquired Sicily by 
 
26 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. I. 
 
 marriage — an incident destined to "be of no little im- 
 portance in the history of Europe ; for, on the death of the 
 Emperor Henry VI. at Messina, his son Frederick, an 
 infant not two years old, was k it to he brought up in that 
 island. What the consequences were we shall soon see. 
 
 If we review the events related in this chapter, we find 
 Keviewofthe ^hat * ne idolatry and immorality into which 
 preceding Rome had fallen had become connected with 
 material interests sullieiriitly p< >werful to ensure 
 their perpetuation ; that converted Germany insisted on a 
 reform, and therefore mad-- a moral attaek on the Italian 
 system, attempting to carry it into effect by I ivil force. 
 This attack was, properly speaking, purely moral, the 
 intellectual element accompanying ii being derived from 
 Western or Arabian influences, as will be shown in the next 
 chapter; and, in its resistance to this, the papaey was not 
 only successful, but actually was aide to retaliate, over- 
 throwing' the Emperors "1* (Germany, and being even on 
 the point of establishing a European autocracy, with tin- 
 pope at its head. It was in these events thai the Reform- 
 ation began, though circumstances intervened to postpone 
 its completion to the era of Luther. II. ncetbrth we s«m; 
 more and more plainly the attitude in which the papacy, 
 through its material interests, was compelled to stand, as 
 resisting all intellectual advancement. Our subject has 
 therefore here to be left unfinished until we shall have 
 described the Mohammedan intluenccs making pressures 
 on the West and the East. 
 
C 27 ; 
 
 QHAPTEB II. 
 
 THi: AOK OF I A III I IN Till: WIS I </■„„/ -uu.il). 
 
 THE WMT.KS INI I I I I.. Tt AI. ATTA«K ON THE ITALIAN SYSTEM. 
 
 7Vir« intdbctual < \>>, < litton of t.'hti.-t- d . .// -/ / <r///< ^/.<^ of 
 Arabian Sjxiiti. 
 
 diffusion Arabian int> lb dual Iitjlw * through Vra ' and Sicily. 
 — Esamjd' of i /■*»*"« ii > i ' tc hi Al'm-.tn, unl of l'hilostq>hy in 
 AUjazzaii. — Innocent III. prepares to combat tnese Influences. — JU Witt 
 to Western Europe of the back of Constantinople by the Catholics. 
 
 77*- ' t -i>>id of Mohamm'dan liyftt l.ittrature is foil > d 7 ; lhi> u — 
 77i<j crushing of lltresy in the South of France by armed Force. — The 
 Inquisition, mendicant OnUrt, aun'ctd r ('<> /> - on, <i I < '<i<uistry. 
 
 The rising Sentiment is imU»li<d in /•>« dtrick II. in Sicily. — Hi* 
 Conflict \citli and Overthrow by the 1'ope.— Spnad of Mutiny among 
 the mcndic<tnt < h d< rs. 
 
 A rr.Kssri:K upon tin* Italian system had meantime been 
 arising in the West. It was duo to the presence The VTCBaure 
 of tlu Aral i in Spain. It is necessary, there- from the West 
 fore, to relate the circumstances of their invasion upon Kome * 
 and c<>n<|in m of tliat country, and to compare their social 
 and intellectual condition with the contemporary state of 
 ( 'hristendom. 
 
 From the barbarism of tin- native people of Europe, who 
 muld scarcely ho said to have emerged from the savage 
 state, unclean in pers(»n, benighted in mind, n, ir kirisni of 
 inhabiting huts in which it was a mark of wealth 1 ,1: "1"'- 
 if their were hulrusheson tin- Hour and straw mats against 
 the wall; miserably fed on beans, votches, roots, and even 
 the bark of trees; clad in garments of untanned skin, or at 
 the best of leather -perennial in durability, but not conducive 
 1 personal purity a stab- in which the pomp of royalty 
 
28 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IX THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 was sufficiently and satisfactorily manifested in the equi- 
 page of the sovereign, an ox-cart, drawn by not less than 
 two yokes of cattle, quickened in their movements by the 
 goads of pedestrian serfs, whose legs were wrapped in 
 wisps of straw; from a people, devout believers in all the 
 wild fictions of shrine-miracles and preposterous relics; 
 from the degradation of a base theology, and from the disputes 
 of ambitious ecclesiastics for power, it is pleasant to turn 
 to the south-west corner of the continent, where, under 
 auspices of a very different kind, the irradiat i« >ns of light 
 were to break forth. The crescent in the West was soon 
 to pass eastward to its lull. 
 
 But I must retrace my steps through four centuries, 
 and resume the description of the Arabian movement after 
 the subjugation of Africa, as related in the former volume, 
 Chapter XI. 
 
 These were the circumstances of the Arab conquest of 
 Spain. In that country the Arian Creed had been sup- 
 planted by the orthodox, and the customary persecutions 
 Arab invasion had set in. From the time of t lie Emperor 
 of Spain. Hadrian, who had transported .jD.duO Jewish 
 families into Spain, that race had greatly increased, and, 
 as might be expected, had received no mercy at the hands 
 of the orthodox. Ninety thousand individuals had 
 recently suffered compulsory baptism, and so had been 
 brought under the atrocious ( atholic law that whoever has 
 been baptized shall be compelled to continue the observances 
 of the Church. The Gothic monarchy was elective, and 
 Roderic had succeeded to the throne, to the prejudice of 
 the heirs of his predecessor. Though a very brave soldier, 
 he was a luxurious and licentious man. It was the custom 
 of the Goths to send their children to Toledo to be edu- 
 cated, and, under these circumstances, a young girl of 
 extraordinary beauty, the daughter of Count Julian, 
 governor of Ceuta in Africa, was residing there. King 
 Eoderic fell passionately in love with her, and, being unal >le 
 to overcome her virtuous resolution by persuasion, resorted 
 to violence. The girl found means to inform her father of 
 what had occurred. "By the living God!" exclaimed the 
 count, in a paroxysm of rage, ;> I will be revenged." But, 
 dissembling his wrath, he crossed over into Spain, had an 
 
CH. II.] I HE AGE OF FAITO IN" THE WS8T. 
 
 29 
 
 understanding with Oppas, the Archbishop of Toledo, and 
 other disatfeeted . •<•(.• lesiast ies. and, under s] iccious pretences, 
 lulled tin* suspicions of Ic'dcrie, and hn ught his daughter 
 away. And now ho opened communications with the Emir 
 Musa, ] ]• vailing upon him to attempt tin- c< >n< piest of the 
 country, and « >fl'erin g that he h i m>- 1 f wonld take the lead. 
 The conditions wen; set t led between them, and the consent 
 of the Id lal if to the expedition obtained. Tarik, a lieutenant 
 of the emir, was B&tki aotOM the Straits with the van of the 
 army. Be landed on the rook called, in memory of his 
 name, Gibraltar, April, tj>, 711. In the battle that 
 ensued, a part of Rooerio'a troops, together with Itscon ne8t 
 the A id 1 hi. shop of Toledo, consummated their 
 
 treasonable eompaet, and deserted to the Arabs ; tho rest 
 
 were pa&io-6trioken« In the rout, Boderio himself was 
 
 drowned in t he waters of the < J uadalquivir. 
 
 Tarik now proceeded rapidly northward, and was soon 
 joined by his superior, the Emir Musa, who was not, 
 perhaps, without jealousy at his sueeess. As the Aral) 
 
 hiatonani Bay, the Almighty delivered the idolators into 
 their hand, and gave them one victory after another. As 
 the tow ns successively fell, they left them in charge of the 
 .lews, to whose revenue the euixpiest was largely due, and 
 who could he thoroughly trusted; nor did they pause in 
 their march until they had passed the French frontier and 
 reached the lihone. It was the intention of Musa to cross the 
 Kuropean continent to Constantinople, subjugating the 
 V rank, ( ierman, and Italian barbarians by the way. At 
 this time it seemed impossible that France could escape 
 the fate of Spain ; and if she fell, the threat of Musa would 
 inevitably have come to pass, that he would preach the Unity 
 of God in the Vatican. But a quarrel had arisen between 
 him and Tarik, who had been imprisoned and even 
 scourged. The friends of the latter, however, did not fail 
 him at the court of Damascus. An envoy from the Khali f 
 Alwalid appeared, ordering Musa to desist from his enter- 
 prise, to return to Syria, and exonerate himself of the 
 things laid to his charge. Putt Mini bribed the envoy to 
 let him advance. Hereupon the angry khalif dispatched 
 a second messenger, who, in face of the Moslems and 
 Christians, audaciously arn->1ed him. at the head of his 
 
30 
 
 THF AGE OF FAITH IX THE WEST. 
 
 [cn. n. 
 
 troops, by the bridle of his horse. The conqueror of Spain 
 was compelled to return. He was cast into prison, fined 
 200,000 pieces of gold, publicly whipped, and his life with 
 difficulty spared. As is related of JSelisarius, Musa was 
 driven as a beggar to solicit charity, and the Saracen con- 
 queror of Spain ended his da ws in grief and absolute want. 
 
 The dissensions among the Aiabs, far more than the 
 sword of Charles Martel, prevented the M< hammedaniza- 
 ArrestofM ^ rancu - 'Tlieir historians admit tlio 
 
 hammed&n- great check received at the battle of Tours, in 
 otEutoi^ which Abderrahman was killed: they call that 
 field the Place of the Martyrs; but their accounts 
 by no means correspond to the relations of the Christian 
 authors, who affirm that :57ojui<) Mohanum-dans fell, and 
 only lo<>0 Christians. The defeat was not so disastrous 
 but that in a few months they were able to resume their 
 advance, and their progress was arrested only by re- 
 newed dissensions aim >ng theinsel \vs — dissensi. ms not alono 
 among the leaders in Spain, but also more serious ones 
 of aspirants for the khalifate in Asia. On the overthrow 
 of the Ommiade house, Abderrahman, one of that family, 
 escaped to Spain, which repaid the pal r» mage of its conquest 
 by acknowledging him as its sovereign, lie made Cordova 
 the seat of his government. Neither he nor his immediate 
 successors took any other title than that of Emir, out of 
 respect to the khalif, who resided at Bagdad, the metro- 
 polis of Islam, though they maintained a rivalry with him 
 in the patronage of letters and science. Abderrahman 
 himself strengthened his power by an alliance with 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain 
 Civilization wnen t nev commenced a brilliant career. Adopt- 
 uid splendour ing what had now become the estal dished policy 
 A f rab' SpdniSb of the Commanders of the Faithful in Asia, the 
 Emirs of Cordova distinguished themselves as 
 patrons of learning, and set an example of refinement 
 strongly contrasting with the condition of the native 
 European princes. Cordova, under their administration, 
 at its highest point of prosperity, boasted of more than 
 two hundred thousand houses, and more than a million 
 of inhabitants. After sunset, a man might walk through 
 
oHi a.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FA IT II IX IT IE WEST. 
 
 31 
 
 it in ,t straight lino f. .r ten miles 1 »V the light of the public 
 lamps. Seven hundred years after this time there was not 
 so much as one public lamp in London. Its streets were 
 solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently, whoever 
 stepped over bis threshold on a rainy day stepped up to his 
 ankles in mud. Other cities, as Granada, Seville, Toledo, 
 considered themselves rivals of Cordova. The palaces of 
 the khalifa were magnificent ly deoOratecL Those sovereigns 
 might well look down with supercilious contempt on the 
 dwellings of tho rulers of Germany, France, and England, 
 which were scarcely better than stables — chimneyless, 
 windowless, and with a hole in the root* for the smoke to 
 . scape, like the wigwams of certain Indians. The ►Spanish 
 Mohammedans had brought with them all the luxuries and 
 prodigalities of Asia. Their residences stood forth against 
 the dear blue sky. or were embosomed in woods. T j loir p. ll;lCl „ 
 They had polished marble balconies, overhang- a,ui 6 mlcns - 
 ing orange ganh us ; courts with cascades of water ; shady 
 retreats provocative of slumber in tho heat of the day ; 
 retiring-rooms vaulted with stained glass, speckled with 
 gold, over which streams of water were made to gush ; the 
 floors and walls were of exquisite mosaic. Here, a fountain 
 of quicksilver shot up in a glistening spray, the glittering 
 particles foiling with a tranquil sound like fairy bells; there, 
 apartments into which cod air was drawn from the flower- 
 gardens, in summer, by means of ventilating towers, and 
 in winter through earthen pip- s, or ealeduets, imbedded in 
 the walls the hypoeaust, in the vaults below, breathing 
 forth volumes of warm and perfumed air through these 
 hidden passages. The walls were not covered with 
 wainscot, but adorned with arabesques, and paintings of 
 agricultural scenes and views of Paradise. From the 
 ceilings, c< »rniced with fretted gold, great chandeliers hung, 
 one of which, it is said, was so largo that it contained 1804 
 lamps. Clusters of frail marble columns surprised tho 
 beholder with the vast weights they bore. In the boudoirs 
 of the sultanas they were sometimes of verd antique, and 
 incrusted with lapis lazuli. The furniture was of sandal 
 and citron w >od, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, ivory, silver, 
 or relieved with gold and preoioufl malachite. In orderly 
 confusion weir arranged vases of rock crystal, Chinese 
 
32 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [ch. ... 
 
 porcelains, and tallies of exquisite mosaic. The winter 
 apartments were hung -with rich tapestry ; the floors were 
 covered with embroidered Persian carpets. Pillows and 
 conches, of elegant forms, were scattered about tho rooms, 
 perfumed with frankincense. It was the intention of the 
 Saracen architect, by excluding the view of the external 
 landscape, to concentrate attention on his work ; and since 
 the representation of the human form was religiously for- 
 bidden, and that source of decoration denied, his imagina- 
 tion ran riot with the complieated arabesques he introduced, 
 and sought every opportunity of replacing the prohibited 
 works of art by the trophies and rarities of the garden. 
 For this reason, tlie Arabs never produced artists; religion 
 turned them from the beautiful, and made them soldiers, 
 philosophers, and men of atlairs. Splendid flowers and rare 
 exotics ornamented the courtyards and even the inner 
 chambers. Great care was taken to make due provision 
 for the cleanliness, occupation, and amusement of the 
 inmates. Through pipes of metal, water, both warm and 
 cold, to suit the season of the year, ran into baths of 
 marble; in niches, where the current of air could be arti- 
 ficially directed, hung dripping alcarazzas. There were 
 whispering-galleries for the amusement of the women; 
 labyrinths and marble play-courts for the children ; for the 
 master himself, grand libraries. The Khalif Alhakem's 
 Libraries and was SO large that the catalogue alone filled forty 
 works of taste, volumes. He had also apartments for the tran- 
 scribing, binding, and ornamenting of books. A taste for 
 caligraphy and the possession of splendidly-illuminated 
 manuscripts seems to have anticipated in the khalifs, both 
 of Asia and Spain, the taste for statuary and paintings 
 among the later popes of Rome. 
 
 Such were the palace and gardens of Zehra, in which 
 The court of Abderrahman III. honoured his favourite sultana. 
 Abderrahman The edifice had 1200 columns of Greek, Italian, 
 ]l Spanish, and African marble. Its hall of 
 
 audience was incrusted with gold and pearls. Through the 
 long corridors of its seraglio black eunuchs silently glided. 
 The ladies of the harem, both wives and concubines, were 
 the most beautiful that could be found. To that establish- 
 ment alone 6300 persons were attached. The body-guard 
 
CH. II. j 
 
 TIIK AGr OF PAITfl 1\ HIE WEST, 
 
 of tin- sovereign was c< imposed of 12,<V>0 horsemen, whoso 
 ciineb rs and belts wi-rc studded with gold. This was that 
 Abderrahman who, after a glorious reign of lift y years, sat 
 down to count the number of days of unalloyed happiness 
 he ha<l experienced, ami could only enumerate fourteen. 
 " ( )h man !" exclaimed the plaintive khalif, " put not thy 
 trust in this present world." 
 
 N<> nation has ever excelled the Spanish Aral's in the 
 beauty and costliness of their pin asure-gardens. T* i them 
 wo owe the introduction of very many of our social imbita 
 most valuable cultivated fruits, Midi as the ])each. " ftl "- M,>or!, • 
 detaining t he love of t heir ancestors f< >r the e< »< ding effect of 
 water in a hot climate, they spared no pains in the super- 
 fluity of fountains, hydraulic works, and artificial lakes in 
 which fish were raised for the table. Into such a lake, 
 attached to the palace of Cordova, many loaves were cast 
 each day to feed the fish. There, were also menageries of 
 foreign animals; aviaries of rare birds; manufactories in 
 which skilled workmen, obtained from foreign countries, 
 displayed their art in text uivs of silk, cotton, linen, and all 
 the miracles of the loom ; in jewelry and filigree-work, 
 with which they ministered to the female pride of tho 
 sultanas and concubines. I n h i the shade of cypresses 
 cascades disappeared ; among flowering shrubs there were 
 winding walks, bowers of roses, seats cut out of the rock, 
 and crypt-like grottoes hewn in the living stone. Nowhere 
 was ornamental garden ing better understood ; for not only 
 did the artist try to please the eye as it wandered over the 
 pleasant gradation of vegetable colour and form lie also 
 boasted his success in the gratification of the sense of smell 
 by the studied succession of perfumes from beds of flowers. 
 
 To these Saracens we are indebted for many of our per- 
 sonal comforts. Keligiously cleanly, it was not Thnr .Jom.-s- 
 possible for them to clothe themselves according tic lir,> - 
 to the fashion of the natives of Europe, in a garment un- 
 changed till it dropped to pieces of itself, a loathsome mass 
 of vermin, stench, and rags. No Arab who had been a 
 minister of state, or the associate or antagonist of a sove- 
 reign, would have offered such a spectacle as the corpse of 
 Thomas a Beeket when his haircloth shirt was removed. 
 They taught us the use of the often-changed and often- 
 
 Vol. KL i) 
 
34 
 
 tup: age of faith in the west. 
 
 r CH~. II. 
 
 washed onder-garment of linen or cotton, whioh still passes 
 among ladies under its old Arabic name. ]>ut to cleanli- 
 ness they were not unwilling to add ornament. Especially 
 among women of the higher classes was the love of finery 
 a passion. Their enter garments were often of silk, 
 embroidered and decorated with --ems and woven gold. 
 So fond were the Moorish women of gay colours ami the 
 lustre of chrysolites, hyacinths, emeralds, and sapphires, 
 that it was quaintly said that the interior of any public 
 building in which they were permitted to appear looked 
 like a flowev-meadow in the spring besprinkled with vain. 
 
 In 1 he midst of all this luxury, which cannot be regarded 
 Thfv cu]( ._ by the historian wit li disdain, since in the end it 
 vatv litem- pvodueed a most important result in the south of 
 tare, innate, F] , m( .^ t]ir Spanish khalifs. emulating the 
 example of their Asiatic compeers, and in this strongly 
 contrasting with the popes of Home, were not only the 
 patrons, but the personal cultivators of all the branches of 
 human learning. One of them was himself the author of 
 a work on polite literature in not less than fifty volumes ; 
 another wrote a treatise on algebra. When Zaryab the 
 musician came from the East to Spain, the Khalif Abder- 
 rahman rode forth to meet him in honour. The College 
 of Music in Cordova was sustained by ample government 
 patronage, and produced many illustrious professors. 
 
 The Arabs never translated into their ow n tongue the 
 great Greek poets, though they so sedulously collected and 
 translated the Greek philosophers. Their religious senti- 
 ments and sedate character caused them to abomi- 
 approveof nate the lewdness of our classical mythology, 
 I&ropeanmy- an( \ I0 denounce indignantly any connexion 
 between the licentious, impure Olympian Jove 
 and the Most High God as an insufferable and unpardonable 
 blasphemy. Haroun Alraschid had gratified his curiosity by 
 causing Homer to be translated into Syriac, but he did not 
 adventure on rendering the great epics into Arabic. Not- 
 withstanding this aversion to our graceful but not unobjec- 
 tionable ancient poetry, among them originated the Tensons, 
 or poetic disputations, carried afterward to perfection 
 among the Troubadours ; from them, also, the Provencals 
 learned to employ jongleurs. Across the Pyrenees, literary, 
 
ill. II.] 
 
 THE \<;k OF faith in THE Wi ST. 
 
 35 
 
 philosophical, am] military adventurers were perpetually 
 passing ; and thus the luxury, the taste, and above all, tho 
 chivalrous gallantry and elegant courtesies of Moorish 
 society found their way from (Jranada and 
 Cordova to Provence and Languodoc. The of rrtnoa 
 French, and (ierman, and Knglish nobles im- ^''' 1 t r r ' ( u i ^ ( p 
 hibed the Aral> admiration of the horse; they 
 
 learned to pride themaelvefl on skilful riding. Hunting 
 
 and la h-i ,nry h< came their fashionable pastimes ; they tried 
 to emulate that Arab skill w hich had produced the cele- 
 brated breed of Amlalusian horses. It was a scene of 
 grandeur and gallantry ; the pastimes were tilts and tour- 
 naments. The refmed society of Cordova prided itself in 
 its politeness. A gay contagion spread from the beautiful 
 Moorish miscreants to their sisters beyond the mountains ; 
 the south of France was full of the witcheries of female 
 fascinations, and of dancing to the lute and mandolin. 
 Even in Italy and Sicily t he love-song became t lie favourite 
 composition; and out of these genial but not orthodox 
 beginnings the polite literature of modern 
 Europe an -sc. The pleasant epidemic spread by t ^.' N ,r, 
 degrees along every hillside and valley. In jjJjjSjjS* 
 monasteries, voices that had vowed celibacy 
 might be heard carolling stanzas of which St. .Jerome would 
 ha i dly have approved ; there was many a juicy abbot, who 
 Could troll foll£ in jocund strains, like those of the merry 
 dinners of Malaga and Xeres, the charms of women and 
 wine, though one was forbidden to the .Moslem and one to 
 the monk. The sedate greybeards of Cordova had already 
 applied to the supremo judge to have the songs of the 
 Spanish dew, Abraham Ibn Sahal, prohibited; for thero 
 was not a youth, nor woman, nor child in the city who 
 could not repeat them by heart. Their immoral tendency 
 was a public scandal. The light gaiety of Spain was 
 reflected in the coarser habits of the northern countries. 
 It. was an archdeacon of < Oxford who some time afterward 
 «ang, 
 
 " MQbJ sit ttOfMftltum in tabenii mori, 
 Yinutn sit fippeMtuin niericntis nri, 
 I t rlirnnt, cum vciicrint nnp lnrum ohori ; 
 I >«»uh Mt |>roj»itiuH huio pntnteri,' " etc. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN" THE WEST. 
 
 |_CH. 11. 
 
 Even as early as the tenth eentury, persons having a 
 taste for learning and for elegant amenities found their 
 way into Spain from all adjoining countries; a practice 
 in Buhsequent years still nioivindulgvd in. when it hecame 
 illustrated by the brilliant success of Gerbert, who, as we 
 have seen, passed from the Infidel University of Cordova 
 to the papacy of Koine. 
 
 The khalifs of the West carried out the precepts of Ali, 
 The Arabian the fourth SUe< essor of Mohammed, in the 
 school system, patronage of literature. They established libra- 
 ries in all their chief towns ; it is said that not fewer 
 than seventy were in existence. To every mosque was 
 attached a public school, in which the children of the poor 
 were taught to read and write, and instrueted in the 
 precepts of the Koran. For those in easier circumstances 
 there were academies, usually arranged in twenty-live or 
 thirty apartments, each calculated fur accommodating foui 
 students; the academy being presided over by a rector. 
 In Cordova, Granada, and other great cities, there were 
 universities frequently under the superintendence of 
 Jews; the Mohammedan maxim bring that the real learn- 
 ing of a man is of mure public importance than any 
 particular religious opinions he may entertain. In this 
 they followed the example of the Asiatic khalif, Haroun 
 Alraschid, who actually conferred the superintendence of 
 his schools on John Masue, a Nestorian Christian. The 
 Mohammedan liberality was in striking contrast with 
 the intolerance of Europe. Indeed, it may be doubted 
 whether at this time any European nation is sufficiently 
 advanced to follow such an example. Jn the universities 
 some of the professors of polite literature gave lectures 
 on Arabic classical works ; others taught rhetoric or 
 composition, or mathematics, or astronomy. From these 
 institutions many of the practices observed in our colleges 
 were derived. They held Commencements, at which 
 poems were read and orations delivered in presence of the 
 public. They had also, in addition to these schools of 
 general learning, professional ones, particularly for me- 
 dicine. 
 
 With a pride perhaps not altogether inexcusable, the 
 Arabians boasted of their language as being the most 
 
CH. II. 
 
 IB1 401 Of FAITH in Tin: WIST. 
 
 37 
 
 perfect spoken 1 »y man. ^rolvamincd himself, when chal- 
 lenged to produce a mine].- in proof of the ^ 
 Authenticity of liis mission, uniformly pointed ,.j c, lInnia r, 
 to tin* composition of tin- Koran, its unapproach- 1 1 •"><-. com- 
 
 it • t • • • • • rr\\ position. 
 
 able ex c. -11. n« <• \' 1 1 1 < I i 1 ; 1 1 1 1 ; g it - inspiration. 1 lu* 
 ►rth<»(l(»x Musl-'iiis tin- Moslems aiv 1 1 1 • ■ - • • who arc sub- 
 missively re8iguc<l to the Divine will — are wont to assert 
 nhat every page of that book is indeed a conspicuous 
 miracle. It is n<»t then surprising that, in the Arabian 
 win ». ils, great at t«-nt i« »n w paid to the study of language, 
 ai m 1 that so many celebrated grammarians were produced. 
 By theso scholars, dictionaries, similar to those now in 
 use, were eMiiijM.^-,1 ; their eopinusiiess i s i nd i ca ted by t ho 
 circumstance that one of them consisted of sixty volumes, 
 tho definition of each word being illustrated or sustained 
 by <ju< .tit i< »ns from Arab authors of acknowledged repute. 
 They had also lexicons of (ireek, Latin, Hebrew; and 
 cyclopedias such as the Historical Dictionary of Sciences 
 of Moll mimed Ibn AKlallah, of (iranada. In their highest 
 oivilization and luxury they did not forget, the amuse- 
 ments of their forefathers — listening to tho tale-teller, 
 who never failed to obtain an audience in the midst of 
 Aral, tents. Vround the evening tires in Spain the wan- 
 dering literati exercised their wonderful powers of 
 Oriental invention, edifying the eager listeners by such 
 narrations as those that have descended to us in the 
 Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Tho more sober and 
 higher efforts of the educated were, of course, directed to 
 pulpit eloquence, in conformity with the example of all the 
 great < h'iental khalifs, and sanctified by the practice of tho 
 Prophet himself. fheir poetical productions embraced all 
 the modern minor forms — satires, odes, elegies, etc.; but 
 they never produced any w« >rk in the higher walks of poesy, 
 
 no epic, do tragedy* Perhaps this was due to Ivf( . r(sof 
 
 their false fashion of valuing the mechanical ttfclr Uter* 
 exocution of a work. They were tho authors ,nl,, ' 
 and introducers of rhyme; and Mich was the luxuriance 
 and abundance of their language, that, in some of their 
 longest poems, the .same rhyme is said to have been used 
 alternately from the l>eginning to the end. Where such 
 mechanical triumphs were popularly prized, it may be 
 
38 
 
 THi: A.GE OF FAITH IN' THE WEST. 
 
 |CH. II, 
 
 supposed that the conception and spirit would be indif- 
 ferent. Even among the Spanish women there were not 
 a few who, like Yelada, Ayesha, Lakma, Algasania, 
 achieved reputation in these compositions; and .some of 
 them were daughters of khalifs. And this is the more in- 
 teresting to US, since it was from the Provencal poetry, the 
 direct descendant of these efforts, ilat European lite- 
 rature arose. Sonnets and romances at last displaced the 
 grimly-orthodox productions of the wearisome and ignorant 
 fathers of the Church. 
 
 If fiction was prized among the Spanish Araks, history 
 was held in not less esteem. Every Trlmlif had his own 
 historian. The instincts of the race arc perpetually 
 peeping out; not only were there historians of the 
 Commanders of the Faithful, hut also of eelehrated horses* 
 and illustrious camels. In connexion with history, sta- 
 tistics were cultivated : this having heen, it may he said, 
 a necessary study, from the first enforced on the Saracen 
 officers in their assessment of tribute on conquered mis- 
 believers, and subsequently continued as an object of 
 taste. It was, doubtless, a similar necessity, arising from 
 Thetrtaste their position, that stamped such a remarkably 
 for practical practical aspect on the science of tho Arabs 
 generally. Many of their learned men were 
 travellers and voyagers, constantly moving about for 
 the acquisition or diffusion of knowledge, their acquire- 
 ments being a passport to them wherever they went, 
 and a sufficient introduction to any of the African or 
 Asiatic courts. They were thus continually brought in 
 contact with men of affairs, soldiers of fortune, statesmen, 
 and became imbued with much of their practical spirit ; 
 and hence the singularly romantic character which the 
 biographies of many of these men display, wonderful 
 turns of prosperity, violent deaths. The scope of their 
 literary labours offers a subject well worthy of meditation ; 
 it contrasts with the contemporary ignorance of Europe. 
 Some wrote on chronology ; some on numismatics ; some, 
 now that military eloquence had become objectless, wrote 
 on pulpit oratory ; some on agriculture and its allied 
 branches, as the art of irrigation. Not one of the purely 
 mathematical, or mixed, or practical sciences was omitted. 
 
CH. EL ' 
 
 THE AG B OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 39 
 
 Out of a li.st ton long for detailed quotation, I may recall 
 a few names. Aflnamft, who wrote on topography and 
 btat ist ics, a brave soldier, who was killed in the inva- 
 sion of France, a.d. 720; Avicenna, the great Til ,. jr( ,, n . 
 physician and philosopher, who died a.i». 1o;)7; t^>« * * incii-^ 
 Averroes, of ( 'ordnva, the chief commentator on stu.iy of n.-- 
 Aristotle, a.d. 1 198. It was his intention to unite dlcino - 
 tie- doctrines of Aristotle with those of the Koran. To 
 him is imputed the discovery of spots upon the sun. The 
 leading idea of his philosophy was the numerical unity 
 of the souls of mankind, though parted among millions of 
 living individuals. lie died at Morocco. Abu Othman 
 wrote on /.oology; Alheruni, on gems he had travelled 
 t<> India to procure information; lilia/.es, Al Abbas, and 
 Al Beithar, on botany the latter hail been in all parts of 
 the world for the purpose of obtaining specimens. Ebn 
 /oar. better known as Avenzoar, may be looked upon 
 as the authority in Moorish pharmacy. Phannacop.eias 
 
 were published ly the schools, improvements on the old 
 ones of the Nestoriuns : to them may be traced the 
 introduction of many Arabic words, such as syrup, julep, 
 elixir, still used anion- apothecaries. A competent 
 scholar might furnish not only an interesting, but valuable 
 book, founded on the remaining relics of the u,. li( . s uf ,]„. 
 Arab vocabulary: for, in whatever direction we Arab v.x.ii. 
 may look, we meet, in the various pursuits of ulat *' 
 peace and war, of let ters and of science, Saracenic vestiges. 
 
 Qur dictionaries bell us thai such is the origin of admiral, 
 
 alchemy, alcohol, algebra, chemise, cotton, and hundreds 
 of other words. The Sara-ens commenced the application 
 of chemistry, both to the theory and practice of medicine, 
 in the explanation of the functions of the human body 
 and in the cure of its diseases. Nor was their surgery 
 
 behind their medicine. Albucasis, of Cordova, .... . ,. 
 
 i i x» i r o Their meni- 
 
 shi inks not from the performance ot the most cine and sur- 
 formidablo operations in his own and in the gery ' 
 obstetrical art; the actual cautery and the knife are 
 
 used without hesitation. Be has left us ample descrip- 
 tions of the surgical instruments then employed ; and from 
 him we learn that, in operations on females in which con- 
 siderations of delioapy intervened, the services of properly 
 
40 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WIST. 
 
 [OK. II. 
 
 instructed women were secured. How different was all 
 this from the state of things in Europe: the Christian 
 peasant, ^ever-stricken or overtaken by accident, hied 
 to the nearest saint4hrine and expected a miracle; the 
 Spanish Moor relied on the prescription or lancet of his 
 physician, or the bandage and knife of his surgeon. 
 
 In mathematics the Arabians acknowledged tlieir in- 
 debtedness to two sources, Greek and Indian, but they 
 Liberality of g r( ' a tly improved npon both. 'Hie Asiatic khalifs 
 the Asiatic had made exertions to procure translations of 
 Euclid, Apollonitis, Archimedes, and other Greek 
 
 geometers. Almaimon, in a h-it< r to the Emperor The- 
 "pliilus, expressed his desire to visit Constantinople if 
 liis public duties would have permitted. He requests of 
 him to allow Leo the mathematician to oome to I'agdad to 
 import to him a portion of his learning, pledging his word 
 that he would restore him quickly and safely again. 
 " Do not," says the high-minded khalif, "let diversity of 
 religion or of country cause you to refuse my request. Do 
 what friendship would concede to a friend. In return, I 
 offer you a hundred weight of gold, a perpetual alliance 
 and peace." True to the instincts of his race; and the 
 traditions of his city, the l>yzantinc sourly and insolently 
 refused the request, saying that "the learning which 
 had illustrated the Roman name should never be imparted 
 to a barbarian." 
 
 From the Hindus the Arabs learned arithmetic, especially 
 
 that valuable invention termed by us the Arabic 
 improved numerals, but honourably ascribed by them to 
 ™hi!metic P ro P er source, under the designation of 
 
 " Indian numerals." They also entitled their 
 treatises on the subject " Systems of Indian Arithmetic." 
 This admirable notation by nine digits and cipher occasioned 
 a complete revolution in arithmetical computations. As 
 in the case of so many other things, the Arab impress is 
 upon it ; our word cipher, and its derivatives, ciphering, 
 etc., recall the Arabic word tsaphara or ciphra, the name 
 for the 0, and meaning that which is blank or void. 
 Mohammed Ben Musa, said to be the earliest of the Saracen 
 authors on algebra, and who made the great improvement 
 of substituting sines for chords in trigonometry, wrote also 
 
CB.1L] nn A01 Of FAITH in Tin-: west. 41 
 
 "ii tin's Indian system. He liv< d at the end of the nintlj 
 century ; before the end of the tenth it was in common use 
 among the Afiican and Spanish mathematicians. Elm 
 Junis, a.d. 1008, used it in his astronomical works. From 
 S] ain it passed into Italy, its singular advantage in com- 
 nn rcia] fnni].iitati(.ji eausing it t-» be eagerly adopted in 
 tin- greal trading citi< \\ e still use the word algorithm 
 in reference to calculations. Tin- study of algebra was 
 intently cultivated among tin- Aral's, who gave it the 
 name it bears. Ben Musa, just referred to, was the 
 invent r of tin- minium) method of solving (quadratic 
 equations. In tho application of mathematics to Their astro- 
 istronomy and physics they liad been long dis- n««nucai dis- 
 tinguished. Almaimon had determined with °° ve 
 
 considerable accuracy tl Miquity of the ecliptic. His 
 
 result, with those uf • »me other Saracen astronomers, is as 
 fulh.ws : 
 
 s:io Alnmimnn 23" 35' 52" 
 
 S7i». All i'. miiis, nt ArnrN* 'SA 35' 00 
 
 1>S7. Ahmil \V. fa, at I'm-dad L»3" 35' 00 
 
 995, Aboul Itilmu, with n quadrant of 25 feet radius 23" 35' 00 
 
 10601 nranhtd 23° 34' 00 
 
 Almaiiii ii had also as< m rtained the sizo of the earth from 
 the measurement of a degree on the shore of the Ked Sea — 
 an operation implying true ideas of its form, and in 
 
 insular contrast, with the doctrine of Constantinople and 
 Koine. While the latter was assert in-', in all its absurdity, 
 the flatness of the earth, the Spanish Moors were teaching 
 geography in their common schools from globes. In 
 
 \fnVa, iii. ro was still preserved, with almost religious 
 reverence, in the library at Cairo, one of brass, reputed to 
 have l>elonged to the great astronomer rtolcmy. Al Idrisi 
 mad. one of silver for Roger EL, of Sicily; and Gerbert 
 used on." w hi. h he had hrought from (Wdova in the school 
 he established at Hheims. It cost a struggle of several 
 rentnn'.s, illustrated by some martyrdoms, before the 
 
 dictum of Laotantius and Augustine could be overthrown! 
 kmong problems of interest, that wore solved may be 
 
 mentioned the determination of the length of the year 
 
 by Albategniufl fend Tlx l it Ben Corrah j and increased 
 
42 
 
 THE AGE OF *AITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. If 
 
 accuracy was given to the correction of astronomical 
 observations by Alhazen's great discovery of atniospheria 
 refraction. Among the astronomers, some composed tables 
 some wrote on the measure of time ; some on the improve- 
 ment of clocks, for which purpose they were the first to 
 apply the pendulum ; some on instruments, as the astrolabe. 
 The introduction of astronomy into Christian Europe has 
 been attributed to the translation of the works of Moham- 
 med Fargani. In Europe, also, the Arabs were the first 
 to build observatories ; the Giralda, or tower of Seville, 
 was erected under the superintendence of Geber, the 
 mathematician, a.d. 1196, for that purpose. Its fate was 
 not a little characteristic. After the expulsion of the 
 Moors it was turned into a belfry, the Spaniards not know- 
 ing what else to do with it. 
 
 I have to deplore the systematic manner in which the 
 literature of Europe has contrived to put out of 
 tohfdeits 168 sight our scientific obligations to the Moham- 
 tbem ati0DS t0 me( ^ ans - Surely they cannot be much longer 
 hidden. Injustice founded on religious rancour 
 and national conceit cannot be perpetuated for ever. 
 What should the modern astronomer say when, remember- 
 ing the contemporary barbarism of Europe, he finds the 
 Arab Abul Hassan speaking of tubes, to the extremities of 
 which ocular and object diopters, perhaps sights, were 
 attached, as used at Meragha ? what when he reads of the- 
 attempts of Abderrahman Sufi at improving the photometry 
 of the stars ? Are the astronomical tables of Ebn Junis 
 (a.d. 1008), called the Hakemite tables, or the Ilkanic 
 tables of Nasser Eddin Tasi, constructed at the great 
 observatory just mentioned, Meragha, near Tauris, a.d. 
 1259, or the measurement of time by pendulum oscillations, 
 and the methods of correcting astronomical tables by 
 systematic observations — are such things worthless indica- 
 tions of the mental state ? The Arab has left his intellectual 
 impress on Europe, as, before long, Christendom will have 
 to confess ; he has indelibly written it on the heavens, as 
 any one may see who reads the names of the stars on a 
 common celestial globe. 
 
 Our obligations to the Spanish Moors in the arts of 
 life are even more marked than in the higher branches 
 
CH. II.J THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 43 
 
 of science, perhaps only because our ancestors were better 
 prepared to take advantage of things connected Improve . 
 with daily affairs. They set an example of merits in the 
 skilful agriculture, the practice of which was ai ts of llfe ' 
 regulated by a code of laws. Not only did they attend to 
 the cultivation of plants, introducing very many new 
 ones, they likewise paid great attention to the breeding of 
 cattle, especially the sheep and horse. To them we owe 
 the introduction of the great products, rice, sugar, cotton, 
 and also, as we have previously observed, nearly all the 
 fine garden and orchard fruits, together with many less 
 important plants, as spinach and saffron. To them Spain 
 owes the culture of silk ; they gave to Xeres and Malaga 
 their celebrity for wine. They introduced the Egyptian 
 system of irrigation by flood-gates, wheels, and pumps. 
 They also promoted many important branches of industry ; 
 improved the manufacture of textile fabrics, earthenware, 
 iron, steel ; the Toledo sword-blades were everywhere 
 prized for their temper. The Arabs, on their expulsion 
 from Spain, carried the manufacture of a kind of leather, 
 in which they were acknowledged to excel, to Morocco, 
 from which country the leather itself has now taken its- 
 name. They also introduced inventions of a more ominous 
 kind — gunpowder and artillery. The cannon they used 
 appeared to have been made of wrought iron. But perhaps 
 they more than compensated for these evil contrivances by 
 the introduction of the mariner's compass. 
 
 The mention of the mariner's compass might lead 
 us correctly to infer that the Spanish Arabs Their com- 
 were interested in commercial pursuits, a con- merce - 
 elusion to which we should also come when we consider 
 the revenues of some of their khalifs. That of Abderrah- 
 man III. is stated at five and a half million sterling— a 
 vast sum if considered by its modern equivalent, aud 
 far more than could possibly be raised by taxes on tht 
 produce of the soil. It probably exceeded the entire 
 revenue of all the sovereigns of Christendom taken to- 
 gether. From Barcelona and other ports an immense 
 trade with the Levant was maintained, but it was mainly 
 in the hands of the Jews, who, from the first invasion 
 of Spain by Musa, had ever been the firm allies and 
 
44 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [~CH. II. 
 
 collaborators of the Arabs. Together they had participated 
 in the dangers of the invasion ; together they had shared 
 its boundless success ; together they had held in irreverent 
 derision, nay, even in contempt, the woman-worshippers 
 and polytheistic savages beyond the Pyrenees — as they 
 mirthfully called those whose long-delayed vengeance 
 they were in the end to feel ; together they were expelled. 
 Against such Jews as lingered behind the hideous persecu- 
 tions of the Inquisition were directed. But in the days 
 of their prosperity they maintained a merchant marine 
 of more than a thousand ships. They had factories and 
 oonsuls on the Tana'is. With Constantinople alone they 
 maintained a great trade ; it ramified from the Black Sea 
 and East Mediterranean into the interior of Asia; it 
 reached the ports of India and China, and extended along 
 the African coast as far as Madagascar. Even in these 
 commercial affairs the singular genius of the Jew and 
 Arab shines forth. In the midst of the tenth century, 
 when Europe was about in the same condition that 
 Caffraria is now, enlightened Moors, like Abul Cassem, 
 were writing treatises on the principles of trade and 
 commerce. As on so many other occasions, on these affairs 
 they have left their traces. The smallest weight they 
 used in trade was the grain of barley, four of which were 
 equal to one sweet pea, called in Arabic carat. We still 
 use the grain as our unit of weight, and still speak of 
 gold as being so many carats fine. 
 
 Such were the Khalifs of the West; such their splen- 
 obligations to dour, their luxury, their knowledge ; such some 
 the Khaiifs of of the obligations we are under to them — 
 the west. obligations which Christian Europe, with sin- 
 gular insincerity, has ever been fain to hide. The cry 
 against the misbeliever has long outlived the Crusades. 
 Considering the enchanting country over which they ruled, 
 it was not without reason that they caused to be engraven 
 on the public seal, " The servant of the Merciful rests 
 contented in the decrees of God." What more, indeed, 
 could Paradise give them? But, considering also the 
 evil end of all this happiness and pomp, this learning, 
 liberality, and wealth, we may well appreciate the solemn 
 truth which these monarchs, in their day of isride and 
 
CH. Il.J 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 45- 
 
 power, grandly wrote in the beautiful mosaics on their 
 palace walls, an ever-recurring warning to him who 
 owes dominion to the sword, " There is no conqueror 
 but God." 
 
 The value of a philosophical or political system may be 
 determined by its fruits. On this principle I examined in 
 Vol. I., Chapter XII., the Italian system, estimating its re- 
 ligious merit from the biographies of the popes, „ 
 
 ?• i rc j j.t_ *x • t ri Examination 
 
 which aflord the proper criterion. In like manner, 0 f Moham- 
 the intellectual state of the Mohammedan nations m ? dan 
 
 science. 
 
 at successive epochs may be ascertained from 
 what is its proper criterion, the contemporaneous scientific- 
 manifestation. 
 
 At the time when the Moorish influences in Spain began 
 to exert a pressure on the Italian system, there were 
 several scientific writers, fragments of whose works have 
 descended to us. As an architect may judge of the skill 
 of the ancient Egyptians in his art from a study of the 
 Pyramids, so from these relics of Saracenic learning we may 
 demonstrate the intellectual state of the Mohammedan 
 people, though much of their work has been lost and more 
 has been purposely destroyed. 
 
 Among such writers is Alhazen; his date was about 
 a.d. 1100. It appears that he resided both in Spain 
 and Egypt, but the details of his biography Review of the 
 are very confused. Through his optical works, works of 
 which have been translated into Latin, he is Albazen - 
 best known to Europe. He was the first to correct the 
 Greek misconception as to the nature of vision, showing 
 that the rays of light come from external objects to the 
 eye, and do not issue forth from the eye, and Hecorrects 
 impinge on external things, as, up to his time, the theory of 
 had been supposed. His explanation does not vlsl0n - 
 depend upon mere hypothesis or supposition, but is plainly 
 based upon anatomica 1 investigation as well as on geo- 
 metrical discussion. He dete rmines that the retina Determines 
 is the seat of vision, and that impressions made the function 
 by light upon it are conveyed along the optic of the retma - 
 nerve to the brain. Though it might not be convenient, 
 at the time when Alhazen lived, to make such an ac- 
 knowledgment, no one could come to these conclusions, 
 
46 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 nor, indeed, "know anything about these facts, unless he 
 had been engaged in the forbidden practice of dissection. 
 Explains sin- With felicity he explains that we see single 
 gie vision. when we use both eyes, because of the formation 
 of the visual images on symmetrical portions of the two 
 retinas. To the modern physiologist the mere mention of 
 such things is as significant as the occurrence of an arch 
 in the interior of the pyramid is to the architect. But 
 Alhazen shows that our sense of sight is by no means a 
 trustworthy guide, and that there are illusions arising from 
 the course which the rays of light may take when they 
 .suffer refraction or reflexion. It is in the discussion of 
 one of these physical problems that his scientific greatness 
 truly shines forth. He is perfectly aware that the atmos- 
 Tracesthe phere decreases in density with increase of 
 course of a height ; and from that consideration he shows 
 through^he that a ray of light, entering it obliquely, follows 
 air - a curvilinear path which is concave toward the 
 
 earth ; and that, since the mind refers the position of 
 an object to the direction in which the ray of light from it 
 enters the eye, the result must be an illusion as respects 
 the starry bodies ; they appear to us, to use the Arabic 
 Astronomical term, nearer to the zenith than they actually 
 refraction. are? an( j no t \ n their true place. We see them in 
 the direction of the tangent to the curve of refraction as 
 it reaches the eye. Hence also he shows that we actually 
 see the stars, and the sun, and the moon before they have 
 risen and after they have set — a wonderful illusion. He 
 shows that in its passage through the air the curvature of 
 a, ray increases with the increasing density, and that its 
 path does not depend on vapours that chance to be present, 
 but on the variation of density in the medium. To this 
 refraction he truly refers the shortening, in their vertical 
 The horizon- diameter, of the horizontal sun and moon; to 
 4ai sun and its variations he imputes the twinkling of the 
 moon * fixed stars. The apparent increase of size of the 
 former bodies when they are in the horizon he refers to a 
 mental deception, arising from the presence of intervening 
 terrestrial objects. He shows that the effect of refraction 
 is to shorten the duration of night and darkness by 
 prolonging the visibility of the sun, and considering the 
 
CH. II. | 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 47 
 
 reflecting action of the air, he deduces that beautiful ex- 
 planation of the nature of twilight — the light Explains the 
 that we perceive before the rising and after the twili s ht - 
 setting of the sun — which we accept at the present time 
 as true. With extraordinary acuteness, he ap- Determines 
 plies the principles with which he is dealing to ^ atmo£° f 
 the determination of the height of the atmos- phere. 
 phere, deciding that its limit is nearly 58^ miles. 
 
 All this is very grand. Shall we compare it with the 
 contemporaneous monk miracles and monkish philosophy 
 of Europe? It would make a profound impression if 
 communicated for the first time to a scientific society in 
 our own age. Nor perhaps does his merit end here. If 
 the Book of the Balance of Wisdom, for a translation of 
 which we are indebted to M. Khanikoff, the Eussian 
 consul-general at Tabriz, be the production of Alhazen, of 
 which there seems to be internal proof, it offers us evidence 
 of a singular clearness in mechanical conception for which 
 we should scarcely have been prepared, and, if it be not 
 his, at all events it indisputably shows the scientific 
 acquirements of his age. In that book is plainly The weight of 
 set forth the connexion between the weight of theair - 
 the atmosphere and its increasing density. The weight of 
 the atmosphere was therefore understood before Torricelli. 
 This author shows that a body will weigh differently in a 
 rare and in a dense atmosphere ; that its loss of Principles of 
 weight will be greater in proportion as the air is h y drostatics - 
 more dense. He considers the force with which plunged 
 bodies will rise through heavier media in which they 
 are immersed, and discusses the submergence of floating 
 bodies, as ships upon the sea. He understands the doctrine 
 of the centre of gravity. He applies it to the Theory of the 
 investigation of balances and steelyards, show- balance - 
 ing the relations between the centre of gravity and the 
 centre of suspension — when those instruments will set 
 and when they will vibrate. He recognizes gravity as a 
 force; asserts that it diminishes with the distance; but 
 falls into the mistake that the diminution is as the dis- 
 tance, and not as its square. He considers gravity as 
 terrestrial, and fails to perceive that it is universal — that 
 was reserved for Newton. He knows correctly the relation 
 
48 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 between the velocities, spaces, and times of falling bodies, 
 and tas very distinct ideas of capillary at- 
 pmary'attrac- traction. He improves the construction of that 
 drometer by " Alexandrian invention, the hydrometer — 
 rome . ^ e instrument which, in a letter to his fair but 
 pagan friend Hypatia, the good Bishop of Ptolemais, 
 Synesius, six hundred years previously, requests her to 
 have made for him in Alexandria, as he wishes to try the 
 wines he is using, his health being a little delicate. The 
 Tables of determinations of the densities of bodies, as 
 specific gra- given by Alhazen, approach very closely to our 
 own ; in the case of mercury they are even 
 more exact than some of those of the last century. I join, 
 as, doubtless, all natural philosophers will do, in the 
 pious prayer of Alhazen, that, in the day of judgment, 
 the All-Merciful will take pity on the soul of Abur-Baihan, 
 because he was the first of the race of men to construct 
 a table of specific gravities ; and I will ask the same for 
 Alhazen himself, since he was the first to trace the cur- 
 vilinear path of a ray of light through the air. Though 
 more than seven centuries part him from our times, 
 the physiologists of this age may accept him as their 
 compeer, since he received and defended the doctrine 
 now forcing its way, of the progressive development of 
 animal forms. He upheld the affirmation of those who 
 The theory of sa ^ ^ na *' man > i n h* 8 progress, passes through a 
 development definite succession of states ; not, however, " that 
 of organisms. ^ e wag Qnce a -j^jji, and was then changed to 
 an ass, and afterwards into a horse, and after that into 
 an ape, and finally became a man." This, he says, is only 
 a misrepresentation by " common people" of what is really 
 meant. The " common people" who withstood Alhazen 
 have representatives among us, themselves the only example 
 in the Fauna of the world of that non-development which 
 they so loudly affirm. At the best they are only passing 
 through some of the earlier forms of that series of trans- 
 mutations to which the devout Mohammedan in the above 
 quotation alludes. 
 
 The Arabians, with all this physical knowledge, do not 
 appear to have been in possession of the thermometer, though 
 they knew the great importance of temperature measures, 
 
CH. ll.J 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 49 
 
 employing the areometer for that purpose. They had 
 detected the variation in density of liquids by heat, but 
 not the variation in volume. In their measures of time 
 they were more successful; they had several kinds of 
 clepsydras. A balance clepsydra is described in the work 
 from which I am quoting. But it was their great 
 astronomer, Ebn J unis, who accomplished the most valuable 
 of all chronometric improvements. He first Thependu- 
 applied the pendulum to the measure of time. lum clock - 
 Laplace, in the fifth note to his Systeme du Monde, avails 
 himself of the observations of this philosopher, with those 
 of Albategnius and other Arabians, as incontestable proof 
 of the diminution of the eccentricity of the earth's Astronomical 
 orbit. He states, moreover, that the observation workTorEbn 
 of Ebn Junis of the obliquity of the ecliptic, Junis> 
 properly corrected for parallax and refraction, gives for the 
 year a.d. 1000 a result closely approaching to the theoretical. 
 He also mentions another observation of Ebn Junis, 
 October 31, a.d. 1007, as of much importance in reference 
 to the great inequalities of Jupiter and Saturn. I have 
 already remarked that, in the writings of this great 
 Arabian, the Arabic numerals and our common The Arabic 
 arithmetical processes are currently used. From nume rais. 
 Africa and Spain they passed into Italy, finding ready 
 acceptance among commercial men, who recognised at once 
 their value, and, as William of Malmesbury says, being a 
 wonderful relief to the "sweating calculators;" an epithet 
 of which the correctness will soon appear to any one who 
 will try to do a common multiplication or division problem 
 by the aid of the old Eoman numerals. It is said that 
 Gerbert-Pope Sylvester -was the first to introduce a 
 knowledge of them into Europe ; he had learned them at 
 the Mohammedan university of Cordova. It is in allusion 
 to the cipher, which follows the 9, but which, added to 
 any of the other digits, increases by tenfold its power, 
 that, in a letter to his patron, the Emperor Otho III., with 
 humility he playfully but truly says, " I am like the last 
 of all the numbers." 
 
 The overthrow of the Roman by the Arabic numerals 
 foreshadowed the result of a far more important— a poli- 
 tical—contest between those rival names. But, before 
 
50 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 showing how the Arabian intellect pressed upon Rome, 
 and the convulsive struggles of desperation which Rome 
 Ajrabian phi- made to resist it, I must for a moment consider 
 loeophy. the former under another point of view, and 
 speak of Saracen philosophy. And here Algazzali shall be 
 my guide. He was Lorn a.d. 1058. 
 
 Let us hear him speak for himself. Tie is relating his 
 attempt to detach himself from the opinions which he had 
 The writings imbibed in his childhood: "I said to myself, 
 of Aiga/zaii. < ]\j y a i m i s simply to know the truth of things ; 
 consequently, it is indispensable for me to ascertain what 
 is knowledge' Now it was evident to me that certain 
 knowledge must be that which explains the object to be 
 known in such a manner that no doubt can remain, so that 
 in future all error and conjecture respecting it must bo 
 impossible. Not only would the understanding then need 
 no efforts to be convinced of certitude, but security against 
 error is in such close connexion with knowledge, that, 
 The certitude even were an apparent proof of falsehood to be 
 oi'knmvkdue. 1 ^ught forward, it would cause no doubt, 
 because no suspicion of error would be possible. Thus, 
 when I have acknowledged ten to be more than three, if 
 any one were to say, 4 On the contrary, three is more than 
 ten, and. to prove the truth of my assertion, I w r ill change 
 this rod into a serpent,' and if lie 'were to change it, my 
 conviction of his error would remain unshaken. His 
 manoeuvre would only produce in me admiration for his 
 ability. I should not doubt my own knowledge. 
 
 " Then was I convinced that knowledge which I did not 
 possess in this manner, and respecting which I had not 
 this certainty, could inspire me with neither confidence 
 nor assurance ; and no knowledge without assurance 
 deserves the name of knowledge. 
 
 "Having examined the state of my own knowledge, 1 
 found it divested of all that could be said to have these 
 qualities, unless perceptions of the senses and irrefragable 
 principles were to be considered such. I then said to my- 
 self, ' Now, having fallen into this despair, the only hope 
 Fallibility of acquiring incontestable convictions is by the 
 ©f the senses, perceptions of the senses and by necessary 
 truths.' Their evidence seemed to me to be indubitable. 
 
THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST, 
 
 51 
 
 I began, however, to examine the objects of sensation and 
 speculation, to s.-e if they possibly could admit of doubt. 
 Then doubts crowded upon me in 'such numbers that my 
 inrertiludo became complete. Whence results the con- 
 fidence I have in sensible things? The strongest of all 
 our senses is sight; and yet, looking at a shadow, and 
 perceiving it to be fixed and immovable, we judge it to be 
 deprived of movement ; nevertheless, experience teaches 
 us that, when we r« turn to the same place an hour after, 
 the shadow is displaced, for it does not vanish suddenly' 
 but gradually, little by little, so as never to be at rest. If 
 wo look at the stars, they seem to be as small as money- 
 pieces; bat ma t h em atical proofs convince us that they are 
 larger than the earth. These and other things are iudged 
 1,v the senses, hul rejected by reason as false. ' I abandoned 
 the senses, therefore, having seen all my confidence in 
 their truth shaken. 
 
 "'Perhaps,* said I, 'there is no assurance but in the 
 notions of Eea&m, that is to 6ay, first principles, as that 
 ten is more than three; the same thing cannot have been 
 created and yet have existed from all eternity; to exist 
 and not to exist at the same time is impossible."' 
 
 "Upon this the senses replied, 'What assurance have 
 you that your confidence in reason is not of the Fallibility 
 same nature as your eontidenee in us? When °f reason. 
 
 yen relied on us, reason stepped in and gave us the lie; 
 
 had not reason been there, you would have continued to 
 rely on us. Well, may there not exist some other judge 
 superior to reason, who, if he appeared, would refute the 
 judgments of reason in the same way that reason refuted 
 1J : Tllr non-appearance of such a'judgo is no proof of 
 his non-existence.' 
 
 " I strove in vain to answer the objection, and my 
 difficulties increased when 1 came to reflect on rim nature 
 sleep. I said to myself, 4 During sleep, you give breams, 
 to visions a reality and consistence, and you have no 
 Hwpicion of their untruth. On awakening, von are made 
 aware that they wen- nothing but visions. ' What assurance 
 have you that all you feel and know when you are awake 
 does actually exist? It is all true as respects your condi- 
 tion at that moment; but it is nevertheless possible that 
 
 I 2 
 
52 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 another condition should present itself which should be to 
 your awakened state that which to your awakened state is 
 now to you sleep ; so that, as respects this higher condition, 
 your waking is hut sleep. 1 
 
 It would not he possible to find in any European work 
 a clearer statement of the scepticism to which philosophy 
 leads than what is thus given l»y tin's Arabian. Indeed, 
 it is not possible to put the argument in a more effective 
 way. His perspicuity is in singular contrasl with the 
 obscurity of many metaphysical writers. 
 
 "Reflecting on my sit uat ion, I found myself bound to 
 this world by a thousand ties, temptations assailing me on 
 all sides. 1 then examined my actions. The best were 
 Intellectual those relating to inst met i< »n and edneation, and 
 despair. even there 1 saw myself given up to unimportant 
 sciences, all useless in another world. Reflecting on the 
 aim of my teaching, I found it was not pure in the sight 
 of the Lord. 1 saw that all my efforts were directed 
 toward the acquisition of glory to myself. Having, there- 
 fore, distributed my wealth, 1 left Bagdad and retired into 
 Syria, where 1 remained two years in solitary struggle 
 with my soul, combating my passions, and exercising my- 
 self, in the purification of my heart and in preparation for 
 the other world." 
 
 This is a very beautiful picture of the mental struggles 
 and the actions of a truthful and earnest man. In all 
 this the Christian philosopher can sympathize with the 
 devout Mohammedan. After all. they are not very far 
 apart. Algazzali is not the only one to whom such thoughts 
 have occurred, but he has found words to tell his experience 
 better than any other man. And what is the conclusion 
 Aigazzaii's at which he arrives ? The life of man, he says, 
 ages of man. j s mar ked by three stages : "the first, or infantile 
 stage, is that of pure sensation ; the second, which begins 
 at the age of seven, is that of understanding ; the third is 
 that of reason, by means of which the intellect perceives 
 the necessary, the possible, the absolute, and all those 
 higher objects which transcend the understanding. But 
 after this there is a fourth stage, when another eye is 
 opened, by which man perceives things hidden from 
 others — perceives all that will be — perceives the things 
 
H. a.] 
 
 nil: kQM 01 fJJTB EN HIE WEST. 
 
 that escape the perceptions of reason, as the objects ot 
 reason escape the understanding, and as the objects of the 
 understanding escape the sensitive faculty. This is pro- 
 phetism." Alga/.zali thus finds a philosophical basis for 
 the rule df life, and reOOPflilet religion and philosophy. 
 
 And now I havo to turn from Arabian civilized life, its 
 science, its j >h i 1. .s. .] >hv, t.. another, a repulsive state of 
 things. With reluctance I come back to the Italian 
 system, defiling the holy name of religion with its intrigues, 
 its bloodshed, its nppn s i,,n of huniaii t In night , its hatred 
 of intellectual advancement. Especiall y I have n , n ,. vval of 
 now to dinct attention to t\v«. countries, the "p-ration 
 scenes of important events — countries in which m^SST-" 
 the Mohammedan influences began to takeellect 11 '" n '"" s - 
 and to press ujM.ii 'I'ht.N.- an- t lie South of France 
 
 and Sicily. 
 
 thirty sewn years, \.n. 1 1«.»S. The papal power had 
 )< aelied its culminating point. The weapons of tin- Church 
 had attained their utmost force. In Italy, in Germany, 
 iu France and Fn^land, interdicts and e.\e« »mmunications 
 vindicated the pontifical authority, as in the cases of tho 
 Duke of Ravenna, the Emperor Otho, Philip Augustus of 
 France, King John of England. In each of these cases it 
 was not for the sake uf sustaining great moral principles 
 <>r the rights of humanity that the thunder was launched — 
 it was in behalf of temporary political interests; interests 
 that, in Germany, were sustained at the cost of a long war, 
 and cemented by assassination ; in France, Interforence 
 strengthened by the well-tried device of an -t i'm, t 
 intervention in amatrimonial broil— the domestic 111 in Krance * 
 quarrel of the king and (juecn about Agnes of Mcran. 
 " Ah ! happy Saladm !" said the insulted Philip, when his 
 kingdom was put under interdict ; " he has no pope above 
 him. 1 too will turn Mohammedan." 
 
 So. likewise, in Spain, !nnoc< nl interfered in the matri- 
 monial life of tho King of Leon. The remorseless venality 
 of the papal government was felt in every dircc- in Spain and 
 ti"U. Portugal bad already been advanced to ,orUl P al 
 the dignity of a kingdom 00 payment of an annual 
 
 Innocent I II. had been elected 
 
54 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IL 
 
 tribute to Borne. The King of Aragon held his kingdom 
 as feudatory to the pope. 
 
 In England, Innocent's interference assumed a different 
 in England; aspect. He attempted to assert his control over 
 denounces ' the Church in spite of the king, and put the 
 Magna Charta. n ^ Q11 nn( j er interdict because John would not 
 permit Stephen Langton to be Archbishop of Canterbury. 
 It was utterly impossible that affairs could go on with 
 such an empire within an empire. For his contumacy, 
 John was excommunicated ; but, base as he was, he defied 
 his punishment for four years. Hereupon his subjects 
 were released from their allegiance, and his kingdom 
 offered to any one who would conquer it. In his ex- 
 tremity, the King of England is said to have sent a 
 messenger to Spain, offering to become a Mohammedan. 
 The religious sentime?^ was then no higher in him than 
 it was, under a like provocation, in the King of France, 
 whose thoughts turned in the same direction. But 
 pressed irresistibly by Innocent, John was compelled to 
 surrender his realm, agreeing to pay to the pope, in 
 addition to Peter's pence, 1000 marks a year as a token of 
 vassalage. When the prelates whom he had refused or 
 exiled returned, he was compelled to receive them on his 
 knees — humiliations which aroused the indignation of the 
 stout English barons, and gave strength to those move- 
 ments which ended in extorting Magna Charta. Never, 
 however, was Innocent more mistaken than in the 
 character of Stephen Langton. John had, a second time, 
 formally surrendered his realm to the pope, and done 
 homage to the legate for it ; but Stephen Langton was the 
 first — at a meeting of the chiefs of the revolt against the 
 king, held in London, August 25th, 1213 — to suggest that 
 they should demand a renewal of the charter of Henry I. 
 From this suggestion Magna Charta originated. Among 
 the miracles of the age, he was the greatest miracle of all ; 
 his patriotism was stronger than his profession. The 
 wrath of the pontiff knew no bounds when he learned that 
 the Great Charter had been conceded. In his bull, he 
 denounced it as base and ignominious ; he anathematized 
 the king if he observed it ; he declared it null and void. 
 It was not the policy of the Eoman court to permit so 
 
CH. II. J THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 55 
 
 much as the beginnings of such freedom. The appoint- 
 ment of Simon Langton to the archbishopric of York was 
 annulled. One De Gray was substituted for him. It 
 illustrated the simony into which the papal government 
 had fallen, that De Gray had become, in these transactions, 
 indebted to Komo ten thousand pounds. In fact, through 
 the operation of the Crusades, all Europe was The drain of 
 tributary to the pope. He had his fiscal agents money from 
 in every metropolis ; his travelling ones wander- that country - 
 ing in all directions, in every country, raising revenue by 
 the sale of dispensations for all kinds of offences, real and 
 fictitious — money for the sale of appointments, high and 
 low — a steady drain of money from every realm. Fifty 
 years after the time of which we are speaking, Eobert 
 Grostete, the Bishop of Lincoln and friend of Roger Bacon, 
 caused to be ascertained the amount received by foreign 
 ecclesiastics in England. He found it to be thrice the 
 income of the king himself. This was on the occasion of 
 Innocent IV. demanding provision to be made for three 
 hundred additional Italian clergy by the Church of 
 England, and that one of his nephews— a mere boy — 
 should have a stall in Lincoln cathedral. 
 
 While thus Innocent III. was interfering and intriguing 
 with every court, and laying every people under tribute, 
 he did not for a moment permit his attention to 
 be diverted from the Crusades, the singular Europe g into 
 advantages of which to the papacy had now *™>w era- 
 been fully discovered. They had given to the 
 pope a suzerainty in Europe, the control of its military as 
 well as its momentary resources. Not that a man like 
 Innocent could permit himself to be deluded by any hopes 
 of eventual success. The crusades must inevitably prove, 
 so far as their avowed object was concerned, a failure. 
 The Christian inhabitants of Palestine were degraded 
 and demoralized beyond description. Their ranks were 
 thinned by apostasy to Mohammedanism. In Europe, not 
 only the laity begun to discover that the money provided 
 for tlio wars in the Holy Land was diverted from its 
 purpose, and in some inexplicable manner, found its way 
 into Italy — even the clergy could not conceal their 
 suspicions that the proclamation of a crusade was merely 
 
56 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 the preparation for a swindle. Nevertheless, Innocent 
 pressed forward his schemes, goading on Christendom by 
 upbraiding it with the taunts of the Saracens. " Where," 
 they say, " is your God, who can not deliver you out of 
 our hands ? Behold ! we have defiled your sanctuaries ; 
 we have stretched forth our arm ; we have taken at the 
 first assault, we hold in despite of you, those your desirable 
 places, where your superstition had its beginning. Where 
 is your God ? Let him arise anc^. protect you and himself." 
 " If thou be the Son of God, save thyself if thou canst ; 
 redeem the land of thy birth from our hands. Eestore 
 thy cross, that we have taken, to the worshippers of the 
 Cross." With great difficulty, however, Innocent succeeded 
 in preparing the fourth crusade, a.d. 1202. The Venetians 
 consented to furnish a fleet of transports. But the 
 expedition was quickly diverted from its true purpose ; 
 the Venetians employing the Crusaders for the capture of 
 Zara from the King of Hungary. Still worse, and shame- 
 ful to be said — partly from the lust of plunder, and partly 
 through ecclesiastical machinations— it again turned aside 
 The crusade f° r an attack upon Constantinople, and took 
 isusedforthe that city by storm a.d. 1204, thereby establish- 
 Constanti- ing Latin Christianity in the Eastern metro- 
 nopie. polis, but, alas ! with bloodshed, rape, and fire. 
 On the night of the assault more houses were burned than 
 could be found in any three of the largest cities in France. 
 Even Christian historians compare with shame the storm- 
 sack of that °^ Constantinople by the Catholics with the 
 city by the capture of Jerusalem by Saladin. Pope Innocent 
 Catholics. himself was compelled to protest against enor- 
 mities that had outrun his intentions. He says : " They 
 practised fornications, incests, adulteries in the sight 
 of men. They abandoned matrons and virgins, con- 
 secrated to God, to the lewdness of grooms. They lifted 
 their hands against the treasures of the churches — what 
 is more heinous, the very consecrated vessels — tearing the 
 tablets of silver from the very altars, breaking in pieces 
 the most sacred things, carrying off crosses and relics." 
 In St. Sophia, the silver was stripped from the pulpit; 
 an exquisite and highly-prized table of oblation was 
 broken in pieces; the sacred chalices were turned into 
 
CH. II.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 57 
 
 drinking-cups ; the gold fringe was ripped off the veil 
 of the sanctuary. Asses and horses were led into the 
 churches to carry off the spoil. A prostitute mounted the 
 patriarch's throne, and sang, with indecent gestures, a 
 ribald song. The tombs of the emperors were rifled ; and 
 the Byzantines saw, at once with amazement and anguish, 
 the corpse of Justinian — which even decay and putrefac- 
 tion had for six centuries spared in his tomb — exposed to 
 the violation of a mob. It had been understood among 
 those who instigated these atrocious proceedings that the 
 relics were to be brought into a common stock and 
 equitably divided among the conquerors i but each 
 ecclesiastic seized and secreted whatever he could. The 
 idolatrous state of the Eastern Church is illustrated by 
 some of these relics. Thus the Abbot Martin The relics 
 obtained for his monastery in Alsace the follow- found there> 
 ing inestimable articles: 1. A spot of the blood of our 
 Saviour ; 2. A piece of the true cross ; 3. The arm of the 
 Apostle James ; 4. Part of the skeleton of John the 
 Baptist; 5. — I hesitate to write such blasphemy — "A 
 bottle of the milk of the Mother of God ! " In contrast 
 with the treasures thus acquired may be set relics of a very 
 different kind, the remains of ancient art which a nd works of 
 they destroyed : 1. The bronze charioteers from art destroyed, 
 the Hippodrome ; 2. The she-wolf suckling Romulus and 
 Eemus ; 3. A group of a Sphinx, river-horse, and cro- 
 codile ; 4. An eagle tearing a serpent ; 5. An ass and his 
 driver, originally cast by Augustus in memory of the 
 victory of Actium ; 6. Bellerophon and Pegasus ; 7. A 
 bronze obelisk ; 8. Paris presenting the apple to Venus ; 
 9. An exquisite statute of Helen ; 10. The Hercules of 
 Lysippus ; 11. A Juno, formerly taken from the temple at 
 Samos. The bronzes were melted into coin, and thousands 
 of manuscripts and parchments were burned. From that 
 time the works of many ancient authors disappeared 
 altogether. 
 
 With well-dissembled regret, Innocent took the new 
 order of things in the city of Constantinople under his 
 protection. The bishop of Rome at last appointed the 
 Bishop of Constantinople. The acknowledgment of papal 
 supremacy was complete. Rome and Venice divided 
 
63 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 between them the ill-gotten gains of their undertaking. 
 The o e ^ anything had been wanting to open the eyes 
 th/doglT and of Europe, surely what had thus occurred should 
 8poi? etbe nave been enough. The pope and the doge— 
 
 the trader in human credulity and the trader oi 
 the Adriatic — had shared the spoils of a crusade meant by 
 Works of art religious men for the relief of the Holy Land, 
 carried to The bronze horses, once brought by Augustus 
 
 from Alexandria, after his victory over Antony 
 and transferred from Eome to Constantinople by its 
 founder, were set before the Church of St Mark. They 
 were the outward and visible sign of a less obvious event 
 that was taking place, For to Venice was brought a 
 residue of the literary treasures that had escaped the fire 
 and the destroyer ; and while her comrades in the outrage 
 were satisfied, in their ignorance, with fictitious relics, she 
 took possession of the poor remnant of the glorious works 
 of art, of letters, and of science. Through these was 
 hastened the intellectual progress of the West. 
 
 So fell Constantinople, and fell by the parricidal hands 
 of Christians. The days of retribution for the curse she 
 The punish- na ^ inflicted on Western civilization were now 
 ment of Con- approaching. In these events she received a 
 stantmopie. instalment of her punishment. Three 
 
 hundred years previously, the historian Luitprand, who 
 was sent by the Emperor Otho I. to the court of Mce- 
 phorus Phocas, says of her, speaking as an eye-witness, 
 " That city, once so wealthy, so flourishing, is now 
 famished, lying, perjured, deceitful, rapacious, greedy, 
 niggardly, vainglorious ;" and since Luitprand's time she 
 had been pursuing a downward career. It might have 
 been expected that the concentration of all the literary and 
 scientific treasures of the Eoman empire in Constantinople 
 would have given rise to great mental vigour — that to 
 Europe she would have been a brilliant focus of light. 
 The literary But when the works on jurisprudence by Tribo- 
 worthiessness man, under Justinian, have been mentioned, 
 o t at city. w j ia ^. £ g there that remains? There is Ste- 
 phanas, the grammarian, who wrote a dictionary, and 
 Procopius, the historian, who was secretary to Belisarius 
 in his campaigns. There is then a long interval almost 
 
CH. II. J 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 59 
 
 without a literary name, to Theophylact Siniocatta, and to 
 the Ladder of Paradise of John Cliinacus. The mental 
 excitement of the iconoclastic dispute presents us with John 
 of Damascus ; and the ninth century, the Myriobiblion 
 and Nomacanon of Photius. Then follows Constantine 
 Porphyrogenitus, vainly and voluminously composing ; 
 and Basil II. doubtless truly expresses the opinion of the 
 time, as he certainly does the verdict of posterity respect- 
 ing the works of his country, when he says that learning 
 is useless and unprofitable lumber. The Alexiad of Anna 
 Comnena, and the history of Byzantine affairs by Nice- 
 phorous Bryennius, hardly redeem their age. This barren- 
 ness and worthlessncss was the effect of the system intro- 
 duced by Constantine the Great. The long line of 
 emperors had been consistent in one policy — the repression 
 or expulsion of philosophy ; and yet it is the uniform 
 testimony of those ages that the Eastern convents were 
 full of secret Platonism — that in stealth, the doctrines of 
 Plato were treasured up in the cells of Asiatic monks. 
 The Byzantines had possessed in art and letters all the 
 best models in the world, yet in a thousand years they 
 never produced one original. Millions of Greeks never 
 advanced one step in philosophy or science — never made 
 a single practical discovery, composed no poem, no tragedy 
 worth perusal. The spirit of their superficial literature — 
 if literature it can be called — is well shadowed forth in 
 the story of the patriarch Photius, who composed at 
 Bagdad, at a distance from his library, an analysis of 280 
 works he had formerly read. The final age of the city 
 was signalized by the Baarlamite controversy 
 respecting the mysterious light of Mount Thabor ofus iate? ty 
 — the possibility of producing a beatific vision lec .tuai pur- 
 and of demonstrating, by an unceasing inspec- 
 tion of the navel for days and nights together, the 
 existence of two eternal principles, a visible and an 
 invisible God ! 
 
 What was it that produced this barrenness, cause of ail 
 this intellectual degradation in Constantinople ? this - 
 The tyranny of Theology over Thought. 
 
 But with the capture of Constantinople by the Latins 
 Dther important events were occurring. Everywhere an 
 
60 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN TIIF WEST, 
 
 [CH, II. 
 
 intolerance of papal power was engendering. The monas- 
 Heresv foi- teries became infected, and even from the holy 
 lows Uterar lips of monks words of ominous import might be 
 heard. In the South of France the intellectual 
 insurrection first took form. There the inlluence of the 
 Spread of gay Mohammedans and .lews beyond the Pyrenees 
 literature began to manifest it self. The songs of gallantry ; 
 from Spam, tensons, or poetical contests of minstrels; 
 satires of gay defiance; rivalry in praise of the ladies; 
 lays, serenades, pastourelles, redondes, such as had already 
 drawn forth the e< mdemnath »n ol" the sedate Mussulmen of 
 Cordova, had gradually spread through Spain and found 
 a congenial welcome in France. The Troubadours were 
 TheTrouba- singing in the langue d'Oc in the south, and the 
 clours and Trouveres in the langue d'Oil in the north. 
 
 romeieK Thence the merry epidemic spread to Sicily and 
 Italy. Men felt that a relief from the grim ecclesiastic was 
 coming. Kings, dukes, counts, knights, prided themselves 
 on their gentle prowess. The humbler minstrels found 
 patronage among ladies and at courts: sly satires against 
 the priests, and amorous ditties, secured them a welcome 
 among the populace. When the poet was deficient in 
 voice, a jongleur went with him to sing ; and often there 
 was added the pleasant accompaniment of a musical instru- 
 ment. The Provencal or langue d'Oc was thus widely 
 diffused; it served the purposes of those unacquainted 
 with Latin, and gave the Italians a model for thought and 
 versification, to Europe the germs of many of its future 
 melodies. While the young were singing, the old were 
 thinking ; while the gay were carried away with romance, 
 the grave were falling into heresy. But, true to her 
 r _ . instincts and traditions, the Church had shown 
 
 Commencing .. 9 , _ 
 
 resistance of her determination to deal rigorously with all 
 Rome. such movements. Already, a.d. 1134, Peter de 
 Brueys had been burned in Languedoc for denying infant 
 baptism, the worship of the cross, and transubstantiation. 
 Already Henry the Deacon, the disciple of Peter, had been 
 disposed of by St. Bernard. Already the valleys of 
 Piedmont were full of "Waldenses. Already the Poor Men 
 of Lyons were proclaiming the portentous doctrine that 
 the sanctity of a priest lay not in his office, but in the 
 
OH. 0.1 
 
 NIK ABM 01' FAI1II IN THE WEST. 
 
 61 
 
 manner of his life. They denounced the wealth of the 
 Church, and the intermingling of bishops in bloodshed 
 and war; they denied transul >stant iat i< »n, invocation of 
 saints, purgatory, and especially directed their hatred 
 against the sale of indulgences for sin. The rich cities of 
 Languedoc were full of misbelievers, They were given up 
 to poet iy, music, dancing. Their people, numbers of whom 
 had heen in tlie ( 'rusades or in Spain, had seen the Saracens. 
 Admiration had taken the place of detestation. Amid 
 shouts of laughter, the Troubadours went through the 
 land, wagging their heads, and slyly winking their eyes, 
 and singing derisive songs about the amours of the priests, 
 and amply earning denunciations as lewd blasphemers and 
 atheists. Here was a state of things demanding the 
 attention of Innocent. The methods he took for its cor- 
 rection have handed his name down to the j tJII 
 maledictions of posterity. lie despatched a a Unnra ; ,t 
 niissivo to tho Count of Toulouse— who already [^ c 8 8 pread of 
 lay under excommunication for alleged inter- 
 meddling with the rights of the clergy — charging him with 
 harbouring heretics and giving ottiees of emolument to 
 .Jews. The count was a man of gay life, having, in 
 emulation of some of his neighbours across the Pyrenees, 
 not fewer than three wives. His offences of that kind 
 were, however, eclipsed 1 'V those with which he was now 
 formally charged. It chanced that, in the ensuing disputes, 
 the | tope's legate was murdered. There is no reason to 
 believe that Raymond was concerned in the crime. But 
 the indignant pope held him responsible; instantly 
 ordered to be published in all directions his excommunica- 
 tion, and called upon Western Christendom to n e proclaims 
 eng.ige in | crnsade against him, offering, to J^^thc 
 him \vhoe\ er chose to take them, the wealth and < \V,n' t . i ' 
 osscssions of the oflender. So thoroughly was T " ulou ^\ 
 e seconded by the preaching of tho monks, that half a 
 million of men, it is allinned, took up arms. 
 
 For tho count there remained nothing but to submit. 
 He surrendered up his strong places, was com- an(1 di8 . 
 pel led to acknowledge tho crimes alleged against ci n Ul1 ' s lliln - 
 him. and tho justice of his punishment. He swore that 
 hi vronld no Longer protect heretics. Stripped naked to 
 
62 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. II, 
 
 his middle, with a rope round his neck, he was led to the 
 altar, and there scourged. 13ut the immense army that 
 had assembled was not to he satisfied by these inflictions 
 on an individual, though the pope might be. They had 
 come for blood and plunder, and blood and plunder they 
 must have. Then followed such scenes of horror as the 
 sun had never looked on before. The army was officered 
 by lioman and French prelates; bishops were its generals, 
 an archdeacon its engineer. It was the Abbot Arnold, the 
 legate of the pope, who, at the capture of I'eziers, was 
 inquired of by a soldier, more merciful or more 
 tiK^cnlsaii'-rs weary of murder than himself, how he should 
 distinguish and save the Catholic from the 
 heretic. kl Kill them all," ho exclaimed; u (iod 
 will know his own.'' At the Church of St. Mary Mag- 
 dalene 7000 persons were massacred, the infuriated 
 Crusaders being excited to madness by the wicked asser- 
 tion that these wretches had been guilty of the blasphemy 
 of saying, in their merriment, " S. Mariam Magdalenam 
 fuisse concubinam Christi." It was of no use for them to 
 protest their innocence. In the town twenty thousand 
 were slaughtered, and the place then fired, to be left a 
 monument of papal vengeance. At the massacre of Lavaur 
 400 people were burned in one pile; it is remarked that 
 " they made a wonderful blaze, and went to burn ever- 
 lastingly in hell." Language has no powers to express the 
 atrocities that took place at the capture of the different 
 towns. Ecclesiastical vengeance rioted in luxury. The 
 soil was steeped in the blood of men — the air polluted by 
 their burning. From the reek of murdered women, 
 mutilated children, and ruined cities, the Inquisition, that 
 institution of i n f erna l institution, arose. Its projectors intended 
 the inquisi- it not only to put an end to public teaching, 
 Bon. p^ eTen T0 private thought. In the midst of 
 
 these awful events, Innocent was called to another tribunal 
 to render his account, He died a.d. 1216. 
 
 It was during the pontificate of this great criminal that 
 Establish- ^ e men( licant orders were established. The 
 ment ofmen- course of ages had brought an unintelligibility 
 dicant orders. i nto public worship. The old dialects had become 
 obsolete ; new languages were forming. Among those 
 
ch. il] the a«;k of faith in the west. 
 
 63 
 
 classes, daily increasing in number, whose minds were 
 awakening] an earnest desire for instruction was arising. 
 Multitudes were crowding to hear philosophical discourses 
 in the univei >iti»s, and heresy was spreading very fast. 
 I'.ut it was far from b< ing confined to the intelligent. Tlie 
 lower ord« on furnished heretics and fanatics too. To an- 
 tagonize the labours of these zealots — who, if they had been 
 permitted t<> go nn uncheeked, would quickly liave dis- 
 seminated thn'r doctrim-s through all classes of society— 
 the l)ominiran and Franciscan orders were founded. They 
 were well adapted lor their duty. It was their business 
 to move anion-- the people, preaching to them, in their own 
 tongue, wherever an audience could be collected. The 
 scandal under which the Church was labouring because of 
 her wealth could not apply to these persons who lived by 
 begging alms. Their function was not to secure their own 
 salvation, but that of other men. 
 
 St. Poniinie was born A.n. 117* 1 . His birth and life 
 were adorned with the customary prodigies. M i racles and 
 wonders were necessary for anything to make a g ^ 
 sensation in the West. His was an immaculate 
 conception, he was free from original sin. I le was regarded 
 as the adopted son of the Virgin : some were even disposed 
 to assign him a higher dignity than that. lie began his 
 operations in Languedoe; hut. as the prospect opened out 
 before him, he removed from that unpromising region to 
 Borne, the necessary oentre of all such undertakings as his. 
 Hero he perfected his organization ; instituted his friars, 
 nuns, and ternaries; and consolidated his pretensions by 
 the working of many miracles. He exorcised three 
 matrons, from whom Satan issued under the form of 
 
 a great 1 lack eat, which ran up a hell-rope and vanished. 
 A beautiful nun resolved to leave her convent. Happen- 
 ing to Mow her nose, it dropped off into hei handkerchief; 
 but, at the fervent prayer of St. Dominic, it was replaced, 
 and in gratitude, tempered by fear, she remained. St. 
 
 Dominio oould alfio raiae the dead. Nevertheless, he died 
 A.i'. ['22 1, having worthily obtained the title of the burner 
 and slayer of heretics. To him has been attributed the 
 glory or the crime of being the inventor of " the Holy 
 Inquisition." In a very few years his order boasted oi 
 
64 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WES I'. 
 
 [CII. II. 
 
 nearly 500 monasteries, scattered over Europe, Asia. 
 Africa. 
 
 St. Francis, the compeer of St. Dominic, was born a.d. 
 
 1182. His followers delighted to point out, as it 
 
 St. Francis. n n . ,-, . r 1 
 
 would seem not without irreverence, a resem- 
 blance to the incidents that occurred at the birth of our 
 Lord. A prophetess foretold it ; he was born in a stable; 
 angels sung f< >rth peace and good-will in the air , one, under 
 the form of Simeon, bore him to baptism. In early life he 
 saw visions and became ecstatic. His father, Peter Bernar- 
 dini, a respectable tradesman, endeavoured to restrain his 
 eccentricities, at first by persuasion, but eventually more 
 forcibly, appealing for assistance to the bishop, to prevent 
 the young enthusiast from squandering his means in alms 
 to the poor. ( hi that functionary's gently remonstrating, 
 and pointing out to Francis his filial obligations, he 
 stripped himself naked before the people, exclaiming, 
 44 Peter Bemardini was my father ; I have now but one 
 Father, he that is in heaven." At this affecting renuncia- 
 tion of all earthly possessions and earthly ties, those 
 present burst into tears, and the good bishop threw his 
 own mantle over him. When a man has come to this 
 pass, there is nothing he cannot accomplish. 
 
 It is related that, when application was first made to 
 Lutboriza- Innocent to authorize the order, he refused ; but, 
 tton t these very soon recognizing the advantages that would 
 orders. accrue, he gave it his hearty patronage. So 
 rapid was the increase, that in a.d. 1219 it numbered not 
 fewer than five thousand brethren. It was founded on 
 the principles of chastity, poverty, obedience. They were 
 to live on alms, but never to receive money. After a life 
 of devotion to the Church, St. Francis attained his re- 
 ward, a.d. 1226. Two years previous to his death, by a 
 miraculous intervention there were impressed on his 
 person marks answering to the wounds on our Saviour. 
 These were the celebrated stigmata. A black growth, 
 like nails, issued forth from the palms of his hands and 
 his feet ; a wound from which blood and water distilled 
 opened in his side. It is not to be wondered at that 
 these prodigies met with general belief. This was the 
 generation which received as inestimable relics, through 
 
PH. II. J THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 65 
 
 Andrew of Hungary, the skulls of St. Stephen and St. 
 Margaret, the hands of St. Bartholomew and St. Thomas 
 a slip of the rod of Aaron, and one of the water-pots of 
 fho niarriagc at ( 'ana in ( lalilee. 
 
 The papal government , jn j,.] : ] v fo , 1|1(1 t]l0 prodiffious 
 adva.it;,-,. arising IV, .m (h,.. institution of these , „ 
 mendicant orders. Vowed to poverty, living on 5J5f£.*" 
 alms, hosts of friars, begging and barefoot theseordcre . 
 Pervaded all Europe, oonung in contact, under tho most 
 iav,.ur;,l.l,-e, I vu.,,s..,n.,-s. wiili the lowest grades of sociotv. 
 i ney Uved and moved among tho populace, and yet were 
 Held sacred. [ ]„. ;l e,usations of dissipation and luxury 
 so lore.hly urged against the regular clergv were alto- 
 gether itiapplieahlo to these rope-hound, starving fanatics 
 through then, (he Italian government had possession of 
 ll " r; "'" , , K '"'" 1 " - T1 "' 1 " I ' « >1" worship in an unknown 
 tongue, the gorgeous solemnities of the Church, were' 
 
 lar more than compensated hy the preaching 0 f these 
 missionaries, who held forth in the vernacular wherever 
 audiemv cmld 1,, l,,d. Among the early ones, some 
 had heen aeeuslomed to a wandering life. Brother Paei- 
 hcus, a disciple of St. Francis, had been a celebrated 
 l ""iv, ,-e. In truth, they not only warded off the present 
 pressing danger, hul through them the Church retained 
 her hold on the labouring classes for several subsequent 
 centimes I he ],., .■ might truly hoast that the Poor Men 
 " . < I'lireli were m„rc than a match for the Poor Men 
 of Lyons. I heir influence hegan to diminish only when 
 they ahandoncd their essential principles, joined in the 
 <*•'»•»<•" race lor plunder, and heoame immcn*sclv rich 
 
 Act. only did Innocent, ill. thus provide himself with 
 an ecclesiastical militia suited to meet tho obviously im- 
 pending insurrection, he increased his power greatly but 
 insidiously hy the f„nnal introduction 'of auricular con- 
 fession j t was hy the fourth Patera,, Council , 
 that the necessity of auricular confession was 
 nrst. formally established. J(. s was ( hat no c,IIif( SSion - 
 heretic should escape, and that the absent priest should 
 be paramount even in tho domestic circle. In none but 
 a most degraded and superstitious society can such an 
 infamous institution ho tolerated. It invades the sacred 
 
66 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 privacy of life— makes a man's wife, children, and servants 
 his spies and accusers. AYheii any religious system stands 
 in need of such a social immorality, we may be sure that 
 it is irrecoveral.lv diseased, and hastening to its end. 
 
 Auricular confession led to an increasing necessity for 
 Development casuistry, though that science was not fully 
 of casuistry. developed until the time of the Jesuits, when it 
 <rave rise to an extensive literature, with a lax system and 
 a false morality, gui.ling the penitent rather with a view 
 to his usefulness to the Church than to his own reforma- 
 tion, and m.t hesitating at singular indecencies in its 
 portion having reference to married life. 
 
 (Jreat historical events often lind illustrations m repre- 
 sentative men. Such is the case in the epoch wo are now 
 Ittttudcof considering On one side stands Innocent, true 
 inm.cmt in. f 0 the instincts of his party, interfering with 
 all the European nations: launching forth his interdicts 
 
 and excommunications; steeped in the 1.1 1 oi rreiioh 
 
 heretics; hesitating at no atroeity, even the outrage and 
 murder of women and children, the rum oi Nourishing 
 cities, to compass his plans; in all directions, under a 
 thousand pretences, draining Europe of its money; calling 
 to his aid hosts of begging friars ; putting forth imposture 
 miracles- organizing the Inquisition, and invading the 
 privacy of life by the contrivance of auricular confession. 
 
 On the other Vide stands Frederick II., the Emperor of 
 Attitude of Germany. His early life, as has been already 
 Frederick VL mentioned, was spent in Sicily, m familiar inter- 
 course with Jews and Arabs, and Sicily to the last was the 
 favoured portion of his dominions. To his many other 
 accomplishments he added the speaking of Arabic as 
 fluently as a Saracen. He delighted in the society oi 
 Mohammedan ladies, who thronged his court. His enemies 
 asserted that his chastity was not improved by his associa- 
 tions with these miscreant beauties. The Jewish and 
 Mohammedan physicians and philosophers taught him to 
 sneer at the pretensions of the Church. From such ridicule 
 it is but a short step to the shaking ofi of 
 EaSE?" authority. At this time the Spanish Moham- 
 dencies. me dans had become widely infected with lrre- 
 ligion ; their greatest philosophers were infidel m their 
 
OH, U.J THE AGE OF FA I I'll IX rHS WEST, 67 
 
 own infidelity. The two sons of Averroes of Cordova are 
 said to have been residents at Frederick's court. Their 
 father was one of the ablest men their nation ever pro- 
 ' '"•'"I : ;m «'Xpi'rirncvd astronomer, he had translated tlie 
 Almagest, and, it is aflirmed, was the first who actually 
 saw a transit of Mercury across the sun ; a voluminous 
 '•""mi. ntator on the works of Plato and Aristotle but a 
 W«DeUever mall n velation. Kv,n of M. .hanm.edanism ho 
 allii.liii^r to the prohibition which the Prophet h a d 
 enjoined on the use of the flesh of swine, 44 That form of 
 (religion is destitute of every thing that can commend it to 
 the approval of any understanding, unless it be that of a 
 W In 11,r Sicilian oourt, surrounded by such profane 
 influences, the character of the young emperor 
 was formed. Italian poetry, destined fcr such ^uuc^ 9 
 a brilliant future, here first found a voice in 1 wui 
 the sweet Sicilian dialect. r rhe emperor ami his hlU>y ' 
 chancellor were cultivators of the gay science, and in the 
 composition of sonnets were rivals. A love of amatory 
 poetry had spread from th South of France. 
 ITT W 1 itl V l vi 7' f " lhe w»vrrynf the Holy Land. Ilonorius 
 l i{ ,^a,1, ' ^ndcnek marry Ynlinda de Lusignan, tho 
 
 heiress ol the krigdom of Jerusalem. It was not there- 
 fore, to be wondered at that Frederick's frivolities soon 
 drew upon him tho indignation of the gloomy Pope Gre- 
 gory the v, rv lir>i act of whose pontilicato was to 
 summon a new crusade. To the exhortations and com- 
 mands ot the aged pope the eni]»eror lent a most T , f 
 reluctanl ear. postponing, from time to time, the on™^ 
 period oi hi- departure, and dabbling in doubtful andau ' n e 008 - 
 oegotiations, through his Mohammedan friends, with the 
 sultan ot Kgypt. He embarked at last, but in three days 
 vn ; rn,Ml - rho octogenarian pope was not to bo trifled 
 >vith, and pronounced his excommunication. Frederick 
 r< ated it with ostensible contempt, hut appealed to Chris- 
 tendom, accusing Rome of avaricious intentions. Her 
 'ttieials, he said, were travelling in all direc- 
 ■fcma, not to preach th.- Word of God, but to SSSTSs* 0 
 
 ixtort money. " Tho primitive Church founded r<M<ifh.w 
 m poverty and simplicity, brought forth num- «° XQrnmcnL 
 ►erlcss saints. The Romans are now rolling in wealth. 
 
68 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST, 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 What wonder that the walls of the Church are undermined 
 to the base, and threaten utter ruin." For saying this he 
 underwent a more tremendous excommunication ; but his 
 partisans in Borne, raising an insurrection, expelled the 
 pope. And now Frederick set sail, of his own accord, on 
 his crusading expedition. On reaching the Holy Land, he 
 was received with joy by the knights and pilgrims ; but 
 the clergy held aloof from him as an excommunicated 
 person. The pontiff had despatched a swift- sailing ship to 
 His Mend- forbid their holding intercourse with him. His 
 ship with the private negotiations with the Sultan of Egypt 
 now matured. The Christian camp was thronged 
 with infidel delegates : some came to discuss philosophical 
 questions, some were the bearers of presents. Elephants 
 and a bevy of dancing-girls were courteously sent by the 
 sultan to his friend, who, it is said, was not insensible to 
 the witcheries of these Oriental beauties. He wore a Saracen 
 dress. In his privacy he did not hesitate to say, " I came 
 not here to deliver the Holy City, but to maintain my estima- 
 tion among the Franks." To the sultan he appealed, " Out 
 of your goodness, surrender to me J erusalem as it is, that 
 I may be able to lift up my head among the kings of Chris- 
 who gives up tendom." Accordingly, the city was surren- 
 jerusaiem to dered to him. The object of his expedition 
 him * was accomplished. But the pope was not to be 
 
 deceived by such collusions. He repudiated the transac- 
 tions altogether, and actually took measures to lay Jeru- 
 salem and our Saviour's sepulchre under interdict, and this 
 in the face of the Mohammedans. While the emperor pro- 
 claimed his successes to Europe, the pope denounced them 
 as coming from the union of Christ and Belial ; alleging 
 The pope de- four accusations against Frederick: 1. That he 
 Bounces him. na( j given the sword which he had received from 
 the altar of St. Peter for the defence of the faith, as a 
 present to the Sultan of Babylon ; 2. That he had permitted 
 the preaching of the Koran in the holy Temple itself ; 3. 
 That he had excluded the Christians of Antioch from his 
 treaty ; 4. That he had bound himself, if a Christian army 
 should attempt to cleanse the Temple and city from 
 Mohammedan defilements, to join the Saracens. 
 
 Frederick crowned himself at Jerusalem, unable to find 
 
CH. II.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 69 
 
 any ecclesiastic who dared to perform the ceremony, and 
 departed from the Holy Land. It was time, for Borne was 
 intriguing against him at home, a false report of his death 
 having been industriously circulated. He forthwith pre- 
 pared to enter on his conflict with the pontiff. His Saracen 
 colonies at Nocera and Luceria, in Italy, could Frederick 
 supply him with 30,000 Mussulman soldiers, establishes 
 with whom it was impossible for his enemies to f*™^ p08ts 
 tamper. He managed to draw over the general 
 sentiment of Europe to his side, and publicly offered to 
 convict the pope himself of negotiations with the infidels ; 
 but his antagonist, conveniently impressed with a sudden 
 horror of shedding blood, gave way, and peace between the 
 parties was made. It lasted nearly nine years. 
 
 In this period, the intellectual greatness of Frederick, 
 and the tendencies of the influences by which he was 
 enveloped, were strikingly manifested. In ad- His political 
 vance of his age, he devoted himself to the institutions, 
 political improvement of Sicily. He instituted repre- 
 sentative parliaments ; enacted a system of wise laws ; 
 asserted the principle of equal rights and equal burdens, 
 and the supremacy of the law over all, even the nobles and 
 the Church. He provided for the toleration of all pro- 
 fessions, Jewish and Mohammedan, as well as Christian; 
 emancipated all the serfs of his domains ; instituted cheap 
 justice for the poor ; forbade private war ; regulated 
 commerce — prophetically laying down some of those great 
 principles, which only in our own time have been finally 
 received as true ; established markets and fairs ; collected 
 large libraries ; caused to be translated such works as those 
 of Aristotle and Ptolemy ; built menageries for natural 
 history ; founded in Naples a great university ; patronized 
 the medical college at Salernum ; made provisions for the 
 education of promising but indigent youths. All over 
 the land splendid architectural triumphs were created. 
 Under him the Italian language first rose above a patois. 
 Sculpture, painting, and music were patronized. His chan- 
 cellor is said to have been the author of the oldest sonnet. 
 
 In the eye of Eome all this was an abomination. Were 
 human laws to take the precedence of the law of God? 
 Were the clergy to be degraded to a level with the laity ? 
 
70 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WES f. 
 
 [CH. II, 
 
 AVere the Jew and the Mohammedan to he permitted their 
 infamous rites ? Was this new-horn product of the inso- 
 lence of human intellect — this so-called science — to he 
 "brought into competition with theology, the heaven- 
 Theyare descended ? Frederick and his parliaments, his 
 lenounced. laws and universities, his libraries, his statues, 
 his pictures and sonnets, were denounced. Through all, 
 the ever- watchful eve of the Church discerned the Jew 
 and the Saracen, and held them up to the abhorrenco of 
 Europe. But Gregory "was not unwilling to show what 
 could he done by himself in the same direction. lie caused 
 a compilation of the Decretals to he issued, intrusting the 
 work to one Raymond de Pennaforto, who had attained 
 celebrity as a literary opponent of the Saracens. It is 
 amusing to remark that even this simple work of labour 
 could not he promulgated without the customary embel- 
 lishments. It was given out that an angel watched over 
 Pennaforte's shoulder all the time he was writing. 
 
 Meantime an unceasing vigilance was maintained against 
 the dangerous results that would necessarily ensue from 
 Frederick's movements. In Rome, many heretics were 
 Outbreak of hurned ; many condemned to imprisonment for 
 ins quarrel life. The quarrel between the pope and the 
 with the pope, em p eror wafl resumed; the latter being once 
 more excommunicated, and his body delivered over to 
 Satan for the good of his soul. Again Frederick appealed 
 to all the sovereigns of Christendom. He denounced the 
 pontiff as an unworthy vicar of Christ, " who sits in his 
 court like a merchant, weighing out dispensations for 
 gold — himself writing and signing the bulls, perhaps 
 counting the money. He has but one cause of enmity 
 against me, that I refused to many to his niece my 
 natural son Enzio, now King of Sardinia." " In the 
 midst of the Church sits a frantic prophet, a man of false- 
 hood, a polluted priest." To this Gregory replied. The 
 tenor of his answer may be gathered from ts commence- 
 ment : " Out of the sea a beast is arisen, whose name is 
 who rouses written all over 'Blasphemy.'" "He falsely 
 Christendom asserts that I am enraged at his refusing his 
 agamst him. consen ^ { 0 fa e marriage of my niece with his 
 natural son. He lies more impudently when he says that I 
 
nr. n.] 
 
 the a^;e of faith in the \vf>t. 
 
 71 
 
 havo pledged my faith to the Lombards." " In truth, this 
 pestilent king maintains, to use his own. words, that the 
 WOlld has been deceived by three impostors — Jesus Christ, 
 Moses, and Mohammed ; that of these two died in honour, 
 and the third was hanged on a tree. Even now, he lias 
 asserted, distinctly and loudly, that those are fools who 
 aver that (o»d, the Omnipotent Creator of the world, was 
 horn of a woman." This was in allusion to the celebrated 
 and mysterious book, " 1 )e Tribus Impostoribus," in the 
 authorship of which Frederick was accused of having been 
 ci mcerned. 
 
 The pont ill* had touched the right chord. The begging 
 friars, in all directions, added to the accusations. " He 
 has spoken of 1 lie Ilo^t as a mummery; he has asked how 
 many gods might be made out of a corn-field; he has 
 aflirmed that, it' the princes of the world would stand by 
 him, he would easily make for mankind a better faith and 
 a bet ter rulo of lifo , lie has laid down t lie infidel maxim 
 that 4 God expects not a man to believe anything that can- 
 not be demonstrated by reason.'" The opinion of Christ- 
 endom rose against Frederick ; its sentiment of piety was 
 allocked. The pontiff* proceeded to depose him, Fre dericku8e8 
 and otfered his crown to Robert of France. l>ut in* Samcon 
 the Mussulman troops of the emperor were too tro ° rb * 
 much for the begging friars of the pope. His Saracens 
 were marching across Italy in all directions. The pontiff 
 himself would have inevitably fallen into the hands of his 
 mortal enemy had he not found a deliverance in death, 
 A.I). 1241. Frederick had declared that ho would not 
 respect his sacred person, but, if victorious, would teach 
 him the absolute supremacy of the temporal power. It 
 was plain that he had no intention of respecting a religion 
 which he had not hesitated to denounce as "a mere 
 absurdity." 
 
 W hat ever may have been the intention of Innocent IV. — 
 who, after the short pontificate of Celestine IV. and an 
 interval, succeeded —he was borne into the same policy by 
 the irresistible force of circumstances. The deadly quarrel 
 with the emperor was renewed. To escape his wrath, 
 [nnooent fled to France, and there in safety called the 
 Ootmoil of Lyons. In a sermon, be renewed all the old 
 
72 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST, 
 
 [ch. a 
 
 accusations — the heresy and sacrilege — the peopling ol 
 Italian cities with Saracens, for the purpose of overturn- 
 ing the Vicar of Christ with those infidels — the friendship 
 with the Sultan of Egypt — the African courtesans — the 
 Excommu- perjuries and blasphemies. Then was proclaimed 
 olcatioD of the sentence of excommunication and deposition. 
 Frederick. p 0 p 0 aiK i the bishops inverted the torches 
 
 they held in their hands until they went out, uttering the 
 malediction, " So may he be extinguished." Again the 
 emperor appealed to Europe, but tin's time in vain. 
 Europe would not forgive him hi* blasphemy. Misfortunes 
 crowded upon him : his friends forsook him ; his favourite 
 son, Enzio, was taken prisoner: and lie never smiled again 
 after detecting his intimate, Pietro do Vinea, whom he 
 had raised from beggary, in promising the monks that he 
 would poison him. The day had been carried by a resort 
 to all means justifiable and unjustifiable, good and evil. 
 For thirty years Frederick had emnl-ated the Church and 
 the Guelph party, but he sunk in the conflict at last. 
 When Innocent heard of the death of his foe, he might 
 doubtless well think that what he had once asserted had 
 at last become true : " AVe are no mere mortal man; we 
 have the place of God upon earth." In his address to the 
 The triumph clergy of Sicily he exclaimed, k ' Let the heavens 
 at bis death, rejoice and let the earth be glad ; for the light- 
 ning and tempest wherewith God Almighty has so long 
 menaced your heads have been changed by the death of 
 this man into refreshing zephyrs and fertilizing dews." 
 This is that superhuman vengeance which hesitates not 
 to strike the corpse of a man. Borne never forgives him 
 who has told her of her impostures face to face ; she never 
 forgives him who has touched her goods. 
 
 The Saracenic influences had thus found an expression 
 in the South of France and in Sicily, involving many 
 classes of society, from the Poor Men of Lyons to the 
 Emperor of Germany ; but in both places they were over- 
 come by the admirable organization and unscrupulous 
 Power of the vigour of the Church. She handled her weapons 
 church at with singular dexterity, and contrived to ex- 
 
 moment - tract victory out of humiliation and defeat. As 
 ahvays since the days of Constantino, she had partisans in 
 
I II. II.] 
 
 THE AGK OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 7a 
 
 e very city, in every village, in every family. And now it 
 might have appeared that I lie Mow she had thus delivered 
 was final, and that the world, in contentment, must sub- 
 mit to her will. She had again succeeded in putting her 
 iron heel en the neck of knowledge, had invoked against it 
 the hatred of I 'hristendmn, and reviled it as the monstrous 
 hut legitimate issue of the d< test< d Mohammedanism. 
 
 But tho fato of men is by no means an indication of tho 
 fate of prineiples. r r] |( . f ;i U ,,f tin- Kmperor Frederick was 
 not followed by the destruction of the influences vitality of 
 he represented. These not only survived him, Fwderfck*i 
 hut were destined, in the end, to overcome tho I,rinciI)l " 9 - 
 power which had 1 1 an- tently overthrown them. We are 
 now entering on the history of a period which offers not 
 only exterior opposition to the current doctrines, hut, 
 what is more ominous, interior mutiny. Notwithstanding 
 tho awful persecutions in the South of France — notwith- 
 standing tho establishment of auricular confession as a 
 detective means, and the Imposition as a weapon of 
 j urn ishment —not withstanding the influence of the French 
 king, St. Louis, canonized by the grateful Church — 
 heresy, instead of being extirpated, extended itself among 
 the laity, and even spread among the ecclesiastical ranks. 
 St. Louis, the repr< sentative of the hierarchical 
 
 ,1 . n i r j.\ Bt Louis. 
 
 party, gathers influence only from the circum- 
 stance of his relations with the Church, of whose interests 
 he was a fanatical supporter. So far as the affairs of his 
 peoplo were concerned, he can hardly be looked upon as 
 anything hotter than a simpleton. His reliance for check- 
 ing the threatened spread of heresy was a resort to 
 violence — tho faggot and tho sword. In his opinion, " A 
 man ought never to dispute with a misbeliever except 
 with his sword, which he ought to drive into the heretic's 
 entrails as far as he can." It was the signal glory of his 
 reign that he secured for France that inestimable relic, 
 the crown of thorns. This peerless memento of Hi 88 nper- 
 our Saviour's passion he purchased in Constanti- stition » 
 nople for an iiiiiiien.se sum. ]>ut France was doubly and 
 enviably enriched; for the Abbey of St. iVnvs was in 
 possession of another, known to be equally authentic ! 
 POCdoil tll6 crown, he also secured the sponge that was 
 
74 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. II, 
 
 dipped in vinegar ; the lance of the Eoman soldier ; also 
 the swaddling-clothes in which the Saviour had first lain 
 in the manger ; the rod of Moses ; and part of the skull of 
 John the Baptist. These treasures he deposited in the 
 " Holy Chapel " of Paris. 
 
 Under the papal auspices, St. Louis determined on a 
 crusade ; and nothing;, except what we have 
 
 and crusade. n -. i i 11 i i • ±. i 
 
 already mentioned, can better show his mental 
 imbecility than his disregard of all suitable arrangements 
 for it. He thought that, provided the troops could be 
 made to lead a religious life, all would go well ; that the 
 Lord would fight his own battles, and that no provisions 
 of a military or worldly kind were needed. In such a 
 pious reliance on the support of God, he reached Egypt 
 with his expedition in June, a.d. 1249. The ever-con- 
 spicuous valour of the French troops could maintain itself 
 in the battle-field, but not against pestilence and famine, 
 In March of the following year, as might have been fore 
 seen, King Louis was the prisoner of the Sultan, and way 
 only spared the indignity of being carried about as a 
 its total fail- public spectacle in the Mohammedan towns by 
 ure - a ransom, at first fixed at a million of Byzantines, 
 
 but by the merciful Sultan voluntarily reduced one fifth. 
 Still, for a time, Louis lingered in the East, apparently 
 stupefied by considering how God could in this mannei 
 have abandoned a man who had come to his help. Never 
 was there a crusade with a more shameful end. 
 
 Notwithstanding the support of St. Louis in his own 
 dominions, the intellectual revolt spread in every direction, 
 The inquisi- and that not only in France, but throughout all 
 toarSst'the 18 Catholic Europe. In vain the Inquisition ex- 
 intellectual erted all its terrors — and what could be more 
 revolt. terrible than its form of procedure ? It sat in 
 secret ; no witness, no advocate was present ; the accused 
 was simply informed that he was charged with heresy, it 
 was not said by whom. He was made to swear that he 
 would tell the truth as regarded himself, and also re- 
 specting other persons, whether parents, children, friends, 
 strangers. If he resisted he was committed to a solitary 
 dungeon, dark and poisonous ; his food was diminished ; 
 everything was done to drive him into insanity. Then 
 
CH. II.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 75 
 
 the familiars of the Holy Office, or others in its interests, 
 were by degrees to work upon him to extort confession ,as 
 to himself or accusations against others. But this fearful 
 tribunal did not fail to draw upon itself the indignation of 
 men. Its victims, condemned for heresy, were perishing 
 in all directions. The usual apparatus of death, the stake 
 and faggots, had become unsuited to its wholesale and re- 
 morseless vengeance. The convicts were so numerous as 
 to require pens made of stakes and filled with straw. It 
 was thus that, before the Archbishop of Eheims and 
 seventeen other prelates, one hundred and eighty- Burnings of 
 three heretics, together with their pastor, were heretics - 
 burned alive. Such outrages against humanity cannot 
 be perpetrated without bringing in the end retribution. 
 In other countries the rising indignation was exasperated 
 by local causes ; in England, for instance, by the continual 
 intrusion of Italian ecclesiastics into the richest benefices. 
 Some uf them were mere boys ; many were non-residents ; 
 some had not so much as seen the country from which 
 they drew their ample wealth. The Archbishop of York 
 was excommunicated, with torches and bells, because he 
 would not bestow the abundant revenues of. his Church 
 on persons from beyond the Alps; but for all this 4 'he 
 was blessed by the people." The archbishopric of Canter- 
 bury was held, a.d. 1241, by Boniface of Savoy, to whom 
 had been granted by the pope the first-fruits of all the 
 benefices in his province. His rapacity was boundless. 
 From all the ecclesiastics and ecclesiastical establishments 
 under his control he extorted enormous sums. Some, who, 
 like the Dean of St. Paul's, resisted him, were excommuni- 
 cated ; some, like the aged Sub-prior of St. Bartholomew's, 
 were knocked down by his own hand. Of a military turn 
 — he often wore a cuirass under his robes — he joined his 
 brother, the Archbishop of Lyons, who was besieging 
 Turin, and wasted the revenues of his see in England 
 in intrigues and petty military enterprises against his 
 enemies in Italy. 
 
 Not among the laity alone was there indignation against 
 such a state of things. Mutiny broke out in the Mutiny aris _ 
 ranks of the Church. It was not that among ing in the 
 the humbler classes the sentiment of piety had Church - 
 
76 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. II. 
 
 become diminished. The Shepherds, under the leadership 
 of the Master of Hungary, passed by tens of thousands 
 through France to excite the clergy to arouse for the 
 rescue of good King Louis, in bondage among the Mussul- 
 men. They asserted that they were commissioned by the 
 Virgin, and were fed miraculously by the Master. 
 Originating in Italy, the Flagellants also passed, two by 
 The shep- ^ wo > through every city, scourging themselves 
 herds and for thirty-three days in memory of the years of 
 Flagellants. mr Lord. These dismal enthusiasts emulated 
 each other, and were rivals of the mendicant friars in their 
 hatred of the clergy. The mendicants were beginning to 
 justify that hesitation which Innocent displayed when he 
 was first importuned to authorize them. The papacy had 
 reaped from these orders much good ; it was now to gather 
 a fearful evil. They had come to be learned men instead of 
 ferocious bigots. They were now, indeed, among the most 
 cultivated men of their times. They had taken possession 
 of many of the seats of learning. In the University of 
 Paris, out of twelve chairs of theology, three only were 
 occupied by the regular clergy. The mendicant friars 
 The mendi- na( ^ entered into the dangerous paths of heresy, 
 cant friars are They became involved in that fermenting leaven 
 that had come from Spain, and among them 
 revolt broke out. 
 
 With an unerring instinct, Eome traced the insurrection 
 to its true source. We have only to look at the measures 
 taken by the popes to understand their opinion. Thus 
 Innocent III., a.d. 1215, regulated, by his legate, the 
 Romeprohi- scno °l s of Paris, permitting the study of the 
 bits the study Dialectics of Aristotle, but forbidding his 
 of science. physical and metaphysical works and their com- 
 mentaries. These had come through an Arabic channel. 
 A rescript of Gregory XI., a.d. 1231, interdicts those on 
 natural philosophy until they had been purified by the 
 theologians of the Church. These regulations were con- 
 firmed by Clement IV. a.d. 1265. 
 
( w ) 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WE ST — ( Continued), 
 
 OVERTHROW OF THE ITALIAN SYSTEM BY THE COMBINED INTELLECTUAL 
 AND MORAL ATTACK. 
 
 Progress of Irreligion among the mendicant Orders. — Publication of 
 heretical Boohs. — The Everlasting Gospel and the Comment on the 
 Apocalypse. 
 
 Conflict between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII. — Outrage upon 
 
 and death of the Pope. 
 The French King removes the Papacy from Borne to Avignon. — PosU 
 
 mortem Trial of the Pope for Atheism and Immorality. — Causes and 
 
 Consequences of the Atheism of the Pope. 
 The Templars fall into Infidelity. — Their Trial, Conviction, and 
 
 Punishment. 
 
 Immoralities of the Papal Court at Avignon. — Its return to Borne. — 
 Causes of the great Schism. — Disorganization of the Italian System. — 
 Decomposition of the Papacy. — Three Popes. 
 
 The Council of Constance attempts to convert the papal Autocracy into a 
 constitutional Monarchy. — It murders John Huss and Jerome of 
 Prague. — Pontificate of Nicolas V. — End of the intellectual influence 
 of the Italian System. 
 
 About the close of the twelfth century appeared among 
 the mendicant friars that ominous work, which, «TheEveriast- 
 under the title of " The Everlasting Gospel," in s <*°spei." 
 struck terror into the Latin hierarchy. It was affirmed 
 that an angel had brought it from heaven, engraven on 
 copper plates, and had given it to a priest called Cyril, who 
 delivered it to the Abbot Joachim. The abbot 
 
 iii t -i i i nr±. i j_i Introduction 
 
 had been dead about nity years, when there to it by the 
 was put forth, a.d. 1250, a true exposition of the F™ntisrans he 
 tendency of his book, under the form of an 
 introduction, by John of Parma, the general of the Fran- 
 
78 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. Ill, 
 
 ciscans, as was universally suspected or alleged. Notwith- 
 standing its heresy, the work displayed an enlarged and 
 masterly conception of the historical progress of humanity. 
 In this introduction, John of Parma pointed out that the 
 Abbot Joachim, who had not only performed a pilgrimage 
 to the Holy Land, but had been reverenced as a prophet, 
 received as of unimpeachable orthodoxy, and canonized, 
 had accepted as his fundamental position that Eoman 
 Christianity had done its work, and had now come to its 
 inevitable termination. He proceeded to show that there 
 are epochs or ages in the Divine government of the world 
 that, during the Jewish dispensation, it had been under 
 the immediate influence of God the Father ; during the 
 Christian dispensation, it had been under that of God the 
 Son ; and that the time had now arrived when it would be 
 under the influence of God the Holy Ghost ; that, in the 
 coming ages, there would be no longer any need of faith, 
 but that all things would be according to wisdom and 
 reason. It was the ushering in of a new time. So spake, 
 with needful obscurity, the Abbo A J oachim, and so, more 
 plainly, the General of the Franciscans in his Introduction. 
 " The Everlasting Gospel " was declared by its adherents 
 to have supplanted the New Testament, as that had sup- 
 planted the Old — these three books constituting a threefold 
 revelation, answering to the Trinity of the Godhead. At 
 once there was a cry from the whole hierarchy. The Pope, 
 Attempts to Alexander IV., without delay, took measures 
 destroy the for the destruction of the book. Whoever kept 
 or concealed a copy was excommunicated. But 
 among the lower mendicants — the Spiritualists, as they 
 were termed — the work was held in the most devout 
 repute. With them it had taken the place of the Holy 
 Scriptures. So far from being suppressed, it was followed, 
 in about forty years, a.d. 1297, by the Comment on the 
 The comment Apocalypse, by John Peter Oliva, who, in Sicily, 
 ontheApo- had accepted the three epochs or ages, and 
 caiypse. divided the middle one — the Christian — into 
 seven stages : the age of the Apostles ; that of the 
 Martyrs ; that of Heresies ; that of Hermits ; that of the 
 Monastic System ; that of the overthrow of Anti-Christ, 
 and that of the coming Millennium. He agreed with his 
 
€H. III.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 79 
 
 predecessors in the impending abolition of Eoman Chris- 
 tianity, stigmatized that Church as the purple harlot, and 
 with them affirmed that the pope and all his hierarchy had 
 become superfluous and obsolete — " their work was done, 
 their doom sealed." His zealous followers de- 
 clared that the sacraments of the Church were these doc- 
 now all useless, those administering them having ^SesiaS g 
 no longer any jurisdiction. The burning of 
 thousands of these " Fratricelli " by the Inquisition was 
 altogether inadequate to suppress them. Eventually, when 
 the Eeformation occurred, they mingled among the 
 followers of Luther. 
 
 To the internal and doctrinal troubles thus befalling 
 the Church, material and foreign ones of the most vital 
 importance were soon added. The true reason of Approachmg 
 the difficulties into which the papacy was falling difficulties of 
 was now coming conspicuously into light. It the Churcb - 
 was absolutely necessar}^ that money should be drawn to 
 Rome, and the sovereigns of the Western kingdoms, France 
 and England, from which it had hitherto been largely 
 obtained, were determined that it should be so no longer. 
 They had equally urgent need themselves of all that could 
 be extorted. In France, even by St. Louis, it was enacted 
 that the papal power in the election of the clergy should 
 be restrained ; and, complaining of the drain of money 
 from the kingdom to Rome, he applied the effectual remedy 
 of prohibiting any such assessments or taxations for the 
 future. 
 
 We have now reached the pontificate of Boniface VIII., 
 an epoch in the intellectual history of Europe. Under the 
 title of Celestine V. a visionary hermit Lad been raised to 
 the papacy — visionary, for Peter Morrone (such PeterMorrone 
 was his name) had long been indulged inappari- becomes pope, 
 tions of angels and the sounds of phantom bells in the 
 air. Peter was escorted from his cell to his supreme 
 position by admiring crowds; but it very soon became 
 apparent that the life of an anchorite is not a preparation 
 for the duties of a pope. The conclave of cardinals had 
 elected him, not from any impression of his suitableness, 
 but because they were evenly balanced in two parties, 
 neither of which would give way. They were therefor© 
 
80 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. III. 
 
 driven to a temporary and available election. But scarcely 
 had this been done when his incapacity became conspicuous 
 and his removal imperative. It is said that the friends ot 
 Benedetto Gaetani, the ablest of the cardinals, through a 
 hole perforated in the pope's chamber wall, at midnight, in 
 a hollow voice, warned him that he retained his dignity 
 
 Ceiestme v a ^ ^ e P er1 ^ °f n * s S011 l, an ^- i n the namo of God 
 terrified into commanded him to abdicate. And so, in spite 
 abdication. Q f i m p 0r tunity, he did. His abdication was 
 considered by many pious persons as striking a death-blow 
 at papal infallibility. 
 
 It was during his pontificate that the miracle of Loretto 
 The miracle occurred. The house inhabited by the Yirgin 
 of Loretto. immediately after her conception had been con- 
 verted on the death of the Holy Family into a chapel, and 
 St. Luke had presented to it an image, carved by his own 
 hands, still known as our Lady of Loretto. Some angels 
 chancing to be at Nazareth when the Saracen conquerors 
 approached, fearing that the sacred relic might fall into 
 their possession, took the house bodily in their hands, and, 
 carrying it through the air, after several halts, finally 
 deposited it at Loretto in Italy. 
 
 So Benedetto Gaetani, whether by such wily procure- 
 Boniface ments or not, became Pope Boniface VIII., a.d. 
 viii. elected 1294. His election was probably due to King 
 pope. Charles, who held twelve electoral votes, the 
 
 bitter personal animosity of the Colonnas having been either 
 neutralized or overcome. The first care of Boniface was to 
 consolidate his power and relieve himself of a rival. In the 
 opinion of many it was not possible for a pope to abdicate. 
 Confinement in prison soon (a.d. 1296) settled that ques- 
 Ascent of tion. ^ ne son l °^ Celestine was seen by a monk 
 PopeCeiestine ascending the skies, which opened to receive it 
 to heaven. ] ieaven . an( i a S pl e ndid funeral informed 
 
 his enemies that they must now acknowledge Boniface as 
 the unquestioned pope. But the princely Colonnas, the 
 leaders of the Ghibelline faction in Borne, who had re- 
 Quarreiof sisted the abdication of Celestine to the last, 
 Boniface and and were, therefore, mortal enemies of Boniface, 
 the colonnas. revolted# He polished a bull against them ; 
 he excommunicated them. With an ominous anticipation 
 
81 
 
 CH. III.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 of the future- for they were familiar with the papal 
 power and knew where to touch it to the quick-thev 
 appealed to a "General Council." Since supernatural 
 weapons did not seem to avail, Boniface proclaimed a 
 crusade against them. The issue answered his expecta- 
 tions. Palestrma, one of their strongholds, which in a 
 moment of weakness they had surrendered, was utterly 
 devastated and sown with salt. The Colonnas fled, some 
 of them to France. There, in King Philip the Fair, they 
 tound a friend, who was destined to avenge their wrongs 
 and to inflict on the papacy a blow from which it never 
 recovered. 
 
 This was the state of affairs at the commencement of the 
 quarrel between Philip and Boniface. The Crusades had 
 brought all Europe under taxation to Borne, and loud 
 complaints were everywhere made against the drain of 
 money into Italy. Things had at last come to such a 
 condition that it was not possible to continue D . 
 the Crusades without resorting to a taxation of nSS 
 me clergy, and this was the true reason of the ofEome - 
 eventual lukewarmness, and even opposition to them. But 
 the stream of money that had thus been passing into Italy 
 had engendered habits of luxury and extravagance. Cost 
 what it might, money must be had in Borne. The per- 
 ennial necessity under which the kings of England and 
 France found themselves— the necessity of revenue for the 
 carrying out of their temporal projects-could only be 
 satisfied in the same way. The wealth of those nations 
 had insensibly glided into the hands of the Church In 
 England, Edward I. enforced the taxation of the T „ r 
 clergy. They resisted at first, but that Sovereign England com- 
 found an ingenious and effectual remedy. He ?wX P ay 
 directed his judges to hear no cause in which an ta X iT opay 
 ecclesiastic was a complainant, but to try every suit brought 
 against them; asserting that those who refused to share 
 if 8 e inw« Ti? ^ ^tad 110 right to the protection of 
 its laws. They forthwith submitted. In the nature and 
 eftcacy of this remedy we for the first time recognize the 
 agency of a class of men soon to rise to power- the lawyers. 
 
 In France Philip the Fair made a similar attempt. It 
 was not to be supposed that Eome wouV tolerate this 
 
82 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. III. 
 
 trespassing on what she considered her proper domain, and 
 The King of accordingly Boniface issued the bull " Clericis 
 France at- laicos" excommunicating kings who should levy 
 tempts it. subsidies on ecclesiastics. Hereupon Philip 
 determined that, if the French clergy were not tributary 
 to him, France should not be tributary to the pope, and 
 issued an edict prohibiting the export of gold and silver 
 from France without his license. But he did not resort to 
 these extreme measures until he had tried others which 
 perhaps he considered less troublesome. He had plundered 
 the Jews, confiscated their property, and expelled them 
 from his dominions. The Church was fairly next in order ; 
 and, indeed, the mendicant friars of the lower class, who, 
 as we have seen, were disaffected by the publication of 
 is abetted by " ^he Everlasting Gospel," were loud in their 
 the begging denunciations of her wealth, attributing the pre- 
 vailing religious demoralization to it. They 
 pointed to the example of our Lord and his disciples ; and 
 when their antagonists replied that even He condescended 
 to make use of money, the malignant fanatics maintained 
 their doctrines, amid the applause of a jeering populace, 
 by answering that it was not St. Peter, but Judas, who 
 was intrusted with the purse, and that the pope stood in 
 need of the bitter rebuke which Jesus had of old adminis- 
 tered to his prototype Peter, saying, " Get thee behind me, 
 Satan ; for thou savourest not of the things that be of God, 
 but of the things that be of men" (Mark viii. 33). Under 
 that authority they affirmed that they might stigmatize 
 the great culprit without guilt. So the king ventured to 
 put forth his hand and touch what the Church had, and 
 she cursed him to his face. At first a literary war ensued : 
 the pope published his bull, the king his reply. Already 
 ihe policy which Philip was following, and the ability he 
 and ably sus- was displaying, manifested that he had attached 
 tained by the to himself that new power of which the King 
 lawyers. Q £ j] n g^ an( j i ia( j taken advantage — a power soon 
 to become the mortal enemy of the ecclesiastic — the 
 Device of the lawyers. In the meantime, money must be had 
 jubilee. { n Rome ; when, by the singularly felicitous 
 device of the proclamation of a year of jubilee, a.d. 1300, 
 large sums were again brought into Italy. 
 
CH. III.] THE AGE OF FAITH IX THE WEST. 83 
 
 anta S onis te on his hands-the 
 King of France, the Colonnas, the lawyers and 
 the mendicants By the latter, both high' and 
 iow, he was cordially hated. Thus the higher Boniface - 
 English Franciscans were enraged against him because b P 
 refused to let them hold lands. 8 The g y attempted toMbe 
 him with 40 000 ducats; but he seized the money at the 
 bankers under the pretence that it had no owners, as 
 the mendicants were vowed to poverty, and then denied 
 the privilege. As to the lower Franciscans, heresy was 
 fast spreading among them. They were not only infected 
 with the doctrines of « The Everlasting Gospel " but had 
 even descended into the abyss of irreli|ion one 'step more 
 by placing St. Francis in the stead of our Saviour The? 
 were incessant y repeating in the ears of the laity that the 
 pope was Anti-Christ, « The Man of Sin." The quarrel 
 between Philip and Boniface was every moment 
 increasing in bitterness. The former seized and w llision , 
 imprisoned a papal nuncio, who had been selected 
 
 French king 
 
 because he was known to be personally offensive • and the pope - 
 the latter retaliated by the issue of bulls protesting against 
 mich an outrage interfering between the king & and his 
 French clergy, and citing the latter to appear in Rome 
 and take cognizance of their master's misdoings The 
 monarch was actually invited to be present and hear his 
 own doom. In the lesser bnU-if it be authentic-and 
 the kings rejoinder, both parties seem to have lost their 
 temper This was followed by the celebrated Th . „ 
 bull « Ausculta Fth," at which the king's indigna- 
 tion knew no bounds. He had it publicly burnt mv ' 
 m Paris at the sound of a trumpet; assembled the States- 
 General; and, under the advice of his lawyers, skilfully 
 brought the 1S sue to this: Does the king hold the realm 
 of France of God or of the pope? Without difficulty it 
 might be seen how the French clergy would be compelled 
 to act : since many of them held fiefs of the king, all were 
 m tear of the intrusion of Italian ecclesiastics into the rich 
 benefices. France, therefore, supported her 
 monarch On his side, Boniface, in the bull 
 
 unam banctam, asserted his power by declaring Sanc ^" 
 that it is necessary to salvation to believe thai " every 
 
84 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 |_CH. III. 
 
 human being is subject to the Pontiff of Kome." Philip, 
 foreseeing the desperate nature of the approaching conflict, 
 and aiming to attach his people firmly to him by putting 
 himself forth as their protector against priestly tyranny, 
 again skilfully appealed to their sentiments by denouncing 
 the Inquisition as an atrocious barbarity, an outrage on 
 human rights, violating all law, resorting to new and 
 unheard-of tortures, and doing deeds at which men's minds 
 revolt with horror. In the South of France this lan- 
 guage was thoroughly understood. The lawyers, among 
 William de whom William de Nogaret was conspicuous, ably 
 Nogaret. assisted him ; indeed, his whole movement ex- 
 hibited the extraordinary intelligence of his advisers. It 
 has been affirmed, and is, perhaps, not untrue, that De 
 Nogaret's father had been burnt by the Inquisition. The 
 great lawyer was bent on revenge. The States-General, 
 under his suggestions, entertained four propositions : 
 Action of 1- That Boniface was not the true pope ; 2. That 
 the states- he was a heretic; 3. That he was asimoniac; 
 General. ^ That he was a man weighed down with crimes. 
 De Nogaret, learning from the Colonnas how to touch the 
 papacy in a vital point, demanded that the whole subject 
 should be referred to a " General Council" to be summoned 
 by the king. A second meeting of the States-General 
 was held. William de Plaisian, the Lord of Yezenoble, 
 appeared with charges against the pope. Out of a long 
 list, many of which could not possibly be true, some may 
 be mentioned : that Boniface neither believed in 
 
 Accusations . . _ 
 
 against the the immortality nor incorruptibility oi the soul, 
 pope * nor in a life to come, nor in the real presence in 
 
 the Eucharist ; that he did not observe the fasts of the 
 Church — not even Lent ; that he spoke of the cardinals, 
 monks, and friars as hypocrites ; that the Holy Land had 
 been lost through his fault ; that the subsidies for its 
 relief had been embezzled by him ; that his holy predecessor, 
 Celestine, through his inhumanity had been brought to 
 death ; that he had said that fornication and other obscene 
 practices are no sin ; that he was a Sodomite, and had 
 caused clerks to be murdered in his presence ; that he had 
 enriched himself by simony ; that his nephew's wife had 
 borne him two illegitimate sons. These, with other still 
 
CH. III.J 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 85 
 
 more revolting charges, were sworn to upon the Holy- 
 Gospels. The king appealed to " a general council and to 
 a legitimate pope." 
 
 The quarrel had now become a mortal one. There was 
 but one course for Boniface to take, and he did take it. 
 He excommunicated the king. He deprived him of his 
 throne, and anathematized his posterity to the fourth 
 generation. The bull was to be suspended in the porch of 
 the Cathedral of Anagni on September 8 ; but William de 
 Nogaret and one of the Colonnas had already passed into 
 Italy. They hired a troop of banditti, and on September 7 
 attacked the pontiff in his palace at Anagni. The doors 
 of a church which protected him were strong, but they 
 yielded to fire. The brave old man, in his pontifical robes, 
 with his crucifix in one hand and the keys of St. Peter in 
 the other, sat down on his throne and confronted his 
 assailants. His cardinals had fled through a sewer. So 
 little reverence was there for God's vicar upon earth, that 
 Sciarra Colonna raised his hand to kill him on the spot ; 
 but the blow was arrested by De Nogaret, who, with a 
 bitter taunt, told him that here, in his own city, he owed 
 his life to the mercy of a servant of the King of France — a 
 servant whose father had been burnt by the Inquisition. 
 The pontiff was spared only to be placed on a 
 miserable horse, with his face to the tail, and byiteNo- 6 
 led off to prison. They meant to transport him garet, and his 
 to France to await the general council. He was 
 rescued, returned to Rome, was seized and imprisoned again. 
 On the 11th of October he died. 
 
 Thus, after a pontificate of nine eventful years, perished 
 Boniface VIII. His history and his fate show to what a 
 gulf Eoman Christianity was approaching. His successor, 
 Benedict XL, had but a brief enjoyment of power ; long 
 enough, however, to learn that the hatred of the King of 
 France had not died with the death of Boniface, and that 
 he was determined not only to pursue the departed pontiff's 
 memory beyond the grave, but also to effect a radical 
 change in the papacy itself. A basket of figs was presented 
 to Benedict by a veiled female. She had brought poisoning of 
 them, she said, from the Abbess of St. Petronilla. Benedict xi. 
 In an unguarded moment the pontiff ate of them without 
 
86 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. Ill, 
 
 the customary precaution of having them previously 
 tasted. Alas ! what was the state of morals in Italy ? 
 A dysentery came on ; in a few days he was dead. But 
 the Colonnas had already taught the King of France 
 how one should work who desires to touch the popedom ; 
 the event that had just occurred was the preparation for 
 Understanding putting their advice into operation. The king 
 king and^he came ^° an " an( ^ er standing with Bernard de Goth, 
 Archbishop of the Archbishop of Bordeaux. Six conditions 
 Bordeaux. were arranged between them i 1. The reconcilia- 
 tion between the Church and the king ; 2. The absolution 
 of all persons engaged in the affair of Boniface ; 3. Tenths 
 from the clergy for five years; 4. The condemnation of 
 the memory of Boniface ; 5. The restoration of the Colonnas ; 
 6. A secret article ; what it was time soon showed. A 
 swift messenger carried intelligence to the king's partisans 
 in the College of Cardinals, and Bernard became Clement 
 V. "It will be long before we see the face of another 
 pope in Borne ! " exclaimed the Cardinal Matteo Orsini, 
 with a prophetic instinct of what was coming when the 
 conspiracy reached its development. His prophecy was 
 only too true. Now appeared what was that sixth, that 
 Removal of secret article negotiated between King Philip 
 the papacy and De Goth. Clement took up his residence at 
 to Avignon. A v jg non j n France. The tomb of the apostles 
 was abandoned. The Eternal City had ceased to be the 
 metropolis of Christianity. 
 
 But a French prelate had not bargained with a French 
 king for the most eminent dignity to which a European 
 can aspire without having given an equivalent. In as 
 good faith as he could to his contract, in as good faith as 
 he could to his present pre-eminent position, Clement Y. 
 proceeded to discharge his share of the obligation. To a 
 certain extent King Philip was animated by an undying- 
 vengeance against his enemy, whom he considered as 
 having escaped out of his grasp, but he was also actuated 
 by a sincere desire of accomplishing a reform in the Church 
 through a radical change in its constitution. He was re- 
 solved that the pontiffs should be accountable to the kings 
 of France, or that France should more directly influence 
 their conduct. To reconcile men to this, it was for him 
 
CH. HI.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 87 
 
 to show, with, the semblance of pious reluctance, what 
 was the state to which morals and faith had come in Eome. 
 The trial of the dead Boniface was therefore Post . mortem 
 entered upon, a.d. 1310. The Consistory was trial of Pope 
 opened at Avignon, March 18. The proceedings Boniface - 
 occupied many months ; many witnesses were examined. 
 The main points attempted to be established by their 
 evidence seem to have been these : " That Boniface had 
 declared his belief that there was no such thing as divine 
 law — what was reputed to be such was merely the inven- 
 tion of men to keep the vulgar in awe by the terrors of 
 eternal punishment ; that it was a falsehood to assert the 
 Trinit}^, and fatuous to believe it ; that it was The accusa . 
 falsehood to say that a virgin had brought tions against 
 forth, for it was an impossibility ; that it was im ' 
 falsehood to assert that bread is transubstantiated into 
 the body of Christ ; that Christianity is false, because it 
 asserts a future life, of which there is no evidence save 
 that of visionary people." It was in evidence that the 
 pope had said, " God may do the worst with me that he 
 pleases in the future life ; I believe as every educated man 
 does, the vulgar believe otherwise. We have to speak as 
 they do, but we must believe and think with the few." It 
 was sworn to by those who had heard him disputing with 
 some Parisians that he had maintained " that neither the 
 body nor the soul rise again." Others testified that " he 
 neither believed in the resurrection nor in the sacraments 
 of the Church, and had denied that carnal gratifications 
 are sins." The Primicerio of St. John's at Naples, deposed 
 that, when a cardinal, Boniface had said in his presence, 
 " So that God gives me the good things of this life, I care 
 not a bean for that to come. A man has no more a soul 
 than a beast. Did you ever see any one who had risen 
 from the dead ? " He took delight in deriding the blessed 
 Virgin ; " for," said he, " she was no more a virgin than 
 my mother." As to the presence of Christ in the Host, 
 " It is nothing but paste." Three knights of Lucca testi- 
 fied that when certain venerable ambassadors, whose names 
 they gave, were in the presence of the pope at the time of 
 the jubilee, and a chaplain happened to invoke the mercy of 
 Jesus on a person recently dead, Boniface appalled all 
 
88 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. Ill, 
 
 around him by exclaiming, "What a fool, to commend 
 him to Christ ! He could not help himself, and how can 
 he be expected to help others ? He was no Son of God, 
 but a shrewd man and a great hypocrite." It might seem 
 impossible to exceed such blasphemy : and yet the wit- 
 nesses went on to testify to a conversation which he held 
 with the brave old Sicilian admiral, Eoger Loria. This 
 devout sailor made the remark, in the pope's presence, 
 that if, on a certain occasion, he had died, it was his trust 
 that Christ would have had mercy on him. To this 
 Boniface replied, " Christ ! he was no Son of God ; he was 
 a man, eating and drinking like ourselves ; he never 
 rose from the dead ; no man has ever risen. I am far 
 mightier than he. I can bestow kingdoms and humble 
 kings." Other witnesses deposed to having heard him 
 affirm, " There is no harm in simony. There is no more 
 harm in adultery than in rubbing one's hands together." 
 Some testified to such immoralities and lewdness in his 
 private life that the pages of a modern book cannot be 
 soiled with the recital. 
 
 In the meantime, Clement did all in his power to save 
 the blackened memory of his predecessor. Every influence 
 that con Id be brought to bear on the revengeful or politic 
 king was resorted to, and at last with success. 
 lente P to a£ Perhaps Philip saw that he had fully accom 
 &t ros utfn 116 pli sne ^- n ^ s object. He had no design to destroy 
 1 ' the papacy. His aim was to revolutionize it — to 
 give the kings of France a more thorough control over it ; 
 and, for the accomplishment of that purpose, to demonstrate 
 to what a condition it had come through the present 
 system. Whatever might be the decision, such evidence 
 had been brought forward as, notwithstanding its contra- 
 dictions and apparent inconsistencies, had made a profound 
 impression on every thinking man. It was the king's 
 consummate policy to let the matter remain where it was. 
 Accordingly, he abandoned all farther action. The grati- 
 tude of Clement was expressed in a bull exalting Philip, 
 attributing his action to piety, exempting him from all 
 blame, annulling past bulls prejudicial to him, revoking all 
 punishments of those who had been concerned against 
 Boniface except in the case of fifteen persons, on whom a 
 
CH. III.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 89 
 
 light and nominal penance was inflicted. In November, 
 a.d. 1311, the Council of Yienne met. In the following 
 year three cardinals appeared before it to defend the 
 orthodoxy and holy life of Pope Boniface. Two knights 
 threw down their gauntlets to maintain his innocence by 
 wager of battle. There was no accuser ! no one took up 
 the gage ; and the council was at liberty quietly to dispose 
 of the matter. 
 
 How far the departed pontiff was guilty of the charges 
 alleged against him was, therefore, never fairly The u . 
 ascertained. But it was a tremendous, an conditio^of 8 
 appalling fact that charges of such a character Pope Boniface - 
 could be even so much as brought forward, much more that 
 a succeeding pontiff had to listen to them, and attribute 
 intentions of piety to the accuser. The immoralities of 
 which Boniface was accused were such as in Italy did not 
 excite the same indignation as among the more moral 
 people beyond the Alps ; the heresies were those every- 
 where pervading the Church. We have already seen 
 what a profound impression "The Everlasting Gospel" 
 had made, and how many followers and martyrs it had. 
 What was alleged against Boniface was only that he had 
 taken one step more in the downward course of irreligion. 
 His fault lay in this, that in an evil hour he had given 
 expression to thoughts which, considering his position, 
 ought to have remained locked up in his inmost soul. As 
 to the rest, if he was avaricious, and accumulated enormous 
 treasures, such as it was said the banditti of the Colonnas 
 seized when they outraged his person, he was no worse 
 than many other popes. Clement V., his successor, died 
 enormously rich ; and, what was worse, did not hesitate 
 to scandalize Europe by his prodigal munificence to the 
 beautiful Brunisard, the Countess of Talleyrand, his lady. 
 ^ The religious condition of Boniface, though not admit- 
 ting of apology, is capable of explanation. By 
 the Crusades all Europe had been wrought ltscause8 ' 
 ap to a fanatical expectation, doomed necessarily to dis- 
 appointment. From them the papacy had derived pro- 
 ligious advantages both in money and power. It was 
 .low to experience fearful evils. It had largely promised 
 rewards in this life, and also in the world to come, to 
 
90 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. III. 
 
 those who would take Tip the Cross ; it had deliberately 
 pitted Christianity against Mohammedanism, and staked 
 the authenticity of each on the issue of the conflict. In 
 face of the whole world it had put fo^th as the true 
 criterion the possession of the holy places, hallowed by the 
 life, the sufferings, the death, the resurrection of the 
 Kedeemer. Whatever the result might be, the circum- 
 stances under which this had been done were such that 
 there was no concealing, no dissembling. In all Europe 
 there was not a family which had not been pecuniarily 
 involved in the Crusades, perhaps few that had not 
 furnished men. Was it at all to be wondered at that 
 everywhere the people, accustomed to the logic of trial by 
 battle, were terror-stricken when they saw the result ? 
 Was it to be wondered at that even still more dreadful 
 heresies spontaneously suggested themselves ? Was it at 
 all extraordinary that, if there had been popes sincerely 
 accepting that criterion, the issue should be a pope who 
 was a sincere misbeliever? Was it extraordinary that 
 there should be a loss of papal prestige? It was the 
 papacy which had voluntarily, for its own ends, brought 
 things into this evil channel, and the papacy deserved a 
 just retribution of discredit and ruin. It had wrought on 
 the devout temper of religious Europe for its own sinister 
 purposes ; it had drained the Continent of its blood, and 
 perhaps of what was more highly prized — its money ; it had 
 established a false issue, an unwarrantable criterion, and 
 now came the time for it to reap consequences of a different 
 kind — intellectual revolt among the people, heresy among 
 the clergy. Nor was the pope without eminent comrades 
 in his sin. The Templars, whose duty it had been to pro- 
 Apostacyof tect pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem — who 
 the Templars, therefore been long and thoroughly familiar 
 with the state of events in Palestine — had been treading 
 in the same path as the pope. Dark rumours had begun 
 to circulate throughout Europe that these, the very van- 
 guard of Christianity, had not only proved traitors to their 
 banner, but had actually become Mohammedanized. On 
 their expulsion from the Holy Land, at the close of the 
 Crusades, they spread all over Europe, to disseminate by 
 stealth their fearful heresies, and to enjoy the riches they 
 
CH. III.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 91 
 
 had acquired in the service they had betrayed. Men find 
 a charm m having it mysteriously and secretly divulged 
 to them that their long-cherished opinions are all a 
 delusion. There was something fascinating in hearing 
 privately, from those who could speak with authority, 
 that, after all, Mohammed was not an impostor, but the 
 author of a pure and noble Theism ; that Saladin was not 
 a treacherous assassin, a despicable liar, but a most valiant 
 courteous and gentle knight. In his proceedings against 
 the Templars, King Philip the Fair seems to have been 
 animated by a pure intention of checking the disastrous 
 spread of these opinions ; yet William de Nogaret, who was 
 his chief adviser on this matter as on that of Boniface was 
 not without reasons of personal hatred. It was said 'that 
 he divided his wrath between the Templars and the pope 
 I hey had had some connexion with the burning of his- 
 tather, and vengeance he was resolved to wreak upon them 
 Under colour of the charges against them, all the Templars 
 m i ranee were simultaneously arrested in the 
 dawn of one day, October 13, a.d. 1307, so well SeTand 
 devised were the measures. The grand master, tried * 
 Du Molay, was secured, not, however, without some 
 perhdy. Now were openly brought forward the charges 
 which struck Europe with consternation. Substantiation 
 ol them was offered by witnesses, but it was secured by 
 submitting the accused to torture. The grand master, 
 JJu Molay, at first admitted their guilt of the crimes 
 alleged. After some hesitation, the pope issued a bull 
 commanding the King of England to do what the King of 
 ± ranee had already done, to arrest the Templars and seize 
 their property. His declaration, that one of the order 
 a man of high birth, had confessed to himself his cri- 
 minality, seems to have made a profound impression on 
 the mind of the English king, and of many other persons- 
 until that time reluctant to believe. The Parliament and 
 the University of Paris expressed themselves satisfied with 
 the evidence. New examinations were held, and new con- 
 victions were made. The pope issued a bull addressed to all 
 Christendom, declaring how slowly, but, a] as ! how certainly 
 he had been compelled to believe in the apostacy of the 
 order, and commanding that everywhere proceedings should 
 
92 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. III. 
 
 be instituted against it. A papal commission assembled in 
 Paris, August 7, a.d. 1309. The grand master was brought 
 before it. He professed his belief in the Catholic faith, 
 but now denied that the order was guilty of the charges 
 alleged against it, as also did many of. the other knights. 
 Other witnesses were, however, brought forward, some of 
 whom pretended to have abandoned the order on account 
 of its foul acts. At the Porte St. Antoine, on many 
 pleasant evenings in the following May, William de 
 Nogaret revelled in the luxury of avenging the shade of 
 his father. One hundred and thirteen Templars were, in 
 Found guilty slow succession, burnt at stakes. The remorseless 
 and punished, lawyer was repaying the Church in her own 
 coin. Yet of this vast concourse of sufferers all died pro- 
 testing their innocence ; not one proved an apostate. 
 Notwithstanding this most significant fact — for those who 
 were ready to lay down their lives, and to meet with 
 unshaken constancy the fire, were surely the bravest of 
 the knights, and their dying declaration is worthy of our 
 most reverent consideration — things were such that no 
 other course was possible than the abolition of the order, 
 and this accordingly took place. The pope himself seems to 
 have been satisfied that the crimes had been perpetrated 
 under the instigation or temptation of Satan ; but men of 
 more enlarged views appear to have concluded that, though 
 the Templars were innocent of the moral abominations 
 charged against them, a familiarity with other forms of 
 belief in the East had undoubtedly sapped their faith. Aftei 
 a weary imprisonment of six years, embittered by many 
 hardships, the grand master, Du Molay, was brought up for 
 sentence. He had been found guilty. With his dying breath, 
 "before Heaven and earth, on the verge of death, when 
 the least falsehood bears like an intolerable weight on the 
 soul," he declared the innocence of the order and of him- 
 self. The vesper-bell was sounding when Du Molay and a 
 Burning of brother convict were led forth to their stakes, 
 Du Moiay. placed on an island in the Seine. King Philip 
 himself was present. As the smoke and flames enveloped 
 them they continued to affirm their innocence. Some 
 averred that forth from the fire Du Molay's voice sounded, 
 " Clement ! thou wicked and false judge, I summon thee 
 
CH. III."] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 93 
 
 to meet me within forty days at the bar of God." Some 
 said that he also summoned the king. In the following 
 year King Philip the Fair and Pope Clement the Fifth 
 were dead. 
 
 John XXII., elected after an interval of more than two 
 years spent in rivalries and intrigues between the French 
 and Italian cardinals, continued the residence at Avignon. 
 His movements took a practical turn in the commence- 
 ment of a process for the recovery of the treasures of 
 Clement from the Yiscount de Lomenie. This was only a 
 part of the wealth of the deceased pope, but it amounted 
 to a million and three quarters of florins of gold. The 
 Inquisition was kept actively at work for the extermi- 
 nation of the believers in " The Everlasting Gospel," and 
 the remnant of the Albigenses and Waldenses. But all 
 this had no other result than that which eventually 
 occurred — an examination of the authenticity and right- 
 fulness of the papal power. With an instinct as to the 
 origin of the misbelief everywhere sjoreading, the pope 
 published bulls against the Jews, of whom a bloody per- 
 secution had arisen, and ordered that all their Talmuds 
 and other blasphemous books should be burnt. 
 A physician, Marsilio of Padua, published a wor£^°The 
 work, " The Defender of Peace." It was a philo- ^fender of 
 sophical examination of the principles of govern- 
 ment, and of the nature and limits of the sacerdotal power. 
 Its democratic tendency was displayed by its demonstration 
 that the exposition of the law of Christianity rests not with 
 the pope nor any other priest, but with a general council ; 
 it rejected the papal political pretensions ; asserted that no 
 one can be rightfully excommunicated by a pope alone, 
 and that he has no power of coercion over human thought ; 
 that the civil immunities of the clergy ought to be ended ; 
 that poverty and humility ought alone to be their cha- 
 racteristics ; that society ought to provide them with a 
 decent sustenance, but nothing more : their pomp, ex- 
 travagance, luxury, and usurpations, especially that of 
 tithes, should be abrogated ; that neither Christ nor the 
 Scriptures ever gave St. Peter a supremacy over the other 
 apostles ; that, if history is to be consulted, St. Paul, and 
 not St. Peter, was bishop of Eome — indeed, it is doubtful 
 
94 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. III. 
 
 whether the latter was ever in that city, the Acts of the 
 Apostles being silent on that subject. From these and 
 many other such arguments he drew forty-one conclusions 
 adverse to the political and ecclesiastical supremacy of the 
 pope. 
 
 It is not necessary to consider here the relations of John 
 XXII. to Louis of Bavaria, nor of the antipope Nicholas ; 
 they belong merely to political history. But, as if to show 
 how the intellectual movement was working its way, the 
 pontiff himself did not escape a charge of heresy. Though 
 he had so many temporal affairs on his hands, John did 
 The "beatific not hesitate to raise the great question of the 
 vision." u beatific vision." In his opinion, the dead, even 
 the saints, do not enjoy the beatific vision of God until 
 after the Judgment-day. At once there was a demand 
 among the orthodox, "What! do not the apostles, John, 
 Peter, nay, even the blessed Virgin, stand yet in the 
 presence of God?" The pope directed the most learned 
 theologians to examine the question, himself entering 
 actively into the dispute. The University of Paris was 
 involved. The King of France declared that his realm 
 should not be polluted with such heretical doctrines. A 
 single sentence explains the practical direction of the 
 dogma, so far as the interests of the Church were con- 
 cerned : "If the saints stand not in the presence of God, 
 of what use is their intercession? What is the use of 
 addressing prayers to them?" The folly of the pontiff 
 perhaps might be excused by his age. He was now nearly 
 ninety years old. That he had not guided himself accord- 
 ing to the prevailing sentiment of the lower religious 
 orders, who thought that poverty is essential to salvation 
 appeared at his death, a.d. 1334. He left eighteen mil 
 lions of gold florins in specie, and seven millions in plate 
 and jewels. 
 
 His successor, Benedict XII. , disposed of the question of 
 Tf 0 v«u n -n the " beatific vision :" " It is only those saints 
 ed by Bene- who do not pass through r nrgatory that lmme- 
 dict XIL diately behold the Godhead." The pontificate of 
 Benedict, which was not without many good features, hardly 
 verified the expression with which he greeted the cardinals 
 when they elected him, " You have chosen an ass." His 
 
CH. HI.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 95 
 
 was a gay life. There is a tradition that to him is due 
 the origm of the proverb, " As drunk as a pope." 
 
 In the subsequent pontificate of Clement VI., a.d. 1342 
 the court at Avignon became the most voluptuous 
 in Christendom. It was crowded with knights ™sTa°v$- 
 and ladies, painters and other artists. It ex- nou - 
 hibited a day-dream of equipages and banquets. The 
 pontiff himself delighted in female society, but, in his 
 weakness, permitted his lady, the Countess of Turenne 
 to extort enormous revenues by the sale of ecclesiastical 
 promotions. Petrarch, who lived at Avignon at this time 
 speaks of it as a fast brothel. His own sister had been 
 seduced by the holy father, John XXII. During all these 
 years the Romans had made repeated attempts to force 
 back the papal court to their city. With its departure all 
 their profits had gone. But the fatal policy of electing 
 Frenchmen into the College of Cardinals seemed to shut 
 out every hope. The unscrupulous manner in which this 
 was done is illustrated by the fact that Clement made one 
 ot his relatives, a lad of eighteen, a cardinal. 
 Jjor a time the brief glories of Eienzi cast a Rienzi - 
 flickering ray on Rome ; but Rienzi was only a demagogue 
 
 TW^T?7i * -? S the deep im P ressi °* made^upon 
 S^f+w £ r f£H ce at Avignon was an abandon- 
 ment of the tomb of St. Peter, that compelled Urban V. to 
 return to Rome. This determination was strengthened 
 by a desire to escape out of the power of the kings of 
 France, and to avoid the free companies who had learned 
 to extort bribes for sparing Avignon from plunder. He 
 left Avignon, a.d. 1367, amid the reluctant grief of his 
 cardinals, torn from that gay and dissipated city, and in 
 dread of the recollections and of the populace of Rome 
 And well it might be so; for not only in Rome, but all 
 
 of r/' P if- y T S - h6ld in ™ n ° res P ect ' and the discipline 
 of the Ohurch m derision. When Urban sent to Barnabas 
 Visconti, who was raising trouble in Tuscany, a bull of 
 excommunication by the hands of two legates 
 Barnabas actually compelled them, in his pre- BarST* 
 sence, to eat the parchment on which the bull Visconti - 
 was written, together with the leaden seal and the silken 
 string, and, telling them that he hoped it would sit Z 
 
96 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. III. 
 
 lightly on their stomachs as it did on his, sent them back 
 to their master ! In a little time — it was but two years 
 — absence from France became insupportable ; the pope 
 returned to Avignon, and there died. It was reserved for 
 The popes re- his successor, Gregory XL, finally to end what 
 turn to Rome. was termed, from its seventy years' duration, 
 the Babylonish captivity, and restore the papacy to the 
 Eternal City, a.d. 1376. 
 
 But, though the popes had thus returned to Borne, the 
 Causes of the effects of King Philip's policy still continued, 
 great schism. Q n fa Q death 0 f Gregory XL, the conclave, 
 meeting at Borne — for the conclave must meet where the 
 pope dies — elected Urban VI., under intimidation of the 
 Boman populace, who were determined to retain the 
 papacy in their city ; but, escaping to Fondi, and repent- 
 ing of what they had thus done, they proclaimed his 
 election void, and substituted Clement VII. for him. They 
 were actually at one time on the point of choosing the 
 King of France as pope. Thus began the great schism. 
 It was, in reality, a struggle between France and Italy 
 for the control of the papacy. The former had enjoyed it 
 for seventy years ; the latter was determined to recover 
 it. The schism thus rested originally on political con- 
 siderations, but these were doubtless exasperated by the 
 conduct of Urban, whose course was overbearing and even 
 intolerable to his supporters. Nor did he amend as his posi- 
 tion became more consolidated. In a.d. 1385, suspecting 
 his cardinals of an intention to seize him, declare him a 
 heretic, and burn him, he submitted several of them to 
 torture in his own presence, while he recited his breviary. 
 Escaping from Nocera, where he had been besieged, he 
 caused the Bishop of Aquila to be killed on the roadside. 
 Others he tied in sacks, and threw into the sea at Genoa. 
 It was supposed, not without reason, that he was insane. 
 
 If there had formerly been pecuniary difficulty in 
 Pecuniary ne- supporting one papal court, it, of course, became 
 cessitiesof the greater now that there were two. Such trou- 
 rivai popes. ever y increasing, led at length to 
 
 unhappy political movements. There was an absolute 
 necessity for drawing money to Borne and also to Avignon. 
 The device of a jubilee was too transitory and inadequate, 
 
CH. III.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 97 
 
 even though, by an improvement in the theory of that 
 festival, it was expedited by thirty-three years, answering 
 to onr Saviour's life At Avignon, the difficulty of 
 Clement, who was of amiable and polished manners 
 turned on the French Church being obliged to support 
 him, and rt is not to be wondered* at that the French 
 S ff ft* 1 Wltb dislike on the pontifical establishment 
 
 r^l g + ?- m K S1 f C i e dr r V6n its necessities to prey 
 
 on all their best benefices. Under such circumstances no 
 other course was possible to the rival popes and their 
 successors than a thorough reorganization the papal 
 financial system-the more compete develop- „ P ? 
 ment of simony, indulgences, and other im- SSf 
 Proper sources of emolument. In this manner Boniface 
 TlL i P r 1 Valu ? ° f the annates u P° n the P^al books. 
 Wfi™ ° r ^ 6rS ' mt f Ven , in S between the Purchasers of 
 tw 6 PaP ! exche( l uer ' ™* established, and 
 tit ' r der the P ressin S difficulties of the case, 
 
 benefices were known to have been sold, many times in 
 succession, to different claimants in one week Late 
 applicants might obtain a preference for appointments on 
 making a cash payment of twenty-five florins; an in- 
 creased preference might be had for fifty. It became, at 
 
 subsi^T *h? t0 Writ6 1 10 Mn S s and Palates for 
 P roof how greatly the papacy had been 
 weakened by the events of the times 
 
 ^jf g %T Eu - r ° P , e C ° uld n0t bear ^ mch increasing 
 scandals. The rival popes were incessantly T „. . 
 accusing each other of falsehood and all man- Jf?ST 
 ner ot wickedness. At length the public sen- Europe - 
 timent found its expression in the Council of Pisa calleu 
 by tne cardinals on their own responsibility. This counci 
 summoned the two popes -Benedict XIII. and Gregory 
 
 i th7^ e £ r L / ° ^ the ° r iT S and excesses im P«te« 
 ; o them to be true, and deposed them both, appointing in 
 Aeir stead Alexander V. There were now 
 jneretore three popes. But, besides thus ren- Three Pe- 
 tering the position of things worse than it was before in 
 his respect, the council had taken the still more extra 
 .rdmary step of overthrowing the autocracy of the pofe. 
 t had been compelled by the force of circumstances to 
 
 VUIv. .11. 
 
 H 
 
98 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. {CH. III. 
 
 destroy the very foundation of Latin Christianity by 
 assuming the position of superiority over the vicar of 
 Christ. Now might be discerned by men of reflexion the 
 purely human nature of the papacy. It had broken down. 
 Out of the theological disputes of preceding years a poli- 
 tical principle was obviously emerging; the democratic 
 spirit was developing itself, and the hierarchy was in 
 rebellion against its sovereign. 
 
 Nor was this great movement limited to the clergy. 
 In every direction the laity participated in it, pecuniary 
 questions being in very many instances the incentive. 
 Things had come to such a condition that it seemed to be 
 of little moment what might be the personal character of 
 the pontiff; the necessities of the position irresistibly 
 drove him to replenish the treasury by shameful means. 
 Balthazar Cos- Thus, on Alexander's death, Balthazar Cossa, 
 ea made pope. an eY {\ an a ^ e mSbY i, who succeeded as John 
 XXIII., was not only compelled to extend the existing 
 simoniacal practices of the ecclesiastical brokers' offices, but 
 actually to derive revenue from the licensing of prostitutes, 
 gambling-houses, and usurers. In England, for ages a 
 mine of wealth to Borne, the tendency of things was shown 
 by such facts as the remonstrance of the Commons with the 
 Dissatisfac- crown on the appointment of ecclesiastics to all 
 tionin the great offices; the allegations made by the 
 England. u QqqA p arliament » ag to t]ie am0U nt of money 
 
 drawn by Kome from the kingdom. They asserted that it 
 was five times as much as the taxes levied by the king, and 
 that the pope's revenue from England was greater than 
 the revenue of any prince in Christendom. It was shown 
 again by such facts as the passage of the statutes of 
 Mortmain, Pro visors, and Praemunire, and by the universal 
 clamour against the mendicant orders. This dissatisfac- 
 tion with the clergy was accompanied by a desire foi 
 knowledge. Thousands of persons crowded to the uni- 
 versities both on the Continent and in England. In a 
 wiciif the community thus well prepared, Wiclif found no 
 English difficulty in disseminating his views. He had 
 reformer. adopted in many particulars the doctrines of 
 Berengar. He taught that the bread in the Eucharist is 
 not the real body of Christ, but only its image ; that the 
 
CH. III.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 99 
 
 Roman Church has no true claim to headship over other 
 churches; that its bishop has no more authority than any 
 other bishop; that it is right to deprive a delinquS 
 Church of temporal possessions ; that no bishop ought to 
 have prisons for the punishment of those obnoxious to 
 him ; a nd that the Bible alone is a sufficient guide for a 
 Christian man. His translation of the Bibfo w , i 
 into English was the practical carrying out of SSSSf" 
 that assertion for the benefit of his own countrymen All 
 classes of society were becoming infected. The govern- 
 ment for a season vacillated. It was said that every other 
 
 S ; ^ E tTi W Z a . L ° U f d The Loll «ds 7 were 
 Wiclifites But the Church at last persuaded the govern- 
 ment to let her try her hand, and the statute « de heretico 
 comburendo >' was passed a.d. 1400. William Sautree a 
 priest who had turned Wiclifite, was the first ' 
 English martyr. John Badbee, a tailor, who f^S^ 
 denied transubstantiation— accused of having heretics - 
 said that, if it were true, there were 20,000 gods in everv 
 corn-field in England-next suffered in like nfannei at the 
 stake, in presence of the Prince of Wales. Lord Cobham 
 the head of the Lollards, who had denounced the pope as 
 Anti-Christ, the Son of Perdition, was imprisoned? but 
 escaping, became involved in political movements and 
 suffered at length the double penalty for heresy and 
 
 tneJ tW ls 1 mteres * 111 g to remark the social rank of 
 these three early martyrs. Heresy was pervading all 
 classes, from the lowest to the highest. 
 + ^ Th t 1 ? 0U i?° il x 0f C 5* stanc e met a.d. 1415. It had a 
 
 nte 2 T 0 bi eC V ?" TZ* f the CWt ™ der ™ 
 £ K^J rf r at T ° f *i e °i er ^ i 3 - Tte suppression 
 ot heresy Ps pclicy from the first was determined It 
 
 LTtne Tot f T# rrT- \ !l e - manded the abdication of 
 the pope John XXIII.; exhibited articles of 
 
 accusation against him, some of them of such T f h n eCounci 
 enormity as almost to surpass belief, and iusti- *g25Z 
 tying the epithet that he was "a devil incar- pope ' 
 H?™«f v suffra S e . of tbe council was changed. The 
 plan of voting by nations, which reduced the Italians to a 
 angle vote, was introduced. These incidental facts may 
 
100 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. {CH. HI. 
 
 indicate to us that there were present men who under- 
 stood thoroughly how to manage the machinery of such an 
 assembly, and that the remark of iEneas Sylvius, after- 
 ward Pope Pius II., respecting the Council of Basle was 
 equally true as to that of Constance, that it was not so 
 much directed by the Holy Ghost as by the passions of 
 men. The influence that lawyers were now exercising in 
 social affairs — their habits of arrangement, of business, 
 and intrigue, is strikingly manifested in the management 
 of these assemblages ; their arts had passed to the clergy, 
 and even in part to the people. But how vast was the 
 change that had occurred in the papacy from the voluntary 
 abdication of Celestine to the compulsory abdication of 
 John ! 
 
 To this council, also, came John Huss, under a safe 
 and murders conduct from the Emperor Sigismund. Scarcely, 
 John Huss. however, had he arrived when he was imprisoned ; 
 this treachery being excused from the necessity of conceding 
 it to the reforming party. On June 5th, a.d. 1416, Huss 
 was brought in chains before the council. It was declared 
 unlawful to keep faith with a heretic. His countrymen, 
 the Bohemian lords present, protested against such perfidy, 
 and loudly demanded his release. Articles of accusation, 
 derived from his works, were presented. He avowed 
 himself ready to defend his opinions. The uproar was so 
 great that the council temporarily adjourned. Two days 
 afterwards the trial was resumed. It was ushered in by 
 an eclipse of the sun, said to have been total at Prague. 
 No one of the bloodthirsty ecclesiastics laid to heart the 
 solemn monition that, after his moment of greatest darkness 
 was over, the sun shone forth with recovered effulgence 
 again. The emperor was present, with all the fathers. 
 The first accusation entered on related to transubstantia- 
 tion. On this and on succeeding occasions the emperor 
 took part in the discussions, among other things observing 
 that, in his opinion, the prisoner was worthy of death. 
 After a lengthy inquiry into his alleged errors, a form of 
 recantation was prepared for Huss. With modest firmness 
 Noble con- he declined it, concluding his noble answer with 
 duct of Huss. the words, "I appeal to Christ Jesus, the one 
 all-powerful and all-just Judge. To him I commend mv 
 
CH. III.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 101 
 
 cause, who will judge every man, not according to false 
 witnesses and erring councils, but according to truth and 
 man's desert." On July 1st the council met in full session. 
 Thirty articles against Huss were read. Among other 
 things, they alleged that he believed the material bread to 
 be unchanged after the consecration. In his extremity the 
 prisoner looked steadfastly at the traitor Sigismund and 
 solemnly exclaimed, " Freely came I here under the safe- 
 conduct of the emperor." The conscience-stricken monarch 
 blushed. Huss was then made to kneel down and receive 
 his sentence. It condemned his writings and his bodv to 
 the flames. J 
 
 He was then degraded and despoiled of his orders. Some 
 ol the bishops mocked at him; some, more merciful 
 implored him to recant. They cut his hair in the form of 
 a cross, and set upon his head a high paper crown on which 
 devils were painted. "We devote thy soul to the devils 
 m hell " And I commend my soul to the most merciful 
 Lord Christ J esus." He was then led forth. They passed 
 by the bishop's palace, where Huss's books were burning 
 When they fastened him with a chain to his stake the 
 painted crown fell off, but the soldiers replaced it. ''Let 
 him and his devils be burned together." As 
 the flames closed over him, he chanted psalms Heisburnt 
 and prayed to the Kedeemer. Can that be true which 
 requires for its support the murder of a true man ? 
 
 ^ So acted without a dissenting voice the Council of 
 Constance. It feared the spread of heresy, but it did not 
 tear, perhaps did not consider, that higher tribunal to 
 whose inexorable verdict councils, and popes, and emperors 
 must submit— posterity. It asserted itself to be under the 
 inspiration of the Holy Ghost. It took profit by a shame- 
 ful perfidy. It was a conclave of murderers. It stifled 
 the voice of an earnest man, solemnly protesting against a 
 doctrine now derided by all the intellect of Europe. The 
 revolution it was compassing it inaugurated in blood, not 
 alone that of John Huss, but also of Jerome of u 
 Prague. These martyrs were no common men. ai£ S e 
 roggio Bracciolmi, an eye-witness, says, in a ofPra s ue - 
 letter to Leonardo Aretinp, speaking of the eloquence ol 
 Jerome, "When I consider what his choice of words was 
 
102 
 
 THE AGE OF FATIH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. III. 
 
 what his elocution, what his reasoning, what his counten- 
 His singular ance, his voice, his action I must affirm, howevei 
 eloquence. much we may admire the ancients, that in such 
 a cause no one could have approached nearer to the model 
 of their eloquence." 
 
 John XXIII. was compelled to abdicate. Gregory XII. 
 died. Some time after, Benedict XIII. followed him. 
 The council had elected Martin V., and in him found a 
 master who soon put an end to its doings. It had deposed 
 one pope and elected another; it had cemented the 
 What the dominant creed with blood ; it had authorized 
 council did. ^he dreadful doctrine that a difference in 
 religious opinion justifies the breaking of plighted faith 
 between man and man ; it had attempted to perpetuate its 
 own power by enacting that councils should be held every 
 five years ; but it had not accomplished its great object — 
 ecclesiastical reform. 
 
 In a room attached to the Cathedral of Basle, with its 
 roof of green and parti-coloured tiles, the modern traveller 
 reads on a piece of paper this inscription : " The room of 
 The Council the council, where the famous Council of Basil 
 of Basie. was assembled. In this room Pope Eugene IY. 
 was dethroned, and replaced by Felix V., Due of Savoie 
 and Cardinal of Eepaile. The council began 1431, and 
 lasted 1448." That chamber, with its floor of little red 
 earthen flags and its oaken ceiling, witnessed great events. 
 
 The democratic influence pervading the Church showed 
 no symptoms of abatement. The fate of Huss had been 
 avenged in blood and fire by the Bohemian sword. 
 Eugenius IY., now pontiff, was afraid that negotiations 
 would be entered upon with the Hussite chiefs. Such a 
 treaty, he affirmed, would be blasphemy against God and an 
 insult to the pope. He was therefore bent on the proroga- 
 tion of the council, and spared no means to accomplish his 
 purpose. Its ostensible object was the reformation of the 
 clergy ; its real intent was to convert the papal autocracy 
 into a constitutional monarchy. To this end it cited the 
 it declares pope, and, on his non-appearance, declared him 
 the pope in and seventeen of the cardinals in contumacy, 
 contumacy. jj e k a( j denounced it as the Synagogue of Satan ; 
 on its part, it was assuming the functions of the Senate 
 
CH. III. \ 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 103 
 
 of Christendom. It had prepared a great seal, and asserted 
 that, in case of the death of the pope, the election of his 
 successor was vested in it. It was its firm purpose never 
 again to leave that great event in the hands of a conclave 
 of intriguing Italian cardinals, but to intrust it to the 
 representatives of united Christendom. After a due delay 
 since he was declared in contumacy, the council suspended 
 the pope, and, slowly moving towards its object, elected 
 Amadeus of Savoy, Felix V., his successor. It was neces- 
 sary that its pope should be a rich man, for the council had 
 but slender means of offering him pecuniary support. 
 Amadeus had that qualification. And perhaps it was far 
 from being, in the eyes of many, an inopportune circum- 
 stance that he had been married and had children. We 
 may discern, through the shifting scenes of the intrigues 
 of the times, that the German hierarchy had come to the 
 resolution that the election of the popes should be taken 
 from the Italians and given to Europe ; that his its real inten- 
 power should be restricted ; that he should no tions - 
 longer be the irresponsible vicar of God upon earth ; but 
 the accountable chief executive officer of Christendom ; and 
 that the right of marriage should be conceded to the clergy. 
 These are significantly Teutonic ideas. 
 
 We have pursued the story of these events nearly as far 
 as is necessary for the purpose of this book. We Cause and 
 shall not, therefore, follow the details of the new close of thes? 
 schism. It fell almost without interest on troubles * 
 Europe. iEneas Sylvius, the ablest man of the day, in 
 three words gives us the true insight into the state of 
 things : " Faith is dead." On the demise of Eugenius IV., 
 Nicolas Y. succeeded. An understanding was had with 
 those in the interest of the council. It was dissolved. 
 Felix V. abdicated. The morality of the times had im- 
 proved. The anti-pope was neither blinded nor murdered. 
 The schism was at an end. 
 
 Thus we have seen that the personal immoralities and 
 heresy of the popes brought on the interference 
 of the King of France, who not only shook the inLuectimi 
 papal system to its basis but destroyed its prestige j5^ u ^ c f c of 
 by inflicting the most conspicuous indignity epapacy - 
 upon it. For seventy years Rome was disfranchised, and 
 
104 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [OH. III. 
 
 the rivalries of France and Italy produced the great schism, 
 than which nothing could be more prejudicial to the papal 
 power. We have seen that, aided by the pecuniary 
 difficulties of the papacy, the rising intellect of Europe 
 made good its influence and absolutely deposed the pope. 
 It was in vain to deny the authenticity of such a council ; 
 there stood the accomplished fact. At this moment there 
 seemed no other prospect for the Italian system than 
 utter ruin ; yet, wonderful to be said, a momentary 
 deliverance came from a quarter whence no man would 
 have expected. The Turks were the saviours of the 
 papacy. 
 
 At this point is the true end of the Italian system — that 
 system which had pressed upon Europe like a nightmare. 
 The great men of the times — the statesmen, the philoso- 
 phers, the merchants, the lawyers, the governing classes— 
 those whose weight of opinion is recognized by the unedu- 
 cated people at last, had shaken off the incubus and opened 
 their eyes. A glimmering of the true state of things was 
 breaking upon the clergy. No more with the vigour it 
 once possessed was the papacy again to domineer over 
 human thought and be the controlling agent of European 
 affairs. Convulsive struggles it might make, but they 
 were only death-throes. The sovereign pontiff must now 
 descend from the autocracy he had for so many ages 
 possessed, and become a small potentate, tolerated by kings 
 in that subordinate position only because of the remnant of 
 his influence on the uneducated multitude and those of 
 feeble minds 
 
( 105 ) 
 
 oHAPTEE I'V. 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST — {Concluded). 
 
 EFFECT OF THE EASTERN OR MILITARY ATTACK. — GENERAL REVIEW OP 
 THE AGE OF FAITH. 
 
 The Fall of Constantinople — Its momentary Effect on the Italian System. 
 
 General Keview of the intellectual Condition in the Age of 
 Faith. — Supernaturalism and its Logic spread all over Europe. — It 
 is destroyed by the Jews and Arabians. — Its total Extinction. 
 
 The Jewish Physicians. — Their Acquirements and Influence. — Their 
 Collision with the Imposture-medicine of Europe. — Their Effect on the 
 higher Classes. — Opposition to them. 
 
 Two Impulses, the Intellectual and Moral, operating against the Mediseva 1 
 state of Things. — Downfall of the Italian System through the intellec- 
 tual Impulse from the West and the moral from the North. — Action of 
 the former through Astronomy. — Origin of the moral Impulse. — Their 
 conjoint irresistible Effect. — Discovery of the state of Affairs in Italy. 
 — The Writings of Machiavelli. — What the Church had actually done. 
 
 Entire Movement of the Italian System determined from a consideration 
 of the four Revolts against it. 
 
 From the West I have now to return to the East, and tc 
 describe the pressure made by Mohammedanism The Eastern 
 on that side. It is illustrated by many great P ressu *e. 
 events, but, above all, by the fall of Constantinople. The 
 Greek Church, so long out of sight that it is perhaps almost 
 forgotten by the reader, comes for a moment before us like 
 a spectre from the dead. 
 
 A wandering tribe of Turks had found its way into 
 Asia Minor, and, under its leader Ertogrul and invasions of 
 his son Othman, consolidated its power and the Turks, 
 commenced extending its influence by possessions taken 
 from the sultans of Iconium and the Byzantine empire. 
 The third prince of the race instituted the Janissaries, a 
 
106 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 1_GH. IV 
 
 remarkable military force, and commenced driving the 
 Greeks out of Asia Minor. His son Soliman crossed the 
 Hellespont and captured Gallipoli, thus securing a foot 
 hold in Europe, a.d. 1358. 
 
 This accomplished, the Turkish influence began to 
 Extension of ex tend rapidly. Thrace, Macedon, and Servia 
 their power in were subdued. Sigismund, the King of Hun- 
 Europe. gary, was overthrown at the battle of Nicopolis 
 by Bajazet. Southern Greece, the countries along the 
 Danube, submitted, and Constantinople would have fallen 
 had it not been for the unexpected irruption of Tamerlane, 
 who defeated Bajazet and took him prisoner. The reign of 
 Mohammed I., who succeeded, was occupied in the restora- 
 tion of Turkish affairs. Under Amurath II., the possession 
 of the Euxine shore was obtained, the fortifications across 
 the Isthmus of Corinth were stormed, and the Pelopon- 
 nesus entered. 
 
 Mohammed II. became the Sultan of the Turks a.d. 
 1451. From the moment of his accession, he turned all his 
 powers to the capture of Constantinople. Its sovereigns 
 had long foreseen the inevitable event, and had made 
 TheB zan re P ea "te<l attempts to secure military aid from 
 Sne Sve- n " the West. They wero ready to surrender their 
 to^w&& re ligi 01is belief. On this principle, the monk 
 Barlaam was despatched on an embassy to Bene- 
 dict XII. to propose the reunion of the Greek and Latin 
 Churches, as it was delicately termed, and to obtain, as an 
 equivalent for the concession, an army of Franks. As the 
 danger became more urgent, John Palyeologus I. sought 
 an interview with Urban V., and, having been purified 
 from his heresies respecting the supremacy of the pope and 
 the double procession of the Holy Ghost, was presented 
 before the pontiff in the Church of St. Peter. The Greek 
 monarch, after three genuflexions, was permitted to kiss 
 the feet of the holy father and to lead by its bridle his 
 mule. But, though they might have the will, the popes 
 had lost the power, and these great submissions were pro- 
 ductive of no good. Thirty years subsequently, Manuel, 
 the son and successor of Palseologus, took what might 
 have seemed a more certain course. He travelled to Paris 
 and to London to lay his distress before the kings of 
 
CH. IV.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 107 
 
 France and England ; but he received only pity, not aid. 
 At the Council of Constance Byzantine ambassadors ap- 
 peared. I was, however, reserved for the synods of 
 Ferrara and of Florence to mature, as far as might be, the 
 negotiation. The second son of John Palseologus journeyed 
 again into Italy, a.d. 1438 ; and while Eugenius was 
 being deposed in the chamber at Basle, he was con- 
 summating the union of the East and West in the Cathe- 
 dral of Florence. In the pulpit of that edifice, on the 
 sixth of July of that year, a Eoman cardinal XheG . reek 
 and a Greek archbishop embraced each other Church yields 
 before the people, Te Deum was chanted in to the Latln - 
 Greek, mass was celebrated in Latin, and the Creed was 
 read with the " Filioque." The successor of Constantine 
 the Great had given up his religion, but he had received 
 no equivalent — no aid. The state of the Church, its dis- 
 orders and schisms, rendered any community of action in 
 the West impossible. 
 
 The last, the inevitable hour at length struck. Mo- 
 hammed II. is said to have been a learned man, Mohammed 
 able to express himsell in five different lan- IL 
 guages ; skilful in mathematics, especially in their prac- 
 tical application to engineering ; an admirer of the fine 
 arts ; prodigal in his liberality to Italian painters. In 
 Asia Minor, as in Spain, there was free thinking among 
 the disciples of the Prophet. It was affirmed that the 
 sultan, in his moments of relaxation, was often heard to 
 deride the religion of his country as an imposture. His 
 doubts in that particular were, however, compensated 
 for by his determination to carry out the intention of so 
 many of his Mohammedan predecessors — the seizure of 
 Constantinople. 
 
 At this time the venerable city had so greatly declined 
 that it contained only 1 00,000 inhabitants — out Tlie siege of 
 of them only 4970 able or willing to bear arms. Constanti- 
 The besieging force was more than a quarter of nople ' 
 a million of men. As Mohammed pressed forward his 
 works, the despairing emperor in vain looked for the long- 
 promised effectual Western aid. In its extremity, the 
 devoted metropolis was divided by religious feuds ; and 
 when a Latin priest officiated in St. Sophia, there were 
 
108 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. IV. 
 
 many who exclaimed that they would rather see the 
 turban of the sultan than the tiara of the pope. In 
 several particulars the siege of Constantinople marked out 
 the end of old ages and the beginning of new. Its walls 
 were shaken by the battering rams of the past, and over- 
 thrown by cannon, just then coming into general use. 
 Upon a plank road, shipping was passed through the open 
 country, in the darkness of a single night, a distance of 
 ten miles. The works were pushed forward toward the 
 walls, on the top of which the sentinels at length could 
 hear the shouts of the Turks by their nocturnal fires. 
 They were sounds such as Constantinople might well 
 listen to. She had taught something different for many 
 a long year. " God is God ; there is none but God." In 
 the streets an image oi the Virgin was carried in solemn 
 procession. Now or never she must come to the help of 
 those who had done so much for her, who had made her a 
 queen in heaven and a goddess upon earth. The cry of 
 her worshippers was in vain. 
 
 On May 29th, 1453, the assault was delivered. Con- 
 stantine Palaiologus, the last of the Roman emperors, 
 putting off his purple, that no man might recognize and 
 insult his corpse when the catastrophe was over, fell, as 
 became a Roman emperor, in the breach. After his 
 Fan of the death resistance ceased, and the victorious Turks 
 cit y- poured into the town. To the Church of St. 
 
 Sophia there rushed a promiscuous crowd of women and 
 children, priests, monks, religious virgins, and — men. 
 Superstitious to the last, in this supreme moment they 
 expected the fulfilment of a prophecy that, when the 
 Turks should have forced their way to the square before 
 that church, their progress would be arrested, for an angel 
 with a sword in his hand would descend from heaven and 
 save the city of the Lord. The Turks burst into the 
 square, but the angel never came. 
 
 More than two thirds of the inhabitants of Constan 
 tinople were carried prisoners into the Tuikish camp — the 
 men for servitude, the women for a still more evil fate. 
 The churches were sacked. From the dome of St. Sophia 
 its glories were torn down. The divine images, for the 
 sake of which Christendom had been sundered in former 
 
<;h. iv. 1 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 109 
 
 days, unresistingly submitted to the pious rage of the 
 Mohammedans without working a single miracle, and, 
 stripped of their gnus and gold, were brought to their 
 proper value in the vile uses of kitchens and stables. On 
 that same day the Muez/.in ascended the loftiest turret of 
 St. Sophia, and over the City of the Trinity proclaimed 
 the Oneness of (iod. Tin- sultan performed his prayers 
 at the gn at altar, directing the edince to be purified from 
 its idolatries and consecrated to the worship of God. 
 Thence he repaired to the palace, and, reflecting on the 
 instability of human prosperity, repeated, as he entered 
 it, the Persian verse: "The spider has woven his web in 
 the imperial palace ; the owl hath sung her watch song on 
 tin- towci s of A l'rasiab." 
 
 This solemn event — the fall of Constantinople — accom- 
 plished, there was no need of any reconciliation of the 
 Greek and hat in Churches. The sword of Mohammed had 
 settle* I their dispute. Constantinople had submitted to the 
 fate of Antioeh, .Jerusalem, Alexandria, Carthage. Chris- 
 tendom was struck with consternation. The Terror of 
 advance of the Turks in Europe was now very c t h [j^ e f n [j 0I f 
 rapid. Corinth and Athens fell, and the reduc- o.nstanti- 0 
 tion of Greece was completed. The confines of nople - 
 Italy were approached a.i». 1401. The Mohammedan flag 
 confronted that peninsula along the Adriatic coast. In 
 twenty years more Italy was invaded. Otranto was taken ; 
 its bishop killed at the door of his church. At this period, 
 it was admitted that the Turkish infantry, cavalry, and 
 artillery were the best in the world. Soliman the Magni- 
 ficent took Belgrade a.d. 1520. Nine years ivofrressof 
 afterwards the Turks besieged Vienna, but were ti»Turta. 
 repulsed. Soliman now prepared for the subjugation of 
 Italy, and was only diverted from it by an accident which 
 turned him upon the Venetians. It was not until the 
 battle of Lepanto that the Turkish advance was fairly 
 checked. Even as it was, in the complicated policy and 
 intrigues of Europe its different sovereigns could not trust 
 one mother ; their common faith had ceased to be a 
 common bond : in all it had been weakened, in some 
 destroyed. iEneas Sylvius, speaking of Christendom, 
 says, M It is a hody without a head, a republic without 
 
110 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. , CH. IV 
 
 laws or magistrates. The pope or the emperor may shine 
 as lofty titles, as splendid images ; but they are unable to 
 command, and no one is willing to obey." But, during 
 this period of Turkish aggression, had not the religious 
 dissensions of Christendom been decently composed, there 
 was imminent danger that Europe would have been 
 Mohammedanized. A bitter experience of past ages, as 
 well as of the present, had taught it that the Koman 
 Church was utterly powerless against such attacks. Safety 
 was to be looked for, not in any celestial aid, but in 
 physical knowledge and pecuniary resources, carried out 
 in the organization of armies and fleets. Had her au- 
 thority been derived from the source she pretended, she 
 should have found an all-sufficient protection in prayer — 
 indeed, not even that should have been required. Men 
 discovered at last that her Litanies and her miracles were 
 equally of no use, and that she must trust, like any other 
 hur^an tyranny, to cannon and the sword. 
 
 The Turkish aggression led to the staying of the demo- 
 Effect of the cra "fcic outbreak in the bosom of the Church — the 
 Turkish in- abstaining for a season from any farther sapping 
 vasion. Q f p a p a i autocracy. It was necessary that 
 ecclesiastical disputes, if they could not be ended, should, 
 at all events, be kept for a time in abeyance, and so 
 indeed they were, until the pent-up dissensions burst forth 
 in " the Beformation." And thus, as we have related, by 
 Mohammedan knowledge in the West, papal Christianity 
 was well-nigh brought to ruin ; thus, by a strange paradox, 
 the Mohammedan sword in the East gave it for a ittle 
 longer a renewed lease of political power, though never 
 again of life. 
 
 To Nicolas V., a learned and able pope, the catastrophe 
 of Constantinople was the death-blow. He had been the 
 Nicolas v. a intimate friend of Cosmo deMedici, and from 
 patron of art. imbibed a taste for letters and art, but, 
 
 like his patron, he had no love for liberty. It was thus 
 through commerce that the papacy first learned to turn tc 
 art. The ensuing development of Europe was really based 
 on the commerce of upper Italy, and. not upon the Church. 
 The statesmen of Florence were the inventors of the 
 balance of power. A lover of literature, Nicolas was the 
 
CH. 1V.J 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 Ill 
 
 founder of the Vatican Library. He clearly perceived the 
 only course in which the Eoman system could be directed ; 
 that it was unfit for, and, indeed, incompatible with 
 science, but might be brought into unison with art. Its 
 influence upon the reason was gone, but the senses yet 
 remained for it. In continuing his policy, the Gradual rise 
 succeeding popes acted with wisdom. They ofthe fine arts, 
 gratified the genius of their institutions, of their country, 
 and their age. In the abundant leisure of monasteries, the 
 monks had found occupation in the illumination of manu- 
 scripts. From the execution of miniatures they gradually 
 rose to an undertaking of greater works. In that manner 
 painting had originated in Italy in the twelfth century. 
 Sculpture, at first merged in architecture, had extricated 
 herself from that bondage in the fourteenth. The mendi- 
 cant orders, acquiring wealth, became munificent patrons. 
 From caligraphic illustrations to the grand works of 
 Michael Angelo and Kaffaelle is a prodigious advance, yet 
 it took but a short time to accomplish it. 
 
 I have now completed the history of the European Age 
 of Faith as far as is necessary for the purposes of this 
 book. It embraces a period of more than a Review of the 
 thousand years, counting from the reign of Con- AgeofFaitb. 
 stantine. It remains to consider the intellectual pecu- 
 liarity that marks the whole period — to review briefly the 
 agents that exerted an influence upon it and conducted it 
 to its close. 
 
 Philosophically, the most remarkable peculiarity is the 
 employment of a false logic, a total misconcep- 
 tion of the nature of evidence. It is illustrated p^cuiiarittes 1 
 by miracle-proofs, trial by battle, ordeal tests, p a i|*h Aseof 
 and a universal belief in supernatural agency 
 even for objectless purposes. On the principles of this 
 logic, if the authenticity of a thing or the proof of a state- 
 ment be required, it is supposed to be furnished by an 
 astounding illustration of something else. If the character 
 of a princess is assailed, she offers a champion ; he proves 
 victorious, and therefore she was not frail. If a The character 
 national assembly, after a long discussion, can- of its logic, 
 not decide " whether children should inherit the property 
 of their father during the lifetime of their grandfather/' 
 
112 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [ufl. IV 
 
 an equal number of equal combatants is chosen for each 
 side ; they fight ; the champions of the children prevail, 
 and therefore the law is fixed in their favour. A relic of 
 some martyr is bought at a great price ; no one seeks to 
 criticize the channel through which it has come, but every 
 one asks, Can it work a miracle? A vast institution 
 demands the implicit obedience of all men. It justifies its 
 claim, not by the history of the past, but by promises and 
 threats of the futuro. A decrepit crone is suspected of 
 witchcraft. She is stripped naked and thrown into the 
 nearest pond : if she sinks, she is innocent ; if she swims, 
 she is in commerce with the Devil. In all such cases the 
 intrinsic peculiarity of the logic is obvious enough; it 
 shows a complete misconception of the nature of evidence. 
 Yet this ratiocination governed Europe for a thousand 
 its adoption ye ars > giving birth to those marvellous and 
 ofsupema- supernatural explanations of physical pheno- 
 mena and events upon which we now look back 
 with unfeigned surprise, half disbelieving that it was 
 possible for our ancestors to have credited such things. 
 Against this preposterous logic the Mohammedans and 
 The Jews and ^ ews s^uck * ne hlows. We have already 
 Saracens de^ heard what Algazzali the Arabian says respect- 
 n^SaUsm" * n £> ^ e encnan ^ er wno would prove that three 
 are more than ten by changing a stick into a 
 serpent. The circumstances under which the Jewish 
 physicians acted we shall consider presently. 
 
 It will not be useless to devote a little space to this 
 belief in the supernatural. It offers an opportunity of 
 showing how false notions may become universal, embody 
 themselves in law and practical life, and wonderful to 
 be said, how they may, without anything being done to 
 destroy them, vanish from sight of themselves, like night- 
 spectres before the day. At present we only encounter 
 them among the lowest peasant grades, or among those 
 who have been purposely kept in the most abject state of 
 ignorance. Less than a century ago the clergy of Spain 
 wished to have the Opera prohibited, because that ungodly 
 entertainment had given rise to a want of rain ; but now, 
 in a country so intellectually backward as that — a witch 
 was burnt there so lately as a.d. 1781 — such an attempt 
 
CU. IV.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. H3 
 
 would call up sly wit, and make the rabble of Madrid 
 suspect that the archbishop was smarting under the 
 rivalry of the prima donna, and that he was furbishing up 
 the rusty ecclesiastical enginery to sustain his cause 
 
 in the day of their power the ecclesiastical profession 
 were the supporters of this delusion. They „ 
 found it suitable to their interests, and, by dint fluSUT 
 lo ^ l-i ^ persuading others to believe, they at K d 
 last, by habit, came to believe in it themselves pb»s nd 
 
 philosophically and by sarcasm, but its final ruin was 
 brought about by the action of the two other professions 
 the legal and the medical. The lawyers, whose advent to 
 power is seen m the history of Philip the Fair, and whose 
 rise trom that time was very rapid, were obliged to 
 introduce the true methods of evidence; the physicians 
 from l their pursuits, were- perpetually led to the materia 
 explanation of natural phenomena in contradistinction to 
 
 fhtiZ C • B 18 to th h ™ r °f ^th these professions 
 that they never sought for a perpetuation of power bv 
 schemes of vast organization, never attempted to delude 
 mankind by stupendous impostures, never compelled them 
 
 Jlw^ ■ t P?m ^ 6 e *F ession of their thoughts, and even 
 from thinking, by alliances with civil power. Far from 
 being the determined antagonists of human knowledge, 
 they uniformly fostered it, and, in its trials, defended it " 
 
 n£L a f7 e - S T WerS 1 •^ ted 1 . because the y re P laced super- 
 natural logic by philosophical logic; the physicians, be- 
 cause they broke down the profitable but mendacious 
 system of miracle-cures. 
 
 Yet the Church is not without excuse. In all her varied 
 history it was impossible to disentangle her Positi o„of 
 from the principles which at the beginning had the church, 
 entered into her political organization. For good or evil 
 W W 7/T S A ller ^ necessi tj required that she should 
 put herself forth as the possessor of all knowledge within 
 the reach of human intellect-the infallible arbitress of 
 every question that should arise among men. Doubtless 
 it was a splendid imposture, capable for a time of yielding 
 great results, but sooner or later certain to be unmasked 
 fcarly discovering the antagonism of science, which could 
 
114 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV 
 
 not fail, in due season, to subject her pretensions to in- 
 vestigation, she lent herself to a systematic delusion of 
 the illiterate, and thereby tried to put off that fatal day 
 when creeds engendered in the darkness would have to be 
 examined in the light, enforcing her attempt with an un- 
 sparing, often with a bloody hand. It was for this reason 
 that, when the inevitable time of trial came, no intellectual 
 defence could be made in her behalf, and hence 
 extricate her- there only remained a recourse to physical and 
 self from her political compulsion. But such a compulsion, 
 
 lalse position. A n , . x . . . , . r . . ' 
 
 under such circumstances, is not only a testimony 
 to the intrinsic weakness of that for which it is invoked, it 
 is also a token that they who resort to it have lost all faith 
 in any inherent power of the system they are supporting, 
 and that, in truth, it is last coming to an end. 
 
 The reader will remark, from the incidents connected 
 Successive or- w ith supernatural delusions now to be related, 
 der in super- that they follow a law of continuous variation, the 
 natural ideas. p ar ticular embodiment they assumed changing 
 with the condition of the human mind at each epoch under 
 examination. For ages they are implicitly believed in by 
 all classes; then, to a few, but the number perpetually 
 increasing, they become an idle story of bare-faced impos- 
 ture. At last humanity wakens from its delusion — its 
 dream. The final rejection of the whole, in spite of the 
 wonderful amount of testimony which for ages had accu- 
 mulated, occurs spontaneously the moment that pyschical 
 development has reached a certain point. There can be 
 no .more striking illustration of the definite advancement 
 of the human mind. The boy who is terror-stricken in a 
 dark room insensibly dismisses his idle fears as he grow,? 
 up to be a man. 
 
 Clemens Eomanus and Anastasius Sinaita, speaking of 
 Oriental Simon Magus, say that he could make himself 
 magicians— invisible; that he formed a man out of air; that 
 Simon Magus. ^ cou i^ p ass foo^ly through mountains without 
 
 being obstructed thereby; that he could fly and sit unharmed 
 in flames ; that he constructed animated statues and self- 
 moving furniture, and not only changed his countenance 
 into the similitude of many othei men, but that his whole 
 body could be transformed into the shape of a goat, a sheep, 
 
CH. IV.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 115 
 
 a snake; that, as lie walked in the street, he cast many 
 shadows in different directions ; that he could make trees 
 suddenly spring up in desert places; and, on one occa- 
 sion, compelled an enchanted sickle to go into a field and 
 reap twice as much in one day as if it had been used by a 
 man. Of Apollonius of Tyana we are told that, after an 
 unbroken silence of five years, he comprehended the lan- 
 guages of all animals and all men ; that, under Greek thau- 
 circumstances very picturesquely related, he matin-gists, 
 detected the genius of a plague at Ephesus, and dragged 
 him, self-convicted, before the people ; that, at the wedding- 
 dinner of Menippus, he caused all the dishes and viands to 
 vanish, thereby compelling the bride to acknowledge that 
 she was a vampire, intending to eat the flesh and lap the 
 blood of her husband in the night ; that he exhibited the 
 prodigy of being in many places at the same time ; raised 
 a young woman from the dead ; and, finally, weary of the 
 world, ascended bodily into heaven. 
 
 As Arabian influence spread, ideas of Oriental aspect 
 appear. There are peris who live on perfumes, lntroduction 
 and divs who are poisoned by them ; enchanted of an Arabian 
 palaces ; moving statues ; veiled prophets, like element ' 
 Mokanna ; brazen flying horses ; charmed arrows ; dervises 
 who can project their soul into the body of a dead animal, 
 giving it temporary life ; enchanted rings, to make the wearer 
 invisible, or give him two different bodies at the same time ; 
 ghouls who live in cemeteries, and at night eat the flesh of 
 dead men. As the European counterpart of these Perso- 
 Arabic ideas, there are fairies, and their dancing by moon- 
 light, their tampering with children, and imposing 
 changelings on horror-stricken mothers. Every one be- 
 lieves that rain and wind may be purchased of 
 wizards, and that fair weather may be obtained ^European 
 and storms abated by prayer. Whoever attains sorcery and 
 to wealth or eminence does so by a compact with witchcraft - 
 Satan, signed with blood. The head of the Church, 
 Sylvester IT., makes a brazen head, which speaks to him 
 prophetically. He finds underground treasures in a subter- 
 ranean magic palace beneath a mountain. The protestator 
 of the Greek emperor is accused of a conspiracy against his 
 master's life by making invisible men. Eobert Grostete, 
 
 i 2 
 
116 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV, 
 
 the Bishop of Lincoln, makes another speaking head. 
 Nay, more, Albertus Magnus constructs a complete brazenr 
 man, so cunningly contrived as to serve hiit, for a domestic. 
 This was at the time that Thomas Aquinas was living with 
 him. The household trouble arising from the excessive 
 garrulity of this simulacrum grew so intolerable — for it 
 was incessantly making mischief among the other inmates 
 — that Thomas, unable to bear it any longer, took a 
 hammer and broke the troublesome android to pieces. 
 These ideas This reverend father, known among his contem- 
 infectaii poraries as the " seraphic doctor," was not 
 without experience in the mysterious craft. 
 Annoyed by the frequent passing of horses near his 
 dwelling, he constructed a magical horse of brass, and buried 
 it in the road. From that moment no animal could be made 
 to pass his door. Among brazen heads of great celebrity 
 is that of Friar Bacon and Friar Bungy. This oracle 
 announced, " Time is ; time was ; time is passed perhaps 
 it was some kind of clock. The alchemist Peter d'i\pono 
 had seven spirits in glass bottles. He had entrapped them 
 by baiting with distilled dew, and imprisoned them safely 
 by dexterously putting in the corks. He is the same who 
 possessed a secret which it is greatly to be regretted that he 
 did not divulge for the benefit of chemists who have come 
 after him, that, whatever money he paid, within the space 
 of one hour's time came back of itself again into his 
 pocket. That was better than even the philosopher's 
 stone. 
 
 These supernatural notions were at different times modi 
 Modifications ^ w0 intrusive elements, the first being the 
 
 of super- Perso- Arabic just alluded to, the second derived 
 naturalism. from tlie north of Europe# Tll i s element was 
 
 witchcraft; for, though long before, among Hebrews, Greeks, 
 and Eomans, decrepit women were known as witches — 
 as the Thessalian crone who raised a corpse from the dead 
 for Sextus by lashing it with a snake — it was not until a 
 later period that this element was fairly developed. A bull 
 Thepersecu- Po P e Innocent VIII., published a.d. 1484, 
 tions for says, " It has come to our ears that numbers of 
 witchcraft. k 0 th. sexes do not avoid to have intercourse with 
 the infernal fiends, and that by their sorceries they afflict 
 
CH. IV.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 117 
 
 both man and beast. They blight the marriage-bed ; destroy 
 the births of women and the increase of cattle ; they blast 
 the corn on the ground, the grapes in the vineyard, the 
 fruits of the trees, and the grass and herbs of the field " 
 At this time, therefore, the head of the Church had not 
 relinquished a belief in these delusions. The consequences 
 of the punishment; he ordained were very dreadful. In the 
 valleys of the Alps many hundred aged women were com- 
 - mitted to the flames under an accusation of denying Christ, 
 dishonouring the crucifix, and solemnizing a devil's sabbath 
 m company with the fiend. Such persecutions, begun by 
 papal authority, continued among illiterate zealots till late 
 times, and, as is well known, were practised even in 
 America. Very masculine minds fell into these delusions. 
 Ihus Luther, in his work on the abuses attendant on private 
 masses, says that he had conferences with the Devil on 
 that subject, passing many bitter nights and much restless 
 and wearisome repose ; that once, in particular, Satan came 
 to him m the dead of the night, when he was just awakened 
 out of sleep. " The Devil," says Luther, " knows well enough 
 how to construct his arguments, and to urge them Experiences 
 with the skill of a master. He delivers himself of Luther, 
 with a grave and yet with a shrill voice. Nor does he use 
 circumlocutions and beat about the bush, but excels in 
 forcible statements and quick rejoinders. I no longer 
 wonder that the persons whom he assails in this way are 
 occasionally found dead in their beds. He is able to 
 compress and throttle, and more than once he has so 
 assaulted me and driven my soul into a corner that I have 
 felt as if the next moment it must leave my body. I am 
 of opinion that Gesner and GEcolampadius came in that 
 manner to their deaths. The Devil's manner of opening a 
 debate is pleasant enough, but he soon urges things so 
 peremptorily that the respondent in a short time knows not 
 now to acquit himself." 
 
 Social eminence Is no preservative from social delusion 
 When it was affirmed that Agnes Sampson, w ri . . 
 with two hundred other Scotch witches, had atdf-scS 
 bailed m sieves from Leith to North Berwick witches - 
 church to hold a banquet with the Devil, James I. had the 
 torture applied to the wretched woman, and took pleasure 
 
118 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 CH. IV. 
 
 in putting appropriate questions to her after the racking 
 had been duly prolonged. It then came out that the two 
 hundred crones had baptized and drowned a black cat, 
 thereby raising a dreadful storm in which the ship that 
 carried the king narrowly escaped being wrecked. Upon 
 this Agnes was condemned to the flames. She died pro- 
 testing her innocence, and piteously calling on Jesus to 
 have mercy on her, for Christian men would not. On the 
 accession of James to the English throne he procured an 
 act of Parliament against any one convicted of witchcraft, 
 sorcery, or enchantment, or having commerce with the 
 Devil. Under this monstrous statute many persons 
 suffered. At this time England was intellectually in a 
 very backward state. The statute remained until 1736 
 French and unrepealed. The French preceded the English 
 English legal in putting a stop to these atrocities ; for 
 
 proceedings. LoLiig X j y ^ ^ by ^ ^ 
 
 forbade the tribunals from inflicting penalty in accusations 
 of sorcery. 
 
 Can the reader of the preceding paragraphs here pause 
 without demanding of himself the value of human testi- 
 mony ? All these delusions, which occupied the minds 
 of our forefathers, and from which not even the powerful 
 The t tai d* an( ^ ^ earne( ^ were f ree > have totally passed away, 
 appearance 1S " The moonlight has now no fairies ; the solitude 
 of these deiu- n0 genius ; the darkness no ghost, no goblin. 
 
 There is no necromancer who can raise the dead 
 from their graves— no one who has sold his soul to the 
 Devil and signed the contract with his blood — no angry 
 apparition to rebuke the crone who has disquieted him. 
 Divination, agromancy, pyromancy, hydromancy, cheiro- 
 mancy, augury, interpreting of dreams, oracles, sorcery, 
 astrology, have all gone. It is 350 years since the last 
 sepulchral lamp was found, and that was near Borne. 
 There are no gorgons, hydras, chimeeras ; no familiars ; no 
 incubus or succubus. The housewives of Holland no 
 longer bring forth sooterkins by sitting over lighted 
 chauffers. No longer do captains buy of Lapland witches 
 favourable winds ; no longer do our churches resound with 
 prayers against the baleful influences of comets, though 
 there still linger in some of our noble old rituals forms of 
 
CH. IV.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IX THE WEST. 
 
 119 
 
 supplication for dry weather and rain, useless but not 
 unpleasing reminiscences of the past. The apothecary no 
 longer says prayers over the mortar in which he is pound- 
 ing to impart a divine afflatus to his drugs. Who is there 
 now that pays fees to a relic or goes to a saint-shrine to be 
 cured ? These delusions have vanished with the night to 
 which they appertained, yet they were the delusions of 
 fifteen hundred years. In their support might be produced 
 a grea ter mass of human testimony than probably could be 
 brought to bear on any other matter of belief in the entire 
 history of man ; and yet, in the nineteenth century, we 
 have come to the conclusion that the whole, from the 
 beginning to the end, was a deception. Let Valueof 
 him, therefore, who is disposed to balance the human 
 testimony of past ages against the dictates of his testunon y* 
 own reason ponder on this strange history ; let him who 
 relies on the authority of human evidence in the guidance 
 of his opinions now settle with himself what that evidence 
 is worth. 
 
 But, though in one sense this history is humiliating to 
 the philosopher, in another it is full of interest. Superna- 
 turalism, both in the individual and in society, 
 appertains to a definite period of life. It is. fsXa^per-™ 1 " 
 shaken off as men and nations approach maturity** * lif 
 The child and the youth people solitude and pen ° ° 1 e ' 
 darkness with unrealities. The adult does not so much 
 convince himself of their fictitious nature by reasoning on 
 the results of his experience — he grows out of them, as we 
 see that society has done. Nevertheless, his emancipation 
 is quickened if he is among those who instruct his curiosity 
 and deride his fears. It was in this manner that the 
 decline of supernatural sm in the West was very much 
 accelerated by Jewish physicians. They, more than the 
 lawyers, were concerned in the ending of these delusions. 
 These apparitions, as is the nature of their kind, vanished 
 as soon as the crowing of the iEsculapian cock announced 
 that the intellectual day of Europe was on the 
 point of breaking. The Jews held in their Ji^ Jews on 
 hands much of the trade of the world; they supernaturai- 
 were in perpetual movement and commercial lsm * 
 intercommunication. Locomotion — for such is always it s 
 
120 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 result — tended to make them intellectual. The perse- 
 cutions under which they had long suffered bound their 
 distant communities together. The Spanish Jews knew 
 very well what w r as going on among their co-religionists 
 beyond the Euphrates. As Cabanis says, " They were our 
 factors and bankers before we knew r how to read; they 
 were also our first physicians." To this it may be added 
 that they were, for centuries, the only men in Europe whc 
 saw the course of human affairs from the most genera! 
 point of view. 
 
 The Hellenizing Jewish physicians inoculated the Arabs 
 with learning on their first meeting with them in Alex- 
 andria, obtaining a private and personal influence with 
 many of khalifs, and from that central point of power 
 giving an intellectual character to the entire Saracenic 
 movement. We have already seen that in this they were 
 greatly favoured by the approximation of their unitarianism 
 to that of the Mohammedans. The intellectual activity 
 of the Asiatic and African Jews soon communicated an 
 impulse to those of Europe. The Hebrew doctor was 
 viewed by the vulgar with wonder, fear, and hatred ; no 
 crime could be imputed to him too incredible. Thus 
 Zedekias, the physician to Charles the Bald, was asserted 
 to have devoured at one meal, in the presence of the court, 
 a waggon-load of hay, together with its horses and driver, 
 The titles of some of the works that appeared among them 
 deserve mention, as displaying a strong contrast with the 
 Writings of mystical designations in vogue. Thus Isaac 
 jewishphy- Ben Soleiman, an Egyptian, wrote " On Fevers," 
 ■icians. < t Qn Medicine," « On Food and Eemedies," " On 
 the Pulse," " On Philosophy," "On Melancholy," "An 
 Introduction to Logic." The simplicity of these titles 
 displays an intellectual clearness and a precision of thought 
 which have ever been shown by the Israelites. They are 
 in themselves sufficient to convince us of the strong 
 common sense which these men were silently infusing into 
 the literature of Western Europe in ages of concealment 
 and mystification. Eoger Bacon, at a much later time, 
 gave to one of his works the title of " The Green Lion ;" 
 to another, " The Treatise of Three Words." 
 
 Since it was by the power and patronage of the Saracens 
 
CH. IV.] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 121 
 
 that the Jewish physicians were acting, it is not surprising 
 that the language used in many of their compositions was 
 Arabic. Translations were, however, commonly made 
 into Hebrew, and, at a subsequent period, into Latin. 
 Through the ninth century the Asiatic colleges maintained 
 their previous celebrity in certain branches of knowledge. 
 Thus the J ew Shabtai Donolo was obliged to go to Bagdad 
 to complete his studies in astronomy. As Arabian in- 
 'fluence extended itself into Sicily and Italy, Jewish 
 intelligence accompanied it, and schools were Foundation of 
 founded at Tarentum, Salerno, Bari, and other colle ges. 
 places. Here the Arab and Jew Orientalists first amalga- 
 mated with a truly European element — the Greek — as is 
 shown by the circumstance that in the college at Salerno 
 instruction was given through the medium of all three 
 languages. At one time, Pontus taught in Greek, 
 Abdallah in Arabic, and Elisha in Hebrew. A similar 
 influence of the Arab and Jew combined founded the 
 University of Montpellier. 
 
 After the foundation of medical colleges, the progress 
 of medicine among the Jews was very rapid. Medical stu . 
 J udged by our standard, in some respects it was dies among 
 peculiar. Thus, they looked upon the practice of the Jew8, 
 surgery as altogether mechanical, and therefore ignoble. 
 A long list of eminent names might be extracted from the 
 tenth and eleventh centuries. In it we should find 
 Haroun of Cordova, Jehuda of Fez, Amram of Toledo. 
 Already it was apparent that the Saracenic movement 
 would aid in developing the intelligence of barbarian 
 Western Europe through Hebrew physicians, in spite of 
 opposition encountered from theological ideas imported 
 from Constantinople and Rome. Mohammedanism had 
 all along been the patron of physical science ; paganizing 
 Christianity not only repudiated it, but exhibited towards 
 it sentiments of contemptuous disdain and hatred. Hence 
 physicians were viewed by the Church with dislike, and 
 regarded as atheists by the people, who held firmly to the 
 lessons they had been taught that cures must be wrought 
 by relics of martyrs and bones of saints, by imposture- 
 prayers and intercessions, and that each region medicine - 
 of the body was under some spiritual charge — the first 
 
122 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 joint of the right thumb being in the care of God the 
 Father, the second under that of the blessed Virgin, and 
 so on of other parts. For each disease there was a saint. 
 A man with sore eyes must invoke St. Clara, but if it were 
 an inflammation elsewhere he must turn to St. Anthony. 
 An ague would demand the assistance of St. Pernel. For 
 the propitiating of these celestial beings it was necessary 
 that fees should be paid, and thus the practice of impos- 
 ture-medicine became a great source of profit. 
 
 In all this there was no other intention than that of 
 extracting money from the illiterate. With men of educa- 
 tion and position it was different. Bishops, princes, kings, 
 and popes had each in private his Hebrew doctor, though 
 all understood that he was a contraband luxury, in many 
 countries pointedly and absolutely prohibited by the law. 
 In the eleventh century nearly all the physicians in Europe 
 were Jews. This was due to two different causes : the 
 Church would tolerate no interference with her; spiritual 
 methods of treating disease, which formed one of her most 
 The rabbis productive sources of gain ; v and the study of 
 cultivate medicine had been formally introduced into the 
 rabbinical schools. The monk was prohibited a 
 pursuit which gave to the rabbi an honourable emolument. 
 From the older institutions offshoots in quick succession 
 appeared, particularly in France. Thus the school at 
 Narbonne was under the presidency of Doctor Eabbi Abou. 
 There was also a flourishing school at Aries. In these 
 institutions instruction was given through the medium of 
 Hebrew and Arabic, the Greek element present at Salerno 
 being here wanting. In the French schools, to the former 
 languages Latin and Provencal were, in the course of 
 time, added. The versatility of acquirement among the 
 physicians, who were taking the lead in this intellectual 
 movement, is illustrated both by the Spanish and French 
 Jews. Some, like Djanah, a native of Cordova, acquired 
 reputation in grammar, criticism, astronomy; others in 
 poetry or theology. 
 
 If thus the social condition of the rabbis, who drew no 
 income from their religious duties, induced them to 
 combine the practice of medicine with their pursuits, 
 great facilities had arisen for mental culture through the 
 
CH. IV."] 
 
 THE AGE OF A1TH IN THE WEST. 
 
 123 
 
 establishment of so many schools. Henceforth the Jewish 
 physician is recognised as combining with his and other 
 professional skill a profound knowledge of theo- sciences - 
 logy, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, music, law. 
 In a singular manner he stands aloof in the barbarian 
 societies among whom he lives, looking down like a philo- 
 sopher upon their idolatries, permitting, or even excusing 
 them, like a statesman. Of those who thus adorned the 
 eleventh century was Eabbi Solomon Ben Isaac, better 
 known under the abbreviation Kaschi — called by his coun- 
 trymen the Prince of Commentators. He was equally 
 at home in writing commentaries on the Talmud, or in 
 giving instructions for great surgical operations, as the 
 Caesarean section. He was the greatest French physician 
 of his age. Spain during the same century, produced a 
 worthy competitor to him, Ebn Zohr, physician Writin sof 
 to the court of Seville. His writings were in the Spanish- 
 Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, and both in prose and SSL™ 
 
 tt i j ■ « . i p physicians. 
 
 verse. He composed a treatise on the cure ot 
 diseases, and two on fevers. In singular contrast with 
 the superstitious notions of the times, he possessed a 
 correct view of the morbific nature of marsh miasm. He 
 was followed by Ben Ezra, a Jew of Toledo, who was at 
 once a physician, philosopher, mathematician, astronomer, 
 critic, poet. He travelled all over Europe and Asia, being 
 held in captivity for some time in India. Among his 
 medical writings was a work on theoretical and practical 
 medicine, entitled " Book of Proofs." Through the wars 
 arising in Spain between the Mohammedans and Chris- 
 tians, many learned Jews were driven into France, im- 
 parting to that country, by their presence, a new intellec- 
 tual impulse. Of such were Aben Tybbon, who gave to 
 nis own profession a pharmaceutical tendency by insisting 
 on the study of botany and art of preparing drugs. Ben 
 Kimchi, a Narbonnese physician and grammarian, wrote 
 commentaries on the Bible, sacred and moral poems, a 
 Hebrew grammar. Notwithstanding the opposition of 
 the ecclesiastics, William, the Lord of Montpellier, passed 
 an edict authorizing all persons, without exception, to 
 profess medicine in the university of his city. This 
 was specially meant for the relief of the Jews, though 
 
124 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV 
 
 expressed in a general way. Spain, though she had thus 
 lost many of her learned men, still continued to produce 
 Maimonides °^ ners °f which she had reason to be proud. 
 
 Moussa Ben Maimon, known all over Europe as 
 Maimonides, was recognized by his countrymen as " the 
 Doctor, the Great Sage, the Glory of the West, the Light 
 of the East, second only to Moses." He is often designated 
 by the four initals K. M. B. M., that is Eabbi Moses Ben 
 Maimon, or briefly Kambam. His biography presents some 
 points of interest. He was born at Cordova a.d. 1135, 
 and, while yet young, wrote commentaries on the Talmuds 
 both of Babylon and Jerusalem, and also a work on the 
 Calendar ; but, embracing Mohammedanism, he emigrated 
 to Egypt, and there became physician to the celebrated 
 Sultan Saladin. Among his works are medical aphorisms, 
 derived from former Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Arabic 
 sources ; an abridgment of Galen ; and of his original 
 treatises, which were very numerous, may be mentioned 
 those " On Hemorrhoids," " On Poisons and Antidotes," 
 " On Asthma," " On the Preservation of Health,"— the 
 latter being written for the benefit of the son of Saladin — 
 " On the Bites of Venomous Animals " — written by order 
 of the sultan — " On Natural History." His " Moreh 
 Nevochim," or " Teacher of the Perplexed," was an 
 attempt to reconcile the doctrines of the Old Testament 
 with reason. In addition to these, he had a book on 
 Idolatry, and one on Christ. Besides Maimonides, the 
 sultan had another physician, Ebn Djani, the author of a 
 work on the medical topography of the city of Alexandria. 
 From the biographies of these learned men of the twelfth 
 century it would seem that their religious creed hung 
 lightly upon them. Not unfrequently they became con- 
 verted to Mohammedanism. 
 
 It might be tedious if I should record the names and 
 Later Jewish writings of the learned European Jews of the 
 physicians, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a period more 
 prolific of these great men than even the preceding ages. 
 But I cannot pass these later centuries without mentioning 
 the Alphonsine Tables, calculated for Alphonso, the King 
 of Castile, by Mascha, his Hebrew physician. The irre- 
 ligious tendency of the times is illustrated by the well- 
 
CH. IV.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST, 
 
 125 
 
 known sarcasm uttered by that Spanish monarch respecting 
 the imperfect construction of the heavens, according to 
 the Ptolemaic hypothesis. For long, however, the Jews 
 had been dabbling in free-thinking speculations. Thus 
 Aben Tybbon, above-mentioned, anticipating that branch 
 of science which has drawn upon itself, in later years, so 
 much opprobrium, wrote a work containing a discussion 
 of the causes which prevent the waters of the sea from 
 encroaching on the land. Abba Mari, a Marseillese Jew, 
 translated the Almagest of Ptolemy and the Commentary 
 of Averroes upon it. The school of Salerno was still 
 sending forth its doctors. In Rome, Jewish physicians 
 were very numerous, the popes themselves employing 
 them. Boniface VIII. had for his medical adviser Rabbi 
 Isaac. At this period Spain and France were full of 
 learned Jews ; and perhaps partly by their exerting upon 
 the higher classes with whom they came in contact too 
 much influence, for the physician of a Christian prince 
 was very often the rival of his confessor, and partly 
 because the practice of medicine, as they pursued it, inter- 
 fered with the gains of the Church, the clergy tookalarm, 
 and caused to be re-enacted or enforced the ancient laws' 
 The Council of Beziers, a.d. 1246, and the Council of Alby 
 a.d. 1254, prohibited all Christians from resorting to the 
 services of an Israelitish physician. It would appear that 
 these enactments had either fallen into desuetude or had 
 failed to be enforced. The faculty of Paris, awakening at 
 last to the danger of the case, caused, a.d. 1301, a decree 
 to be published prohibiting either man or woman of the 
 religion of Moses from practising medicine upon any 
 person of the^ Catholic religion. A similar course was also 
 taken m Spain. At this time the Jews were confessedly 
 at the head of French medicine. It was the appointment 
 of one of their persuasion, Profatius, as regent of the 
 faculty of Montpellier a.d. 1300, which drew upon them 
 the wrath of the faculty of Paris. This learned man was 
 a skilful astronomer ; he composed tables of the moon • of 
 the longitudes of many Asiatic and African towns ' he 
 determined the obliquity of the ecliptic, his result beino- 
 honourably alluded to by Copernicus. The animosity of 
 the French ecclesiastics against the Jewish physicians at 
 
126 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 last led to the banishment of all the Jews from France, 
 TheUniver- A,D ' *306. " It was," say the historians of this 
 sity of Paris event, " a most revolting spectacle to see so many 
 ^is?on of the l earne( l men > wno had adorned and benefited 
 jews from Prance, proscribed, wanderers without a country 
 or an asylum. Some of them expired of grief 
 upon the road. Abba Mari gives in his work heart-rend- 
 ing details of the expulsion of the Jews from Montpellier, 
 at the head of whom were the professors and doctors of 
 the faculty." 
 
 But, though thus driven into exile, these strangers had 
 Besuit that accomplished their destiny. They had silently 
 they had ac- deposited in France their ideas. They had 
 comphshed. ga pp 6( j the credulity of the higher classes in 
 Europe, and taught them to turn away from the super- 
 natural. A clear recognition of their agency in this 
 matter fastened upon them the watchful eye of Inquisition, 
 and made them the victims of its tyranny. 
 
 And so it might well be. Out of the Spanish peninsula 
 there had come across the Pyrenees an intellectual in- 
 fluence, which reached the populace under the form of a 
 fresh and pleasing literature, and the better classes by 
 novel but unorthodox ideas. To a very great extent the 
 Jews had been its carriers. The result was the overthrow 
 of supernaturalism. We shall hardly accept the affirma- 
 tion of good Catholics that fairies disappeared on account of 
 the Keformation, unable to bear the morose sectarianism 
 with which it was accompanied, or the still more material 
 Destruction explanation of the rustics that it was through 
 of fairies by the introduction of tobacco. However that may 
 tobacco. ^ nQ i on g er i s Robin Goodfellow the compeller 
 of household duties — no longer do bad elves sit by the 
 dying embers of the hearth-stone at night, in the shape of 
 shrivelled frogs, after the family have gone to bed. For a 
 long time there have been no miracles in Europe. Even 
 Eome, the workshop of those artifices, has ceased to be the 
 seat of that trade. 
 
 From human institutions of any kind, a great principle, 
 firmly inwrought and inwoven at the beginning, can neven 
 be removed. It will show itself whenever occasion per- 
 mits. The animosity between the Byzantine ecclesiastical 
 
€H. IV.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 127 
 
 system and all true wisdom was inextinguishable, though 
 it was utterly foreign to Christianity. It was Causes of the 
 fastened by imperial violence on the nations, ecclesiastical 
 and made its appearance, with unabated force, °PP 0Slt1011 - 
 at intervals of ages. The same evil instinct which tore 
 Hypatia piecemeal in the church at iUexandria brought 
 Galileo into the custody of the familiars of the holy office 
 at Eome. The necessary consequence of this upholding 
 ignorance by force was the emergence of ideas successively 
 more and more depraved. Whoever will ingenuously 
 compare the religious state of Italy in the fourteenth 
 century with its state in the fourth — that is, the recent 
 Italian with the old Eoman — will find that Degraded 
 among the illiterate classes nothing whatever state of Italy, 
 had been accomplished. There were no elevated thoughts 
 of holy things. From practical devotion God had alto- 
 gether disappeared ; the Saviour had been supplanted by 
 the blessed Virgin ; and she herself — such was the in- 
 creasing degradation — had been abandoned for the ignoble 
 worship of apotheosized men, who, under the designation 
 of saints, had engrossed all the votaries. There had been 
 a rapid descent to the last degree of more than African 
 abasement in bleeding statues and winking pictures. 
 
 In Europe there had been incorporated old forms of 
 worship and old festivals with Christian ones ; the local 
 gods and goddesses had been replaced by saints ; for 
 deification canonization had been substituted. There had 
 been produced a civilization, the character of Riseofanew 
 which was its extraordinary intolerance. A man social system, 
 could not be suspected of doubting the popular belief 
 without risk to his goods, his body, or his life. As a 
 necessary consequence, there could be no great lawgivers, 
 no philosophers, no poets. Society was pervaded by a 
 systematic hypocrisy. This tyranny over others some- 
 times led to strange results. It caused the Jews to dis- 
 cover the art of making wealth invisible by bills of 
 exchange and other such like means, so that money might 
 be imperceptibly but instantaneously moved. 
 
 Thus, after the dying out of Greek science, there fol- 
 lowed, among the new populations, an intellectual immo- 
 bility, which soon became the centre of a vast number of 
 
128 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 growing interests quickly and firmly crystallizing round 
 influence of For them it was essential that there should 
 
 that now be no change — no advance. In the midst of 
 system, jarrings and conflicts between those interests > 
 that condition was steadfastly maintained, as if through 
 instinct, by them all. It mattered not how antiquated 
 were the forms insisted on, nor how far they outraged 
 common sense. New life was given to decaying illusions, 
 and, in return, strength was gathered from them. Isis, 
 anddegrada- w ^ n the nioon beneath her feet, was planted, 
 tion by AM- under a new name, on the Bosphorus and the 
 Tiber. African theology, African ecclesiastical 
 machinery, and African monasticism were made objects of 
 reverence to unsuspecting Europe. Juvenal says that the 
 Roman painters of his day lived on the goddess Isis. The 
 Italian painters of a later day lived on her modernized 
 form. 
 
 In such a condition of tilings the literary state could be 
 No literature 110 °^ ncr than barren. Political combinations 
 in the Age of had not only prescribed an intellectual terminus, 
 Faith * but had even laid down a rail upon which 
 mental excursions were to be made, and from which there 
 was no departing ; or, if a turn-out was permitted, it was 
 managed by a tonsured man. For centuries together, if 
 we exclude theological writings, there was absolutely no 
 literature worth the name. Life seems to have been spent 
 in the pursuit of mere physical enjoyment, and that 
 enjoyment of a very low kind. When in the South of 
 France and Sicily literature began to dawn, it is not to be 
 overlooked how much of it was of an amatory kind ; and 
 love is the strongest of the passions. The first aspect of 
 Western literature was animal, not intellectual. A taste 
 for learning excited, there reappeared in the schools the 
 its critical old treatises written a thousand years before — 
 innocence. fl^ Elements of Euclid, the Geography of 
 Ptolemy. Long after the Eeformation there was an intel- 
 lectual imbecility which might well excite our mirth, if it 
 were not the index of a stage through which the human 
 mind must pass. Often enough we see it interestingly in 
 the interweaving of the new with the old ideas. If we 
 take up a work on metallurgy, it commences with Tubal 
 
GB. iv. ] 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE V EST. 
 
 129 
 
 Cain; if on music, With Jubal. The history of each 
 country is traced back to the sons of Noah, or at least to 
 the fugitives from the siege of Troy. An admiration for 
 classical authors may perhaps be excused. It exhibited 
 itself amusingly in the eccentricity of interlarding com- 
 positions of every kind with Greek and Latin quotations. 
 This was an age of literary innocence, when no legend 
 was too stupendous for credulity ; when there was no one 
 who had ever suspected that Tully, as they delighted to 
 call him, was not a great philosopher, and Virgil not a 
 great poet. 
 
 Of those ponderous, those massive folios on ecclesiastical 
 affairs, at once the product and representatives Disuse of m- 
 of the time, but little needs here to be said, tristic woru-s. 
 They boasted themselves as the supreme effort of human 
 intellect; they laid elaim to an enduring authority; to 
 many they had a weight little less than the oracles of 
 God. But if their intrinsic value is to be measured by 
 their pretensions, and their pretensions judged of by their 
 present use. what is it that must he said? Long ago 
 their term was reached, long ago they became obsolete. 
 They have no reader. Such must be the issue of any 
 literature springing from an immovable, an unexpandin<>' 
 basis, tho offspring of thought that has been held in sub- 
 jugation by political formulas, or of intellectual energies 
 that have been cramped. 
 
 The Human ecclesiastical system, like the Byzantine, 
 had been irrevocably committed in an opposition g )read of 
 to intellectual development. It professed to science in 
 cultivate the morals, but it crushed the mind. France * 
 Yet, in the course of events, this state of things was to 
 OOme to an end through the working of other principles 
 equally enduring and more powerful. They constitute 
 what we may speak of under the title of the Arabian 
 element. On preceding pages it has been shown that, 
 when the Saracens conquered Egypt, they came under the 
 influence of the Nestorians and Hellenizing Jews, acquir- 
 ing from them a love of philosophy, which soon manifested 
 Itself in full energy from the banks of the Euphrates to 
 those of Guadalquivir. The hammer of Charles Martel 
 might strike down the ranks of the Saracens on the field of 
 
 VOL. IJ. tr 
 
130 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 Tours, but there was something intangible, something in- 
 destructible accompanying them, which the Frank chivalry- 
 could not confront. To the Church there was an evil 
 omen. It has been well remarked that in the Provencal 
 poetry there are noble bursts of crusading religious senti- 
 ment, but they are incorporated with a sovereign contempt 
 for the clergy. 
 
 The biography of any of the physicians or alchemists of 
 the thirteenth century would serve the purpose of illus- 
 trating the watchfulness of the Church, the unsound 
 condition of the universities, the indirect patronage ex- 
 tended to heretics by eminent men, and the manner in 
 which the rival powers, ecclesiasticism and philosophy, 
 were preparing for their final conflict. As an example of 
 the kind, I may present briefly that of Arnold de Villa 
 
 Nova, born about a.d. 1250. He enjoyed a great 
 from the \Ao- reputation for his knowledge of medicine and 
 Arnold ° f alchemy. For some years he was physician to 
 
 the King of Aragon. Under an accusation of 
 defective orthodoxy he lost his position at court, his 
 punishment being rendered more effective by excom- 
 munication. Hoping to find in Paris more liberality than 
 he had met with in Spain, he fled to that city, but was 
 pursued by an adverse ecclesiastical influence with a 
 charge of having sold his soul to the Devil, and of having 
 changed a plate of copper into gold. In Montpellier, to 
 which he was obliged to retire, he found a more congenial 
 intellectual atmosphere, and was for long one of the regents 
 of the faculty of medicine. In succession, he subsequently 
 resided in Florence, Naples, Palermo, patronized and hon- 
 oured by the Emperor Frederick II. — at that time engaged 
 in the attempt to unite Italy into one kingdom and give it 
 a single language — on account of his extraordinary reputa - 
 tion as a physician. Even the pope, Clement V., notwith- 
 standing the unfortunate attitude in which Arnold stood 
 toward the Church, besought a visit from him in hopes of 
 relief from the stone. On his voyage for the purpose of 
 performing the necessary operation, Arnold suffered ship 
 wreck and was drowned. His body was interred at Genoa, 
 The pope issued an encyclic letter, entreating those who 
 owed him obedience to reveal where Arnold's Treatise ou 
 
OH. IV.] THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 131 
 
 the Practice of Medicine might be found, it having been 
 Lost or concealed. It appears that the chief offences com- 
 mitted by Arnold against the Church were that he had 
 predicted that the world would come to an end a.d. 1335 ; 
 that he had said the bulls of the pope were only the work 
 of a man, and that the practice of charity is better than 
 prayer, or even than the mass. If he was the author ol 
 the celebrated hook " De Tribus Impostoribus," as was 
 suspected by some, it is not remarkable that he was so 
 closely watched and disciplined. Like many of his con- 
 temporaries, he mingled a great deal of mysticism with 
 his work, recommending, during his alchemical operations, 
 the recitation of psalms, to give force to the materials 
 employed. Among other such things, he describes a seal, 
 decorated with scriptural phrases, of excellent use m 
 preserving one from sudden death. It appears, however, 
 to have failed of its effect on the night when Arnold s ship 
 was drifting on an Italian lee-shore, and he had most need 
 
 The two antagonistic principles— ecclesiastical and in- 
 tellectual—were thus brought in presence of Twoimpulses 
 each other. On other occasions they had already -intellectual 
 been in partial collision, as at the iconoclastic ™ d 0 £r%L. 
 dispute which originated in the accusations of 
 the Mohammedans, and ended in the tearing of Christendom 
 asunder. . 
 
 Again there was a collision, a few centuries later, when 
 the Spanish Moors and Jews began to influence struggle of ec- 
 the higher European classes. Among the bish- <^™? 
 ops, sovereigns, and even popes thus affected, intellectual 
 there were many men of elevated views, who P rinci P le - 
 saw distinctly the position of Europe, and understood 
 thoroughly the difficulties of the Church. It had already 
 become obvious to them that it would be impossible to 
 restrain the impulse arising from the vigorous movements 
 of the Saracens, and that it was absolutely necessary so 
 to order things that the actual condition of faith m 
 Europe might be accommodated to or even harmonized 
 with these philosophical conceptions, which it was quite 
 clear would, soon or late, pervade the whole Continent. 
 I This, as we have seen, is the explanation of the introduction 
 
 k 2 
 
132 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [ch. rv. 
 
 of Scholasticism from the Arabian schools, and its accom- 
 modation to the Christian code, on which authority looked 
 with so much favour at first, But hardly had thisattempt 
 been entered upon before it became manifest that the risks 
 to be incurred through the remedy itself were as great us 
 the anticipated dangers. There was then no other course 
 than for the Church to retrace her steps, ostensibly main- 
 taining her consistency by permitting scholastic literature, 
 though declining scholastic theology. She thus allured 
 the active intellect, arising in all directions in the uni- 
 versities, to fruitless and visionary pursuits. Tin's policy, 
 therefore, threw her back upon a system of repression; it 
 was the only course possible; ye1 there can be no doubt 
 that it was entered upon with reluctance. We do in- 
 justice to the great men who guided ecclesiastical policy 
 in those times when we represent them as recklessly com 
 mitting themselves to measures at once violent and inde- 
 fensible. They did make the attempt to insti- 
 The difficulty , -x t j i 
 
 waa in the tute an opposite policy ; it proved not only 
 
 system, not in a failure, but mischievous. They were then 
 driven to check the spread of knowledge — 
 driven by the necessities of their position. The fault was 
 none of theirs ; it dated back tc the time of Constantine 
 the Great ; and the impossibility of either correcting or 
 neutralizing it is only an example, as has been said, of the 
 manner in which a general principle, once introduced, 
 will overbear the best exertions of those attempting to 
 struggle against it. We can appreciate the false position 
 into which those statesmen were thrown when we compare 
 their personal with their public relations. Often the most 
 eminent persons lived in intimacy and friendship with 
 Jewish physicians, who, in the eye of the law, were 
 enemies of society ; often those who were foremost in the 
 cultivation of knowledge — who, indeed, suffered excom- 
 munication for its sake — maintained amicable relations oi 
 a private kind with those who in public were the leaden 
 of their persecutors. The systems were in antagonism, not 
 the men. Arnold de Villa Nova, though excommunicated 
 was the physician of one pope ; Eoger Bacon, though 
 harshly imprisoned, was the friend and correspondent oi 
 another. These incidents are not to be mistaken for that 
 
cm. iy.] 
 
 THE AG E OF FAITH IN THE "WEST. 
 
 133 
 
 compassion which the truly great are ever ready to show 
 to erring genius. They are examples of what we often 
 see in our own day, when men engaged in the movements 
 of a great political party loyally carry out its declared 
 principles to their consequences, though individually they 
 may find in those consequences many things to which 
 they could mentally object. Their private objection they 
 , hus yield fur ihe sake of what appears to them, in a 
 general way. a practical good. 
 
 Such was the state of affairs when the Arab element, 
 having pervaded France and Italy, made its formal intel- 
 lectual attack. It might almost have been foreseen in 
 what manner that attack would he made, and the shape it 
 would he likely to assume. Of the sciences, astronomy 
 was the oldest and most advanced. Its beginning dates 
 earlier than the historic period, and both in The int.-n.-c- 
 India and in K^vpt il had long leached correct- t"ai impulse 
 
 • .• 1 , • • i mak.'S us at- 
 
 ness, so far as its general principles were con- tack through 
 cerned. The Saracens had been assiduous ^ tro,,on, y. 
 cultivators of it in both its branches, observation and 
 mathematical investigation. f pon one point, the figure 
 and relations of the earth, it is evident that not the 
 slightest doubt existed among them. Nay, it must be 
 added that no learned European ecclesiastic or statesman 
 could deny the demonstrated truths. Nevertheless, it so 
 fell out that upon this very point the conflict broke out. 
 In India the l.rahmans had passed through the same 
 trial- for different nations walk through similar paths — 
 with a certain plausible success, by satisfying the popular 
 clamour that there was, in reality, nothing inconsistent 
 bet ween the ast roiiomical doctrine of the globular form and 
 movement of the earth, and the mythological dogma that 
 it rests upon ;i succession of animals, the lowest of which 
 is a tortoise. But the strong common sense of Western 
 Europe was not to be deluded in any such idle way. It 
 ifl not difficult to see the point of contact, the point of 
 pressure with the Church. The abstract question gave 
 bee DO concern ; it was the consequences that might 
 possibly follow. The memorable battle was fought upon 
 tin <| nest ion thus sharply defined : Is the earth a moving 
 globe, a small body in the midst of suns and countless 
 
134 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH EN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 myriads of worlds, or is it the central and greatest object 
 in the universe, flat, and canopied over with a blue dome, 
 motionless while all is in movement around it? The 
 dispute thus definitely put, its issue was such as must 
 always attend a controversy in which he who is de- 
 fending is at once lukewarm and conscious of his own 
 andtheChurch weakness. Never ean mural interests, however 
 is defeated, pure, stand against intellect enforcing truth. 
 On this ill-omened question the Church ventured her 
 battle and lost it. 
 
 Though this great conflict is embodied in the history of 
 Galileo, who lias become its historical representative, the 
 i iu- moral prime moving cause must not be misunderstood, 
 impulse. From the Pyrenees had passed forth an influence 
 which had infected all the learned na n of Western Europe. 
 Its tendency was altogether unfavourable to the Church. 
 Moreover, the illiterate classes had been touched, but in a 
 different way. To the first action the designation of the 
 intellectual impulse may be given ; to the latter, the 
 moral. It is to be especially observed that in their direc- 
 tions these impulses conspired. We have seen how, 
 through the Saracens and Jews conjointly, the intellectual 
 Origin ofthe i m l )U l se came into play. The moral impulse 
 mom] im- originated in a different manner, being due 
 pu se " partly to the Crusades and partly to the state of 
 
 things in Borne. On these causes it is therefore needful 
 for us to reflect. 
 
 First, of the Crusades. There had been wrenched from 
 Christendom its fairest and most glorious portions. Spain, 
 the north of Africa, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, were gone. 
 The Mohammedans had been repeatedly under the walls 
 of Constantinople ; its fall was only a question of time. 
 They had been in the streets of Eome. They had marched 
 across Italy in every direction. But perhaps the geogra- 
 phical losses, appalling as they were, did not appear so 
 Loss of the painful as the capture of the holy places; the 
 holy places, birth-place of our Redeemer ; the scene of His 
 sufferings ; the Mount of Olives ; the Sea of Galilee ; the 
 Garden of Gethsemane ; Calvary ; the Sepulchre. Too often 
 in their day of strength, while there were Roman legions at 
 their back, had the bishops taunted Paganism with the 
 
oh. nr. 
 
 THE AGE OF 1-AITII IN' THE WEST. 
 
 weakness of its divinities, who could not defend themselves, 
 their temples, or their sacred places. That logic was re- 
 taliated now. To many a sincere heart must man}' an 
 ominous reflexion have occurred. In Western Ku rope there 
 was a strong common sense which «|uiokly caught the true 
 position of things — a common sense that could neither he 
 1)1 inded nor hoodwinked. The astuteness of the Italian poli- 
 ticians was insufficient to conceal altogether the great fact, 
 though it might succeed in dissembling its real significance 
 for a time. 'The Europe of that day was very different from 
 the Europe of ours. It. was in its Age of Faith. Recently 
 converted, as all recent converts do, it made its belief a 
 living rule of action. In our times there is not upon that 
 continent a nation which, in its practical relations with 
 others, carries out to their consequences its ostensible, its 
 avowed ai t ieles of belief. Catholics, Protestants, Moham- 
 medans, they of the Creek communion, indiscriminately 
 consort together under the expediences of the passing 
 hour. Statesmanship has long been dissevered from re- 
 ligion—a fact most portentous for future times. But it 
 was not so in the Middle Ages. Men then believed their 
 form of faith with the same clearness, the same intensity 
 with which they believed their own existence or the 
 actual presence of things upon which they east their eyes. 
 'Idle doctrines of the Church were to them no mere incon- 
 sequential affair, but an absolute, an actual reality, a living 
 and a fearful thing. It would have | asset] their comprehen- 
 sion if they could have been assured that a day would come 
 when Christian Europe, by a breath, could remove from 
 the holy places the scandal of an infidel intruder, but, 
 upon the whole, would consider it not worth her while to 
 do so. How differently they acted. When, by the preach- 
 ing of Peter the Hermit and his collaborators, who had 
 received a signal from Koine, a knowledge had come to 
 their ears of the reproach that had befallen Jerusalem and 
 tho sufferings of the pilgrims, their plain but straight- 
 forward common sense taught them at once what was the 
 right remedy to apply, and forthwith they did apply it, 
 and Christendom, precipitated headlong upon i;ffectofthe 
 tho Holy Land, was brought face to face with ( 
 Mohammedanism. But what a scene awaited the zealous, 
 
136 
 
 THE AGE OK FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 the religions barbarians — for such they truly were — when 
 Constantinople, with its matchless splendours, came in 
 view ! What a scene when they had passed into Asia 
 Minor, that garden of the world, presenting city after 
 city, with palaces and edifices, the pride of twenty cen- 
 turies ! How unexpected the character of those Saracens, 
 whom they had been taught, by those who had incited 
 ciianpe of them to their enterprise, to regard as no better 
 opinion in the than bloodthirsty fiends, but whom they found 
 crusaders. va ii ant , merciful, just ! When Richard tho 
 Lion-hearted, King of England, lay in his tent consumed 
 by a fever, there came into the camp camels laden with 
 snow, sent by his enemy, the Sultan Saladin, to assuage his 
 disease, the homage of one brave soldier to another. But 
 when Richard was returning to England, it was by a 
 Christian prince that lie was treacherously seized and 
 secretly confined. This was doubtless only one of many 
 such incidents which had often before occurred. Even 
 down to the meanest camp-follower, every one must have 
 recognized the difference between what they had antici- 
 pated and what they had found. They had seen un- 
 daunted courage, chivalrous bearing, intellectual culture 
 far higher than their own. They had been in lands filled 
 with the prodigies of human skill. They did not melt 
 down into the populations to whom they returned without 
 imparting to them a profound impression destined to make 
 itself felt in the course of time. 
 
 But, secondly, as to the state of things in Rome. The 
 movement into which all Europe had been thrown by these 
 
 wars brought to light the true condition of 
 rover the tm- things in Italy as respects morality. Loconio- 
 iVTiy litieS uf ^ on * n a P°P u l a ^ on i s followed by intellectual 
 
 development. The old stationary condition of 
 things in Europe was closed by the Crusades. National 
 movement gave rise to better observation, better in- 
 formation, and could not but be followed by national 
 reflexion. And though w r e are obliged to speak of the 
 European population as being in one sense in a barbarous 
 state, it was a moral population, earnestly believing the 
 truth of every doctrine it had been taught, and sincerely 
 expecting that those doctrines would be carried to their 
 
CH. J V.J THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 187 
 
 practical application, and that religious profession must, 
 as a matter of course, he illustrated by religious life. The 
 Komans themsel ves were an exception to this. They had 
 lived too Ionic behind the scenes. Indeed, it may lie said 
 that all the Italian penir.sula had emancipated itself from 
 that delusion, as likewise certain classes in France, who 
 i id become familiar with the state of things during the 
 residence of the popes at Avignon. It has been the 
 destiny of Southern France to pass, on a small scale, 
 under the same influence, and to exhihii t he same results 
 as were appointed for all Europe at last. 
 
 And now, what was it that awakening Europe found to 
 he the state of things in Italy? I avert my eyes from 
 looking again at the biography of the popes; it would be 
 only to renew a scene of sin and shame. Nor can I, 
 without injustice to truth, speak of the social condition of 
 the inhabitants of that peninsula without relating facts 
 which would compel my reader to turn over the page with 
 a blush. 1 prefer to look at the maxims of political life 
 which had been followed for many centuries, and which 
 were iirsl divulged by one of the givatesl men that Italy 
 has produced, in a work — a.d. 1513 — truly characterized 
 as a literary prodigy. Certainly nothing can surpass in 
 atrocity the maxims therein laid down. 
 
 Machiavelli, in thai work, tells us that there are three 
 degrees of capacity among men. That one Theprinctpies 
 understands things bv his own natural powers; of Italian 
 
 ,, -i ja: l • j j "5 • statosman- 
 
 another, when they are explained to him ; a ship— Ma- 
 third, not at all. In dealing with these different chiatrtll 
 classes different methods must be used. The last class, 
 which is by far the most numerous, is so simple and weak 
 that it is very easy to dupe those wdio belong to it. If 
 they cease to believe of their own accord they ought to be 
 constrained by force, in the application of which, though 
 there may be considerable difficulties at first, yet, these once 
 overcome by a sufficient unscrupulousness — veneration, 
 security, tranquillity, and happiness will follow. That, if 
 a prince is constrained to make his choice, it is better for 
 him to be feared than loved; he should remember that all 
 men are ungrateful, fickle, timid, dissembling, and self- 
 interested ; that love depends on them, but fear 'depends 
 
138 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IX THE WEST. 
 
 [ch, m 
 
 yn him, and hence it is best to prefer the latter, which is 
 always in his own hands. The great aim of statesmanship 
 should be permanence, which is worth everything else, 
 being far more valuable than freedom. That, if a man 
 wants to ruin a republic, his proper course is to set it on 
 bold undertakings, which it is sure to mismanage : that 
 men, being naturally wicked, incline to good only when 
 they are compelled ; they think a great deal more of the 
 present than the past, and never seek change so long a* 
 they are made comfortable. 
 
 He recommends a ruler to bear in mind that, while the 
 lower class of men may desert him, the superior will not 
 only desert, but conspire. Ii such cannot with certainty 
 be made trustworthy friends, it is very clearly necessary to 
 put it out of their ] lower t<> he enemies. Thus it may be 
 observed that the frequent insurrections in Spain, Gaul, 
 and Greece against the Komans were entirely due to the 
 petty chiefs inhabiting those countries; but that, after 
 these had been put to death, everything went on very well. 
 Up to a certain point, it should be the grand maxim of a 
 wise government to content the people and to manage the 
 nobles ; but that, since hatred is just as easily incurred by 
 good actions as by bad ones, there will occasionally arise 
 the necessity of being wricked in order to maintain power, 
 and, in such a case, there should be no hesitation ; for, 
 though it is useful to persevere in the path of rectitude 
 while there is no inconvenience, we should deviate from it 
 at once if circumstances so advise. A prudent prince 
 ought not keep his word to his own injury; he ought to 
 bear in mind that one who always endeavours to act as 
 duty dictates necessarily insures his own destruction; 
 that new obligations never extinguish the memory of 
 former injuries in the minds of the superior order of men ; 
 that liberality, in the end, generally insures more enemies 
 than friends ; that it is the nature of mankind to become 
 as much attached to one by the benefits they render as by 
 the favours they receive ; that, where the question is as to 
 the taking of life or the confiscation of property, it is 
 useful to remember that men forget the death of their 
 relatives, but not the loss of their patrimony ; that, if 
 cruelties should become expedient, they should be com- 
 
CH. IV. I 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 139 
 
 mitted thoroughly and but once — it is very impolitic ta 
 resort to them ;i second time; that there are three ways 
 of deciding any contest — by fraud, by force, or by law, 
 and a wise man will make the most suitable choice; that 
 there are also three ways of maintaining control in newly- 
 conquered states that have once been free — by ruining 
 them, by inhabiting them, or by permitting them to keep 
 their own laws and to pay tribute. Of these the first will 
 often be found the best, as we may see from the history of 
 the Romans, who were experienced judges of such cases. 
 That, as respects the family of a rival but conquered 
 sovereign, the greatest pains should betaken to extinguish 
 it completely; for history proves, what many fabulous 
 traditions relate, that dangerous political consequences 
 have originated in the escape of some obscure or insig- 
 nificant member; that men of the highest order, who are, 
 therefore, of sound judgment - who seek for actual social 
 truths for their guidance rather than visionary models 
 which never existed will conform to the decisions of 
 reason, and never be influenced by feelings of sentiment, 
 unless it is apparent that some collateral advantage will 
 arise from the temporary exhibition thereof; and that 
 they will put a just estimate on the delusions in which 
 the vulgar indulge, casting aside the so-called interven- 
 tions of Divine Providence, which are, in reality, nothing 
 more than the concatenation of certain circumstances 
 tallowing the ordinary law of cause and effect, but which, 
 by interfering with the action of each other, have assumed 
 a direction which the judgment of the wisest could not 
 have foreseen. 
 
 Europe has visited with its maledictions the great 
 political writer by whom these atrocious maxims have 
 been recommended, forgetting that his offence consists not 
 in inventing, but in divulging them. His works thus 
 offer the purest example we possess of physical statesman- 
 ship. They are altogether impassive. He views the 
 management of a state precisely as he might do the 
 Construction of a machine, recommending that such a 
 wheel or such a lever should be introduced, his only 
 inquiry being whether it will accomplish his intention. 
 Ah to any happiness or misery it may work, he gives 
 
140 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. IV. 
 
 himself no concern, unless, indeed, they evidently ought to 
 enter into the calculation. He had suffered the rack him- 
 self under a charge of conspiracy, and borne it without 
 flinching. But, before Machiavelli wrote, his principles 
 had all been carried into practice : indeed, it would not be 
 difficult to give abundant examples in proof of the asser- 
 tion that they had been for ages regarded in Italy as rules 
 of conduct. 
 
 Such was the morality which Europe detected as exist- 
 ing in Italy, carried out with inconceivable wickedness in 
 public and private life; and thus the two causes we havo 
 been considering — contact with the Saracens in Syria and 
 a knowledge of the real state of things in Rome — con- 
 spired together to produce what may be designated as the 
 moral impulse, which, in its turn, conspired with the 
 conjoined intellectual. Their association foreboded evil 
 innnectu-lT *° ecc ^ GS ^ as ^ ca l authority, thus taken at great 
 and moral disadvantage. Though, from its very birthday, 
 impulses. that authority had been in absolute opposition 
 to the intellectual movement, it might, doubtless, for a 
 much longer time have successfully maintained its conflict 
 therewith had the conditions remained unchanged. Up 
 to this time its chief strength reposed upon its moral 
 relations. It could point, and did point the attention of 
 those whose mental culture enabled them to understand 
 the true position of affairs, to Europe brought out of 
 barbarism, and beginning a course of glorious civilization. 
 That achievement was claimed by the Church. If it were 
 true that she had thus brought it to pass, it had been 
 altogether wrought by the agency of her moral power, 
 intellectual influence in no manner aiding therein, but 
 being uniformly, from the time of Constantine the Great 
 to that of the Eeformation, instinctively repulsed. When, 
 now, the moral power suffered so great a shock, and was 
 not only ready to go over to, but had actually allied itself 
 with the intellectual, there was great danger to ecclesias- 
 tical authority. And hence we need not be surprised that 
 an impression began to prevail among the clear-thinking 
 men of the time that the real functions of that authority 
 were completed in producing the partially-civilized con- 
 dition to which Europe had attained, the course of events 
 
CH. IV 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IX THE WEST. 
 
 141 
 
 lending evidently to an elimination of that authority as 
 an active element in the approaching European system. 
 To such the Church might emphatically address herself, 
 pointing out the signal and brilliant results to Ti)eoxcuse ^ 
 whitih she had given rise, and displaying the ma- ofecclesiaa- 
 nifest evils which must inevitably ensue if her re- tIcl8m - 
 lations, as then existing, should be touched. For it must 
 have been plain that the first effect arising from the 
 coalition of the intellectual with the moral element would 
 he an assertion of the right of private judgment in the 
 individual — a condition utterly inconsistent with the 
 dominating influence of authority. It was actually upon 
 that very principle that the battle of the Reformation was 
 eventually fought. She might point out— for it needed 
 no prophetic inspiration— that, if once this principle was 
 yielded, there could be no other issue in Christendom than 
 a total deeomposition ; that though, for a little while, the 
 separation might he limited to a few great n,rfeebii- 
 confessions, these, under the very influence of ^-sistanc.-. 
 the principlo that had brought themselves into existence, 
 must, in their turn, undergo disintegration, and the end 
 of it be a complete anarchy of sects. In one sense it may 
 be said that it was in wisdom that the Church took her 
 stand upon this point, determining to make it her base of 
 resistance; unwisely in another, for it was evident that 
 she had already lost the initiative of action, and that her 
 very resistance would constitute the first stage in the 
 process of decomposition. 
 
 Europe had made a vast step during its Age of Faith. 
 Spontaneously it had grown through its y OUth ; 
 and the Italians, who had furnished it with aneoui obiagei 
 many of its ideas, had furnished it also with in Kuropo - 
 many of its forms of life. In that respect justice has still to 
 be done them. When Rome broke away from her con- 
 nexions with Constantinople, a cloud of more than Cim- 
 merian darkness overshadowed Europe. It was occupied 
 by wandering savages. Six hundred years organized it 
 into families, neighbourhoods, cities. Those centuries 
 found it full of bondmen: they left it without a slave. 
 They found it a scene of violence, rapine, lust ; they left 
 it the abode of (iod-fearing men. Where there had been 
 
142 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 (~CH. IV. 
 
 trackless forests, there were innumerable steeples glittering 
 in the sun ; where there had been bloody chieftains, 
 drinking out of their enemies' skulls, there were grave 
 ecclesiastics, fathoming the depths of free-will, predesti- 
 nation, election. Investing the clergy with a mysterious 
 superiority, the Church asserted the equality of the laity 
 from the king to the beggar before God. It disregarded 
 wealth and birth, and opened a career for all. Its in- 
 fluence over the family and domestic relations was felt 
 through all classes. It fixed paternity by a previous 
 ceremony : it enforced the rule that a wife passed into the 
 family of her husband, and hence it followed that legiti- 
 mate children belong 1<> the father, illegitimate to the 
 mother. It compelled women to domestic life, shut them 
 out from the priesthood, and tried to exclude them from 
 government. In a worldly sense, the mistake that l\ome 
 committed was this: she attempted to maintain an intel- 
 lectual immobility in the midst of an advancing social state. 
 She saw not that society could no more be stopped in its 
 career through her mere assertion that it could not and 
 should not move, than that the earth could be checked in its 
 revolution merely because she protested that it was at rest. 
 She tried, first by persuasion and then by force, to arrest 
 the onward movement, but she was overborne, notwith- 
 standing her frantic resistance, by the impetuous current. 
 Very different would it have been had the Italian states- 
 men boldly put themselves in the van of progress, and, 
 instead of asserting an immutability and infallibility, 
 changed their dogmas and maxims as the progress of 
 events required. Europe need not have waited for Arabs 
 and Jew^s. 
 
 In describing these various facts, I have endeavoured to 
 point out impressively how r the Church, so full of vigour 
 at first, contained within itself the seeds of inevitable 
 decay. From the period when it came into collision with 
 the intellectual and moral elements, the origin of which 
 we have traced, and which conspired together for its 
 Loss of power overthrow, it exhibited a gradual decline; first 
 in church or- losing its influence upon nations, and ceasing to 
 gamzations. ^ them a principle of public action ; next, 
 witnessing the alienation of the higher and educated 
 
CB. IV. j THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 143 
 
 classes, the process descending downward through the 
 social scale, therein retracing the steps of its advance. 
 When ecclesiasticism became so weak as to be unable to 
 regulate international affairs, and was supplanted by 
 diplomacy, in the castle the physician was more than a 
 rival for the confessor, in the town the mayor was a 
 greater man than the abbot. There remained a lingering 
 influence over individuals, who had not yet risen above a 
 belief that it could control their stale after death. This 
 decline of its ancient influence should be a cause of 
 rejoicing to all intelligent men, for an ecclesiastical or- 
 ganization allying itself to political power can never now 
 he ;i source of any good. In America we have seen the 
 bond that held the Church and State together abruptly 
 snapped. Jt is therefore well that, since the close of the 
 Age of Faith, things have been coming back 
 with an accelerated pace, to the state in which thingTto the 
 
 they were in the early Christian times, before ^jJ^JJ** 8 " 
 the founder of Constantinople beguiled the 
 devotional spirit to his personal and family benefit — to 
 the state in which they were before ambitious men sought 
 political advancement and wealth by organizing hypocrisy 
 -when maxims of morality, charity, benevolence, were 
 rules of life for individual man — when the monitions of 
 conscience were obeyed without the suggestions of an 
 outward, often an interested and artful prompter — when 
 the individual lived not under the sleepless gaze, the 
 crushing hand of a great overwhelming hierarchical or- 
 _ tni/ation. surrounding him on all sides, doing his think- 
 Ing for him, directing him in his acts, making him a mere 
 automaton, bul in simplicity, humility, and truthfulness 
 raiding himself according to the light given him, and 
 discharging the duties of this troublesome and transitory 
 life "as ever in his great Taskmaster's eye." 
 
 F< or the] >n igressi ye degradal ions exhibited by the Roman 
 ( Ihurch during the Age of Faith, something may be offered 
 bub al <'uce an explanation and an excuse. Machiavelli 
 relates, in his " History of Florence" — a work which, if 
 inferior in philosophical penetration to his 44 Prince," is of 
 the most singular merit as a literary composition — that 
 OspOTOO, a Roman, haying become pope, exchanged his 
 
144 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. IV. 
 
 unseemly name for the more classical one Sergius, and that 
 connexion of his successors have ever since observed the prac- 
 IniSy^rith 8 ^ice of assuming a new name. This incident 
 its ethnical profoundly illustrates the psychical progress of 
 titate - that Church. During the fifteen centuries that 
 
 we have had under consideration — counting from a little 
 before the Christian era — the population of Italy had been 
 constantly changing. The old Roman ethnical element 
 had become eliminated partly through the republican and 
 imperial wars, and partly through the slave system. The 
 degenerated half-breeds, of whom the Peninsula was full 
 through repeated northern immigrations, degenerated, as 
 time went on, still more and more. After that blood 
 admixture had for the most part ceased, it took a long time 
 for the base ethnical element which was its product to come 
 into physiological correspondence with the country, for 
 the adaptation of man to a new climate is a slow, a secular 
 change. 
 
 But blood-degeneration implies thought-degeneration. 
 It is nothing more than might be expected that, in this 
 mongrel race, customs, and language, and even names 
 should change — that rivers, and towns, and men should 
 receive new appellations. As the great statesman to whom 
 I have referred observes, Ca-sar and Panpeyhad disap- 
 peared ; John, Matthew, and Peter had come in their stead. 
 Barbarized names are the outward and visible signs of 
 barbarized ideas. Those early bishops of Rome whose 
 dignified acts have commanded our respect, were men of 
 Roman blood, and animated with sentiments that were 
 truly Latin ; but the succeeding pontiffs, whose lives were 
 so infamous and thoughts so base, were engendered of half- 
 breeds. Nor was it until the Italian population had re-es- 
 tablished itself in a physiological relation with the country 
 — not until it had passed through the earlier stages of 
 national life — that manly thoughts and true conceptions 
 could be regained. 
 
 Ideas and dogmas that would not have been tolerated for 
 an instant in the old, pure, homogeneous Eoman race, 
 found acceptance in this adulterated, festering mass. This 
 was the true cause of the increasing debasement of Latin 
 Christianity. Whoever will take the trouble of construct- 
 
CH. IV., TTTE AGE OF FAITH IX THE U E ST. J 45 
 
 fog a chart of the religions conceptions as they successively 
 Btruggled into light, will see how close was their 7 
 connexion with the physiological state of the SSfSSe 
 Italian ethnical clement at the moment It is a rrli ™'« 
 sad and humiliating succession. Mari. .latrv • the ''^'^ 
 invocation of saints; the supreme value of 'virginity • the 
 -Hangoi Mr,],], relics; the satisfuai^o/ moral 
 crimes by gifts of money or goods to the clergy; the 
 worship of images; Purgatory; the sale of benefices 
 ransubstantia,,oi,.or ,h, making of (;,„, ,, v the priest : 
 ma -natation of God-that He has eyes, feet. Lids 
 toes, the virtue of pilgrimages ; vicarious religion the 
 smner ,„„.„,, ,1,, ,,,-iest to pray for him ; the cormuialitv 
 of spirits; the forbidding of the Bible to the laUy the 
 descent to shrine-worship and fetichism; the doctrine' that 
 
 ZIT\ l"7 '? ' ln,V - 11,1,1 '-eaclaim 
 
 Jj;;^;,;;:;!; ,h " ^ h- the priests of indulgences in sin 
 
 But there is another, a very different aspect under which 
 'W'l •l.ist'lmn.h. Knvel,,, Jl as it was w 
 the many evils of the times, the truly Christian principle 
 "•In.rh was at Us basis pcrpoU.allv vindicated its " we 
 giving rise to numberless blessings in spite of the de- 
 UT.a.lalion and wickedness of ,,,,„. A , I have elsewhere 
 i-hrsmlogy. liook II.,dmp. VIII.) remarked, "The , vH 
 aw exerted an exterior power in human relations; Chris- 
 liaiiity produced an mterior and moral change. 
 Hie idea ot an ultimate accountability for per- s, , l, ™, 0 " t of 
 sonal d.vds. of which the old Europeans had an «h,d 
 indistinct perception, became intense and pre- a ° tua " y do,lc ' 
 use. The sentiment of universal charity was exemplified 
 DO* only m indiv dual acts, the remembrance of wliie 
 soon passes away, but in the more permanent institut e 
 <d establishments for the relief of affliction, the spread o 
 knowledge, ,|,, propagation of truth. Of the "reat 
 
 ' S *>; ,u "l fhese men, true to their do -ratio instincts 
 
 Were often found to be the inflexible supporters of riSt 
 •..a-, might Eventually coniing to .iVlie iViSe 
 ' '-'-ledge that then existed, they opposed intellect 
 forc;c - 111 ">toy instances successfully, and by the 
 
 to hrcte 
 
 VOI . II. 
 
146 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. [CH. IV. 
 
 example of the organization of the Church, which was 
 essentially republican, they showed how representative 
 systems may be introduced into the state. Nor was it over 
 communities and nations that the Church displayed her 
 chief power. Never in the world before was there such a 
 system. From her central seat at Borne, her all-seeing eye, 
 like that of Providence itself, could equally take in a 
 hemisphere at a glance, or examine the private life of any 
 individual. Her boundless influences enveloped kings in 
 their palaces, and relieved the beggar at the monastery 
 gate. In all Europe there; was not a man too obscure, too 
 insignificant, or too desolate for her. Surrounded by her 
 solemnities, every one received his name at her altar; her 
 bells chimed at his marriage, her knell tolled at his 
 funeral. She extorted from him the secrets of his life at 
 her confession; i Is. and punished his faults by her penances. 
 Jn his hour of sickness and trouble her servants sought him 
 out, teaching him, by her exquisite litanies and prayers, to 
 place his reliance on God, or strengthening him for the 
 trials of life b} r the example of the holy and just. Her 
 prayers had an efficacy to give repose to the souls of his 
 dead. When, even to his friends, his lifeless body had 
 become an offence, in the name o^ God she received it into 
 her consecrated ground, and under her shadow he rested till 
 the great reckoning-day. From little better than a slave 
 she raised his wife to be his equal, and, forbidding him to 
 have more than one, met her recompense for those noble 
 deeds in a firm friend at every fireside. Discountenancing 
 all impure love, she }>ut round that fireside the children of 
 one mother, and made that mother little less than sacred 
 in their eyes. In ages of lawlessness and rapine, among 
 people but a step above savages, she vindicated the invio- 
 lability of her precincts against the hand of power, and 
 made her temples a refuge and sanctuary for the despairing 
 and oppressed. Truly she was the shadow of a great rock 
 in many a weary land !" 
 
 This being the point which I consider the end of the 
 Italian system as a living force in European progress, 
 its subsequent operation being directed to the senses and 
 not to the understanding, it will not be amiss if for a 
 
CH. iv. j 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH LN THE WEST. 
 
 147 
 
 moment we extend our view to later times and to circum- 
 stances bejTOnd the Strict COlllpaSS Of this book, Analysis of 
 
 endeavouring thus to ascertain the condition gj«ajJ^*of 
 of the Church, especially as to many devout K urc ' 
 persons it may doubtless appear that she has lost none of 
 
 On ibur occasions there have been revolts against the 
 Italian Church system : 1st, in the thirteenth century, the 
 Albigcnsian • 2nd, in the fourteenth, the Four revolt* 
 
 WicEfite; Sid, in the sixteenth, the Reforma- fS^ tthfl 
 tion; 4th, in the eighteenth, at the French system. 
 11 evolution. On each of these occasions ecclesiastical 
 authority has exerted whatever offensive or defensive power 
 it possessed. Its action is a true indication of its condition 
 at the time. Astronomers can determine the orbit of a 
 comet or other celestial meteor by three observations of its 
 posit ion as seen from 1 he earth, and taken at intervals apart. 
 
 1st. Of the Albigcnsian revolt. We have ascertained 
 that the origin of this is distinctly traceable The Aibigen- 
 to tlie Mohammedan inlluence of Spain, through revolt, 
 the schools of Cordova and ( iranada, pervading Languedoc 
 and Provence. Had these agencies produced only the 
 gay scenes of chivalry and courtesy as their material 
 results, and, as their intellectual, war-ballads, satires, 
 and amorous songs, they had been excused ; but, along 
 with such elegant frivolities, there was something of a 
 more serious kind. A popular proverb will often betray 
 national belief, and there was a proverb in Provence, 
 ** Viler than a priest." The offensive sectaries also quoted, 
 for the edification of the monks, certain texts, to the effect 
 that, u if a man will not work neither let him eat." The 
 event, in the hands of Simon de Montfort, taught them that 
 there is such a thing as wresting Scripture to one's own 
 destruction. 
 
 How did the Church deal with this Albigensian heresy? 
 As those do who have an absolutely overwhelming power. 
 She did not crush it — that would have been too indulgent ; 
 she absolutely annihilated it. Awake to what must necessa- 
 rily ensue from the imperceptible spread of such opinions, 
 she remorselessly consumed its birth-place with fire and 
 sword ; and, fearful that some fugitives might have escaped 
 
 L 2 
 
148 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH, IV 
 
 her vigilant eye, or that heresy might go wherever a bale 
 of goods might be conveyed, she organized the Inquisition 
 with its troops of familiars and spies. Six hundred years 
 have elapsed since these events, and the south of France 
 has never recovered from the blow. 
 
 That was a persecution worthy of a sovereign — a perse- 
 cution conducted on sound Italian principles of policy — to 
 consider clearly the end to be attained, and adopt the 
 proper means without any kind of concern as to their 
 nature. But it was a persecution that implied the posses- 
 sion of unlimited and irresponsible power. 
 
 2nd. Of the revolt of Wiclif . We have also considered the 
 The revolt of state of affairs which aroused the resistance of 
 Wiciif. Wiclif. It is manifested by legal enactments 
 early in the fourteenth century, such as that ecclesiastics 
 shall not go armed, nor join themselves with thieves, nor 
 frequent taverns, nor chambers of strumpets, nor visit nuns, 
 nor play at dice, nor keep concubines— by the Parliamen- 
 tary bill of 1376, setting forth that the tax paid in England 
 to the pope for ecclesiastical dignities is fourfold as much 
 as that coming to the king from the whole realm ; that 
 alien clergy, who have never seen nor care to see their 
 flocks, convey away the treasure of the country — by the 
 homely preaching of John Ball, that all men are equal in 
 the sight of God. Wiclif 's opposition was not only directed 
 against corruptions of discipline in the Church, but equally 
 against doctrinal errors. His dogma that " God bindeth 
 not men to believe any thing they cannot understand" 
 is a distinct embodiment of the rights of reason, and the 
 noble purpose he carried into execution of translating the 
 Bible from the Vulgate shows in what direction he intended 
 the application of that doctrine to be made. Through the 
 influence of the queen of Richard the Second, who was 
 a native of that country, his doctrines found an echo in 
 Bohemia — Huss not only earnestly adopting his theological 
 views, but also joining in his resistance to the despotism of 
 the court of Rome and his exposures of the corruptions of 
 the clergy. The political point of this revolt in England 
 occurs in the refusal of Edward III., at the instigation of 
 wiclif, to do homage to the pope; the religious, in the 
 translation of the Bible, 
 
H. IV. J 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 149 
 
 Though a bull was sent to London requiring the arch- 
 heretic to be seized and put in irons, Wiclif died in his 
 bed, and his bones rested quietly in the grave for forty-four 
 years. Ecclesiastical vengeance burned them at last, and 
 scattered them to the winds. 
 
 There was no remissness in the ecclesiastical authority, 
 but there were victories won by the blind hero, John 
 Zisca. After the death of that great soldier — whose body 
 was left by the road-side to the wolves and crows, and his 
 skin dried and made into a drum — in vain was all that 
 perfidy could suggest and all that brutality could execute 
 resorted to — in vain the sword and fire were passed over 
 Bohemia, and the last effort of impotent vengeance tried in 
 England — the heretics could not be exterminated nor the 
 detested translation of the Bible destroyed. 
 
 3rd. Of the revolt of Luther. As we shall have, in a 
 subsequent chapter, to consider the causes that The revolt of 
 led to the Reformation, it is not necessary to Luther, 
 anticipate them in any detail here. The necessities of the 
 Roman treasury, which suggested the doctrine of superero- 
 gation and the sale of indulgences as a ready means ol 
 relief, merely brought on a crisis which otherwise could not 
 have been long postponed, the real point at issue being 
 the right of interpretation of the Scriptures by private 
 judgment. 
 
 The Church did not restrict her resistance to the use 
 of ecclesiastical weapons — those of a carnal kind she also 
 employed. Yet we look in vain for the concentrated energy 
 with which she annihilated the Albigenses, or the atrocious 
 policy with which the Hussites were met. The times no 
 longer permitted those things. But the struggle was 
 maintained with unflinching constancy through the disasters 
 and successes of one hundred and thirty years. Then came 
 the peace of Westphalia, and the result of the contest was 
 ascertained. The Church had lost the whole of northern 
 Europe. 
 
 4th. Of the revolt of the philosophers. Besides the 
 actual loss of the nations who openly fell away The revolt of 
 to Protestantism, a serious detriment was soon the phiioso- 
 found to have befallen those still remaining pbers * 
 nominally faithful to the Church. The fact of secession 
 
150 
 
 THE AGE OF FAITH IN THE WEST. 
 
 [CH. IV. 
 
 or adherence depending, in a monarchy, on the personal 
 caprice or policy of the sovereign, is by no means a true 
 index of the opinions or relations of the subjects : and thus 
 it happened that in several countries in which there was an 
 outward appearance of agreement with the Church because 
 of the attitude of the government, there was, in reality, 
 a total disruption, so far as the educated and thinking 
 classes were concerned. This was especially the case in 
 France. 
 
 When the voyage of circumnavigation of the globe by 
 Magellan had lor ever settled all such questions as those 
 of the figure of the earth and the existence of the anti- 
 podes, the principles upon which the contest was composed 
 between the conflicting parties are obvious from the most 
 superficial perusal of the history of physics. Free thought 
 was extorted for science, and, as its equivalent, an un- 
 molested state for theology. It was an armed truce. 
 
 It was not through either of* the parties to that conflict 
 that new troubles arose, but through the action of a class 
 fast rising into importance — literary men. From the 
 beginning to the middle of the last century these philoso- 
 phers became more and more audacious in their attacks. 
 Unlike the scientific, whose theological action was by 
 implication rather than in a direct way, these boldly 
 assaulted the intellectual basis of faith. The opportune 
 occurrence of the American Revolution, by bringing forward 
 in a prominent manner social evils and political methods 
 for their cure, gave a practical application to the movement 
 in Europe, and the Church was found unable to offer any 
 kind of resistance. 
 
 From these observations of the state of the Church at 
 Summary of ^ 0UT diff eren t epochs of her career we are able to 
 the Italian determine her movement. There is a time of 
 system. abounding strength, a time of feebleness, a time 
 of ruinous loss, a time of utter exhaustion. What a dif- 
 ference between the eleventh and the eighteenth centuries 
 It is the noontide and evening of a clay of empire. 
 
( 151 ) 
 
 OHAPTEB V. 
 APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON EN EUROPE. 
 
 IT IS I'KECEDED BY MARITIME DISCOVERY. 
 
 Co)tsi<h ration of the <b finite Kporhs of SVW/// Life. 
 
 Kspt riuo utal I'hilosnplty oiunjiiuj in th> Ago of Faith. 
 
 The Ay* <fll<ason uslttrxl in la/ Maritime Di<e,,r, nj and the rite of 
 
 l-'uropean Criticism. 
 Maiutime Discovery.— 77/» thr»< tjrmt Voyages. 
 
 I'OIJ MHUS diseor, rs A ///< riea . — De (JAM A doubles ih> Cape and reaches 
 India. — Magellan rircumnari'jatts tin Earth. — The M a t eria l and 
 intellectual li< suits of < aeh of Ho st' \'ot/<ufts. 
 
 Digression on Tin; Soi i a L ( "onimtion oi' America. — Tn isolated human 
 Societies Hie process of Thought and of Civilization is always the 
 same. — Man passes through a determinate succession of Ideas and 
 embodies tht in in dtterminate Institutions.— The State Of MeXtCO and 
 l\-ru proves the injhn nee of Law in the denlopment of Man. 
 
 I ii a v k arrived at the last division of my work, the period 
 in national life answering to maturity in individual. The 
 objects to be considered differ altogether from those which 
 have hitherto occupied our attention. We have p eculiarit i CS 
 Q< kw to find human authority promoting intellec- of the Age of 
 tual advancement, and accepting as its maxim Reason - 
 that the lot of man will bo ameliorated, and his power and 
 dignity increased, in proportion as he is able to comprehend 
 the mechanism of the world, the action of natural laws, and 
 to apply physical forces to his use. 
 
 The date at which this transition in European life was 
 made will doubtless be differently given accord- Natural 
 ing as the investigator changes his point of fn^n™ 1 * 9 
 view. In truth, there is not in national life Mother, 
 any real epoch, because there is nothing in reality abrupt. 
 
152 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 Events, however great or sudden, are consequences of pre- 
 parations long ago made. In this there is a perfect parity 
 between the course of national and that of individual life. 
 In the individual, one state merges by imperceptible degrees 
 into another, each in its beginning and end being altogether 
 indistinct. No one can tell at what moment he ceased to 
 be a child and became a boy — at what moment he ceased to 
 be a youth and became a man. Each condition, examined 
 at a suitable interval, exhibits characteristics perfectly 
 distinctive, but, at their common point of contact, the two 
 so overlap and blend that, like the intermingling of shadow 
 and light, the beginning of one and end of the other may 
 be very variously estimated. 
 
 In individual life, since no precise natural epoch exists, 
 Artificial society has found it expedient to establish an 
 epochs. artificial one, as, for example, the twent}'-first 
 year. The exigencies of history may be satisfied by 
 similar fictions. A classical critic would probably be 
 justified in selecting for his purpose the foundation of 
 Constantinople as the epoch of the commencement of the 
 Age of Faith, and its capture by the Turks as the close. 
 It must be admitted that a very large number of historical 
 events stand in harmony with that arrangement. A 
 Origin and political writer would perhaps be disposed to 
 end of tneAge postpone the date of the latter epoch to that of 
 of Faith. t j ie treaty of Westphalia, for from that time 
 theological elements ceased to have a recognized force, 
 Protestant, Catholic, Mohammedan, consorting promis- 
 cuously together in alliance or at war, according as 
 temporary necessities might indicate. Besides these other 
 artificial epochs might be assigned, each doubtless having 
 advantages to recommend it to notice. But, after all, 
 the chief peculiarity is obvious enough. It is the gradual 
 decline of a system that had been in activity for many 
 ages, and its gradual replacement by another. 
 
 As with the Age of Beason in Greece, so with the Age 
 Prelude to the of Beason in Europe, there is a prelude marked 
 Age of Reason, by the gradual emergence of a sound philosophy; 
 a true logic displaces the supernatural; experiment 
 supersedes speculation. It is very interesting to trace 
 the feeble beginnings of modern science in alchemy and 
 
ch. r.J 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 153 
 
 natural magic in countries where no one could understand 
 the writings of Alhazen or the Arabian philosophers. 
 Out of many names of those who took part in this move- 
 ment that might he mentioned there are some that deserve 
 recollection. 
 
 Alhertus Magnus was born a.d. 1193. It was said of 
 bam that "he was great in magic, greater in philosophy, 
 greatest in theology." J>y religious profession AlbortU3 
 lie was a Dominican. Declining the tempta- Magnus, the 
 tions of ecclesiastical preferment, he voluntarily )ommlcan - 
 resigned his bishopric, that he might lead in privacy a 
 purer life. As was not uncommon in those days, he was 
 accused of illicit commerce with Satan, and many idle 
 stories were told of the miracles he wrought. At a great 
 banquet on a winter's day, he produced all the beauties of 
 spring — trees in full foliage, flowers in perfume, meadows 
 covered with grass; but, at a word, the phantom pageant 
 was dissolved, and succeeded by appropriate wastes of 
 snow. This was an exaggeration of an entertainment he 
 gave, January f>th, l'J.M*, in the hot-house of the convent 
 garden, lie interested himself in the functions of plants, 
 was well acquainted with what is called the sleep of 
 flowers, studied their opening and closing. lie under- 
 stood that the sap is diminished in a volume by evaporation 
 from the leaves. He was the first to use the word 
 "affinity" in its modern acceptation. His chemical 
 studies present us with some interesting details. He 
 knew that the whitening of copper by arsenic is not a 
 transmutation, but only the production of an alloy, since 
 the arsenic can be expelled by heat. He speaks of potash 
 as an alkali ; describes several acetates ; and alludes to 
 the blackening of the skin with nitrate of silver. 
 
 Contemporary with him was Roger Bacon, born a.d. 
 1214. His native country has never } r et done Roger Bacon, 
 him justice, though his contemporaries truly discoveries of. 
 spoke of him as " the Admirable Doctor." The great 
 friar of the thirteenth century has been eclipsed by an 
 unworthy namesake. His claims on posterity are enforced 
 by his sufferings and ten years' imprisonment for the 
 cause of truth. 
 
 His history, so far as is known, maybe briefly told. 
 
154 
 
 THE AGE OF RE a SON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 He was Lorn at Ilchester, in Somersetshire, and studied 
 at the University of Oxford. Thence he went to the 
 University of Paris, where he took the degree of doctor of 
 theology. He was familiar with Latin, Greek, Hebrew, 
 and Arabic. Of mathematics he truly says that " it is 
 the first of all the sciences ; indeed, it precedes all others, 
 and disposes us to them." In advance of his age, he 
 denied the authority of Aristotle, and tells us that wo 
 must substitute that of experiment for it. Of his 
 astronomical acquirements we need no better proof than 
 his recommendation to Pope Clement IV. to rectify the 
 Calendar in the manner actually done subsequently. If 
 to him be rightly attributed the invention of spectacles, 
 the human race is his debtor, lie described the true 
 theory of telescopes and microscopes, saying that lenses 
 may be ground and arranged in such a way as to render 
 it possible to read the smallest letters at incredible 
 distances, and to count grains of sand and dust, because 
 of the magnitude of the angle under which we may 
 perceive such objects. He foresaw the greatest of all 
 inventions in practical astronomy — the application of 
 optical means to instruments for the measurement of 
 angles. He proposed the propulsion of ships through the 
 water and of carriages upon roads by merely mechanical 
 means. He speculated upon the possibility of making a 
 flying-machine. Admitting the truth of alchemy, he 
 advised the experimenter to find out the method by which 
 Nature makes metals and then to imitate it. He knew 
 that there are different kinds of air, and tells us that 
 there is one which will extinguish flame. These are 
 very clear views for an age which mistook the gases for 
 leather-eared ghosts. He warned us to be cautious how 
 we conclude that we have accomplished the transmutation 
 of metals, quaintly observing that the distance between 
 whitened copper and pure silver is very great. He 
 showed that air is necessary for the support of fire, and 
 was the author of the well-known experiment illustrating 
 that fact by putting a lighted lamp under a bell-jar and 
 observing its extinction. 
 
 There is no little significance in the expression of 
 Friar Bacon that the ignorant mind cannot sustain the 
 
CH. V.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IH EUROPE. 
 
 1 5 5 
 
 truth. He was accused of magical practices and of a 
 commerce with Satan, though, during the life of Is pereecutod 
 Clement IV., who was his friend, he escaped MtjUm- 
 witliout public penalties. This pope had written i )ru?oned - 
 to him a request that he would furnish him an account of 
 his various inventions. In compliance therewith, Bacon 
 sent him the "Opus Majus and other works, together 
 with several mathematical instruments which he had 
 made witli his own hands. But, under the pontificate of 
 Nicolas III., the accusation of magic, astrology, and sell- 
 ing himself to the Devil was again pressed, one point 
 being that he had proposed to construct astronomical 
 tables for the purpose of predicting future events. Ap- 
 prehending the worst, he tried to defend himself by his 
 work " Do Nullitate Magiaj." k ' Because these things are 
 beyond your comprehension, you call them the works of 
 the Devil; your theologians and canonists abhor them as 
 the productions of magic, regarding them as unworthy of 
 a Christian." But it was in vain. His writings were con- 
 demned as containing dangerous and suspected novelties, 
 and he was committed to prison. There he remained for 
 ten years, until, broken in health, he was released from 
 punishment by the intercession of some powerful and 
 commiserating personages, lie died at the age of seventy- 
 eight. On his death-bed he uttered the melancholy com- 
 plaint, "I repent now that I have given myself so much 
 trouble for the love of science." If there bo found in his 
 works sentiments that are more agreeable to the age in 
 which he lived than to ours, let us recollect what he says 
 in his third letter to Pope Clement : " It is on account of 
 the ignorance of those with whom 1 have had to deal that 
 I have not been able to accomplish more." 
 
 A number of less conspicuous though not unknown 
 names succeed to Bacon. There is Raymond 
 Lully, who was said to have been shut up in the mists of Ecg- 
 Tower of London and compelled to make gold ^j^^^,''' 
 for Edward II.; Guidon do Montanor, the a " miuiny * 
 inventor of the philosopher's balm ; Clopinel, the author ot 
 the 14 Romance of the Rose ;" Richard the Englishman, who 
 makes the sensible remark that he who does not join theory 
 to practice is like an ass eating hay and not reflecting 
 
156 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON EN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 on what he is doing ; Master Ortholan, who describes 
 very prettily the making of nitric acid, and approaches to 
 the preparation of absolute alcohol under the title of the 
 quintessence of wine ; Bernard de Treves, who obtained 
 much reputation for the love-philters he prepared for 
 Charles V. of France, their efficacy having been ascer- 
 tained by experiments made on servant-girls ; Bartholo- 
 mew, the Englishman who fiarst described the method of 
 crystallizing and purifying sugar; Eck de Sulzbach, who 
 teaches how metallic crystallizations, such as the tree of 
 Diana, a beautiful silvery vegetation, may be produced. 
 He proved experimentally that metals, when they oxidize, 
 increase in weight ; and says that in the month of 
 November, a.d. 1489, he found that six pounds of an 
 amalgam of silver heated for eight days augmented in 
 weight three pounds. The number is, of course, erroneous, 
 but his explanation is very surprising. " This augmenta- 
 tion of weight comes from this, that a spirit is united 
 with the metal ; and what proves it is that this artificial 
 cinnabar, submitted to distillation, disengages that spirit." 
 He was within a hair's-breadth of anticipating Priestley 
 and Lavoisier by three hundred years. 
 
 The alchemists of the sixteenth century not only 
 Au^ureiii the occupied themselves with experiment ; some of 
 poetical alche- them, as Augurelli, aspired to poetry. He un- 
 mist ' dertook to describe in Latin verses the art of 
 
 making gold. His book, entitled " Chrysopceia," was 
 dedicated to Leo X., a fact which shows the existence of 
 a greater public liberality of sentiment than heretofore. 
 It is said that the author expected the Holy Father to 
 make him a handsome recompense, but the good-natured 
 pope merely sent him a large empty sack, saying that he 
 who knew how to make gold so admirably only needed 
 a purse to put it in. 
 
 The celebrated work of Basil Valentine, entitled 
 " Currus triumphalis Antimonii," introduced 
 valentine "t ne nietal antimony into the practice of medicine, 
 introduces The attention of this author was first directed 
 antimony. ^ ^ e therapeutical relations of the metal by 
 observing that some swine, to which a portion of it had 
 been given, grew fat with surprising rapidity. There 
 
OB. v.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IX EUROPE. 
 
 157 
 
 were certain monks in his vicinity who, during the season 
 of Lent, had reduced themselves to the last degree of 
 attenuation by fasting and other mortifications of the flesh. 
 < >n these Basil was induced to try the powers of tho metal. 
 To his surprise, instead of recovering their flesh and fat- 
 ness, they were all killed; hence the name popularly 
 given to the metal, antimoino, because it does not agree 
 with the constitution of a monk. Up to this time it had 
 passed under the name of stihium. With a result not very 
 different was t he applieal ion of antimony in the composi- 
 tion of printer's type-metal. Administered internally or 
 
 thus mechanically used, this metal proved equally noxious 
 to ecclesiastics. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to continue the relation of these 
 scientific trifles. Enough has been said to illus- The new 
 trate the quickly-spreading tasto for experi- e P° cb - 
 mental inquiry. I now hasten to the description of more 
 important things. 
 
 In the limited space of this book I must treat these 
 subjects, not as they should be dealt with p in Kuityof 
 philosophicallv, but in tho manner that cir- tn-MtinRit 
 cumstanees permit. Even with this imperfec- BC,entitlcall y- 
 tion, their description spontaneously assumes an almost 
 dramatic form, tho facts offering themselves to all reflect- 
 ing men with an air of surpassing dignity. On one hand 
 it is connected with topics the most sublime, on the other 
 it descends to incidents the most familiar and useful ; on 
 one hand it elevates our minds to tho relations of suns 
 and myriads of worlds, on the other it falls to the every- 
 day acts of our domestic and individual life ; on one 
 hand it turns our thoughts to a vista of ages so infinite 
 that tho vanishing point is in eternity, on the other it 
 magnifies into importance the transitory occupation of a 
 passing hour. Knowing how great are tho requirements 
 for the right treatment of such topics, I might shrink 
 from this portion of my book with a conviction of in- 
 capacity. I enter upon it with hesitation, trusting rather 
 to tho considerate indulgence of the reader than to any 
 worthiness in the execution of the work. 
 
 In the history of the philosophical life of Greece, we 
 have Been (Chapter II.) how important were the influences 
 
158 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 of maritime discovery and the rise of criticism. Con- 
 jointly they closed the Greek Age of Faith. In the life 
 of Europe, at the point we have now reached, they came 
 into action again. As on this occasion the circumstances 
 connected with them are numerous and important, I shall 
 Approach of consider them separately in this and the follow- 
 theAgeof ing chapter. And, first, of maritime enter- 
 prise, which was the harbinger of the Age of 
 Reason in Europe. It gave rise to three great voyages — 
 the discovery of America, the doubling of the Cape, and 
 the circumnavigation of the earth. 
 
 At the time of which we are speaking, the commerce of 
 state of Medi- * n e Mediterranean was chiefly in two directions, 
 ternmean The ports of the 'Black Sea furnished suitable 
 depots for produce brought down the Tanais and 
 other rivers, and for a large portion of the India trade 
 that had come across the Caspian. The seat of this com- 
 merce was Genoa. 
 
 The other direction was the south-east. The shortest 
 course to India was along the Euphrates and the Persian 
 Gulf, but the lied and Aral dan seas offered a cheaper and 
 safer route. In the ports of Syria and Egypt were there- 
 fore found the larger part of the commodities of India. 
 This trade centred in Venice. A vast development had' 
 been given to it through the Crusades, the Venetians 
 probably finding in the transport service of the Holy 
 Wars as great a source of profit as in the India trade. 
 
 Toward the latter part of the fourteenth century it 
 Rivalry of became apparent that the commercial rivalry 
 Genoa and between Venice and Genoa would terminate to 
 Venice. ^ disadvantage of the latter. The irrup- 
 tion of the Tartars and invasion of the Turks had com- 
 pletely dislocated her Asiatic lines of trade. In the 
 wars between the two republics ' Genoa had suffered 
 severely. Partly for this reason, and partly through the 
 advantageous treaties that Venice had made with the 
 sultans, giving her the privilege of consulates at Alexan- 
 dria and Damascus, this republic had at last attained a 
 supremacy over all competitors. The Genoese establish- 
 ments on the Black Sea had become worthless. 
 
CH. V.J 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 159 
 
 With ruin before them, and unwilling to yield their 
 Eastern connexions, the merchants of Genoa had tried 
 to retrieve their affairs by war; her practical sailors saw 
 that she might be re-established in another way. There 
 were among them some who were well ac- Attoniptto 
 quainted with the globular form of the earth, rc.idi India i>y 
 and with what had been done by the Moham- teuc8t * 
 medan ast run. liners for determining its circumference b\ 
 the measurement of a degree on the shore of the Red Sea. 
 These men originated the attempt to reach India by sail- 
 ing to the west. 
 
 ]>y two parties — the merchants and the clergy — theii 
 suggestions were received with little favour, opposition to 
 The former gave no encouragement, perhaps be- t,,is vcheme - 
 cause such schemes wero unsuited to their existing arrange- 
 ments : the latter disliked them because of their suspected 
 irreligious nature. The globular form had been con- 
 demned by such lathers as Lactantius and Augustine. In 
 the Patristic Gfeograpky the earth is a flat surface bor- 
 dered l»y the waters of the sea, on the yielding support 
 of which rests the crystalline dome of the sky. These 
 doctrines were for the most pari supported by passages 
 from the I loly Scriptures, perversely wrested from their 
 proper meaning. Thus Cosmas Indicopleustes, whose 
 Patristic Geography had been an authority for nearly 
 eight hundred years, triumphantly disposed of the spheri- 
 city of the earth by demanding of its advocates how in 
 the day of judgment, men on the other side of a globe 
 could see the Lord descending through the air I 
 
 .Among the Genoese sailors seeking the welfare of 
 their city was one destined for immortality — Christopher 
 Columbus. 
 
 [lis father was a wool-comber, yet not a man of the 
 common sort. He procured for his son a know- Columbus, 
 ledge of arithmetic, drawing, painting; and early life of. 
 Columbus is said to have written a singularly beautiful 
 hand. For a short time he was at the University of 
 Tavia, but he went to sea when he was only fourteen. 
 After being engaged in the Syrian trade for many years, 
 he had made several voyages to Guinea, occupying his 
 time when not at sea in the construction of charts for sale, 
 
160 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 thereby supporting not only himself, but also his aged 
 father, and finding means for the education of his brothers. 
 Under these circumstances he had obtained a competent 
 knowledge of geography, and, though the state of public 
 opinion at the time did not permit such doctrines to be 
 openly avowed, he believed that the sea is everywhere 
 navigable, that the earth is round and not flat, l hat there 
 are antipodes, that he torrid zone is habitable, and that 
 there is a proportionate distribution of land in the 
 northern and southern hemispheres. Adopting the Pa- 
 tristic logic when it suited his purpose, he reasoned 
 His argument * na *' s ^ ncc t ne c.'irth is made for man, it is not 
 loriaiMistu likd v t hat its surface is too largely covered with 
 the\sc>t. W atcr, and that, if there are lands, they must 
 be inhabited, since the command was renewed at the Flood 
 that man should replenish the earth, lie asked, "Is it 
 likely that the sun shines upon nothing, and that the 
 nightly watches of the stars are wasted on trackless seas 
 and desert lands ? " But to this reasoning he added 
 facts that were more substantial. One Martin Vincent, 
 who had sailed many miles to the west of the Azores, 
 related to him that he had found, floating on the sea, a 
 piece of timber evidently carved without iron. Another 
 sailor, Pedro Correa, his brother-in-law, had met with 
 enormous canes. On the coast of Flores the sea had cast 
 up two dead men with large faces, of a strange aspect. 
 Columbus appears to have formed his theory that the 
 East Indies could be reached by sailing to the west about 
 a.d. 1474. He was at that time in correspondence with 
 Toscanelli, the Florentine astronomer, who held the same 
 doctrine, and who sent him a map or chart constructed 
 on the travels of Marco Polo. He offered his services first 
 to his native city, then to Portugal, then to Spain, and, 
 through his brother, to England ; his chief inducement in 
 each instance being that the riches of India might be 
 thus secured. In Lisbon he had married. While he lay 
 sick near Belem an unknown voice whisjDered to him in 
 a dream, " God will cause thy name to be wonderfully 
 resounded through the earth, and will give thee the keys 
 of the gates of the ocean, which are closed with strong 
 chains ! " The death of his wife appears to have broken 
 
CH. V.J 
 
 TBI AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 161 
 
 the last link which held him to Portugal, where he had 
 been since 1470 One evening, in the autumn of 1485, a 
 man of majestic presence, pale, care-worn, and, though 
 in the meridian of life, with silver hair, leading a little 
 hoy l»y the hand, asked .alms at the gate of the Franciscan 
 convent near Palos — not for himself, hut only a little 
 bread and water for his child. This was that Columbus 
 destined to give to Europe a new world. 
 
 In extreme poverty, he was making his way to the 
 Spanish court. After manv wearisome delavs 
 
 r i , -lxoi Is confuted 
 
 Ins suit was referred to a council at Salamanca, i, y the 
 before which, however, his doctrines were con- 2S55jjL of 
 futed from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the 
 Prophecies, the Gospels, the Epistles, and the writings of 
 the fathers — St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, 
 St. Gregory, St. P>asil, St. A ml -rose. Moreover, they were 
 demonstrably inconsistent with reason ; since, if even he 
 should depart from Spain, kt the rotundity of the earth 
 would present a kind of mountain up which it was im- 
 possible for him to sail, even with the fairest wind and 
 so he could never get back. The Grand Cardinal of Spain 
 had also indicated their irreligious nature, and Columbus 
 began to fear that, instead of receiving aid as a discoverer, 
 he should fall into trouble as a heretic. How- ^ ueen Igabel . 
 ever, after many years of mortification and pro- la adopt* his 
 crastination, he at length prevailed with Queen 
 Isabella ; and on April 17, 1492, in the field before Granada, 
 then just wrenched from the Mohammedans by the arms of 
 Ferdinand and Isabella, he received his commission. With 
 a nobleness of purpose, he desired no reward unless he 
 should succeed ; but, in that case, stipulated that he should 
 have the title of Admiral and Viceroy, and that his per- 
 quisite should be one tenth of all he should discover— con- 
 ditions which show what manner of man this great sailor 
 was. He had bound himself to contribute one-eighth to 
 the expenses of the expedition : this he accomplished 
 through the Pinzons of Palos, an old and wealthy sea- 
 faring family. These arrangements once rati- The expedi- 
 ted, he lost not a moment in completing the Hon prepared, 
 preparations for his expedition. The ro} r al authority 
 enabled him to take — forcibly, if necessary — both ships 
 VOL ii. u 
 
162 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 and men. But even with that advantage he would 
 hardly have succeeded if the Pinzons had not joined 
 heartily with him, personally sharing in the dangers of 
 the voyage. 
 
 The sun, by journeying to the west, rises on India at 
 The voyage last - ^ n Friday, August 3, 1492, the weary 
 across the struggles and heart- sickness of eighteen years 
 of supplication were over, and, as the day was 
 breaking, Columbus sailed with three little ships from Palos, 
 carrying with him charts constructed on the basis of that 
 which Toscanelli had formerly sent, and also a letter to 
 the Grand Khan of Tartary. On the 9th he saw the 
 Canaries, being detained among them three weeks by the 
 provisioning and repairing of his ships. lie left them on 
 September 6th, escaping the pursuit of some caravels sent 
 out by the Portuguese government to intercept him, Be 
 now steered due west. Nothing of interest occurred until 
 nightfall on September 13th, when lie remarked with sur- 
 prise that the needle, which the day before had pointed 
 due north, was varying half a point to the west, the eifect 
 becoming more and more marked as the expedition advanced. 
 He was now beyond the track of any former navigator, 
 and with no sure guide but the stars; the heaven was 
 everywhere, and everywhere the sea. On Sunday, 16th, 
 he encountered many floating weeds, and picked up what 
 was mistaken for a live grasshopper. For some days the 
 weeds increased in quantity, and retarded the sailing of 
 the ships. On the 19th two pelicans flew on board. Thus 
 far he had had an easterly wind ; but on September 20th 
 it changed to south-west, and many little birds, " such as 
 those that sing in orchards," were seen. His men now 
 became mutinous, and reproached the king and queen for 
 trusting to " this bold Italian, who wanted to make a great 
 lord of himself at the price of their lives." 
 
 On September 25th Pinzon reported to him that he 
 thought he saw land ; but it proved to be only clouds. 
 With great difficulty he kept down his mutinous crew. 
 On October 2nd he observed the seaweeds drifting from 
 east to west. Pinzon, in the Pinta, having seen a flight of 
 parrots going to the south-west, the course was altered on 
 October 7th, and he steered after them west-south- west ; he 
 
cn. v. j 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 163 
 
 had hitherto been on the parallel 26° N. On the evening 
 of October 1 1 th the signs of land had become so unmis- 
 takahle that, after vesper hymn to the Virgin, he made an 
 address of congratulation to his crew, and commended 
 watchfulness to them. His course was now due west. A 
 little before midnight, Columbus, on the fore- Disco very of 
 castle of his ship, saw a moving light at a dis- America, 
 tance; and two hours after a signal-gun was fired from 
 the I'inta. A sailor, Uodrigo de Triana, had descried land. 
 The ships were laid to. As soon as day dawned they made 
 it out to be a verdant island. There were naked Indians 
 upon the beach watching their movements. At sunrise, 
 October 12, 1 r.»_\ the boats were manned and armed, and 
 Columbus was the first European to set foot on the new 
 world. 
 
 The chief events of the voyage of Columbus were, 1st. 
 The discovery of the line of no magnetic varia- Events of the 
 tion, w hich, as we shall see, eventually led to the vo - va ^ c - 
 circumnavigation of the earth. 2nd. The navigability of 
 the sea to the remote west, the weeds not offering any 
 insuperable obstruction. When the ships left Palos it was 
 universally believed that the final border or verge of the 
 earth is where the western sky rests upon the sea, and the 
 air and clouds, logs and water, are commingled. Indeed, 
 that boundary could not actually be attained; for, long 
 before it was possible to reach it, the sea was laden with 
 inextricable weeds, through which a ship could not pass. 
 This legend was perhaps derived from the stories of adven- 
 turous sailors, who had been driven by stress of weather 
 tow ards the Sargasso Sea, and seen an island of weeds many 
 hundreds of square miles in extent — green meadows float- 
 ing in the ocean. 3rd. As to the new continent, Columbus 
 never know the nature of his own discovery. lie died in 
 the belief that it was actually some part of Asia, and 
 Americus Vespucius entertained the same misconception. 
 Their immediate successors supposed that Mexico was the 
 Quinsay, in China, of Marco Polo. Tor this reason ] do 
 not think that t he severe remark that the " name of America 
 is a monument of human injustice" is altogether merited. 
 Had the true state of things been known, doubtless the 
 event would have been different. The name of America 
 
 M 2 
 
164 
 
 THE A.GE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 first occurs in an edition of Ptolemy's Geography, on a map 
 by Hylaoomylus. 
 
 Two other incidents of no little interest followed this 
 End of successful voyage : the first was the destruction 
 Patristic of Patristic Geography ; the second the conse- 
 Geography. Q £ ^ fljgj^ Q f pi nzr) n's parrots. Though, 
 
 as we now know, the conclusion that India had been reached 
 was not warranted by the facts, it was on all sides admitted 
 that the old doctrine was overthrown, and that the admiral 
 had reached Asia by sailing to the west. This necessarily 
 implied the globular form of the earth. As to the second, 
 never was an augury more momentous than that flight of 
 parrots. It lias been well said that this event determined 
 the distribution of Latin and German Christianity in the 
 
 T\rw World. 
 
 The discovery of America by Leif, the son of Eric the 
 previous Red, A.o. 1000, cannot diminish the claims of 
 Scandinavian Columbus. The wandering Scandinavians had 
 discover* . reached the shores of America first in the vicinity 
 of Nantucket, and had given the name of V inland to the 
 region extending from beyond Boston to the south of New 
 York. But the memory of these voyages seems totally to 
 have passed away, or the lands were confounded with 
 Greenland, to which Nicolas Y. had appointed a bishop 
 a.d. 1448. Had these traditions been known to or respected 
 by Columbus, he would undoubtedly have steered his ships 
 more to the north. 
 
 Immediately on the return of Columbus, March 15, 1493, 
 The papal * ne anc ^ Q u ^en of Spain despatched an am- 
 grant to bassador to Pope Alexander VI. for the purpose 
 Spain. 0 £ i llsnr i 11 g their rights to the new territories, 
 
 on the same principle that Martin Y. had already given to 
 the King of Portugal possession of all lands he might dis- 
 cover between Cape Bojador and the East Indies, with 
 plenary indulgence for the souls of those who perished in 
 the conquest. The pontifical action was essentially based 
 on the principle that pagans and infidels have no lawful 
 property in their lands and goods, but that the children of 
 God may rightfully take them away. The bull that was 
 issued bears date May, 1493. Its principle is, that all 
 countries under the sun are subject of right to papal dis- 
 
CH. v.] 
 
 I HE AGK OF REASON IN EUROPE, 
 
 165 
 
 posaL It gives to Spain, in the fulness of apoetolio power, 
 all lands west and south of a line drawn from the Arctic 
 to the Antarctic pole, one hundred leagues west of the 
 Azores. The donation Includes, 1 »y the authority of 
 Almighty (Jod, whatever tli«*r»- is toward India, hut saves 
 the existing rights of any Christian princes. It forbids, 
 under pain of excommunicat inn, any one trading in that 
 direction, threatening tlx- indignation of Almighty (iod 
 and his holy apostlt-s Peter and Paul. It directs the bar- 
 barous nations to he subdued, and no pains to be spared 
 for reducing the Indians to Christianity. 
 
 This suggesl ion ol' t he line of no magnetic variation was 
 due to Columbus, who fell into the error of sup- Tho ln;lgnetlc 
 posing it to be immovable. The infallibility line of no v*. 
 of the pont i IV not extending to matters of science, nat,un - 
 he committed the same mistake. In a lew years it was 
 discovered that the line of m> variation was slowly moving 
 to the east. It coincided with the meridian of London in 
 
 i <;<;•_>. 
 
 The obstacles that Patristic Geography had thrown in 
 the way of maritime adventure were thus linally removed, 
 but Patristic Kthnology led to a fearful tragedy, puristic eta 
 With a critical innocence that seems to have nicalidc ^- 
 overlooked physical impossibilities and social difficulties, 
 it had been the practice to refer the peopling of nations 
 to legendary heroes or to the patriarchs of Scripture. The 
 French were descended from Francus, the son of Hector; 
 the Britons from Brutus, the son of iEneas ; the genealogy 
 of the Saxon kings could be given up to Adam ; but it may 
 excite OUT mirthful surprise that the conscientious Spanish 
 chronicles could rise no higher than to Tubal, the grandson 
 of Noah. The divisions of the Old World, Asia, Africa, 
 and Europe, were assigned to the three sons of Noah — Shem, 
 Ham, and Japheth; and the parentage of those continents 
 was given to those patriarchs respectively. In this manner 
 all mankind were brought into a family relationship, all 
 equally the descendants of Adam, equally participators in 
 his sin and tall. As long as it was supposed that tho lands 
 of Columbus were a part of Asia there was no difficulty; 
 but when the true position and relations of the American 
 cent i ip nt m re discovered, that it was separated from Asia 
 
166 
 
 THE AGE OF ItEASoN IX EUKOPE. 
 
 [CH. V, 
 
 by a waste of waters of many thousand miles, how did the 
 Denial that matter stand with the new-comers thus suddenly 
 the Indians obtruded on the scene ? The voice of the fathers 
 was altogether against the possibility of their 
 Adamic descent. St. Augustine had denied the globular 
 form and the existence of Antipodes ; for it was impossible 
 that there should be people on what was thus vainly 
 asserted to be the other side of the earth, since none such 
 are mentioned in the Scriptures. The lust for gold was 
 only too ready to find its justification in the obvious con- 
 clusion ; and the Spaniards, with appalling atrocity, pro- 
 ceeded to act toward these unfortunates as though they 
 did not belong to the human race. Already their lands 
 and goods had been tab n from them by apostolic authority. 
 Their persons were next seized, under the text that the 
 heathen are given as an inheritance, and the uttermost 
 The American parts of the earth for a possession. It was one 
 tragedy. unspeakable outrage, one unutterable ruin, with- 
 out discrimination of age or sex. Those who died not 
 under the lash in a tropical sun died in the darkness of the 
 mine. From sequestered sand-banks, where the red flam- 
 ingo fishes in the grey of the morning ; from fever-stricken 
 mangrove thickets, and the gloom of. impenetrable forests; 
 from hiding-places in the clefts of rocks, and the solitude 
 of invisible caves ; from the eternal snows of the Andes, 
 where there was no witness but the all-seeing Sun, there 
 went up to God a cry of human despair. By millions upon 
 millions, whole races and nations were remorselessly cut 
 off. The Bishop of Ghiapa affirms that more than fifteen 
 millions were exterminated in his time! From Mexico 
 and Peru a civilization that might have instructed Europe 
 The crime of w as crushed out. Is it for nothing that Spain 
 Spain. p^g "been made a hideous skeleton among living 
 
 nations, a warning spectacle to the world ? Had not her 
 punishment overtaken her, men would have surely said, 
 " There is no retribution, there is no God !" It has been 
 her evil destiny to ruin two civilizations, Oriental and 
 Occidental, and to be ruined thereby herself. With cir- 
 cumstances of dreadful barbarity she expelled the Moors, 
 who had become children of her soil by as long a residence 
 as the "Normans have had in England from William the 
 
CTI. V.j 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 167 
 
 Conqueror to our time. In America she destroyed races 
 more civilized than herself. Expulsion and emigration 
 have deprived her of her best blood, her great cities have 
 sunk into insignificance, and towns that once had more 
 than a million of inhabitants can now only show a few 
 scan ty 1 1 1< m san d s . 
 
 The discovery of America agitated Europe to its deepest 
 foundations. All classes of men were affected. 'The popu- 
 lace at once went wild with a lust of gold and a love of 
 adventure. Well might Pomponius L;etus, under process 
 for his philosophical opinions in Koine, shed tears of joy 
 when tidings of the great event reached lym ; well might 
 Leo X., a few years later, sit up till far in the night 
 reading to his sister and his cardinals the " Oceanica" () f 
 Anghiera. 
 
 If Columbus failed in his attempt to reach India by 
 sailing to the west, Yasco de ( buna succeeded by 
 eailingto the south. He doubled the Cape of G;mia. 
 (iood Hope, and retraced the trade of the ships AMcm i coast- 
 of Pharaoh Necho, which had accomplished the %nydp;> 9 ' 
 same undertaking two thousand years previously. The 
 Portuguese had heen for long engaged in an examination 
 of the coast of Africa under i he bull of Martin V., which 
 recognised the possibility of reaching India by passing- 
 round that continent. It is an amusing instance of 
 making scientific discoveries by contract, that King 
 Alphonso made a bargain with Ferdinand Gomez, of 
 Lisbon, for the exploration of the African coast, the 
 stipulation being that lie should discover not less than 
 three hundred miles every year, and that the starting- 
 point should bo Sierra Leone. 
 
 We have seen that a belief in the immobility of the line 
 of no magnetic variation had led Pope Alexander Papaloonflnea 
 VI. to establish a perpetual boundary between of Spain and 
 the Spanish and Portuguese possessions and fields Ior,llgaL 
 of adventure. That line he considered to bo the natural 
 boundary between the eastern and western hemispheres. 
 An accurate determination of longitude was therefore a 
 national as well as a nautical question. Columbus had 
 relied on .astronomical methods; Gilbert at a subsequent 
 
108 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. [CH. V, 
 
 period proposed to determine it by magnetical observations. 
 The variation itself could not be accounted for on the doc- 
 trine vulgarly received, that magnetism is an effluvium 
 issuing forth from the root of the tail of the Little Bear, 
 hut was scientifically, though erroneously, explained by 
 Gilbert's hypothesis that earthy substance is attractive — 
 that a needle approaching a continent will incline toward 
 it ; and hence that in the midst of the Atlantic, being 
 equally disturbed by Europe and America, it will point 
 evenly between both. 
 
 Pedro de Covilhu had sent word to King John II., from 
 Cairo, by two Jews, Kabhi Abraham and Rabbi Joseph, 
 News that that there was ;l south cape of Africa which 
 \irita might could be doubled. They brought with them an 
 
 on ed. Arabic map of the African coast. This was 
 about the time that Bartholomew lJi;iz had reached the 
 Cape in two little pinnaces of fifty tons apiece. He sailed 
 August, I486, and returned December, 1487, with an 
 account of his discovery. Covilho had learned from the 
 Arabian mariners, who were perfectly familiar with the 
 east coast, that they had frequently been at the south of 
 Africa, and that there was no difficulty in passing round 
 the continent that way. 
 
 A voyage to the south is even more full of portents than 
 one to the west. The accustomed heavens seem to sink away, 
 DeGama's an( ^ new s f ars are n ightly approached. Vasco 
 Buooessfui de Grama set sail July 9, 14 l J7, with three ships 
 voyage. an d l GO men, having with him the Arab map. 
 Xing John had employed his Jewish physicians, Koderigo 
 and Joseph, to devise what help they could from the stars. 
 They applied the astrolabe to marine use, and constructed 
 tables. These were the same doctors who had told him 
 that Columbns would certainty succeed in reaching India, 
 and advised him to send out a secret expedition in anticipa- 
 tion, which was actually done, though it failed through 
 want of resolution in its captain. Encountering the usual 
 difficulties, tempestuous weather, and a mutinous crew, 
 who conspired to put him to death, De Gama succeeded, 
 November 20, in doubling the Cape. On March 1st he met 
 seven small Arab vessels, and was surprised to find that 
 they used the compass, quadrants, sea-charts, and " had 
 
CH. V.] 
 
 THE AGE OF KKASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 169 
 
 divers maritime mysteries not short of the Portugals." 
 W ith joy lie .soon ufter recovered sight of the H e reaches 
 northern stars, so long unseen. He now bore India - 
 away to the north oast, and on May 19, 1 408, reached 
 < 'alicul . i he Malahar coast. 
 
 The oonsequenoee of this voyage were to the last degree 
 
 important. The conmieroial arrangements of ^ commercial 
 Europe were completely dislocated; Venice was evolution 
 deprived of her mercantile supremacy ; the the resuIt ' 
 hatred of (ienoa was gratiiied: prosperity left the Italian 
 towns; Egypt, hitherto supposed to possess a pre-eminent 
 advantage as offering the best avenue to India, suddenly 
 lost her position; the commercial monopolies so long in 
 the hands of the European Jews were broken down. The 
 discovery of America and passage, of the Cape were the 
 firsl steps of that prodigious maritime development soon 
 i xiiihited by Western Europe. And since commercial 
 prospi ritv is forthwith followed by the production of men 
 and concentration of wealth, and moreover implies an 
 energetic intellectual condition, it appeared before long 
 that the three centres of population, of wealth, of intellect 
 \\eiv shifting wcstwardly. The front of Europe was 
 suddenly changed; the British islands, hitherto in a 
 sequestered and eccentric position, were all at once put 
 in the van of the new nn >vement. 
 
 Commercial rivalry had thus passed from Venice and 
 Genoa to Spain and Portugal. The circumnavigation of the 
 earth originated in a dispute between these kingdoms re- 
 specting the Molucca Islands, from which nutmegs, cloves, 
 and mace were obtained. Ferdinand Magellan perittmmd 
 had been in the service of the King of Portugal ; JJ* 8811 ^ 
 but an application he had made for an increase of Spanish c 
 half a ducat a month in his stipend having been 8ervice - 
 refused, he passed into the service of the King of Spain 
 along with one Kuy Falero, a friend of his, who, among the 
 vulgar, bore the reputation of a conjurer or magician, but 
 who really possessed considerable astronomical attain- 
 ments, devoting himself to the discovery of improved means 
 for finding the place of a ship at sea. Magellan persuaded 
 
 the Spanish government that the Sniee Islands could 
 
170 
 
 THI-; AGE OK REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V 
 
 be reached by sailing to the west, the Portuguese having 
 previously reached them by sailing to the east, and, if this 
 were accomplished, Spain would have as good a title to 
 them, under the bull of Alexander VI., as Portugal. 
 His great Five ships, carrying 237 men, were accordingly 
 voyage equipped, and on August 10, 1519, Magellan 
 
 commenced &Qm ^ Trin itie was t he 
 
 admiral's ship, but the San Vittoria was destined for 
 immortality. He struck boldly for the south-west, not 
 crossing the trough of the Atlantic as Columbus had done, 
 but passing down the length <>f it, his aim being to find 
 some cleft or passage in the American Continent through 
 which he might sail into the Great South Sea. For 
 seventy days he was beealmed under the line. He then 
 lost sight of the north star, but courageously held on 
 toward the " pole antartike." He nearly foundered in a 
 storm, "which did not abate till the three fires called 
 St. Helen, St. Nicholas, and St. ('laic appeared playing in 
 the rigging of the ships." In a new land, to which lie 
 gave the name of Patagoni, he found giants " of good 
 corporature " clad in skins ; one of them, a very pleasant 
 and tractable giant, was terrified at his own visage in a 
 looking-glass. Among the sailors, alarmed at the distance 
 they had come, mutiny broke out, requiring the most un- 
 flinching resolution in the commander fur its suppression. 
 In spite of his watchfulness, one ship deserted him and 
 He penetrates s t°l e back to Spain. His perseverance and 
 the American resolution were at last rewarded by the dis- 
 contment. covery of the strait named by him San ^ittoria, 
 in affectionate honour of his ship, but which, with a 
 worthy sentiment, other sailors soon changed to " the 
 Strait of Magellan." On November 28, 1520, after a year 
 Keachesthe and a quarter of struggling, he issued forth 
 Pacific Ocean. f]; 0m its western portals and entered the Great 
 South Sea, shedding tears of joy, as Pigafetti, an eye- 
 witness, relates, when he recognized its infinite expanse 
 — tears of stem joy that it had pleased God to bring 
 him at length where he might grapple with its un- 
 known dangers. Admiring its illimitable but placid 
 surface, and exulting in the meditation of its ecret perils 
 soon to be tried, he courteously imposed on it the name it 
 
CM. V.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON EN EUROPE. 
 
 171 
 
 is for ever to bear, k< the Pacific Ocean." While baffling 
 t<>r an entry into it, he observed with surprise that in the 
 month of October the nights are only four hours long, 
 and "oonflidered, in this his navigation, that the pole 
 antartike hath n<> notable star like the pole artike, but 
 that then be two clouds of little stars somewhat dark 
 in the middest, also a cross of fine clear stars, but that 
 here the needle becomes so sluggish that it needs must 
 be moved with a hit of loadstone before it will righth 
 point." 
 
 And now the great sailor, having burst through the 
 liarrier of the American continent, steered for The Pacific 
 t he north-west, attempting to regain the equator, oe-an crossed. 
 For three months and twenty da} T s he sailed on the Pacific, 
 inul never saw inhabited land. ITe was compelled by 
 .amine to strip ofV the pieces of skin and leather wherewith 
 his rigging was here and there bound, to soak them in the 
 hea and then soften them with warm water, so as to make 
 a wretched food ; to eat the sweepings of the ship and 
 other loathsome matter; t<> drink water that had become 
 putrid by keeping ; and yet he resolutely held on his 
 eourse, though his men were dying daily. As is quaintly 
 observed, k< their gums grew over tin ir teeth, and so they 
 could not eat." He estimated that he sailed over this 
 unfathomable sea not less than LL\<><>0 miles. 
 
 In the whole history of human undertakings there is 
 nothing that exceeds, if indeed there is anything that 
 equals, this voyage of Magellan's. That of Columbus 
 dwindles away in comparison. It is a display of super- 
 human courage, superhuman perseverance — a display of 
 resolution not to be diverted from its purpose by any 
 motive or any suffering, but inflexibly persisting to its 
 end. Well might his despairing sailors come to the con 
 elusion that they had entered on a trackless waste of waters, 
 endless before them and hopeless in a return. " But, 
 though the Church hath overmore from Holy Writ affirmed 
 that the earth should be a wide-spread plain bordered by 
 the waters, yet ho comforted himself when he considered 
 that in the eclipses of the moon the shadow cast of the 
 e arth is round ; and as is the shadow, such, in like manner, 
 is the substance." It was a stout heart -a heart of triple 
 
172 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V 
 
 brass— which could thus, against such authority, extract 
 unyielding faith from a shadow. 
 
 This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. 
 Magellan reached a group of islands north of the equator 
 — the Ladrones. In a few days more he became aware 
 Succeeds in that his labours had been successful; he met 
 his attempt, with adventurers from Sumatra. But, though 
 he had thus grandly accomplished his object, it 
 was not given to him to complete the circumnavigation of 
 the globe. At an island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was 
 killed, either, as has been variously related, in a mutiny 
 of his men, or — as they declared — in a conflict with the 
 savages, or insidiously by poison. 44 The general," they 
 said, 44 was a very brave man, and received his death- 
 wound in his front ; nor would the savages yield up his 
 body for any ransom." Through treason and revenge it 
 is not unlikely that he fell, for he was a stern man ; no 
 one but a very stern man could have accomplished so 
 daring a deed. Hardly was he gone when his crew 
 learned that they were actually in the vicinity of the 
 -"Moluccas, and that the object of their voyage was accom 
 plished. On the morning of November 8, 1521, having 
 been at sea two years and three months, as the sun was 
 rising they entered Tidore, the chief port of the Spice 
 Islands. The King of Tidore swore upon the Koran 
 alliance to the King of Spain. 
 
 I need not allude to the wonderful objects — destined 
 soon to become common to voyagers in the Indian 
 Archipelago — that greeted their eyes : elephants in trap- 
 pings ; vases, and vessels of porcelain ; birds of Paradise, 
 44 that fly not, but be blown b} T the wind ;" exhaustless 
 stores of the coveted spices, nutmegs, mace, cloves. And 
 now they prepared to bring the news of their success 
 back to Spain. Magellan's lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano, 
 directed his course for the Cape of Good Hope, again 
 encountering the most fearful hardships. Out of his 
 slender crew he lost twenty-one men. He doubled the 
 Circumnavi- Cape at last ; and on September 7, 1522, in the 
 gation of the port of St. Lucar, near Seville, under his orders, 
 the good ship San Yittoria came safely to an 
 anchor. She had accomplished the greatest achievement 
 
CH. v.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 173 
 
 in the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated 
 the earth. 
 
 Magellan thus lost his life in his enterprise, and yet he 
 made an enviable exchange. Doubly immortal, and 
 thrice happy ! for he impressed his name indelibly on the 
 earth and the sky. on the strait that connects the two great 
 oceans, and on those clouds of starry worlds seen in the 
 southern heavens. He also imposed a designation on the 
 largest portion of the surface of the globe. His Klcano the 
 lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano, received such lieutenant of 
 honours as kings can give Of all armorial Ma t T, ' llin 
 bearings ever granted for the accomplishment of a great 
 and daring deed, his were the proudest and noblest — the 
 globe of the earth belted with the inscription, "Primus 
 circumdedisti me !" 
 
 If the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan did 
 not lead to such splendid material results as the discovery 
 of America and the doubling of the Cape, its moral effects 
 were far more important. Columbus had been K -su i t ^ 0 f the 
 opposed in obtaining means for his expedition cirninmavi- 
 heeause it was suspected to be of an irreligious K ' lt1 "" 
 nature. I'nfbrtunately, the Church, satisfying instincts 
 impressed upon her as far back as the time of Constantino, 
 had asserted herself to be the final arbitress in all philoso- 
 phical questions, and especially in this of the figure of the 
 earth had committed herself against its being: globular 
 Infallihility can never correct itself — indeed, it can never 
 be wrong. Rome never retracts anything ; and, no matter 
 what the consequences, never recedes. It was thus that a 
 theological dogma — infallibility — came to be mixed up with 
 a geographical problem, and that problem liable at any 
 moment to receive a decisive solution. So long as it rested 
 in a speculative position, or could be hedged round with 
 mystification, the real state of the case might be concealed 
 from all except the more intelligent class of men ; but after 
 the circumnavigation had actually been accomplished, and 
 was known to every one, there was, of course, nothing 
 more to b€ said. Tt had now become altogether useless to 
 bring forward the authority of Lactantius, of St. Augustine, 
 or of other fathers, that the globular form is impious and 
 heretical. Henceforth the fact was strong enough to over- 
 
174 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 power all authority, an exercise of which could have no 
 other result than to injure itself. It remained only to 
 permit the dispute to pass into oblivion ; but oven this 
 could not occur without those who were observant being- 
 impressed with the fact that physical science was begin- 
 ning to display a fearful advantage over Patristic-ism, and 
 presenting unmistakable tokens that ere long she would 
 destroy her ancient antagonist. 
 
 In the midst of these immortal works it is hardly worth 
 while to speak of minor things. Two centuries had 
 wrought a mighty change in the geographical ideas of 
 Minor Western Europe. The travels of Marco Polo, 
 
 voyages and a.i>. 1295, had first given some glimmering of 
 travels. remo t e East, the interest in which was 
 
 doubtless enhanced by the irruption of the Moguls. Sir 
 John Mandeville had spent many years in the interior of 
 Asia before the middle of the next century. Conti had 
 travelled in Persia and India between 1419 and 1444. 
 Cadamosto, a Venetian, in 1455 had explored the west 
 coast of Africa. Sebastian Cabot had re-discovered New- 
 foundland, and, persisting in the .attempt to find a north- 
 west passage to China, had forced his w ay into the ice to 
 67° 30' N. By 1525 the American coast-line had been 
 determined from Terra del Fuego to Labrador. New 
 Guinea and part of Australia had been discovered. The 
 fleet of Cabral, attempting to double the Cape of Good 
 Hope in 1500, was driven to Brazil. A ship was sent 
 back to Portugal with the news. Hence, had not Colum- 
 bus sailed when he did, the discovery of America could not 
 have been long postponed. Balboa saw the Great South 
 Sea September 25th, 1513. Wading up to his knees in the 
 water, with his sword in one hand and the Spanish flag 
 in the other, he claimed that vast ocean for Castile. 
 Nothing could now prevent the geography of the earth 
 from being completed. 
 
 I cannot close these descriptions of maritime adventure 
 without observing that they are given from the 
 of other atl ° n European point of view. The Western nations 
 nations in have complacently supposed that whatever was 
 unknown to them was therefore altogether un- 
 known We have seen that the Arabs were practically an* 3 
 
CH. V.] 
 
 TK3 AGE OF REASON IN BtTROPE. 
 
 175 
 
 perfectly familiar with the fact that Africa might be 
 circumnavigated; the East Indian geography was tho- 
 roughly understood by the Buddhist priesthood, who had, 
 on an extensive scale, carried forward their propagandise 
 for twenty-five hundred years in those regions. But 
 doubtless the most perfect geographical knowledge existed 
 among the Jews, those cosmopolite traders who conducted 
 mercantile transactions from the Azores to the interior of 
 China, from the Baltic- to the coast of Mozambique. It 
 was actually through them that the existence of the Cape 
 of (iood Hope was first made known in Europe. Five 
 hundred years before Columbus, the Scandinavian ad 
 venturers had discovered America, but so low was the 
 state of intelligence in Europe that the very memory of 
 these voyages had been altogether lost. The circumnavi- 
 gation of the earth is, however, strictly the achievement of 
 t ho West. 1 have heen led to make the remarks in this 
 paragraph, since they apply again on another occasion — 
 the introduction of what is called the Baconian philosophy, 
 the principles of which were not only understood, but 
 carried into practice in the East eighteen hundred years 
 before Bacon was horn. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary that I should offer any excuse for 
 levoting a lew pages to a digression on the state of affairs 
 in Mexico and Peru. Nothing illustrates more strikingly 
 the doctrine which it is the object of this book to teach. 
 
 The social condition of America at its discovery demon 
 M rates that similar ideas and similar usages progress of 
 make their appearance spontaneously in the JJJ^^ 
 progress of civilization of different countries, the same as 
 showing how little they depend on accident, inthe01d - 
 how closely they are connected with the organization, and, 
 therefore, with the necessities of man. From important 
 ideas and great institutions down to the most trifling 
 incidents of domestic life, so striking is the parallel 
 between the American aborigines and Europeans that 
 with difficulty do we divest ourselves of the impression 
 that there must have been some intercommunication 
 Each was, however, pursuing an isolated and spontaneous 
 progress; and yet how closely does the picture of life in 
 
176 CUE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. [CH. V, 
 
 the New World answer to that in the Old. The monarch 
 Mexico, its 0I> Mexico lived in barbaric pomp, wore a golden 
 political crown resplendent with gems ; was aided in 
 his duties by a privy council : the great lords held 
 their lands of him by the obligation of military service. 
 In him resided the legislative power, yet he was subject to 
 the laws of the realm. The judges held their office inde- 
 pendently of him, and were not liable to removal by him. 
 The laws were reduced to writing, which, though only a 
 system of hieroglyphics, served its purpose so well that 
 the Spaniards were obliged to admit its validity in their 
 courts, and to found a professorship for perpetuating ;i 
 knowledge of it. Marriage was regarded as an important 
 social engagement. Divorces were granted with difficulty. 
 Slavery was recognized in the case of prisoners of war, 
 debtors, and criminals, but no man could be born a slave 
 in Mexico. No distinction of castes was permitted. 
 The government mandates and public intelligence were 
 transmitted by a well-organized postal service of couriers 
 able to make two hundred miles a day. The profession of 
 arms was the recognized avocation of the nobility ; the 
 military establishments, whether in active service in the 
 held, or as garrisons in large towns, being supported by 
 taxation on produce or manufactures. The armies were 
 divided into corps of 10,000, and these again into regiments 
 of 400. Standards and banners were used ; the troops 
 executed their evolutions to military music, and were 
 provided with hospitals, army surgeons, and a medical 
 staff. In the human hives of Europe, Asia, and America, 
 the bees were marshalled in the same way, and were 
 instinctively building their combs alike. 
 
 The religious state is a reflexion of that of Europe and 
 Asia. The worship was an imposing ceremonial, 
 prierthood!* The common people had a mythology of many 
 andceremo- gods, but the higher classes were strictly Uni- 
 tarian, acknowledging one almighty, invisible 
 Creator. Of the popular deities, the god of war was 
 the chief. He was born of a virgin, and conceived by 
 mysterious conception of a ball of bright-coloured feathers 
 floating on the air. The priests administered a rite of 
 baptism to infants for the purpose of washing away their 
 
en. y.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN KtTEOPE. 
 
 177 
 
 sins, and taught that there are rewards and punishments in 
 a life to come — a paradise for the good, a hull of darkness for 
 the wicked. The hierarchy descended by due degrees 
 from the chief priests, who were almost equal to the 
 sovereign in authority, down to the humble ecclesiastical 
 servitors. Marriage was permitted to the clergy. They 
 had monastic institutions, the inmates graying thrice a 
 day and once at night. They practised ablutions, vigils, 
 penance by flagellation or pricking with aloe thorns. 
 They compelled the people to auricular confession, required 
 of them penance, gave absolution. Their ecclesiastical 
 system had reached b strength which was never attained 
 in Europe, since absolution by the priesl for civil offences 
 was an acquittal in the eye of the law. It was the re- 
 ceived doctrine that men do not sin of their own free will, 
 but because they arc impelled thereto by planetary in- 
 fluences. With sedulous zeal, the clergy engrossed the duty 
 
 of public education, thereby keeping society in their grasp 
 
 Their writing was on cotton cloth or skins, or itsiitemrv 
 on papyrus made of the aloe. At the conquest condi,io;i 
 immense collections of this kind of literature were in ex- 
 istence, hut the fust Archbishop of Mexico burnt, as was 
 affirmed, a mountain of such manuscripts in the market- 
 place, stigmatizing them as magic scrolls. About the same 
 time, and Under Similar cireinnst anees. Cardinal Ximenes 
 
 burnt a vast number of Arabic manuscripts in Granada. 
 
 The condition of astronomy in Mexico is illustrated as it 
 is in Egypt by the calendar. The year was of Divi . f 
 eighteen months, each month of twenty days, time.- the 
 five complementary ones being added to make ^ ek; mon,h - 
 op the three hundred and sixty-five. The month 
 had four weeks, the week five days ; the last day, instead 
 of being for religious purposes, was market day. To 
 provide for the six additional hours of the year, they 
 intercalated twelve and a half days every fifty-two years. 
 At the conquest the Mexican calendar was in a better 
 condition than the Spanish. As in some other countries, 
 tlie olergy bad for ecclesiastical purposes a lunar division 
 of time. The day had sixteen hours, commencing at 
 sunrise. They had sun-dials for determining the hour, and 
 also instruments for the solstices and equinoxes. They 
 
 Vol.. n. n 
 
178 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 bad ascertained the globular form of the earth and the 
 obliquity of the ecliptic. The close of the fifty-second 
 year was celebrated with grand religious ceremonials ; all 
 the fires were suffered to go out, and new ones kindled by 
 Private life friction of sticks. Their agriculture was 
 
 mechanical superior to that of Europe; there was nothing 
 arts, trad,. ^ ^ 01d ^otIA to compare with the mena- 
 geries and botanical gardens of Iluaxtepec, Chapultepec, 
 Istapalapan, and Tezcuco. They practised with no incon- 
 siderable skill the m<>rc delicate mechanical arts, such 
 as those of the jeweller and enameller. From the aloe 
 they obtained pins and needles, thread, cord, paper, food, 
 and an intoxicating drink. They made earthenware, 
 knew how to lacquer wood, employed cochineal as a scarlet 
 dye. They were skilful weavers of fine cloth, and 
 excelled in the production of feather-work, their gorgeous 
 humming-birds furnishing material for that purpose. In 
 metallurgy they were behind the Old World, not having 
 the use of iron ; but, as the Old World had formerly done, 
 they employed bronze in its stead. They knew how to 
 move immense masses of rock ; their great calendar stone, 
 of porphyry, weighed more than fifty tons, and was 
 brought a distance of many miles. Their trade was 
 carried on, not in shops, but by markets or fairs held on 
 the fifth day. They employed a currency of gold dust, 
 pieces of tin, and bags of cacao. In their domestio 
 economy, though polygamy was permitted, it was in 
 practice confined to the wealthy. The women did not work 
 abroad, but occupied themselves in spinning, embroidering, 
 feather-work, music. Ablution was resorted to both before 
 and after meals; perfumes were used at the toilet. The 
 Mexicans gave to Europe tobacco, snuff, the turkey, choco- 
 Lnxury of the late, cochineal. Like us, they had in their 
 higher classes, entertainments solid dishes, with suitable condi- 
 ments, gravies, sauces, and desserts of pastries, confec- 
 tions, fruits, both fresh and preserved. They had chafing- 
 dishes of silver or gold. Like us, they knew the use of 
 intoxicating drinks ; like us, they not unfrequently took 
 them to excess ; like us, they heightened their festivities 
 with dancing and music. They had theatrical and panto- 
 mimic shows. At Tezcuco there was a council of music, 
 
CU. v.] 
 
 THE A.GE OF KEASON IN EUROPE, 
 
 179 
 
 which, moreover, exercised a censorship on philosophical 
 works, as those of astronomy and history. In that city 
 North American civilization reached its height. The 
 king's palace was a wonderful work of art. It was said 
 that 200,000 men were employed in its construction. Its 
 harem was adorned with magnificent tapestries of feather' 
 work: in its garden were fountains, cascades, baths^ 
 statues, alabasters, cedar groves, forests, and a wilderness 
 of flowers. In c< mspicuous retirement in one part of the 
 city was a temple, with a dome of polished black marble, 
 stmhhd with stars of gold, in imitation of the sky. It was 
 dedicated to the omnipotent, invisible God. In this no 
 sacrifices were offered, but only sweet-scented flowers and 
 gums. The prevailing religious feeling is ex- 
 pressed by the sentiments of one of the kings, theism wST 
 many of whom had prided themselves in their ^'jj'/,^ 1 ^^ 1 ' 
 poetical skill : " Let us/' lie says. ki aspire to that 
 heaven where all is eternal, and where corruption never 
 comes." lie taught his children not to confide in idols, 
 but only to conform to the outward worship of them in 
 deference to public opinion. 
 
 To the preceding description of the social condition of 
 Mexico I shall add a similar brief account of Peru _ un . 
 that of Peru, for the conclusions to be drawn known to 
 from a comparison of the spontaneous process of Mexico - 
 civilization in these two countries with the process in 
 Europe is of importance to the attainment of a just 
 idea of the development of mankind. The most competent 
 authorities declare that the Mexicans and Peruvians were 
 ignorant of each other's existence. 
 
 In one particular especially is the position of Peru in- 
 teresting. It presents an analogy to Upper lt8geotrr;iplll . 
 Egypt, that cradle of the civilization of the Old cai peculiar!- 
 AVorld, in this, that its sandy coast is a rainless tlcs ' 
 district. This sandy-coast region is about sixty miles in 
 width, hemmed in on the east by grand mountain ranges, 
 which diminish in size on approaching the Isthmus of 
 Panama ; the entire length of the Peruvian empire having 
 been nearly L\4»>0 miles, it reached from the north of the 
 equator to what is now known as Chili. In breadth it 
 varied at different points. The east wind, which has 
 
180 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 r CH. V. 
 
 crossed the Atlantic, and is therefore charged with humi- 
 dity, being forced by the elevation of the South American 
 continent, and especially by the range of the Andes, 
 upward, is compelled to surrender most of its moisture, 
 which finds its way back to the Atlantic in those pro- 
 digious rivers that make the country east of the Andes 
 a rainless *he Des * w atered region of the world; but as 
 country like soon as that wind has crossed the mountain 
 Egypt. ridge and descends on the western slope, it 
 becomes a dry and rainless wind, and hence the district 
 intervening to the Pacific has but a few insignificant 
 its system of streams. The Bides of this great mountain range 
 agriculture might seem altogether unadapted to the pursuit 
 of agriculture, but the state of Peruvian civilization is at 
 once demonstrated when it is said that'these mountain slopes 
 had become a garden, immense terraces having been con- 
 structed wherever required, and irrigation on a grander 
 scale than that of Egypt carried on by gigantic canals and 
 aqueducts. Advantage was taken of the different mean 
 annual temperatures at different altitudes to pursue the 
 cultivation of various products, for difference in height 
 topographically answers to difference in latitude geogra- 
 phically, and thus, in a narrow space, the Peruvians had 
 every variety of temperature, from that corresponding to 
 the hottest portions of Southern Europe to that of Lapland, 
 lii the mountains of Peru, as has been graphically said, 
 man sees " all the stars of the heavens and all the families 
 of plants." On plateaus at a great elevation above the sea 
 there were villages and even cities. Thus the plain upon 
 which Quito stands, under the equator, is nearly ten 
 thousand feet high. So great was their industry that the 
 Peruvians had gardens and orchards above the clouds, and 
 on ranges still higher flocks of lamas, in regions bordering 
 on the limit of perpetual snow. 
 
 Through the entire length of the empire two great 
 its great roads military roads were built , one on the plateau, 
 and engineer- the other on the shore. The former, for nearly 
 lng ' two thousand miles, crossed sierras covered with 
 
 snow, was thrown over ravines, or went through tunnels in 
 the rocks ; it scaled the more difficult precipices by means of 
 stairways. Where it was possible, it was carried over the 
 
CH. V.J 
 
 THE AGE OF REASOH IN EUROPE. 
 
 181 
 
 mountain clefts by filling them with masonry, or, where 
 that could not he done, suspension bridges were used, the 
 cables being made of oeierfl 01 maguey fibres. Some of 
 these cables are said to have been as thick as a man, and 
 two hundred feet long. Where such bridges could not be 
 thrown across, and a stream flowed in the bottom of the 
 mountain valley, the passage was made by ferry-boats or 
 rafts. As to the road itself, it was about twent}~ feet in 
 width, faced with flags covered with bitumen, and had 
 mile-stones. Our admiration at this splendid engineering- 
 is enhanced when we remember that it was accomplished 
 without iron and gunpowder. The shore road was built 
 on an embankment, with a clay parapet on each side, and 
 shade-trees. Where circumstances called for it, piles were 
 used. Every live' miles there was a post-house, and - xprc^ 
 The public couriers, as in Mexico, could make, l> y couriers 
 if necessary, two hundred miles a day. Of these roads 
 Humboldt says that they were among the most useful and 
 most stupendous executed by the hand of man. The 
 reader need scarcely he told that there were no such 
 triumphs of skill in Spain From the circumstance that 
 there were no swift animals, as the horse or dromedary, 
 the width of these reads was sufficient, since they were 
 necessarily used for foot passage alone. 
 
 In Cuzco. the metropolis, was the imperial residence of 
 the I nca and the Temple of the Sun. It contained edifices 
 which excited the amazement of the Spanish ad- Cuzco _ the 
 venturers themselves — streets, squares, bridges, military 
 lei tresses surrounded by turreted walls, subter- ccntie - 
 ranean galleries by which the garrison could reach impor- 
 tant parts of the town. Indeed, the great roads we. have 
 spoken of might be regarded as portions of an immense 
 system of military works spread all over the country, and 
 having their centre at Cuzco. 
 
 The imperial dignity was hereditary, descending from 
 father to son. As in Egypt, the monarch not xbelnoa— the 
 unfrcepicnt ly had his sisters for wives. His Lord of the 
 diadem consisted of a scarlet tasseled fringe Empirc - 
 ion nd his brow, adorned with two feathers. He wore 
 earrings of great weight. His dress of lama-wool was 
 dyed scarlet, inwoven with gold and studded with gems. 
 
182 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. V. 
 
 Whoever approached him bore a light burden on the 
 shoulder as a badge of servitude, and was barefoot. The 
 Inca was not only the representative of the temporal, but 
 also of the spiritual power. He was more than supreme 
 pontiff, for he was a descendant of the Sun, the god of the 
 nation. He made laws, imposed taxes, raised armies, ap- 
 pointed or removed judges at his pleasure. He travelled 
 in a sedan ornamented with gold and emeralds; the roads 
 were swept before him, strewn with flowers, and perfumed. 
 The national His palace at Yucay was described by the 
 » ,;llacc - Spaniards as a fairy scene. It was filled with 
 works of Indian art; images of animals and plants deco- 
 rated the niches of its walls; it had an endless labyrinth 
 of gorgeous chambers, and here and there shady crypts for 
 quiet retirement. Its baths were great golden bowls. It 
 was embosomed in artificial forests. The imperial ladies 
 and concubines spent their time in beautifully furnished 
 chambers, or in gardens, with cascades and fountains, 
 grottoes and bowers. It was in what few countries can 
 boast of, a temperate. region in the torrid zone. 
 
 The Peruvian religion ostensibly consisted of a worship 
 Religion of of the Sun, but the higher classes had already 
 
 Peru its es- become emancipated from such a material asso- 
 
 taDlisnmenta ... -, A • -i ,i • i r» 
 
 and cere- ciation, and recognized the existence 01 one 
 
 moniai. almighty, invisible God. They expected the 
 
 resurrection of the body and the continuance of the soul i n 
 
 a future life. It was their belief that in the world to 
 
 come our occupations will resemble those we have followed 
 
 here. Like the Egyptians, who had arrived at similar 
 
 ideas, the Peruvians practised embalming, the mummies 
 
 of their Incas being placed in the Temple of the Sun at 
 
 Cuzco, the kings on the right, the queens on the left, clad 
 
 in their robes of state, and with their hands crossed on 
 
 their bosoms, seated in golden chairs, waiting for the day 
 
 when the soul will return to reanimate the body. The 
 
 mummies of distinguished personages were buried in a 
 
 sitting posture under tumuli of earth. To the Supreme 
 
 Being but one temple was dedicated. It was in a sacred 
 
 valley, to which pilgrimages were made. In the Peruvian 
 
 mythology, heaven was above the sky, hell in the interior 
 
 of the earth — it was the realm of an evil spirit called Cupay. 
 
OH. V.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 133 
 
 The general resemblance of these to Egyptian doctrines may 
 forcibly impress upon us that they are ideas with which the 
 human mind necessarily occupies itself in its process of 
 intellectual development. As in all other countries, the 
 educated classes were greatly in advance of the common 
 people, who wero only just emerging from fetichism, and 
 engrossed in the follies of idolatry and man-worship. 
 Nevertheless, the government found it expedient to counte- 
 nance the vulgar delusion ; indeed, the political system was 
 actually founded upon it. But the Peruvians were in ad- 
 vance of the Europeans in .liis respect, that they practised 
 no persecutions upon those who had hecome mentally 
 emancipated. Besides the sun. the visible god, other celes- 
 tial bodies were worshipped in a subordinate way. It was 
 supposed that there were spirits in the wind, lightning, 
 thunder; genii in the mountains, rivers, springs, and 
 grottoes. In the great Temple of the Sun at Ouzco an 
 image of that deity was placed so as to receive the rays of 
 the luminary at his rising ; a like artifice had been pract ised 
 in the Serapion at Alexandria. There was also a sanctuary 
 dedicated to the Sun in the island of Titicaca, and. it is 
 said, between three and four hundred temples of a -subordi- 
 nate kind in Cuzco. To the great temple were attached 
 not fewer than four thousand priests and fifteen hundred 
 vestal virgins, the latter being intrusted with the care of the 
 sacred fire, and from them the most beautiful were chosen 
 to pass into the [nea's seraglio. The popular faith had a 
 ritual and a splendid cerem< >nial, the great national festival 
 being at the summer solstice. The rays of the sun were 
 then collected by a concave mirror, and fire rekindled 
 thereby, or by the friction of wood. 
 
 As to their social system, polygamy was permitted, but 
 practically it was confined to the higher classes. 
 Social subordination was thoroughly understood, —the non* 8 ™ 
 The Inca Tupac Yupanqui says, " Knowledge Mltyy.the 
 was never intended for the people, but only for 
 those of generous Mood." The nobility were of two orders, 
 the polygamic descendants of the Incas, who were the 
 main support of the state, and the adopted nobles of 
 nations that have been conquered. As to the people, 
 nowhere else in the whole world was such an extraordinary 
 
184 THE AGE OK REASON JN BUROPJB. 
 
 [CII. V. 
 
 }'ulicy of supervision practised. They were divided into 
 groups of ten, fifty, one hundred, live hundred, one thou- 
 sand, ten thousand, and over the last an Inca noble was 
 placed. Through this system a rigid centralization was 
 insured, the Inca being the pivot upon which all the national 
 affairs turned. It was an absolutism worthy of the admira- 
 Organization tion of many existing European nations. The 
 ""• entire territory was divided into three parts ; one 
 belonged to the Sun, one to the Inca, one to the people. As 
 a matter of form, the subdivision was annually made; in 
 practice, however, as perhaps must always be the result of 
 such agrarianism, the allotments were continually renewed. 
 All the land was cultivated by the people, and in the 
 following order : first, that of the Sun, then that of the 
 destitute and infirm, then that of the people, and, lastly, 
 that of the Inca. The .Sun and the Inca owned all the 
 Bheep, which were sheared and their wool distributed to 
 the people, or cotton furnished in its stead. The Inca's 
 officers saw that it was all woven, and that no one was 
 idle. An annual survey of the country, its farming and 
 mineral products, was made, the inventory being trans- 
 mitted to the government. A register was kept of births 
 and deaths ; periodically a general census was taken. 
 The Inca. at once emperor and pope, was enabled, in 
 that double capacity, to exert a rigorous patriarchal rule 
 over his people, who were treated like mere children — not 
 coffered to lie oppressed, but compelled to be occupied ; for, 
 with a worldly wisdom which no other nation presents, 
 labour was here acknowledged not only as a means, but 
 also as an end. In Peru a man could not improve his 
 social state ; by these refinements of legislation he was 
 brought into an absolutely stationary condition. He 
 could become neither richer nor poorer; but it was the 
 boast of the system that every one lived exempt from 
 social suffering — that all enjoyed competence. 
 
 The army consisted of 200,000 men. 'Their weapons 
 Military sys- were bows, lances, slings, battle-axes, swords ; 
 tern ; warlike their means of defence, shields, bucklers, hel- 
 resources. m ets, and coats of quilted cotton. Each regi- 
 ment nad its own banner, but the imperial standard, the 
 national emblem, was a rainbow, the offspring of the Sun.. 
 
CH. V.j 
 
 THE AGE OF KEASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 185 
 
 The swords and many of the domestic implements were of 
 bronze; the arrows were tipped with quartz or bone, or 
 points of gold and silver. A strict discipline was main- 
 tained on marching, granaries and depots being established 
 ai suitable distances on the roads. With a policy inflex- 
 ibly persisted in, the gods of conquered countries were 
 transported to (Juzc<>, and the vanquished compelled to 
 worship the Sun; their children were obliged to learn 
 the Peruvian language, the government providing them 
 teachers for that purpose. As an incitement, this know- 
 ledge was absolutely required as a condition for publio 
 office. To amalgamate the conquered districts thoroughly, 
 their inhabitants were taken away by ten thousand, trans 
 ported to distant parts of the empire, not, as in the Old 
 \\ orld, to be worked to death as slaves, but to be made into 
 Peruvians ; an equal number of natives were sent in their 
 stead, to w hom, as a recompense for their removal, extra- 
 ordinary privileges were given. It was the immemorial 
 policy of the empire to maintain profound tranquillity in 
 the interior and perpetual war on the frontiers. 
 
 The philosophical advancement of the Peruvians was 
 much retarded by their imperfect method of Ponivian lite- 
 writing -a method greatly inferior to that of rature-the 
 Egypt A cord of coloured threads, called quiI,U8 " 
 quipus, was only indifferently suited to the purposes of 
 enumeration, and by no means equal to hieroglyphics as 
 a method of expressing general facts. But it was their 
 only system. Notwithstanding this drawback, they had a 
 literature consisting of poetry, dramatic compositions, and 
 the like. Their scientific attainments were inferior to the 
 Mexican. Their year was divided into months, their 
 months into weeks. They had gnomons to indicate the 
 solstices. One, in the form of an obelisk, in the centre of 
 a circle, on which was marked an east and west line, 
 indicated the equinox. These gnomons were destroyed by 
 the Spaniards in the belief that they were for idolatrous 
 purposes, for on the national festivals it was customary to 
 decorate them with leaves and flowers. As the national 
 religion Consisted in the worship of the Sun, it was not 
 wit limit reason that Quito was regarded as a holy place, 
 from its posit i< m upon the < <juator. 
 
186 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 LCH. v. 
 
 In their extraordinary provisions for agriculture, the- 
 Agriculture national pursuit, the skill of the Peruvians is 
 carried to well seen. A rapid elevation from the sea-level 
 perfection. the heights of the mountains gave them, in a 
 
 small compass, every variety of climate, and they availed 
 themselves of it. They terraced the mountain sides, 
 filling the terraces with rich earth. They excavated pits 
 in the sand, surrounded them with adobe walls, and filled 
 them with manured soil. On the low level they cultivated 
 bananas and cassava; on th' terraces above, maize and 
 quinoa; still higher, tobacco; and above that the potato. 
 From a comparatively limited surface, they raised great 
 crops by judiciously using manures, employing for that 
 purpose fish, and especially guano. Their example has led 
 to the use of the latter substance for a like purpose in our 
 own times in Europe. The whole civilized world has 
 followed them in the cultivation of the potato. The 
 Peruvian bark is one of the most invaluable remedies. 
 Large tracts of North America would be almost unin- 
 habitable without the use of its active alkaloid quinine, 
 which actually, in no insignificant manner, reduces the 
 percentage mortality throughout the United States. 
 
 Indispensably necessary to their agricultural system 
 were their great water-works. In Spain there was nothing 
 The great worthy of being compared with them. The 
 aqueduct of aqueduct of Condesuya was nearly 500 miles 
 Condesuya. \ on g t i TS engineers had overcome difficulties 
 in a manner that might well strike modern times with 
 admiration. Its water was distributed as prescribed by 
 law ; there were officers to see to its proper use. From these 
 great water-works and from their roads it may be judged 
 that the architectural skill of the Peruvians was far from 
 insignificant. They constructed edifices of porphyry, 
 granite, brick ; but their buildings were for the most part 
 low, and suitable to an earthquake country. 
 
 I have dwelt at some length on the domestic history of 
 The stages of Mexico and Peru because it is intimately con- 
 human 3e- nected with one of the philosophical principles 
 ahraysthe which it is the object of this book to teach, viz., 
 pume. that human progress takes place under an un- 
 
 varying law, and therefore in a definite way. The trivial 
 
OH. V.J 
 
 THE AGK OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 187 
 
 incidents mentioned in the preceding paragraphs may 
 perhaps have seemed insignificant or wearisome, but it is 
 their very commonness, their very familiarity, that gives 
 them, when rightly considered, a surprising interest. There 
 \s nothing in these minute details but what we find to be 
 perfectly natural from the European point of view. They 
 might be, for that matter, instead of reminiscences of the 
 spontaneous evolution of a people shut out from the rest of 
 the world by impassable oceans, a relation of the progress 
 of some European or Asiatic nation. The man of America 
 advanced in his course of civilization as did the man of the 
 < >M World, devising the same institutions, guided by the 
 same intentions, constrained by the same desires. From 
 the great features of his social system down to the little 
 details of his domestic life, there 18 B sameness with what 
 was done in Asia, Africa, Europe. But similar results 
 imply a similar cause. What, then, is there possessed in 
 common by the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, the 
 Kuropean, the American .' Surely noi climate, nor equal 
 necessities, nor equal opportunity. Simply nothing but 
 this — corporeal organization ! As automatons constructed 
 in the same way will do the same tilings, so, in organic 
 forms, sameness of structure will give rise to identity of 
 function and similarity of acts. The same common sense 
 guides men all over the world. Common sense is a 
 [(motion of common organization. All natural history is 
 full of illustrations. It may be otfensive to our pride, but 
 it is none the less true, that in his social progress, the free- 
 will of which man so boasts himself in his individual 
 capacity disappears as an active influence, and the doinina 
 tion of general and inflexible laws becomes manifest. The 
 trer-will of the individual is supplanted by instinct and 
 automatism in the race. To each individual bee Anaiogy.bo- 
 the career is open ; he may taste of this flower J^en socie- 
 and avoid that; he may be industrious in the and societies 
 gardon, or idle away his time in the air; but ofammals - 
 the history of ono hive is the history of another hive, 
 there will be a predestined organization — the queen, the 
 drones, the workers. In the midst of a thousand unfore- 
 seen, uncalculatcd, variable acts, a definite result, with 
 unerring certainty, emerges; the combs are built in a 
 pre-ordainca way, and filled with honey at last. From 
 
188 
 
 THE AGE OF REASuN LN EUROPE. 
 
 [_CH. V. 
 
 bees, and wasps, and ants, and birds — from all that low 
 animal life on which he looks with such supercilious 
 con tempt, man is destined one day to learn what in truth 
 he really is. 
 
 For a seeond reason, also, I have dwelt on these details. 
 The crime of The enormous crime of Spain in destroying this 
 Spain in civilization has never yet been appreciated in 
 Europe. After an attentive consideration of the 
 facts of the case, I agree in the conclusion of Carli, that at 
 the time of the conquest the moral man in Peru was 
 superior to fche European, and I will add, the intellectual 
 man also. Was there in Spain, or even in all Europe, a 
 political system carried out into the practical details of 
 actual life, and expressed in great public works, as its 
 outward visible and enduring sign, which could at all 
 compare with that of Peru? Its only competitor was the 
 Italian system, but that for long had been actively used to 
 repress the intellectual advancement of man. In vain the 
 The Spaniard Spaniards excuse their atrocities on the plea, 
 and the that a nation like the Mexican, which permitted 
 
 encan. cannibalism, should not be regarded as having 
 emerged from the barbarous state, and that one which, 
 like Pern, sacrificed human hecatombs at the funeral 
 solemnities of great men. must have been savage. Let it 
 be remembered that there is no civilized nation whose 
 popular ]3i*actices do not lag behind its intelligence; let it 
 be remembered that in this respect Spain herself also was 
 guilty. In America, human sacrifice was part of a reli- 
 gious solemnity, unstained by passion. The auto da fe of 
 Europe was a dreadful cruelty ; not an offering to heaven, 
 but a gratification of spite, hatred, fear, vengeance — the 
 most malignant passions of earth. There was no spectacle 
 on the American continent at which a just man might so 
 deeply blush for his race as that presented in Western 
 Europe when the heretic from whom confession had been 
 wrung by torture passed to his stake in a sleeveless 
 garment, with flames of fire and effigies of an abominable 
 European and i m port depicted upon it. Let it be remembered 
 American hu- that by the Inquisition, from 1481 to 1808, 
 man sacrifices. 340j000 per sons had been punished, and of these 
 nearly 32,000 burnt. Let what was done in the south 
 of France be remembered. Let it be also remembered 
 
7H, v.J 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 189 
 
 that, considering the worthlessness of the body of man, 
 and that, at the best, it is at last food for the worm — 
 considering the infinite value of his immortal soul, for the 
 redemption of which the agony and death of the Son of 
 God were not too great a price to pay— indignities offered 
 to the body arc less wicked than indignities offered to the 
 soul. It would be well for him who comes forward as an 
 accuser of Mexico and Tern in their sin to dispose of the 
 fact that at that period the entire authority of Europe was 
 directed to the perversion, and even total repression of 
 thought to an enslaving of the mind, and making that 
 noblest creation of Heaven a worthless machine. To taste 
 of human flesh is less criminal in the eye of God than to 
 stifle human thought. 
 
 Lastly, there is another point to which 1 will with 
 brevity allude. It has been widely asserted Vnti(imtVof 
 that Mexican and Peruvian civilization was American 
 altogether a recent affair, dating at most only civlli/;,ti,,n - 
 two or three centuries before the conquest. It would be 
 just as well to say that there was no civilization in India 
 before the time of the Macedonian invasion because there 
 exist no historic documents in that country anterior to that 
 event. The .Mexicans and Peruvians were not heroes of a 
 romance to whom wonderful events were of common occur- 
 rence, whose lives were regulated by laws not applying to 
 the rest of the human race, who could produce results in 
 a day for which elsewhere a thousand }'ears are required, 
 They were men and women like ourselves, slowly and 
 painfully, and with many failures, working out their 
 civilization. The summary manner in which they have 
 been disposed of reminds us of the amusing way in which 
 the popular chronology deals with the hoary annals of 
 PgVpt and China. Putting aside the imperfect methods 
 of recording events practised by the autochthons of the 
 Western world, he who estimates rightly the slowness 
 with which man passes forward in his process of civiliza- 
 tion, and collates therewith the prodigious works of art 
 left by thoso two nations — an enduring evidence of the 
 point to which they had attained — will find himself 
 constrained to east aside such idle assertions as altogether 
 unworthv nrf confutation, OT even of attention. 
 
( u» ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 APPROACH OF THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 IT IS PRECEDE] > HY THE RISE OF CRITICISM. 
 
 Restoration of Greek Literature and Philosophy in Italy. — Development 
 of Modern Languages and Hue of Criticism.— Imminent Danger to 
 Latin Ideas. 
 
 Invention of Printing. — It revolutionize s the Communication of Know- 
 ledge, especially acts on Public Worship, and renders the Pulpit of 
 secondary importance. 
 
 The Reformation. — Theory of Supererogation end Use of Indulgences. 
 — The Bight of Individual Judgment asserted. — Political History of 
 the Origin, Culmination, and CJteck of the Reformation. — Its Effects 
 in Italy. 
 
 Causes of the Arrest of the Reformation. — Internal Causes in Protes- 
 tantism. — External in the Policy of Rome. — lite Counter-Reformation. 
 — Inquisition. — Jesuits. — Secession of the great Critics. — Culmination 
 of the Reformation in America. — Emergence of Individual Liberty of 
 Thought. 
 
 In estimating the influences of literature on the approach 
 The rise of of the Age of Eeason in Europe, the chief inci- 
 criticism. dents to be considered are the disuse of Latin as 
 a learned language, the formation of modern tongues from 
 the vulgar dialects, the invention of printing, the decline 
 of the power of the pulpit, and its displacement by that of 
 the press. These, joined to the moral and intellectual 
 influences at that time predominating, led to the great 
 movement known as the Reformation. 
 
 As if to mark out to the world the real cause of its 
 Epoch of the intellectual degradation, the regeneration of Italy 
 intellectual commenced with the exile of the popes to Avig- 
 movement. non ^ X)uring their absence, so rapid was the 
 progress that it had become altogether impossible to make 
 
on. vi. | 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 any successful resistance, or to restore the old condition of 
 things (»n their return to Home. The moment that the 
 leaden cloud which they had kept suspended over the 
 country was withdrawn, the lig^it from heaven shot in, 
 and the ready peninsula became instinct with life. 
 
 The unity of the Church, and, therefore, its power, 
 required the u>e of Latin as a sacred language, uso of Latin 
 Through this Home had stood in an attitude as a sanvd 
 strictly European, and was enabled to maintain ^ 
 a general international relation. It gave her far moio 
 power than her asserted celestial authority, and, much as 
 she claims to have done, she is open to condemnation that, 
 with such a signal advantage in her hands, never again to 
 l>e enjoyed by any successor, she did not accomplish much 
 more. Had not the sovereign pontiffs been so completely 
 occupied with maintaining their emoluments and tem- 
 poralities in Italy, they might have made th whole 
 Continent advance like one man. Their officials could 
 pass without difficulty into every nation, and communicate 
 without embarrassment with each other, from Ireland to 
 Bohemia, from Italy to Scotland. The possession oT a 
 common tongue gave them die administration of inter- 
 national a flairs with intelligent allies everywhere speaking 
 the same language. 
 
 Not, therefore, without cause was the hatred manifested 
 by Rome to the restoration of Greek and intro- 
 duce ion of Hebrew, and the alarm with which dislike of 6 
 she perceived the modern languages forming out Jreek t0the 
 of the vulgar dialects. The prevalence of Latin 
 was thecondit [on of her power, its deterioration the measure 
 of her decay, its disuse the signal of her limitation to a little 
 principality in Italy. In fact, the development of Euro- 
 I « an Languages was the instrument of her overthrow. 
 They formed an effectual communication between the men- 
 dicant friars and the illiterate populace, and there was not 
 one of them that did not display in its earliest productions 
 a sovereign contempt for her. We have Been how it was 
 with the poetry of Languedoc. 
 
 The ri.se ol* the tnany-tongued European literature was 
 therefore co-incident with the decline of papal Christi- 
 anity. European literature was impossible under the 
 
192 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 |_CH. Vi 
 
 Catholic rule. A grand, and solemn, and imposing reli- 
 ed danger gious unity enforced the literary unity which is 
 from modem implied in the use of a single language. No 
 languages. more can a living thought be embodied in a dead 
 language than activity be imparted to a corpse. That 
 Public disad- principle of stability which Italy hoped to give 
 vantages of a to Europe essentially rested on the compulsory 
 sacred tongue. uge of ft dead tongue The firgt token of intel- 
 lectual emancipation was the movement of the great Italian 
 poets, led by Dante, who often, not without irreverence, 
 broke the spell. Unity in religion implies unity through a 
 sacred language, and hence the non-existence of particular 
 national literatures. 
 
 Even after Eome had suffered her great discomfiture on 
 Effect of * ne scientific question respecting the motion of 
 modem lan- the earth, the conquering party was not unwil- 
 guages. ling to veil its thoughts in the Latin tongue, 
 partly because it thereby insured a more numerous class of 
 intelligent readers, and partly because ecclesiastical autho- 
 rity was now disposed to overlook what must otherwise be 
 treated as offensive, since to write in Latin was obviously 
 a pledge of abstaining from an appeal to the vulgar. The 
 effect of the introduction of modern languages was to 
 diminish intercommunication among the learned. 
 
 The movement of human affairs, for so many years silent 
 Approach an( ^ imperceptible, was at length coming to a 
 of^a crisis in crisis. An appeal to the emotions and moral 
 Europe. sentiments at the basis of the system, the history 
 of which has occupied us so long, had been fully made, and 
 found ineffectual. It was now the time for a like appeal 
 to the understanding. Each age of life has its own logic. 
 The logic of the senses is in due season succeeded by that 
 of the intellect. Of faith there are two kinds, one of 
 acquiescence, one of conviction; and a time inevitably 
 arrives when emotional faith is supplanted by intellectual. 
 
 As if to prove that the* impending crisis was not the 
 offspring of human intentions, and not ^occasioned by any 
 Cosmo de one man > though that man might be the sove- 
 Medici. Flo- reign pontiff, Nicolas V. found in his patronage 
 rence. Q £ j e ^ erg an( j ar ^ a r i V al and friend in Cosmo de' 
 
 Medici. An instructive incident shows how great a change 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 193 
 
 had taken place in the sentiments of the higher classes . 
 Cosmo, the richest of Italians, who had lavished his wealth 
 on palaces, churches, hospitals, libraries, was comforted on 
 his death-bed, not, as in former days would have been the 
 case, by ministers of religion, but by Marsilius Ficinus, the 
 Platonist, who set before him the arguments for a future 
 life, and consoled his passing spirit with the examples and 
 precepts of Greek philosophy, teaching him thereby to 
 exchange faith for hope, forgetting that too often hopes 
 are only the day-dreams of men, not less unsubstantial and 
 vain than their kindred of the night. Ficinus had perhaps 
 come to the conviction that philosophy is only a higher 
 stage of theology, 'the philosopher a very enlightened 
 theologian. He was the representative of Platonism, 
 which for so many centuries had been hidden Reappearance 
 from the sight of men in Eastern monasteries ofPiatonism 
 since its overthrow in Alexandria, and which 111 Italy * 
 was now emerging into existence in the favouring atmo- 
 sphere of Italy. His school looked back with delight, and 
 even with devotion, to the illustrious pagan times, com- 
 memorating by a symposium on November 13th the birth- 
 day of Plato. The Academy of Athens was revived in the 
 Medicean gardens of Florence. Not that Ficinus is to be 
 regarded as a servile follower of the great philosopher. 
 He alloyed the doctrines of Plato with others r)octrine8of 
 derived from a more sinister source — the theory Marsilius 
 of the Mohammedan Averroes, of which it was Flcmus - 
 an essential condition that there is a soul of humanity, 
 through their relations with which individual souls are 
 capable of forming universal ideas, for such, Averroes 
 asserted, is the necessary consequence of the emanation 
 theory. 
 
 Under such auspices, and at this critical moment, oc- 
 curred the revival of Greek literature in Italy. Revival of 
 It had been neglected for more than seven Greek leam- 
 hundred years. In the solitary instances of 1D s mItal y- 
 individuals to whom here and there a knowledge of that 
 language was imputed, there seem satisfactory reasons 
 for supposing that their requirements amounted to little 
 more than the ability of translating some " petty patristic 
 treatise." The first glimmerings of this revival appear in 
 
 VOL. II. o 
 
194 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 the thirteenth century ; they are somewhat more distinct 
 in the fourteenth. The capture of Constantinople by the 
 Latin Crusaders had done little more than diffuse a few 
 manuscripts and works of art along with the more highly 
 prized monkish relics in the West. It was the Turkish 
 pressure, which all reflecting Greeks foresaw could have no 
 other result than the fall of the Ityzantine power, that 
 induced some persons of literary tastes to seek a livelihood 
 and safety in Italy. 
 
 In the time of Petrarch, 1304 1374, the improvement 
 GraduaXpro. did not amount to much. That illustrious poet 
 pressofthe saws that there were not more than ten persons 
 Restoration. h Italy who COllld appreciate Homer. Both 
 Petrarch and Boccacio spared no pains to acquaint them- 
 selves with the lost tongue. The latter had succeeded in 
 obtaining for Leontius Pilatus, the ( alabriau, a Greek pro- 
 fessorship at Florence. He describes this Greek teacher as 
 clad in the mantle of a philosopher, his countenance hideous, 
 his face overshadowed with black hair, his beard long and 
 uncombed, his deportment rustic, his temper gloomy and 
 inconstant, but his mind was stored with the treasures of 
 learning. Leontius left Italy in disgust, but, returning 
 again, was struck dead by lightning in a storm w r hile tied 
 to the mast of the ship. The author from whom I am 
 quoting significantly adds that Petrarch laments his fate, 
 but nervously asks whether "some copy of Euripides or 
 Sophocles might not be recovered from the mariners." 
 
 The restoration of Greek to Italy may be dated a.d. 
 139o, at which time Chrysoloras commenced teaching it. 
 A few years after Aurispa brought into Italy two hundred 
 and thirty-eight Greek manuscripts ; among them were 
 Plato and Pindar. The first endeavour was to translate 
 such manuscripts into Latin. To a considerable extent, 
 the religious scruples against Greek literature were giving 
 way; the study found a patron in the pope himself, 
 Eugenius IV. As the intention of the Turks to seize 
 Constantinople became more obvious, the emigration of 
 learned Greeks into Italy became more frequent. And 
 yet, with the exception of Petrarch, and he was scarcely 
 an exception, not one of the Italian scholars was an 
 ecclesiastic. 
 
CM. Vf .] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 195 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, the grandson of Cosmo, used every 
 
 exertion to increase the r isillg taste, generously Lorenzo de 
 permitting his manuscripts to be copied. Nor MedUjd,hta 
 was it alone to literature that he extended his donsfandf" 
 patronage. In his beautiful villa at Fiesole the pi»i°sophy. 
 philosophy of the old t imes was revived ; his botanic garden 
 at C'areggi was filled with Oriental exotics. From 1470 to 
 1492, the year of his death, his happy influence continued 
 He lived t<> witness tin' ancient Platonism overcoming the 
 riatonism of Alexandria, and the pure doctrine of Aristotle 
 expelling the base Aristotelian doctrine of the schools. 
 
 Tlnlast half of the fifteenth century revealed to Western 
 Europe two worlds, a new one and an old ; the Effects in- 
 former by the voyage of Coin minis, the latter by ^™^ 3 pr t k" e 
 the capture of Constantinople ; one destined to re- Greek lan- 6 
 volntionize the industrial, the other the religious guage - 
 condition. Greek literature, forced into Italy by the 
 Turkish arms, worked wonders; for Latin Kuropc found 
 with amazement that the ancient half of Christendom 
 knew nothing whatever of the doctrine or of the saints of 
 the West. Now was divulged the secret reason of that 
 hitter hatred displayed by the Catholic clergy to Grecian 
 learning. It had sometimes been supposed that the ill- 
 concealed dislike they had so often shown to the writings 
 of Aristotle was because of the Arab dress in which his 
 Saracen commentators had presented him; now it appeared 
 that there was something more important, more causes of the 
 profound. It was a terror of the Greek itself, prevailing dis- 
 Very soon the direction toward which things llke ofGrcek * 
 must inevitably tend became manifest ; the modern lan- 
 guages, fast developing, were making Latin an obsolete 
 tongue, and political events were giving it a rival — Greek 
 — capable of asserting over it a supremacy; and not a 
 solitary rival, for to Greek it was clear that Hebrew would 
 soon be added, bringing with it the charms of a hoary anti- 
 quity and the sinister learning of the Jew. With a quick, 
 a jealous suspicion, the ecclesiastic soon learned to detect 
 a heretic from his knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, just as 
 is done in our day from a knowledge of physical science. 
 The authority of the Vulgate, that corner-stone of the 
 Italian system, was, in the expectation of Rome, inevitably 
 
 0 2 
 
196 
 
 THE AG K OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [Cri. VI, 
 
 certain to be depreciated ; and, in truth, judging from the 
 honours of which that great translation was soon despoiled 
 by the incoming of Greek and Hebrew, it was declared, not 
 with more emphasis than truth, yet not, perhaps, without 
 irreverence, that there was a second crucifixion between 
 two thieves. Long after the times of which we are 
 speaking, the University of Paris resisted the introduction 
 of Greek into its course of studies, not because of any 
 dislike to letters, but because of its anticipated obnoxious 
 bearing on Latin theology. 
 
 We can scarcely look in any direction without observing 
 Tendency of instances of the wonderful change taking place 
 ••The [mita- w in the opinions of men. T<> that disposition to 
 tionofChnst. Qn ft p r i \ ile^ecl mediating order, once the 
 
 striking characteristic of all classes of the laity in Europe, 
 there had succeed* <i a sentiment of self-reliance. Of this 
 perhaps no better proof can be furnished than the popu- 
 larity of the work reputed to have been written by Thomas 
 a Kempis, and entitled " The Imitation of Christ." It is 
 said to have had probably more readers than any other 
 book except the Bible. Its great celebrity is a proof how 
 profoundly ecclesiastical influence had been affected, for its 
 essential intention was to enable the pious to cultivate 
 their devotional feeling without the intervention of the 
 clergy. Such a work, if written in the present day, 
 would have found an apt and popular title in " Every Man 
 his own Priest." There is no reason for supposing that the 
 condition to which man had at that time been brought, as 
 the general result of Italian Christianity, was one of 
 intense selfishness, as has been asserted ; the celebrity of 
 this book was rather dependent on a profound distrust 
 everywhere felt in the clergy, both as regards morals and 
 intellect. And why should we be surprised that such 
 should be the case with the laity, when in all directions 
 the clergy themselves were giving proof that they could 
 not trust their own strength? They could not conceal 
 their dread at the incoming of Greek ; they could not 
 speak without horror of the influence of Hebrew ; they 
 were loud in their protestations against the study of pagan 
 philosophy, and held up to the derision and condemnation 
 of the world science denounced by them as profane. They 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 197 
 
 foresaw that that fictitious unity of which they had boasted 
 was drawing to an end ; that men would become 1)angerto the 
 acquainted with the existence and history of unity of the 
 ehu'ehes more ancient, and, therefore, more Church - 
 venerable than the lioman, and, like it, asserting an 
 authenticity upon unimpeachable proofs. But once let 
 sects with such an impressive prestige be introduced to 
 the knowledge of the W est, once let the appearance of 
 inviolate unity be taken from the Latin Church, and 
 not liin-- could prevent a spontaneous decomposition forth- 
 with occurring in it. It must break up into sects, which, 
 in their turn, must break up, in process of time, into 
 smaller and smaller divisions, and, through this means, 
 the Kuropoan must emerge at last into individual liberty 
 of thought. The compelling hand of ecclesiastical tyranny 
 must be removed, and universal toleration ensue. Nor 
 were such anticipations mere idle suspicions, for such was 
 the course that events actually took. Scarcely had the 
 Reformation occurred when sectarian subdivisions made 
 their appearance, and in modern times we see that an 
 anarchy of sects is the inevitable harbinger of individual 
 liberty of thought. 
 
 As we have just said, it was impossible to look in any 
 direction on the latter half of the fifteenth century without 
 recognizing the wonderful change. It had be- Hjghcr rc _ 
 come obviously useless any longer to assert an quirements in 
 i 1 1 1 mobility of humanity when men were standing evi ence * 
 face to face with the new forms into which it had been 
 transposed. New ideas had driven out old ones. Natural 
 phenomena could not again be likened to human acts, nor 
 the i tea of man regarded as determining the move- 
 
 ments of the universe. A better appreciation of the nature 
 of evidence was arising, perhaps in part through the in- 
 fluence of the lawyers, but in part through a commencing 
 taste f« >r criticism. We see it in such facts as the denial that 
 a miracle can be taken as the proof of anything else than 
 the special circumstances with which it is connected; we 
 see it in the assertion that the martyrdom of men in support 
 of a dogma, so far from proving its truth, proves rather its 
 doubtfulness, no geometer haying ever thought it worth 
 
 his while to die in order to establish any mathematical 
 
198 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IX EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. Vi 
 
 proposition, truth needing no such sacrifices, which are 
 actually unserviceable and useless to it, since it is able 
 Disbelief set- spontaneously to force its own way. In Italy, 
 ting in in where the popular pecuniary interests were 
 Italy * obviously identical with those of the Church, a 
 
 dismal disbelief was silently engendering. 
 
 And now occurred an event the results of which it i*h 
 impossible to exaggerate. 
 
 About A.h. 1440 the art of printing seems to have been 
 Invention of i nV(11 ted in Europe. It is not material to our 
 printing: its purpose to inquire into the particulars of its 
 earij 8tory ' history, whether we should attribute it to Coster 
 of Haarlaem or Gutenberg of Mentz, or whether, in reality, 
 it was introduced by I he Venel ians from China, where it had 
 been practised for nearly two thousand years. In Venice a 
 decree was issued in 1441 in relation to printing, which 
 would seem to imply that it had been known there for some 
 years. Coster is supposed to have printed the "Speculum 
 Humanae Salvationis" about 1440, and Gutenberg and 
 Faust the Mentz Bible without date, 1455. The art reached 
 perfection at once ; their Bible is still admired for its beauti- 
 ful typography. Among the earliest specimens of printing 
 extant is an exhortation to take uj) arms against the Turks, 
 1454 ; there are also two letters of indulgence of Nicolas V. 
 of the same date. In the beginning each page was engraved 
 on a block of wood, but soon movable types were introduced. 
 Impressions of the former kind pass under the name of 
 block books; at first they were sold as manuscripts. Two 
 of Faust's workmen commenced printing in Italy, but not 
 until 1465; the} 7 there published an edition of " Lactan- 
 tius," one of "Cicero de Officiis," and one of "Augustine 
 de Civitate Dei." The art was carried to France 1469, and 
 in a few years was generally practised in all the large Euro- 
 pean towns. The printers were their own booksellers ; 
 Early books * ne numDer of copies in each edition usually 
 and book- about three hundred. Folios were succeeded by 
 sellers - quartos, and in 1501 duodecimos were intro- 
 duced. Very soon the price of books was reduced by four 
 fifths, and existing interests required regulations not only 
 respecting the cost, but also respecting the contents. 
 Thus the University of Paris established a tariff for their 
 
OH. VI.] 
 
 Tin-; a«.;e of rkason in kuropk. 
 
 bale, and also exercised a supervision in behalf of the 
 Church and the State From the outset it was clear that 
 printing would inevitably influence the intellectual move- 
 ment synchronously occurring. 
 
 Some authors have endeavoured to estimate the intellec- 
 tual condition of different countries in Europe Measure of 
 at the close of the fifteenth century by the U»e oontem 
 literary activity they displayed in the preparation mentai°state 
 and printing (if editions of books. Though it is ofnation »- 
 plain that Mich estimates can hardly be rigorously correct, 
 since to print a book not only implies literary capacity, 
 but also the connexions of business and trade, and hence 
 works are more likely to be issued in places where there is 
 a mercantile activity, yet such estimates are perhaps the 
 Inost exact that we can now obtain ; they also lead us to 
 some very interesting and unexpected results of singular 
 value in their connexion with that important epoch. 
 Thus it appears that in all Europe, between 1470 and 
 1500, more than ten thousand editions of books and 
 pamphlets were printed, and of them a majority in Italy, 
 demonstrating that Italy was in the van of the intellec- 
 tual movement. Out of this large number, in Venice 
 there had been printed L\ S35 ; Milan, (325 ; Bologna, 298 ; 
 Kome, t'lio ; Paris, 751 ; Cologne, 530; .Nuremberg, 382; 
 Leipsic, 351; Bale, 320 ; Strasburg, 526; Augsburg, 25b"; 
 Louvain, 110; Mentz. 134; Deventer, 1(39; London, 130; 
 ( )xford, 7 ; St. Alban's, 4. 
 
 Venice, therefore, took the lead. England was in a very 
 backward state. This conclusion is confirmed , tal „ „ rtnMiar 
 
 _ _ . i • ^ » m * n ,i MMj con p&i- 
 
 by many other circumstances, winch justify the edwiththe 
 statement that Italy was as far advanced in- re&tofEuro i e 
 tellcct nal l\ in L400 as England in 1500. Paris exhibits a 
 superiority sixfold over London, and in the next ten years 
 the disproportion becomes even more remarkable, for in 
 Paris four hundred and thirty editions were printed, in 
 London only twenty-six. The light of learning became 
 enfeebled by distance from its Italian focus. As late as 
 1550, a complete century after the establishment of the 
 art, but seven works had been printed in {Scotland, and 
 among them not a single classic. It is an amusing proof 
 how local tasteswere OOUBUlted in 1 In character of the books 
 
200 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 thus put forth, that the first work issued in Spaiu, 1474, 
 was on the " Conception of the Virgin." 
 
 The invention of printing operated in two modes alto- 
 Effed of gether distinct ; first, in the multiplying and 
 uteratufe°and cheapening of books, secondly, in substituting 
 th.' Church, reading for pulpit instruction. 
 
 First, as to the multiplication and cheapening of books 
 Cheapening — there is no reason t<> suppose that the sup- 
 «»f books. ply i ia( i ever l, ee n inadequate. As, under the 
 Ptolemies, book manufacture was carried forward in the 
 Museum a1 Alexandria to an extent which fully satisfied 
 demands, so in all the great abbeys there was an apart- 
 ment— the Scriptorium -for the copying and making of 
 books. Such a sedentary occupation could not but be 
 agreeable to persons of a contemplative or quiet habit of 
 life. But Greece, Rome, Egypt — indeed, all the ancient 
 governments except that of China, were founded upon 
 elements among which did not appear that all-important 
 one of modern limes, a reading class. Information passed 
 from mouth to mouth, not from eye to eye. With a 
 limited demand, the compensation to the copier was suffi- 
 cient, and the cost to the purchaser moderate. It is 
 altogether a mistake to suppose that the methods and 
 advantages of printing were unknown. Modifications of 
 that art were used wherever occasion called for them. We 
 do not need the Roman stamps to satisfy us of that fact 
 every Babylonian brick and signet ring is an illustration. 
 Pi-inting processes of various kinds were well enough 
 rj m , wan| (iJ . known. The real difficulty was the want of paper. 
 p i r. Da- That substance was first made in Europe by the 
 mascoe paper. g panish Moors from the fine flax of Valentia 
 and Murcia. Cotton paper, sold as charta Damascena, had 
 been previously made at Damascus, and several different 
 varieties had long been manufactured in China. 
 
 Had there been more readers, paper would have been 
 more abundantly produced, and there would have been 
 more copiers— nay, even there would have been printers. 
 An increased demand would have been answered by an 
 increased supply. As soon as such a demand arose in 
 Europe the press was introduced, as it had been thousands 
 of years before in China. 
 
en. n.] 
 
 THE A.GE OF KKA80N LN EUROPE. 
 
 201 
 
 So far as the } ml ►lie is concerned, printing has been an 
 unmixed advantage; not so, liowever, in its bearing on 
 authors. The longevity of books is greatly Longevityof 
 impaired, a melancholy conclusion to an am- books curtaii- 
 bitious intellect. The duration * »f many ancient C(1 " 
 hooks which have escaped the chances of time is to be 
 hoped for no more. In this shortening of their term the 
 • xcssive mult ipli>;ttion of works greatly assists. A rapid 
 succession soon makes those of distinction obsolete, and 
 then consigns them to oblivion. No author can now 
 expect immortality. His utmost hope is only this, that 
 his hook may live a little longer than himself. 
 
 But it was with print in**' as with other affairs of the 
 
 market - an increased demand irave origin to an 
 
 Multiplica- 
 
 increa-ed supply, which, in its turn reacting, ,il,n ,,l h " oks ' 
 increased the demand, (.'heap books bred readers. When 
 the monks, abandoning their useless and lazy life of saying 
 their prayms a do/en times a day. turned to the copying 
 and illustrating of manuscripts, a mental elevation of the 
 whole order was the result ; there were more monks who 
 could read. A nd so, on the greater scale, as books through 
 the press became more abundant, there were more persons 
 to whom they became a necessity. 
 
 I>ut, secondly, as to the change which ensued in the 
 mode of communicating information — a change Tj modeof 
 felt instantly in the ecclesiastical, and, at a later conummi- 
 period. in the political world. The whole fating know- 
 
 i a LcufBB cliaiiircs. 
 
 system of public worship had been founded on 
 the condition of a non-reading people ; hence the reading of 
 prayers and the sermon. Whoever will attentively com- 
 pare the thirteenth with the nineteenth century cannot 
 rail to sec how essential oral instruction was in the former, 
 how subordinate in the latter. The invention In j urv t<) 
 of the printing-press gave an instant, a formid- pulpit in- 
 able rival to the pulpit. It made possible that B 
 which had been impossible before in Christian Europe — 
 direct oommunioation between the government and the 
 people without any religious intermedium, and was the 
 first step in that important, change subsequently carried 
 out in America, the separation of Church and state. 
 Though in this particular the effect wafl desirable, in 
 
202 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 another its advantages are doubtful, for the Church ad- 
 hered to her ancient method when it ha J lost very much 
 of its real force, and this even at the risk of falling into a 
 lifeless and impassive condition. 
 
 And yet we must not undervalue the power once 
 exercised on a non-reading community by oral 
 church ser^ and scenic teachings. What could better instruct 
 vices on the it than a formal congregating of neighbourhoods 
 
 DeoDle 
 
 together each Sabbath-day to listen in silence 
 and without questioning? In those greal churches, the 
 architectural grandeur of which Is still the admiration of 
 our material age, nothing was wauling t<> impress the 
 worshipper. The vast pile, with its turrets or spire 
 pointing to heaven ; its steep inclining roof; its walls, 
 wdth niches and statues; its echoing belfry; its windows 
 of exquisite hues and of every form, lancet, or wheel, or 
 rose, through which stole in the many-coloured light; its 
 chapels, with their pictured walls; its rows of slender, 
 clustering columns, and arches tier upon tier; its many 
 tapering pendants; the priest emerging from his scenic 
 retreat; his chalice and forbidden wine; the covering 
 paten, the cibory, and the pix. Amid clouds of incense 
 from smoking censers, the blaze of lamps, and tapers, and 
 branching candlesticks, the tinkling of silver bells, the 
 play of jewelled vessels and gorgeous dresses of violet, 
 green, and gold, banners and crosses were borne aloft 
 through lines of kneeling worshippers in processional 
 services along the aisles. The chanting of litanies and 
 psalms gave a foretaste of the melodies of heaven, and the 
 voices of the choristers and sounds of the organ now 
 thundered forth glory to God in the highest, now 
 whispered to the broken in spirit peace. 
 
 If such were the influences in the cathedral, not less 
 influence of were those that gathered round the little village 
 village church. To the peasant it was endeared by 
 churches. ^ mQst toucning . i uc idents of his life. At 
 
 its font his parents had given him his name ; at its altar 
 he had plighted his matrimonial vows ; beneath the little 
 grass mounds in its yard there awaited the resurrection 
 those who had been untimely taken away. Connected 
 thus with the profoundest and holiest sentiments of 
 
OH. Vi. ~ 
 
 1 HE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 203 
 
 In i inanity, the pulpit was for instruction a sole and suffi- 
 cient means. Nothing like it had existed in paganism. The 
 irregular, ill-timed, occasi' >nal eloquence of the Greek repub- 
 lican orators cannot for an instant be set in comparison 
 with such a steady and enduring systematic institution. 
 
 In a tempnial as well as in a spiritual .sense, the public 
 authorities appreciated its power. ( v hieen Elizabeth was 
 not the only sovereign who knew how to thunder through 
 a thousand pulpits. 
 
 Por a length of time, as might have been expected, con- 
 sidering its power and favouring adventitious jliepirtplt 
 circumstances, the pulpit maintained itself sue- yields to the 
 ccssfully against the press. Nevertheless, its pl0S8 ' 
 eventual subordination was none the less sure. If there 
 are disadvantages in the method of acquiring knowledge 
 by reading, there are also signal advantages; for, though 
 upon the printed page the silent letters are mute and 
 unsustained by any scenic help, yet often — a wonderful 
 contradiction — they pour forth emphatic eloquence, that 
 can make the heart Leap with emotion, or kindle on the 
 cheek the blush of shame. The might of persuasiveness 
 does not always lit' in articulate speech. The strong are 
 often the silent, (iod never speaks. 
 
 There is another condition which gives to reading a 
 great advantage over listening. In the affairs Listening and 
 of life, how wide is the dilference between ™« lin K- 
 having a thing done for us and doing it ourselves! In 
 tho latter case, how great is the interest awakened, how 
 much more thorough the examination, how much more 
 perfect the acquaintance. To listen implies merely a 
 passive frame of mind ; to read, an active. But the latter 
 is more noble. 
 
 From these and other such considerations, it might have 
 been foreseen that the printing-press would at Decline ofpni- 
 last deprive the pulpit of its supremacy, making tntanoe. 
 it become inetfective, or reducing it to an ancillary aid 
 It must have been clear that the timo would arrive when, 
 though adorned by the eloquence of great and good men, 
 the sermon would lose its power for moving popular 
 masses or directing public thought. 
 
 rpon temporal as well as ecclesiastical authority, the 
 
204 
 
 fUE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 influence of this great change was also felt. During 
 Newspapers; the Turkish war of 1563 newspapers first made 
 their origin, their appearance in Venice. They were in 
 manuscript. The "Gazette de France " commenced in 
 1631. There seems to he doubt as to the authenticity ot 
 the early English papers reputed to have been published 
 during the excitement of the Spanish Armada, and of 
 which copies remain in the British Museum. It was not 
 until the civil wars that, under the names of Mercuries, 
 Intelligences, etc., newspapers fairly established themselves 
 in England. 
 
 What J have said respecting the influence of the press 
 . upon religious life applies substantially to civil 
 
 rower in i»ar- life also. ( >rat.<>ry has sunk into a secondary posi- 
 llamentary tion, being every day more and more thoroughly 
 supplanted by journalism. No matter how ex- 
 cellent it may be in its sphere of action, it is essentially 
 limited, and altogether incompetent to the influencing of 
 masses of men in the manner which our' modern social 
 system requires. Without a newspaper, what would be 
 the worth of the most eloquent parliamentary attempts'' 
 It is that which really makes them instruments of power, 
 and gives to them political force, which takes them out of 
 a little circle of cultivated auditors, and throws them 
 broadcast over nations. 
 
 Such was the literary condition of Western Europe, 
 Dawn of the such the new power that had been fonnd in the 
 Reformation, press. These were but initiatory to the great 
 drama now commencing. We have already seen that 
 synchronously with this intellectual there was a moral 
 impulse coming into play. The two were in harmony. 
 At the time now occupying our attention there was a 
 possibility for the moral impulse to act nnder several 
 different forms. The special mode in which it came into 
 effect was determined by the pecuniary necessities of 
 Italy. It very soon, however, assumed larger proportions, 
 and became what is known to us as the Eeformation. The 
 movement against Rome that had been abandoned for a 
 century was now recommenced. 
 
 The variation of human thought proceeds in a continuous 
 manner, new ideas springing out of old ones either as 
 
C!f. VI.] THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 205 
 
 corrections or developments, but never spontaneously ori- 
 ginating. With them, as with organic forms, variation of 
 each requires a germ, a seed. The intellectual human 
 phase of humanity observed at any moment is thou 8 ht - 
 therefore an embodiment of many different things. It 
 is connected with the past, is in unison with the present, 
 and c< mtains the embry< > of t he future. 
 
 Unman opinions must hence, of absolute necessity, un- 
 dergo transformation. W hat has been received by one 
 generation as undoubted, to a subsequent one becomes so 
 conspicuously fallacious as to excite the wonder of those 
 who do not distinctly appreciate the law of psychical ad- 
 vance that it could ever have been received as true. 
 These phases of transformation are not only related in a 
 chronological way, so as to be obvious when we examine 
 the ideas of society at epochs of a few years or of cen- 
 turies apart— -they exist also contemporaneously in differ- 
 ent nations or in different social grades of the same nation, 
 according as the class of persons considered has made a 
 greater or less intellectual progress. 
 
 Notwithstanding the assertion of Home, the essential 
 ideas of the Italian system had undergone variations in 
 unavoidable modifications. An illiterate people, Italian ideas, 
 easily imposed upon, had accepted as true the asseveration 
 that there had been no change even from the apostolic 
 times. But the time had now come when that fiction 
 could no longer be maintained, the divergence no longer 
 conoealed. In the new state of things, it was impossible 
 that dogmas in absolute opposition to reason, such as that 
 of transubstantiation, could any longer hold their ground. 
 The scholastic theology and scholastic philosophy, though 
 Supported by'he universities, had become obsolete. Willi 
 the revival 01 pure Latinity and the introduction of Greek, 
 the foundations of a more correct criticism were laid. An 
 age of erudition was unavoidable, in which whatever could 
 not establish its claims against a searching examination 
 must necessarily be overthrown. 
 
 We are thus brought to the great movement known as 
 the Reformation. Hie term is usually applied The Reforms 
 in reference to the Protestant nations, and Hon: tto bi#- 
 therefore is not sufficiently comprehensive, for tory 
 
206 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI, 
 
 all Europe was in truth involved. A clear understanding 
 of its origin, its process, its effects, is perhaps best obtained 
 by an examination of the condition of the northern and 
 southern nations, and the issue of the event in each 
 respectively. 
 
 Germany had always been sincere, and therefore always 
 The prepare- devout. Of her disposition she had given many 
 
 German* ^ P 1 * 00 ^ ^ YOm * ne ^ m<3 wncn tne Emperor OtllO 
 
 France, Eng- descended into Italy, his expedition having 
 ,aild - been, as was said, an armed procession of 
 
 ecclesiastics resolved to abate the scandals of the Church. 
 The Councils of Constance and Basle may be looked upon 
 as an embodiment of the same sentiment. The resolu- 
 tion to limit the papal authority and to put a superior 
 over the pope arose from a profound conviction of the 
 necessity of such a measure. Those councils were pre- 
 cursors of the coming Reformation. In other countries 
 events had long been tending in the same direction : in 
 Sicily and Italy by the acts of Frederick H. ; in France 
 through those of Philip the Fair. The educated had been 
 estranged by the Saracens and Jews ; the enthusiastic by 
 such works as the Everlasting Gospel ; the devout had 
 been shocked by the tale of the Templars and the detected 
 immoralities in Borne ; the patriotic had been alienated 
 by the assumptions of the papal court and its incessant 
 intermeddling in political affairs ; the inferior, unreflect- 
 ing orders were in all directions exasperated by its im 
 portunate, unceasing exactions of money. In England, 
 for instance, though less advanced intellectually than the 
 southern nations, the commencement of the Reformation 
 is perhaps justly referred as far back as the reign of 
 Edward HI., who, under the suggestion of Wiclif, refused 
 to do homage to the pope, but a series of weaker princes 
 succeeding, it was not until Henry YII. that the move- 
 ment could be continued. 1 n that country the immediately 
 exciting causes were no doubt of a material kind, such 
 as the alleged avarice and impurity of the clergy, the 
 immense amount of money taken from the realm, the 
 intrusion of foreign ecclesiastics. In the South of France 
 and in Italy, where the intellectual condition was much 
 more advanced, the movement was correspondingly of a 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 207 
 
 more intellectual kind. To this difference between the 
 north and the south must be referred not only the striking 
 geographical distribution of belief which was soon apparent, 
 but also the speedy and abrupt limitation of the Reforma- 
 tion, reetriotedly so called. 
 
 In recent ages, under her financial pressure, Eome had 
 asserted that the infinite merits of our Saviour, M 
 
 . 1 1 lie theory of 
 
 together With the good works ot supererogation rapererogar 
 of many holy men, constituted, as it were, a n " 11 ' 
 fund from which might bo discharged penalties of sins 
 of every kind, for the dead as well as the living, and 
 therefore available for those who had passed into 
 Purgatory, as well as for us who remain. This fund, 
 committed to the care of St. Peter and his successors, may 
 be disbursed, under the form of indulgences, by and nature of 
 sale for money. A traffic in indulgences was indulgences, 
 thus carried on to a great extent through the medium of 
 the monks, who received a commission upon the profits. 
 Of course, it is plain that the religious conception of such 
 a transaction is liable to adverse criticism the bartering 
 for money so holy a thing as the merit of our Kedeemer. 
 This was, however, only the ostensible explanation, which 
 it was judged necessary to present to sincerely pious 
 communities; behind it there lay the real reason, which 
 was essentially ot' a political kind. It was absolutely 
 necessary that papal Eome should control a revenue far 
 beyond that arising in a strictly legitimate way. As all 
 the world had been drained of money by the senate and 
 Caesars for the support of republican or imperial power, 
 so too there was a need of a like supply for the use of 
 the pontiffs. The collection of funds had often given rise 
 t i contentions between the ecclesiastical and temporal 
 authorities, and in some of the more sturdy countries had 
 been resolutely resisted. To collect a direct tax is often 
 1 1 troublesome affair; but such is human nature — a man 
 from whom it might be difficult to extort the payment of 
 an impost lawfully laid, will often cheerfully rind means 
 to purchase for himself indulgence for sin. In such a 
 semi harbarian but yet religious population as that with 
 which the Church was dealing, it was quite clear that 
 tin's manner of presenting things possessed singular 
 
20S 
 
 THK AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 advantages, an obvious equivalent being given for thr 
 money received. The indulgence implied not only 'a 
 release from celestial, but also, in many cases, from civil 
 penalties. It was an absolute guarantee from hell. 
 
 It is said that the attention of Martin Luther, formerly 
 Martin Lu- an Augustinian monk, was first attracted to this 
 ther - subject by the traffic having been conferred on 
 
 the Dominicans instead of upon his own order at the time 
 when Leo X. was raising funds by this means for building 
 St. Peter's at Eome, a.d. 1517. That was probably only 
 an insinuation of Luther's adversaries, and is very far 
 from being borne out by his subsequent conduct. His 
 first public movement was the putting forth of ninety- 
 five theses against the practice. He posted them on the 
 door of the cathedral of Wittenberg, and enforced them 
 in his sermons, though at this time he professed obedience 
 to the papal authority. With a rapidity probably un- 
 expected by him, his acts excited public attention so 
 strongly, that, though the pope was at first disposed to 
 regard the whole affair as a mere monkish squabble for 
 gains, it soon became obvious, from the manner in which 
 the commotion was spreading, that something must be 
 done to check it. The pope therefore summoned Luther 
 to Eome to answer for himself : but through the influence 
 of certain great personages, and receiving a submissive 
 letter from the accused, he, on reconsideration, referred 
 the matter to Cardinal Cajetan, his legate in Germany. 
 The cardinal, on looking into the affair, ordered Luther 
 to retract ; and now came into prominence the mental 
 qualities of this great man. Luther, with respectful 
 firmness, refused ; but remembering John Huss, and 
 fearing that the imperial safe-conduct which had been 
 given to him would be insufficient for his protection, ho 
 secretly returned to Wittenberg, having first, however 
 solemnly appealed from the pope, ill informed at the 
 time, to the pope when he should have been better 
 instructed. Thereupon he was condemned as a heretic. 
 Undismayed, he continued to defend his opinions ; but, 
 finding himself in imminent danger, he fell upon the 
 suggestion which, since the days of Philip the Fair, had 
 been recognized as the true method of dealing with the 
 
Rtf. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OP REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 209 
 
 papacy, and appealed to a general council as the true 
 representative of the Church, and therefore superior to 
 the pope, who is not infallible any more than St. Peter 
 himself had been. To this denial of papal authority he 
 Boon added a dissent from the doctrines of purgatory, 
 auricular confession, absolution. It was now that the 
 grand idea which had hitherto silently lain at 
 the bottom of the whole movement emerged individual 0 
 into prominence — the right of individual iudg- Judgment 
 
 I o m m •' © asserted. 
 
 ment — under the dogma that it is not papal 
 authority which should be the guide of life, but the Bible, 
 and that the r>il>le is to be interpreted by private judg- 
 ment. Thus far it had been received that the Bible 
 derives its authenticity and authority from the Church ; 
 now it was asserted that the Church derives her authen- 
 ticity and authority from the Bibb). At this moment there 
 was but one course for the Italian court to take with the 
 audacious offender, for this new doctrine of the right of 
 exercising private judgment in matters of faith was 
 dangerous to the last extreme, and not to be tolerated for 
 a moment. Luther was therefore ordered to recant, and to 
 burn his own works, under penalty, if disobe- Kxconinni _ 
 dient, of being excommunicated, and delivered nkationof 
 over unto Satan. The bull thus issued directed Lu<her " 
 all secular princes to seize his person and punish his 
 crimes. 
 
 But Luther was not to be intimidated ; nay, more, he 
 retaliated. I To denounced the pope, as Frederick Heresista and 
 and the Fratricelli had formerly done, as the publicly 
 Man of Sin, the Anti-Christ. He called upon bu ™ stb ^ 11 - 
 all Christian princes to shake off his tyranny. In presence 
 of a great concourse of applauding spectators, he committed 
 the volumes of the canon law and the bull of excommunica- 
 tion to the flames. The pope now issued another bull 
 expelling him from the Church. This was in January, 
 1521. This separation opened to Luther an unrestrained 
 career. He forthwith proceeded to an examination of tin 
 Italian system of theology and policy, in which he was 
 joined by many talented men who participated in his 
 views. The Emperor Charles V. found it necessary to use 
 all liis influence t<> check the spreading Reformation. But 
 
 vol. U< p 
 
210 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 it was alreach too late, for Luther had obtained the firm 
 support of many personages of influence, and his doctrines 
 were finding defenders among some of the ablest men in 
 Europe. 
 
 An imperial diet was therefore held at Worms, be- 
 fore which Luther, being summoned, appeared. But 
 nothing could induce him to retract his opinions. An 
 edict was published putting him under the ban of the 
 umpire; but the Elector of Saxony concealed him in the 
 andtherevoii castle of Wartburg. While he was in this re- 
 B P reads - tJrement his doctrines were rapidly extending, 
 the Augustinians of Wittenberg not hesitating to change 
 the usages of the Church, abolishing private masses, and 
 giving the cup as well as the bread to the laity. 
 
 While Germany was agitated to her centre, a like 
 TheSwiss revolt against Italian supremacy broke out in 
 Reformation. Switzerland. It too commenced on the question 
 Zuingiius. o f i n( i u igences, and found a leader in Zuinglius. 
 
 Even at this early period the inevitable course of events 
 was beginning to be plainly displayed in sectarian de- 
 composition ; for, while the German and Swiss Eeformers 
 agreed in their relation toward the papal authority, they 
 differed widely from each other on some important 
 doctrinal points, more especially as to the nature of the 
 Eucharist. The Germans supposed that the body and 
 blood of Christ are actually present in the bread and 
 wine in some mysterious way ; the Swiss believed that 
 those substances are only emblems or symbols. Both 
 totally rejected the Italian doctrine of transubstantiation. 
 The old ideas of Berengar were therefore again fermenting 
 among men. An attempt was made, under the auspices 
 of the Landgrave of Hesse, to compose the dissension in a 
 conference at Marburg ; but it was found, after a long 
 disputation, that neither party would give up its views, 
 and they therefore separated, as it was said, in Christian 
 charity, but not in brotherhood. 
 
 At the first Diet of Spires, held in 1526, it was tried to 
 procure the execution of the sentence passed upon Luther, 
 but the party of the Eeformation proved to be too strong 
 for the Catholics. At a second diet, held at the same 
 place three rears subsequently, it was resolved that no 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 the age of reason in Europe. 
 
 211 
 
 change should l»e made in the established religion before 
 the action of a general council, which had been recom- 
 mended by both diets, should be known. On this occa- 
 sion the Catholic interest preponderated sufficiently to 
 procure a revocation of the power which had been conceded 
 to the princes of the empire of managing for a time the 
 ecclesiastical matters of their own dominions. Thp Protest . 
 Against this action several of the princes and ants; origin 
 cities protested, this being the origin of the ofthename - 
 
 designation Protestants subsequently given to the Re- 
 formers. At 8 diet held the following year at Augsburg, 
 a statement, composed by Luther and Melanchthon, of the 
 doctrines of the Reformers was presented ; it also treated 
 to some extent of the errors and superstitions of the 
 Catholics. This is what is known as the Confession of 
 
 Augsburg. The diel however not Ollly rejected organization 
 
 it. but condemned most of its doctrines. The «.f the Refor- 
 rrotestants, therefore, in an assembly at Smal- nmtion - 
 cable, contracted a treaty for their common defence, and 
 this may be looked upon as the epoch of organization of 
 the Reformation. This league did not include the 
 Reformers of Switzerland, who conld not conscientiously 
 adopt the Confession of Augsburg, which was its essential 
 basis. The Baoramentarians, as they were called, became 
 thus politically divided from the Lutherans. Moreover, 
 in Switzerland the process of decomposition went on, 
 Calvin establishing a new sect, characterized by the 
 manner in which it insisted on the Augustinian doctrines 
 of predestination and election, by the abolition of all 
 festivals, and the discontinuance of Church ceremonies. 
 At a later period the followers of Zuinglius and Calvin 
 <•< talesoed. 
 
 The political combinations which had thus occurred as 
 Protestantism rapidly acquired temporal power 
 gave rise, as might have been anticipated, to tlon. Peace 
 wars. The peace of Augsburg, 1555, furnished °t^ t " 
 the Keformers the substantial advantages they P a m * 
 sought — freedom from Italian ecclesiastical authority, the 
 right of all Germans to judge for themselves in matters 
 of religion, equality in civil privileges for them and the 
 Catholics, A second time, sixty-four years subsequently, 
 
 v 2 
 
212 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [OH. VI. 
 
 war broke out — the Thirty Years' War — and finally the 
 dispute was eomposed by the treaty of Westphalia. This 
 may be regarded as the culmination of the Reformation. 
 Peace was made in spite of all the intrigues and opposition 
 of Rome. 
 
 The doctrines of the Reformation were adopted with sin- 
 Extent of the gulxr avidity throughout the north of Europe, 
 movement. an( j established themselves for a time in France 
 and in Italy. Even as early as 1558 a report of the 
 Venetian ambassador estimates the Catholics of the 
 German empire at only one-tenth of the population. For 
 twenty years not a student of the University of Vienna 
 had become a priest. 
 
 Such was the Reformation among the German nations. 
 Jt is not possible, however, to comprehend correctly that 
 The revolt in great movement without understanding the 
 Italy. course of events in Italy, for that peninsula 
 
 was involved, though in a very different way. In its 
 intellectual condition it was far in advance of the rest of 
 Europe, as is proved by such facts as those to which we 
 have alluded respecting the printing of books. Between 
 it and the nations of which we have been speaking there 
 was also a wide difference in material interests. What 
 was extorted from them was eiij'03-ed by it. The mental 
 and material condition of Italy soon set a limit to the 
 progress of the Reformation. 
 
 The Italians had long looked upon the transalpine 
 Position of nations with contempt. On the principle that 
 the Italians, the intellectually strong may lawfully prey on 
 the intellectually weak, they had systematically drained 
 them of their wealth. As we exchange with savages 
 beads, and looking-glasses, and nails, for gold, they had 
 driven a profitable barter with the valiant but illiterate 
 barbarians, exchanging possessions in heaven for the 
 wealth of the earth, and selling for money immunities or 
 indulgences for sin. But in another respect they had 
 looked upon them with dread — they had felt the edge of 
 the French and German sword. The educated classes, 
 though seeking the widest liberty of thought for them- 
 selves, were not disposed to more than a very select 
 propagandism of opinions, which plainly could only be 
 
cH. VI. J 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUBOPE. 
 
 213 
 
 detrimental to the pecuniary interests of their eoimtry. 
 Their faith had long ago ceased to l>e that of conviction; 
 it lutd 1 limine a mere outward patriotic acquiescence. 
 Even those who were willing enough to indulge them- 
 selves in the utmost latitude of personal free-thinking 
 never made an objection when some indiscreet zealot of 
 their own kind was compelled by ecclesiastical pressure to 
 flee beyond the Alps. No part of Europe was so full of 
 irreligion as Italy. It amounted to a philosophical infi- 
 delity among tlie higher elasses; to Arianism among the 
 middle and less instructed ; to an utter carelessness, not 
 even giving itself the trouble of disbelief, among statt- of their 
 the low. The universities and learned academies ""^rsities. 
 were hotbeds of heresy; thus the University of Padua 
 was accused of having hecii for long a focus of atheism, 
 and again and again learned academies, as those of Modena 
 and Venice, had heen suppressed for heresy. sutcofthe 
 The device of the Academy of the Lyncei learned aca- 
 indicated only too plainly the spirit of these dem,es 
 institutions ; it was a lynx, with its eyes turned upward 
 to heaven, tearing the triple-headed Cerberus with its 
 daws. Nor was this alarming condition restricted to 
 Italy ; France had long participated in it. From the 
 University of Paris, that watch-tower of the Church, the 
 alarm had often heen sounded : now it was against men, 
 now against hooks. Once, under its suggestions, the read- 
 ing of the physics and metaphysics of Aristotle had been 
 prohibited, and works of philosophy interdicted until they 
 should have been corrected by the theologians of the 
 Church. The physical heresies of Galileo, the pantheism 
 of Csesalpinus had friendly counterparts in France. Even 
 the head of the Church, Leo X., at the beginning of the 
 Re formation, could not escape obloquy, and stories were 
 ■ •irculated touching his elevation to the pontificate at once 
 prejudicial to his morals and to his belief. 
 
 In such an ominous condition, the necessity of carrying 
 ill the policy to which Italy had so long been False position 
 committed perpetually forced the papal Govern- °r tho papacy, 
 ment to acts against which the instructed judgment 
 of it own officials revolted. It was a continual struggle 
 between their duty and their disposition. Why should 
 
214 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 they have thought it expedient to suppress the Koran 
 when it was printed in Venice, 1530 ? why, when Paul IV.. 
 1559, promulgated the Index Expurgatorius of pro- 
 hibited books, was it found necessary that not less than 
 forty-eight editions of the Bible should be included in it, 
 sixty-one printers put under the ban, and all their publica- 
 tions forbidden, at first the interdict being against all 
 prohibited books, and, on this being found insufficient, even 
 those that had not been permitted being prohibited ? Why 
 was it that Galileo was dealt with so considerately and 
 yet so malignantly? It was plain that toleration, either 
 of men or books, was altogether irreconcilable with the 
 principles of the Holy See, and that under its stern 
 exigencies the former must be disposed of, and the latter 
 suppressed or burnt, no matter what personal inclinations 
 or favouring sentiments might be in the way. If any 
 faltering took place in the carrying out of this determina- 
 tion, the control of Rome over the human mind would be 
 put into the most imminent jeopardy. 
 
 So stood affairs in Italy at the beginning and during 
 the active period of the Reformation, the ancient system 
 Check of the inexorably pressing upon the leading men, and 
 Reformation impelling them to acts against which their 
 m Italy. better judgment revolted. They were bound 
 down to the interests of their country, those interests being 
 interwoven with conditions which they could no longer 
 intellectually accept. For men of this class the German 
 and Swiss reformations did not go far enough. They 
 affirmed that things were left just as inconsistent, with 
 reason, just as indefensible as before. Doubtless they con- 
 sidered that the paring away of the worship of saints, 
 of absolution for money, penances, indulgences, freedom 
 from papal taxation, the repudiation of intrusive foreign 
 ecclesiastics, was all to the detriment of the pecuniary 
 interests of Italy. They affirmed that the doctrines put 
 forth by the Eeformers made good their ground, not 
 through the force of reason, but through appeals to the 
 ignorant, and even to women ; not through an improved 
 and sounder criticism, but, as it was declared, through the 
 inward light of the Spirit ; that nothing had been done to 
 alleviate the ancient intolerant dogmatism, the forcible 
 
UH. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 215 
 
 suppression of freedom of thought. Leo X., it is well 
 known, at first altogether mistook the nature of Leo X.; hi 
 the Reformation. He was a man of refined character, 
 tastes and pleasure, delighting in sumptuous feasts, ana 
 too often scandalizing the devout by his indecent con- 
 versation and licentious conduct. He gloried in being the 
 patron of the learned, devoting all his attention to the 
 progress of literature and the fine arts, a connoisseur in 
 antiques. The amenities of the life of an accomplished 
 gentleman were not to he disturbed. lie little dreamt that 
 in the coarse German monk there was an antagonist worthy 
 of the papacy. The gay Italians looked upon Luther 
 with ineffable contempt, as introducing ideas even more 
 absurd than those he was trying to displace, and, what 
 was perhaps a still greater offence, upholding his bad 
 doctrines in worse J, at in. They affected to believe that 
 they discerned a taint of insanity in the Reformer's 
 account of his conflicts witli the I )cvil, yet were willing 
 to concede that there was a method in his madness, since 
 he was bent on having a wife. In their opinion, the result 
 of the (ierman movement must be exceedingly detrimental 
 to learning, and necessarily lead to the production of very 
 vulgar results, exciting among the common people a revo- 
 lutionary and destructive spirit. Nor was this personal 
 distaste for Luther altogether undeserved. The caricatures 
 which ihaf great man permitted himself to put forth are 
 too indelicate to be described to a modern reader. They 
 would be worthy of our disgust and indignation did we 
 not find some palliation in the coarseness of the com- 
 munities and times in which he lived. Leo awoke to his 
 blunder whe n it was too late, and found that he had been 
 superciliously sneering at what he should have combated 
 with all his might. 
 
 It is now more than three centuries since the Reforma- 
 tion commenced, and we are able, with some oh CCko f t i, e 
 degree of accuracy, to ascertain its influence. Reformation 
 Founded as it was on the right of private n hurope - 
 interpretation of the Scriptures, it introduced a better 
 rule of life, and made a great advance towards intellectual 
 liberty. It compelled men to be more moral, and per- 
 mitted them to be more learned. For the traditions of 
 
21(5 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 superstition it substituted the dictates of common sense ; 
 it put an end to the disgraceful miracles that for so many- 
 ages had been the scandal of Europe. The assertion of 
 the Italians that it was a great injury to letters is untrue 
 Though not to be regarded in any respect as a learned 
 man, Luther approved of the stucVy of Greek and Hebrew, 
 recognized by all parties to be dangerous to the Latin 
 system. And even if the accusation be admitted that he 
 approved of their cultivation, not from any love of them, 
 but from hatred to it, the world was equally a gainer. 
 Toward the close of his life it seemed as if there w r as no 
 other prospect for papal power than total ruin: yet at this 
 day, out of three hundred millions of Christians, more 
 than half owe allegiance to Borne. Almost as if by en- 
 chantment the Reformation suddenly ceased to advance. 
 Home was not only able to check its spread, but even to 
 gain back a portion of what she had lost. The 
 
 its CilUSCS o . J- . 
 
 were not cause of this, which may t>cem at first an extra- 
 supernatural. orc [i naiy rcS ult, is not to be attributed to any 
 supernatural influence, as some have supposed. When 
 natural causes suffice, it is needless to look for super- 
 natural. 
 
 Though there might be sovereigns who, like Henry 
 VIII., had personal reasons for discontent with the Italian 
 court ; though there were some who sought to usurp the 
 power and prerogatives of tl e popes ; though there might 
 be nobles who, as the Prince of Wales's tutor wrote to Sir 
 W. Paget, were " importunate wolves, as are able to de- 
 vour chantries, cathedral churches, universities, and a thou- 
 sand times as much some who desired the plunder of 
 establishments endowed by the piety of ages, and who 
 therefore lent all their influence in behalf of this great 
 revolution ; there was among such and above such that, 
 small but all-important body of men who see 
 
 Influence of-. w. . n n 1 i • x ' 
 
 statesmen human affairs irom the most general point 01 
 Gophers 10 " v i ew - To these, whatever might be the natior 
 to which they happened to belong, it wa„ 
 perfectly evident that the decomposition of faith which 
 had set in. if permitted to go on unchecked, could not 
 possibly end in any other way than in producing an anarchy 
 of sects. In their opinion, the German Eeformation did 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 i'HE AGE OF REASON IN EUBOPE. 
 
 217 
 
 nut go far enough. It still practically left untouched the 
 dependency of the Church upon the >State. In the southern 
 nations of the Continent it had merely irritated the great 
 Ihimpran ulcer, whereas what was required was the com- 
 plete amputation of the rotten mass. In their judgment 
 it was hotter to leave things as they were until a thorough 
 eradication could l>e accomplished, and this, at the time, 
 was obviously impossible. Not understanding, perhaps, 
 how much human affairs are developed according to law, 
 ;oid how little by the volition of individuals, they liberally 
 conceded that Catholicism had heen the civilizing agency 
 of Europe, and had hecome inwoven with the social fabric 
 f<>r good or for evil. It could not now be withdrawn 
 without pulling the whole texture to pieces. Moreover, 
 the cm-lain of papal authority, which atone time enveloped 
 all Europe in its ample folds, had, in the course of these 
 late events, been contracted and stretched across the 
 Continent, dividing the northern and southern nations 
 from each other. The people of the south saw on its em- 
 hroidered surface nothing but forms of usefulness and 
 beauty, they on the north a confusion of meaningless 
 threads. But the few w ho considered it as a whole, and 
 
 underst 1 the relations of both sides, knew well enough 
 
 that the one is the necessary incident of the other, and that 
 it is quite as useless to seek for explanations as to justify 
 appearances. To them it was perfectly clear that the 
 tranquillity and happiness of Christendom were best sub- 
 served by giving no encouragement to opinions which had 
 already occasioned so much trouble, and which seemed to 
 contain in their very constitution principles of social 
 disorganization. 
 
 A reason for the sudden loss of expansive force in the 
 Reformation is found in its own intrinsic nature. 
 The principle of decomposition which it repre- the nature of 
 Ben ted, and with which it was inextricably tbo R eforma- 
 entangled, necessarily implied oppugnancy. tor 
 a short season the attention of Protestantism was altogether 
 directed to the papal authority from which it had so 
 recently separated itself; but, with its growing strength 
 and ascertained independence, that object ceased to occupy 
 it, becoming, as it were, more distant and more obscure. 
 
218 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 Upon the subordinate divisions which were springing 
 from it, or which were of collateral descent from the 
 original Catholic stock, the whole view of each denomi- 
 nation was concentrated. The bitterness once directed 
 against the papacy lost none of its intensity when pointed 
 at rivals or enemies nearer home. Nor was it alone 
 dissensions among the greater sects, oppositions such as 
 those between the Church of England and the Church of 
 Scotland, whose discords were founded on points admitted 
 by all to be great and essential ; the same principle ran 
 down through all the modes of sectarian combination as 
 they emerged into life, producing among those of equal 
 Kffectof power struggles, and in the strong toward the 
 sectarian dia- weak persecution. Very soon the process of de- 
 pu es. composition had advanced to such an extent that 
 
 minor sects came into existence on very unessential points. 
 Yet even among these little bodies there was just as much 
 acrimony, just as much hatred as among the great. These 
 differences were carried into the affairs of civil life, each 
 sect forming a society within itself, and abstaining, as 
 far as might be, from associations with its rivals. Of such 
 a state of things the necessary result was weakness, and, 
 had there been no other reason, this in itself would have 
 been quite sufficient in the end to deprive Protestantism 
 of its aggressive power. An army divided against itself 
 is in no condition to make warfare against a watchful and 
 vigorous enemy. 
 
 But this was not all. It was in the nature of Pro- 
 Wantofcon- testantism from its outset that it was not con- 
 centrated structive. Unlike its great antagonist, it 
 power. contained no fundamental principle that could 
 combine distant communities and foreign countries 
 together. It originated in dissent, and was embodied by 
 separation. It could not possess a concentrated power, 
 nor recognize one apostolic man who might compress its 
 disputes, harmonize its powers, wield it as a mass. For 
 the attainment of his aims the Protestant had only wishes, 
 the Catholic had a will. The Church of England, of 
 Scotland, or of any other Protestant nation, undoubtedly 
 did discharge its duty excellently well for the community 
 in which it was placed, but, at the most, it was only a 
 
CH. VI. J 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 219 
 
 purely local institution, altogether insignificant in com- 
 parison with that great old Church, hoary and venerable 
 with age, whirl 1 had seen every government and every 
 institution in Kuropo come into existence, many of them 
 at its bidding, which had extirpated paganism from the 
 Roman empire, compelled the Ca?sars to obey its mandates, 
 precipitated the whole white race upon the Holy Land - 
 that great old Church, once the more than imperial 
 sovereign of Christendom, and of which the most respect- 
 able national Church was only a fragment of a fragment. 
 
 Very different was it with Catholicism. It possessed 
 an organization which concentrated in the hand Condition of 
 of Olie man irresistible power, and included all Catholicism, 
 the southern countries of Europe not Mohammedan. It 
 c<»uld enforce its policy by the armies and fleets of obedient 
 kings. It is not surprising, when this state of things is 
 considered, that the spread of the Reformation was limited 
 to its first fervour that the men who saw its origin saw- 
 also its culmination. It is not to bo wondered at that, 
 with the political weakening arising from a tendency to 
 subdivision and disintegration on one side, and the pre- 
 paring of a complete and effective organization against 
 the danger that was threatening on the other, the issue 
 should have turned out as it did. 
 
 Koine, awaking at last to her danger, met the Reforma- 
 tion with lour weapons - a counter-reformation, 
 
 j • • 1 1 t • • ,• .i The means of 
 
 an increased vigour in the Inquisition, the resistance 
 
 institution of the Jesuits, and a greater em- J£ m *' ;i1 to by 
 bellishment of worship. The disposition of the 
 northern nations was to a simplification of worship, that 
 of the south to adorn it with whatever could captivate 
 the senses. Ranke asserts that the composition of the 
 mass of Marcellus by Palestrina, 1 560, had a wonderful 
 effect in the revival of religion ; there can be no doubt that 
 it constituted an epoch in devotion. But of all a ooonter- 
 these, the first and best was a moral change reformatlon ' 
 which she instantly imposed upon herself. Henceforth it 
 was her intention that in the chair of St. Peter should 
 never again be seen atheists, poisoners, thieves, murderers, 
 blasphemers, adulterers, but men, who, if they were some- 
 times found, as must be the ease, considering the infirmities 
 
220 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. [CH. VI. 
 
 of humanity, incompetent to deal with the great trials 
 which often befell them, were yet of such personal purity, 
 holiness of life, and uprightness of intention as to command 
 profound respect. Those scandals that hitherto had every- 
 where disgraced her began to disappear, a true reforma- 
 tion, but not a schism, occurring through all ecclesiastical 
 grades. Had Protestantism produced no other result than 
 this, it would have been an unspeakable blessing to the 
 world. 
 
 By another very different means the Italian power 
 The Inqutei- sought to insure its domination — by an increased 
 tion brought activity of the Inquisition. It is difficult to 
 intoactiMtA. mi( ] (Ts f. m( i ] low mun 0 f capacity could have 
 
 justified this iniquitous institution. Certainly it could 
 not have been upon any principles of Christian morality, 
 nor even upon those of high statesmanship. For the 
 Inquisition to accomplish its purpose, it must needs be as 
 all-seeing as Providence, as inexorable as the grave; not 
 inflicting punishments which the sufferer could remember, 
 but remorselessly killing outright ; not troubling itself to 
 ascertain the merits of a case and giving the accused the 
 benefit of a doubt, but regarding suspicion and certainty 
 as the same thing. If worked with the unscrupulous, 
 imj)assive resolution of Machiavellianism, this great en- 
 gine for the coercion of the human mind could be made 
 to accomplish its purpose. It thoroughly extinguished 
 Protestantism in Spain and Italy, and in those countries 
 maintained a barrier against the progressive reason of 
 man. 
 
 But the most effective weapon to which the papacy 
 The Jesuits resorted was the institution of the order of the 
 are esta- Jesuits. This was established by a bull of Paul 
 wished. ni ^ 1540 ^ t]ie ruleg being t]iat the general) 
 
 chosen for life, should be obeyed as God ; that they should 
 vow poverty, chastity, obedience, and go wherever they 
 were commanded ; their obedience was to the pope, not to 
 the Church — a most politic distinction, for thereby an 
 unmistakable responsibility was secured. They had no 
 regular hours of prayer; their duties were preaching, the 
 direction of consciences, education. By the Jesuits Eome 
 penetrated into the remotest corners of the earth, esta- 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 THE AGK OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 221 
 
 blished links of communication with her children who 
 remained true to her in the heart of Protestant countries, 
 and. with a far-seeing policy for the future, silently en- 
 grossed the education of the young. At the confessional 
 she extorted from women the hidden secrets of their lives 
 and those of their families, took the lead in devotion 
 wherever there were pious men, and was equally Thoir lnfiu- 
 foremost in the world of fashion and dissipation, i-nee ail over 
 There was no guise under which the Jesuit the ^ orM - 
 might not he found— a harefoot beggar, clothed in rags; 
 a learned professor, lecturing gratuitously to scientific 
 audiences ; a man of the world, living in profusion and 
 princely extravagance; there have been Jesuits the 
 wearers of crowns. There were no places into which they 
 did not find their way : a visitor to one of the loyal old 
 families of England could never be sure but that there 
 was a Jesuit hidden in the garret or secreted behind the 
 wainscot of the bedroom. They were the advisers of the 
 leading men of the age, sat in the cabinets of kings, and 
 were their confessors. They boasted that they were the 
 'ink between religious opinion and literature. With im- 
 plicit and unquestioning obedience to his superior, like 
 a good soldier, it was the paramount duty of the Jesuit to 
 obey his orders, whatever those orders might be. It was 
 for him to go, at the summons of a moment, with his life 
 in his hand, to the very centre of pagan or of reformed and 
 revolted countries, where his presence was death by law, 
 and execute the mission intrusted to him. If he succeeded, 
 it was well ; if he should fall, it was also well. To him 
 all things were proper for the sake of the Church. It was 
 his business to consider how the affair he had in hand was 
 to be most surely accomplished — to resort to justifiable 
 means if they should appear sufficient, if not, to unjustifi- 
 able ; to the spiritual weapon, but also to be prepared with 
 the carnal ; to sacrifice candour if the occasion should 
 require, if necessary even truth, remembering that the 
 end justifies the means, if that end is the good of the 
 Church. 
 
 While some religious orders were founded on retirement, 
 and aimed at personal improvement by solitude, the 
 Jesuits were instructed to mix in the affairs of men, and 
 
222 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 gather experience in the ways of worldly wisdom. And 
 since it is the infirmity of humanity, whatever maybe the 
 vigour of its first intentions, too often to weary in well- 
 doing, provision was made to » re-enforce the zeal of those 
 becoming lukewarm to admonish the delinquent, by 
 making each a spy on all the others, under oath to reveal 
 everything to his superior. In that manner a control was 
 exercised over the brotherhood in all parts of the world. 
 In Europe they had. in a very short time, stealthily but 
 largely engrossed public education ; had mixed themselves 
 up with every public affair ; were at the bottom of every 
 intrigue, making their power it'll through the control they 
 exerted over sovereigns, ministers of state, and great court 
 ladies, influencing the last through the spiritual means 
 of the confessional, or by the more natural but equally 
 effectual entanglements of requited love. Already they 
 had recognized the agency of commerce in promoting and 
 diffusing religious belief, and hence simultaneously became 
 great missionaries and great merchants. AVith the Indies, 
 East and West, they carried forward extensive commercial 
 undertakings, and had depots in various parts of Europe. 
 In these operations they were necessarily absolved from 
 their vows of poverty, and became immensely rich. In 
 {South America they obtained a footing in Paraguay, and 
 commenced their noble attempt at the civilization of the 
 Indians, bringing them into communities, teaching them 
 social usages, agricultural arts, and the benefits arising to 
 themselves and the community from labour. They gave 
 them a military organization, subdivided according to the 
 European system, into the customary arms — infantry, 
 cavalry, artillery ; they supplied them with munitions of 
 w r ar. It was their hope that from this basis they should 
 be able to spread the rule of the Church over America, as 
 had been done in preceding ages over Europe. 
 
 An intolerable apprehension of their invisible presence 
 Causes of an( ^ unscrupulous agency made all Europe put 
 their suppres- them down at last. The amenities of exquisite 
 6,on ' courteousness, the artifices of infinite dissimula- 
 
 tion, cannot for ever deceive. Men found, by bitter ex- 
 perience, that within the silken glove there was an iron 
 hand. From their general in Rome, wdio w r as absolute 
 
H. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OK Ell A SON IN EUROPE. 
 
 223 
 
 commander of their persons and unchallengeable adminis- 
 trator of their prodigious wealth, down to the humblest 
 missionary who was wearing away his life among the 
 Andes, or on the banks of the Iloang-ho, or in the solitary 
 prairies of Missouri, or under the blazing sun of Abyssinia 
 — whether lie was confessing the butterfly ladies of Paris, 
 whispering devilish suggestions into the ear of the King 
 of Spain, consoling the dying peasant in an Irish cabin, 
 arguing with mandarins in the palace of the Emperor of 
 China, stealing away the hearts of the rising generation 
 in the lower schools and academies, extorting the admira- 
 t ion of learned societies by the profundity of his philosophy 
 and the brilliancy of his scientific discoveries — whether 
 he was to be seen in the exchanges and marts of the great 
 capitals, supervising commercial operations on a scale 
 which up to that time had been attempted by none but 
 the Jews — whether he was held in an English jail as a 
 suspected vagabond, or sitting on the throne of France — 
 whether he appeared as a great landed proprietor, the owner 
 of countless leagues in the remote parts of India or South 
 America, or whether he was mixing with crowds in the 
 streets of London, and insinuating in Protestant ears the 
 rights of subjects to oppose and even depose their monarchs, 
 or in the villages of < 'astile and Leon, preaching before 
 Catholic peasants the paramount duty of a good Christian 
 implicitly to obey the mandates of his king — wherever the 
 Jesuit was, or whatever he was doing, men universally felt 
 that the thing he had in hand was only auxiliary to some 
 higher, some hidden design. This stealth, and silence, and 
 power became at last so intolerable that the Jesuits were 
 banished from France, Spain, Portugal, and other Catholic 
 countries. But such was their vitality that, though the 
 <>rder was abolished by a papal bull in 1773, they have 
 1 ocn again restored. 
 
 Though it is sometimes said that Pome in this manner, 
 by her admirable combinations and irresistible Effects of 
 movement, succeeded at last in checking the change of 
 Reformation, a full consideration of the state of among the 
 affairs would lead us to receive that assertion leanied - 
 with very considerable restriction. She came out of the 
 conflict mueh less powerful than she had entered it. If 
 
224 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [Cli. VI. 
 
 we attribute to her policy all that it can justly claim, we 
 must also attribute to causes over which she had no kind 
 of control their rightful influence. The Eeformation had 
 been, to no small extent, due to the rise of criticism, which 
 still continued its development, and was still fruitful of 
 results. Latin had fallen from its high estate ; the modern 
 languages were in all directions expanding and improving ; 
 the printing-press was not only giving Greek learning to 
 the world, but countless translations and commentaries. 
 The doctrine successfully established by Luther and his 
 colleagues — the right of private interpretation and judg- 
 ment — was the practical carrying out of the organic law 
 of criticism to the highest affairs with which man can be 
 concerned — affairs of religion. The Eeformation itself, 
 philosophically considered, really meant the casting off 
 of authority, the installation of individual inquiry and 
 personal opinion. If criticism, thus standing upon the 
 basis of the Holy Scriptures, had not hesitated to apply 
 itself to an examination of public faith, and, as the con- 
 sequence thereof, had laid down new rules for 
 Seism on morality and the guidance of life, it was not to 
 uterature nd ^ e ex P ec ^ e ^ ^ na ^ ^ would hesitate to deal with 
 minor things — that it would spare the philo- 
 sophy, the policy, the literature of antiquity. And so, 
 indeed, it went on, comparing classical au hors with 
 classical authors, the fathers with the fathers, often the 
 same writer with himself. Contradictions were pointed 
 out, errors exposed, weakness detected, and new views 
 offered of almost everything within the range of literature. 
 
 From this burning ordeal one book alone came out un- 
 scathed. It was the Bible. It spontaneously 
 
 e 1 3 ' vindicated for itself what Wiclif in the former 
 times, and Luther more lately, had claimed for it. And net 
 only did it hold its ground, but it truly became incalcu- 
 lably more powerful than ever it had been before. The 
 press multiplied it in every language without end, until 
 there was scarcely a cottage in reformed Europe that did 
 not possess a copy. 
 
 But if criticism was thus the stimulating principle that 
 had given life to the Eeformation, it had no little to do 
 with its pause ; and this is the influence over which Eome 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 225 
 
 had no kind of control, and to which I have made allusion. 
 The phases through which the Keformation passed were 
 dependent on the coincident advances of learning. First 
 it relied on the Scriptures, which were to the last its surest 
 support ; then it included the Fathers. But, from a more 
 intimate study of the latter, many erudite Pro- Decline of the 
 testants were gradually brought back to the vaiueof 
 ancient fold. Among such may be mentioned {^l^g 
 Erasmus, who by degrees became alienated from 
 the Eeformers, and subsequently Grotius, the publication 
 of whose treatise, " De jure belli et pacis," 1625, really 
 constituted an epoch in the political system of Europe. 
 This great man had gradually become averse to the Befor- 
 mation, believing that, all things considered, it had done 
 more harm than good ; he had concluded that it was better 
 to throw differences into oblivion for the sake of peace, 
 and to enforce silence on one's own opinions, rather than 
 to expect that the Church should bo compelled to ac- 
 commodate herself to them. If such men as Erasmus, 
 Casaubon, and Grotius had been brought to this dilemma 
 by their profound philosophical meditations, their conclu- 
 sion was confirmed among the less reflecting by the 
 unhappy intolerance of the new as well as the old Church. 
 Men asked what was the difference between the Moraleffecta 
 vindictiveness with which Kome dealt with of persecu- 
 Antonio de Dominis, at once an ecclesiastic and tlons ' 
 a natural philosopher, who, having gone over to Pro- 
 testantism and then seceded, imprudently visited Eome, 
 was there arrested, and dying, his body was dug up and 
 burnt, and the rigour of Calvin, who seized Servetus, the 
 author of the " Christianismi Eestitutio," and in part the 
 discoverer of the circulation of the blood, when he happened 
 to pass through Geneva, and committed him to the flames. 
 
 Criticism had thus, in its earlier stage, produced well- 
 marked results. As it developed it lost none of End of pa- 
 its power. It had enthroned patristic theology ; tristicism, 
 now it wrenched from its hand the sceptre. In the works 
 of Daille it showed that the fathers are of no kind of use — 
 they are too contradictory of one another ; even Jeremy 
 Taylor speaks of their authority and reputation as clean 
 gone for ever. In a few years they had sunk into desue- 
 
 VOL. u. Q 
 
226 
 
 THE AGE OF PEA SON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 tude, a neglect shared by many classical authors, whoso 
 opinions were now only quoted with a respectful smile. 
 The admiration for antiquity was diminishing under the 
 effect of searching examination. Books were beginning to 
 appear, turning the old historians into ridicule for their 
 i he burning credulity. The death of Servetus was not with- 
 ofServetua out advantage to the world. There was not a 
 by ivin. pi ous 0 r thoughtful man in all reformed Europe 
 who was not si locked when the circumstances under which 
 that unhappy physician had keen brought to the stake at 
 Geneva by John Calvin wore made known. For two hours 
 he was roasted in the flames of a slow fire, Legging for the 
 love of God that they would put on more wood, or do 
 something to end his torture. Men asked, with amaze- 
 ment and indignation, if the atrocities of the Inquisition 
 were again to he revived. On all sides they began to 
 inquire how far it is lawful to inflict the punishment of 
 death for difference of opinion. It oj^ened their eyes to the 
 fact that, after all they had done, the state of civilization 
 in which they were living was still characterized by its 
 intolerance. In 1546 the Venetian ambassador at the 
 court of Charles V. reported to his government that in 
 Holland and Friesland more than thirty thousand persons 
 had suffered death at the hands of justice for Anabaptist 
 errors. From such an unpromising state of things tolera- 
 tion could only emerge with difficulty. It was the offspring, 
 not of charity, but of the checked animosities of ever- 
 multiplying sects, and the detected impossibility of their 
 coercing one another. 
 
 The history of the Reformation does not close, as 
 
 many European authors have imagined, in a 
 tiJn cou-™ 1 * balanced and final distribution of the north and 
 Ameiica south between the Protestant and the Catholic. 
 
 The predestined issue of sectarian differences and 
 dissensions is individual liberty of thought. So long as there 
 was one vast, overshadowing, intolerant corporation, every 
 man must bring his understanding to its measure, and 
 think only as it instructed him to do. As soon as dissent- 
 ing confessions gathered sufficient military power to main- 
 tain their right of existence — as soon as from them, in turn, 
 incessant offshoots were put forth, toleration became not 
 
CH. VI.] 
 
 THE AGE OF RKASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 227 
 
 only possible, but inevitable, and that is perhaps as far aa 
 the movement has at this time advanced in Europe. But 
 Macaulay and others 'who have treated of the Reformation 
 have taken too limited a view of it, suppo>ing that this 
 was its point of arrest. It made another enormous stride 
 wlien, (it the American Revolution, the State separation of 
 and the Church were solemnly and openly dis- church and 
 severed from one another. Now might the vatici- Mat0, 
 nations of the prophets of evil expect to find credit ; a great 
 people had irrevocably broken off its politics from its 
 theology, and it might surely have been expected that the 
 unbridled interests, and instincts, and passions of men 
 would have dragged evei thing into the abyss of anarchy. 
 Yet what do we, who are living nearly a century after 
 that time, find the event to be? Sectarian decomposition, 
 passing forward to its last extreme, is the process by 
 which individual mental liberty is engendered and main- 
 tained. A grand and imposing religious unity implies 
 tyranny to the individual; the increasing emergence of 
 serfs gives him increasing latitude of thought — with 
 their utmost multiplication he gains his utmost liberty, 
 in this respect, unity and liberty are in opposition; as the 
 one diminishes, the other increases. The Reformation 
 broke down unity ; it gave liberty to masses Emergence 
 of men grouped together in sufficient numbers of liberty of 
 to insure their position ; it is now invisibly, thou s bt - 
 but irresistibly making steps, never to be stayed until 
 there is an absolute mental emancipation for man. 
 
 Greal revolutions are not often accomplished without 
 much suiVeiing and many crimes. It might have been 
 supposed K fore the event, perhaps it is supposed by many 
 who are no1 privileged to live among the last results, that 
 this decomposition of religious faith must be to the detri- 
 ment of personal and practical piety. Yet America, in 
 which, of all countries, the Reformation at the The American 
 present moment has farthest advanced, should cler gy- 
 offer to thoughtful men much encouragement. Its cities 
 are filled with churches built by voluntary gifts ; its clergy 
 are voluntarily sustained, and are, in all directions, en- 
 gaged in enterprises of piety, education, mercy. What a 
 difference between their private life and that of ecclcsiasties 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 THE AGE OF REASON IN EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. VI. 
 
 before the Reformation ! Not, as in the old times, does 
 the layman look upon them as the cormorants and curse 
 of society ; they are his faithful advisers, his honoured 
 friends, under whose suggestion and supervision are in- 
 stituted educational establishments, colleges, hospitals, 
 whatever can be of benefit to men in this life, or secure 
 for them happiness in the life to cone. 
 
( 220 ) 
 
 CHATTER VII. 
 
 DKiKKSSION ON TIIK CONDITION OF ENGLAND AT THE 
 END OF THE A.GE OF FAITH. 
 
 BB8UI/EB PRODUCED BY T1IE AGE OF FAITH. 
 
 Com! if ion of Knyland ot the Su))}>ression of (ha Monant* ries. 
 
 Condition of Knyland at the close of the seventeenth Century. — Ljocomo- 
 t«m. Literature. Libraries. — Social and private Life of the Laity and 
 Clenjy. lirutality in the Administration of Laic. — 1'rojl iyacy of 
 Literature.— The Theatre, its three Liaises. — Miracle, Moral, and 
 L' al LI ays. 
 
 Estimate of the Ad ranee made in the Aye of Faith. — Comparison with 
 that already mad< in the Aye of lieason. 
 
 Arrived at the commencement of the Age of Reason, we 
 might profitably examine the social condition of those 
 countries destined to become conspicuous in the new order 
 of things. 1 have not space to present such an Resultaofthe 
 examination as extensively as it deserves, and Age of Faith, 
 must limit my remarks to that nation which, of all others, 
 is most interesting to the English or American reader — 
 that England which we picture to ourselves as foremost in 
 civilization, her universities datingback for many centuries, 
 her charters and laws, on which individual, and therefore 
 social, liberty rests, spoken of as the ancient privileges of 
 the realm ; her people a clear-headed race, lovers and stout 
 defenders of freedom. During by far the greater pait of 
 the past period she had been Catholic, but she 
 had also been Reformed — ever, as she will alwa} T s condition 
 be, religious. A correct estimate of her national J^jJJJJJ in 
 and individual life will point out to us all that 
 bad been done in the Age of Faith. From her condition 
 we inay gather what is the progress made by man when 
 
230 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IX ENGLAND. 
 
 [CH VII. 
 
 guided by such theological ideas as those which had been 
 her rule of life. 
 
 The following paragraphs convey an instructive lesson. 
 They dissipate some romantic errors ; they are a verdict 
 on a political system from its practical results. What a 
 contrast with the prodigious advancement made within 
 a few years when the Age of Reason had set in ! How 
 strikingly are we reminded of the inconsequential, the 
 fruitless actions of youth, and the deliberate, the durable 
 undertakings of manhood ! 
 
 For many of the facts I have now to mention the reader 
 will find authorities in the works of Lord Macaulay and 
 Mr. Fronde on English history. My own reading in other 
 directions satisfies me that the picture here offered 
 represents the actual condition of things. 
 
 At the time of the suppression of the monasteries in 
 England the influences which had been in opera- 
 
 Condition at , . ° r , -, r , 
 
 thesuppres- tion for so many centuries had come to an end. 
 Bion oi the |j a( j they endured a thousand years longer they 
 
 monasteries. •> . » J 
 
 could have accomplished nothing more. The con- 
 dition of human life shows what their uses and what their 
 failures had been. There were forests extending over 
 great districts ; fens forty or fifty miles in length, reeking 
 with miasm and fever, though round the walls of the 
 abbeys there might be beautiful gardens, green lawns, 
 shady walks, and many murmuring streams. In trackless 
 woods where men should have been, herds of deer were 
 straying ; the sandy hills were alive with conies, the downs 
 with flocks of bustards. The peasant's cabin was made of 
 reeds or sticks plastered over with mud. His fire was 
 chimneyless — often it was made of peat. In the objects 
 and manner of his existence he was but a step above the 
 industrious beaver who was building his dam in the 
 adjacent stream. There were highwaymen on the roads, 
 pirates on the rivers, vermin in abundance in the clothing 
 and beds. The common food was peas, vetches, fern 
 roots, and even the bark of trees. There was no commerce 
 to put off famine. Man was altogether at the mercy of 
 the seasons. Tne population, sparse as it was, was per- 
 petually thinned by pestilence and want. Nor was the 
 state of the townsman better than that of the rustic ; his 
 
j 
 
 A^.E OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 231 
 
 bed was a bag of straw, with a hard round log for his 
 pillow. I f lie was in easy circumstances, his clothing was 
 of leatlier, if poor, a wisp of straw wrapped round his 
 limbs kept off the c(»ld. It was a melancholy social condi- 
 tion when nothing intervened between reed cabins in the 
 fen, the miserable wigwams of villages, and the conspicuous 
 walls of the castle and monastery. Well might they who 
 live 1 in those times bewail the lot of the ague-stricken 
 peasant, and point, not without indignation, to the troops 
 of pilgrims, mendicants, pardoners, and ecclesiastics of 
 every grade who hung round the Church, to the nightly 
 wassail and rioting drunkenness in the castle-hall, secure 
 in its moats, its battlements, and its warders. The local 
 pivots round which society revolved were the red-handed 
 baron, familiar with scenes of outrage and deeds of blood, 
 and the abbot, indulging in the extreme of luxury, magni- 
 ficent in dress, exulting in his ambling palfrey, his hawk, 
 his hounds. Kural life had but little improved since the 
 time of (\esar; in its physical aspect it was altogether 
 m glect. '(1. As to tin; mechanic, how was it possible that 
 ho could exist where there were no windows made of glass, 
 not even of oiled paper, no workshop warmed by a fire. 
 For the poor there was no physician, for the dying the 
 monk and his crucifix. The aim was to smooth the 
 sutferer's passage to the next world, not to save him 
 for this. Sanitary provisions there were none except 
 the paternoster and the ave. In the cities the pestilence 
 walked unstayed, its triumphs numbered by the sounds of 
 t ii. death-crier in the streets or the knell for the soul that 
 was passing away. 
 
 I >ur estimate of the influence of the system under which 
 men were thus living as a regulator of their passions may 
 at this point derive much exactness from incidents such 
 as those offered by the history of syphilis and the usages 
 of war. For this purpose we may for a moment glance at 
 the Continent. 
 
 The attention of all Europe was suddenly arrested by a 
 disease which broke out soon after the discovery Moral Btate 
 Of America. It raged with particular violence Sje^Sdof 
 in the French army commanded by Charles "ypWiis, 
 VIII. at the siege of Naples, a.d. 1495, and spread almost 
 
232 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND 
 
 [CH. VII. 
 
 like an epidemic. It was syphilis. Though there have 
 been medical anthers who supposed that it was only an 
 exacerbation of a malady known from antiquity, that 
 opinion cannot be maintained after the learned researches 
 if Astruc. That it was something recognized at the time 
 as altogether new seems to be demonstrated by the accusa- 
 tions of different nations against each other of having 
 given origin to it. Very soon, however, the truth ap- 
 peared. It had been brought b} r the sailors of Columbus 
 {'miii the West Indies. Its true character, and the 
 conditions of its propagation, were fully established by 
 Fernel. 
 
 Now, giving full weight to the fact that the virulence 
 of a disease may be greatest at its first invasion, but 
 remembering that there is nothing in the history of 
 syphilis that would lead us to suppose it ever was, or 
 indeed could be infectious, but only contagious, or com- 
 municated by direct contact from person to person ; 
 remembering also the special circumstances under which 
 in this disease, that contagion is imparted, the rapidity of 
 its spread all over Europe is a significant illustration of 
 the fearful immorality of the times. If contemporary 
 authors are to be trusted, there was not a class, married, 
 or unmarrieol. clergy or laity, from the holy father, 
 Leo X., to the beggar by the wayside, free from it. It 
 swept over Europe, not as Asiatic cholera has done, 
 running along the great lines of trade, and leaving exten- 
 sive tracts untouched, settling upon and devastating great 
 cities here and there, while others had an immunity. 
 The march of syphilis was equable, unbroken, universal, 
 making good its ground from its point of appearance in 
 the south-west, steadily and swiftly taking possession of 
 the entire Continent, and offering aL open manifestation 
 and measure of the secret wickedness of society. 
 
 If thus the sins man practises "In privacy became 
 suddenly and accidentally exposed, that exposure showing 
 how weak is the control that any system can exercise 
 over human passions, we are brought to the same 
 and by the melancholy conclusion when we turn to those 
 u^ges of war. cr i me s that may be perpetrated in the face of 
 day. The usages of war in the civil contests of the 
 
CH. vii. J 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 233 
 
 fifteenth century, or in the religions conflicts of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth, are perfectly appalling; the 
 annals of those evil days are full of wanton and objectless 
 barbarities, refusal of quarter, murder in cold blood 
 killing of peasants. Invading armies burnt and destroyed 
 everything in their way; the taking of plunder and 
 ransom of prisoners were recognized sources of wealth. 
 Prosperous countries were made 11 a sea of fire the 
 horrible atrocities of the Spaniards in America were 
 rivalled by those practised in Europe ; deliberate directions 
 were given to make whole tracts "a desert/' Attempts 
 had been made to introduce some amelioration into war- 
 fare again and again, cither by forbidding hostilities at 
 certain times, as was the object of the " truces of God," 
 repeatedly enforced by ecclesiastical authority, or by esta- 
 blishing between the combatants themselves courtesies 
 which arc at once the chief grace and glory of chivalry; 
 but, to judge by the result as offered, even so late as the 
 eighteenth century, those attempts must be regarded as 
 having proved altogether abortive. 
 
 England, at the close of the Age of Faith, had for long 
 been a chief pecuniary tributary to Italy, the Backward 
 Source from which large revenues had been n»n<iiiion of 
 drawn, the fruitful field in which herds of Lng 
 Italian ecclesiastics had been pastured. A wonderful 
 change was impending. At the beginning of the six- 
 teenth century the island was far more backward in- 
 tellectually and politically than is commonly supposed. 
 Its population hardly reached five millions, and was 
 stationary at that point, not so much because of the 
 effects of civil and foreign war as merely through the 
 operation of ordinary economical causes. There was no 
 reason to call more men into existence. It was regarded 
 as good statesmanship to maintain the population at a 
 e< ostant standard. The municipal policy corresponded to 
 the national ; it was not so much advanced as that con- 
 temporaneously existing in Peru. {Swarms of idle eccle- 
 siastics had set such a pernicious example Arparcnt 
 that the indisposition among common people to decline of her 
 work had become quite a formidable difficulty. P r08 P erty ' 
 In every village there were stocks for the punishment of 
 
234 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 | CH. VII. 
 
 " valiant beggars," as they were termed. By the act of 
 1531, vagrants "whole and mighty in body" caught 
 begging for the first time might be whipped at the cart- 
 tail ; the second time their ears were to be slit ; by the 
 act of 1536, if caught the third time they were to be 
 put to death. In all directions large towns were falling 
 into decay, a misfortune popularly attributed to tin 
 laziness of the lower orders, but in reality due to causes 
 of a very different kind. Hitherto land had been the 
 representative of authority and the source of power. 
 Society had been organized upon that imperfect basis ; a 
 descending scale of landed proprietors had been established, 
 and in that system every man had a place assigned to him, 
 just as in Peru, though less perfectly. It was a system of 
 organized labour, the possession of land being a trust, not 
 a property. But now commerce was beginning to disturb 
 the foundations on which all these arrangements had been 
 sustained, and to compel a new distribution of population ; 
 trading companies were being established ; men were un- 
 settled by the rumours or realities of immense fortunes 
 rapidly gained in foreign adventure. Maritime enterprise 
 was thus not only dislocating society, but even destroying 
 its spirit, substituting self-interest for loyalty. A nation 
 so illiterate that many of its peers in Parliament could 
 neither read nor write, was hardly able to trace the 
 troubles befalling it to their proper source ; with one 
 it is imputed voice it imputed them to the bad example and 
 to the clergy, shortcomings of the clergy. Long before Henry 
 VIII., England was ready for the suppression of the 
 monasteries. She regarded them as the very hot-beds of 
 her evils. There were incessant complaints against the 
 clergy for their scandalous lusts, for personal impurities 
 such as in modern times we do not allude to, for their 
 holding livings in plurality, for their extortion of exor- 
 Causesof bitant profits, and neglect in the discharge of 
 theuu' 11 ° f ^ ne ^ r duty. I n public opinion, to so great an 
 againsuhe extent had these immoralities gone that it was 
 clergy. openly asserted that there were one hundred 
 thousand women in England made dissolute by the 
 clergy. It was well known that brothels were kept in 
 London for their use. It was affirmed that the con- 
 
CH. VII.] 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 235 
 
 f< ssional was shamefully abused, and, through it, advan- 
 tage taken of females, that the vilest crime in an 
 ecclesiastic might he commuted for money, six shillings 
 and eightpence being sufficient in the case of mortal sin. 
 IVsides tlitsu general causes of complaint, there were 
 some which, though of a minor, were not of a less irrita- 
 ting kind; such for instance, as the mortuary, soul-shot, 
 or corpse present, a claim for the last dress worn by 
 persons broughl to a priest for burial, or some exaggerated 
 commutation thereof. 
 
 Thai such was the demoralized condition of the English 
 Church, and such its iniquitous relations to the people, we 
 have t Ik- most unimpeachable evidence, under circumstances 
 of an imposing and solemn character. The Accusation 
 House of Commons brought an accusation JB^wj^ 
 against the clergy before the king. When Efooseof 9 
 Parliament met a.i>. 1529, that House, as its commons. 
 
 very first act, declared to the sovereign that sedition and 
 
 h< resy were pervading the land, and that it had become 
 absolutely necessary to apply a corrective. It affirmed 
 that the troubles into which the realm had fallen were 
 attributable to the clergy , that the chief foundation, 
 occasion, and cause thereof was the parallel jurisdiction of 
 the Church and State; that the incompatible legislative 
 authority of convocation lay at the bottom of the mischief. 
 Among other specific points it alleged the following: — 
 That the houses of convocation made laws without the 
 r< > val assent, and without the consent or even the knowledge 
 of t he people ; that such laws were never published in the 
 English language, and that, nevertheless, men were daily 
 punished under them without ever having had an oppor 
 tunity to eschew the penalties; that the demoralization 
 extended from the Archbishop of Canterbury down to the 
 Lowest priest, that dignitary having tampered with the 
 despatch of justice in his Court of Arches; that parsons. 
 
 us. priests, and citrates were in the habit of denying 
 the administration of the sacraments save upon the pay- 
 ment of money ; that poor men were harrassed without 
 any legal cause in the spiritual courts for the mere 
 purpose of extortion, and exorbitant fees were exacted 
 from them ; that the probate of wills was denied except 
 
236 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [CH. VII. 
 
 on the gratification of the appetite of prelates and ordi- 
 naries for money ; that the high ecclesiastics extorted 
 large sums for the induction of persons into benefices, and 
 that they did daily confer benefices on " young folk," their 
 nephews and relatives, being minors, for the purpose of 
 detaining the fruits and profits in their own hands ; that 
 the bishops illegally imprisoned, sometimes for a year or 
 more, persons in their jails, without informing them of 
 the cause of their imprisonment or the name of their 
 accuser ; that simple, unlearned men, and even u well- 
 witted " ones, were entrapped by subtle questions into 
 heresy in the ecclesiastical courts, and punishment pro- 
 cured against them. 
 
 These are serious charges ; they imply that the Church 
 had degenerated into a contrivance for the extortion of 
 money. The House of Commons petitioned the king to 
 make such laws as should furnish a remedy. The king 
 submitted the petition to the bishops, and required of them 
 an answer. 
 
 In that answer the ecclesiastical manner of thought is 
 Rc 1 f th vei 7 striking. The bishops insist that the laws 
 bisEops to 6 of the realm shall give way to the canon law, or, 
 that accusa- jf incompatible, shall be altered so as to suit it ; 
 
 they identify attacks on themselves with those 
 on the doctrine of the Church, a time-honoured and well- 
 tried device ; they affirm that they have no kind of 
 enmity against the laymen, " their ghostly children," but 
 only against the pestilent poison of heresy ; that their 
 authority for making laws is grounded on the Scriptures, 
 to which the laws of the realm must be made to conform ; 
 that they cannot conscientiously permit the king's consent 
 to the laws, since that would be to put him in the stead of 
 God, under whose inspiration they are made ; that, as to 
 troubling poor men, it is the Holy Ghost who inspireth 
 them to acts tending to the wealth of his elect folk, that, 
 if any ecclesiastic hath offended in this respect, though 
 " in multis offendimus omnes," as St. James hath it, let 
 him bear his own fault, and let not the whole Church be 
 blamed ; that the Protestants, their antagonists, are lewd, 
 idle fellows, who have embraced the abominable opinions 
 recently sprang up in Germany ; that there are many 
 
OH. VII.J 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 237 
 
 advantages in commuting Church penances and censures 
 for money ; tli.it tithes an* a divine institution, and that 
 debts of money owing to God may bo recovered after one 
 hundred or seven hundred years of non-payment, since 
 God can never lose his rights thereto ; that, however, it is 
 not well to collect a tithe twice over; that priests may 
 lawfully engage in secular occupations of a certain kind; 
 thai the punishments inflicted on the laymen have been 
 for the health of their souls, and that, generally, the 
 Bainta may claim powers to which common men are not 
 entitled. 
 
 A fierce struggle between the Commons and the bishops 
 ensued; but the House was firm, and passed 
 several bills, and aiming them the Clergy Dis- p ./ s <. s nl<? e 
 ciplinc Act. The effect was to cut down eccle- \]; i ^\ 1 i ) t isci " 
 siastical incomes, probate and legacy duties p ° c ' 
 were defined, niort uaries were curtailed, extoi tionate fees 
 for burial terminated, clergymen were forbidden to engage 
 in farming, tanning, brewing, or to buy merchandise for 
 the purpose of selling it again. It was made unlawful 
 any Longer to hold eight or nine benefices, or to purchase 
 dispensations for not doing duty. They were compelled 
 to reside in the parishes for the care of which they were 
 paid, under penalty of £10 a month; and it was made a 
 high penal oifence to obtain dispensations from any of the 
 provisions of this Act from Borne. 
 
 Nothing could be more significant of the position of the 
 parties than the high-toned, the conservative moderation 
 of these Acts. The bishops did not yield, how- TheChurch 
 ever, without a struggle. In all directions from to compelled 
 the pulpits arose a cry of " atheism," " lack of tosubmiL 
 faith," kk heresy." But the House resolutely stood to its 
 ground. Still more, it sent its speaker to the king with a 
 complaint against the Bishop of Rochester, who had dared 
 to stigmatize it as ''infidel." The bishop was compelled 
 to equivocate and apologize. 
 
 The English nation and their king were thus together 
 in the suppression of the monasteries ; they were The king is 
 together in the enforcing of ecclesiastical reforms. su>tain-i by 
 It was nothing but this harmony which so hi8 prople ' 
 quickly brought the clergy to reason, and induced them 
 
238 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [CH. VII. 
 
 in 1532, to anticipate both Parliament and the people in 
 actually offering to separate themselves from Rome. In 
 the next year the king had destroyed the vast power which 
 in so many centuries had gathered round ecclesiastical in- 
 >titutions, and had forced the clergy into a fitting sub- 
 ordination. Henceforth there was no prospect that they 
 would monopolize all the influential and lucrative places 
 in the realm : henceforth, year by year, with many 
 vicissitudes and changes, their power continued to decline. 
 Their special pursuit, theology, was separated more and 
 more perfectly from politics. In the House of Lords, of 
 which they had once constituted one-half, they became a 
 mere shadow. 
 
 Henry VIII. cannot, therefore, be properly considered as 
 the author of the downfall of ecclesiasticism in England, 
 though he was the instrument by which it was ostensibly 
 accomplished. The derisive insinuation that the Gospel 
 light had flashed upon him from Anna Boleyn's eyes was 
 far from expressing all the truth. The nullity of papal 
 Religious feel- disciplines, excommunications, interdicts, pe- 
 ingofthena- nances, proved that the old tone of thought was 
 tion changed. utterly decayed. This oblivion of old emotions, 
 this obsoleteness of old things, was by no means confined 
 to England. On the Continent the attacks of Erasmus on 
 the monks were everywhere received with applause. In 
 1527 one printer issued an edition of 24,000 copies of the 
 Colloquies of Erasmus, and actually sold them all. He 
 understood the signs of the times. 
 
 From this digression on parties and policy in England, 
 let us again return to special details, descending for that 
 state of Eng- purpose to the close of the seventeenth century, 
 dose of the ^ or a ^ on ^ ^ me London had been the most 
 seventeenth populous capital in Europe ; yet it was dirty, 
 century. ill built, without sanitary provisions. The 
 deaths were one in twenty-three each year ; now, in a 
 much more crowded population, they are not one in forty. 
 Much of the country was still heath, swamp, warren. 
 Almost within sight of the city was a tract twenty-five 
 wild state of miles round nearly in a state of nature ; there 
 the country. were "but three houses in it. Wild animals 
 roamed here and there. It is incidentally mentioned that 
 
CM. VII.] 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 239 
 
 Queen Anne, on a journey to Portsmouth, saw a herd of 
 five hundred red deer. With such small animals as the 
 marten and badger, found everywhere, there was still seen 
 occasionally the wild hull. 
 
 Nothing more strikingly shows the social condition than 
 the provisions for locomotion. In the rainy sea- LnComotion: 
 sons the roads were all but impassably justify- th r. ? . 
 ing tlif epithet often applied to them of being carna s es - 
 in a horrible state. Through such gullies, half filled with 
 mud, carriages were dragged, often by oxen, or, when 
 horses were used, it was as much a matter of necessity as in 
 the city a matter of display to drive half a dozen of them. 
 If the country was open the track of the road was easily 
 mistaken. It was no uncommon thing for persons to lose 
 their way, and have to spend the night out in the air. 
 Between places of considerable importance tiie roads were 
 sometimes very little known, and such was the difficulty 
 for wheeled carriages that a principal mode of transport 
 was by pack-horses, of which passengers took advantage, 
 stowing themselves away between the packs. We shall 
 probably not dissent from their complaint that this method 
 of travelling was hot in summer and cold in winter. The 
 usual charge for freight was fifteen pence per ton per mile. 
 T ward the close of the century what were termed "flying 
 coaches' 1 were established ; they could move at the rate of 
 from thirty to fifty miles in a day. Many persons thought 
 the risk BO great that it was a tempting of Providence to 
 go in them. The mail-bag was carried on horse- The mails* 
 back at about live miles an hour. A penny-post penny-post 
 had been established in the city, but with much ditd,ked ' 
 difficulty, for many long-headed men, who knew very well 
 what they were saying, had denounced it as an insidious 
 11 popish contrivance." 
 
 I )nl y a few years before the period under consideration 
 Tail ianient bad resolved that " all pictures in the royal 
 collection which contained representations of Jesus or the 
 Virgin Mother should be burnt; Greek statues were de- 
 Liver* 1 over to Puritan stone-masons to be made IowisMu .. 
 
 ' 1 < - t 1 1./ ' A Little earlier, Lewis Muggleton had gletonj his 
 given himself out as the last and greatest of the 8 ' 
 prophets, having power to save or damn whom ho pleased. 
 
240 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 |CH. VII. 
 
 It had been revealed to him that God is only six feet 
 high, and the sun only four miles off. The country beyond 
 the Trent was still in a state of barbarism, and near the 
 sources of the Tyne there were people scarcely less savage 
 than American Indians, their " half-naked women chanting 
 a wild measure, while the men, with brandished dirks, 
 danced a war-dance." 
 
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century there were 
 priming- thirty- four counties without a printer. The 
 private ii- d on ly press in England north of the Trent was 
 braries. a t York. As to private libraries, there were 
 none deserving the name. i% An esquire passed for a great 
 scholar if 1 Hudibras,' 1 Baker's I lhr< uncle,' 1 Tarleton's Jests,' 
 and the k Seven Champions of Christend< >m ' lay in his hall- 
 window." It might be expected that the women were 
 ignorant enough when very few men knew how to write 
 correctly or even intelligibly, and it had become unneces- 
 sary for clergymen to read the Scriptures in the original 
 tongues. 
 
 Social discipline was very far from being of that kind 
 Social dis- which we call moral. The master whipped his 
 cipiine; its apprentice, the pedagogue his scholar, the 
 barbarity. husband his wife. Public punishments partook 
 of the general brutality. It was a day for the rabble when 
 a culprit was set in the pillory to be pelted with brickbats, 
 rotten eggs, and dead cats ; when women were fastened by 
 the legs in the stocks at the market-place, or a pilferer 
 flogged through the town at the cart-tail, a clamour not 
 ^infrequently arising unless the lash were laid on hard 
 enough " to make him howl."' In punishments of higher 
 offenders these whippings were perfectly horrible ; thus 
 Titus Oates, after standing twice in the pillory, was 
 whipped, and, after an interval of two days, whipped 
 again. A virtuoso in these matters gives us the incredible 
 information that he counted as many as seventeen hundred 
 stripes administered. So far from the community being 
 shocked at snch an exhibition, they appeared to agree in 
 the sentiment that, " since his face could not be made to 
 blush, it was well encugh to try what could be done with 
 his back." Such a hardening of heart was in no little 
 degree promoted by the atrocious punishments of state 
 
CH. TO.] 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 241 
 
 offenders: thus, after the decapitation of Montrose and 
 Argyle, their heads decorated the top of the Tol booth ; 
 and gentlemen, after the rising of Mcnniouth, were ad- 
 monished to be careful of their ways, by hanging in chains 
 to their park gate the corpse of a rebel to rot in the air. 
 
 To a debased public life private life corresponded 
 The houses of the rural population were huts 
 covered with straw-thatch; their inmates, if IT^L 
 able to procure fresh meat once a week, were °* 
 considered to be in prosperous circumstances. soc,ety * 
 One-half of the families in England could hardly do that. 
 Children sb years old were not iinfreqnentlyset to labour. 
 The lord of the manor Bpent his time in rustic pursuits ; 
 was not an unwilling associate of pedlars and drovers; 
 knew how to ring a pig or shoe a horse; his wife and 
 daughters (( stitched and spun, brewed gooseberry wine, 
 cured marigolds, and made the crust for the Venison' 
 pastv." Boepitality was displayed in immoderate eating, 
 and drinking of beer, the guest not being considered as 
 bavin- dune justice to the occasion unless he had gone 
 under the table. The dining-room was uncarpeted ; but 
 then it was tinted with a decoction of "soot and small 
 beer." The ohairs were rush-bottomed. In London the 
 b«»usis were mostly of* wood and plaster, the streets filth* 
 beyond expression. After nightfall a passenger went at 
 his peril, for chamber windows were opened and slop-pails 
 unceremoniously emptied down. There were no lamps in 
 the streets until Master Homing established his public 
 lanterns. As a necessary consequence, thero were plenty 
 of shoplifters, highwaymen, and burglars. 
 
 As to the moral condition, it is fearfully expressed in 
 the statement that men not unfrequently were willing to 
 sacrifice their country for their religion. Hardly te & 
 any personage died who was not popularly Sly and 
 suspected to have been made away with by brutllit y- 
 poison, an indication of the morality generally supposed 
 to prevail among the higher classes. If such was the 
 state of Bociety m Its serious aspect, it was no better in its 
 lighter. We can scarcely credit the impurity and im- 
 modesty of the theatrical exhibitions. What is said about 
 them would be beyond belief if we did not remember that 
 
242 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [CH. VII. 
 
 they were the amusements of a community whose ideas of 
 female modesty and female sentiment were altogether 
 different from ours. Indecent jests were put into the 
 mouths of lively actresses, and the dancing was not 
 altogether of a kind to meet our approval. The rural 
 clergy could do hut little to withstand this flood of im- 
 morality. Their social position for the last hundred years 
 had been rapidly declining ; for, though the Church pos- 
 sessed among her dignitaries great writers and great 
 preachers, her lower orders, partly through the 
 conditionof political troubles that had befallen the state, 
 'I'" 1 " u, ' r Inn chiefly in consequence of sectarian bitterness, 
 
 clergy. . . . 
 
 had been reduced to a truly menial condition. 
 It was the business of the rich man's chaplain to add 
 dignity to the dinner-table by Baying -race "in lull 
 canonicals,'' but he was also intended to be a butt for the 
 mirth of the company. " The young Levite," such was 
 the phrase then in use, k ' might fill himself with the corned 
 beef and the carrots, but as soon as the tarts and cheese- 
 cakes made their appearance he quitted his seat, and stood 
 iloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the 
 repast," the daintiest part of which he had not tasted. If 
 need arose, he could curry a horse, " carry a parcel ten 
 miles, " or " cast up the farrier's bill." The " wages " of a 
 parish priest were at starvation-point. The social degrada- 
 tion of the ecclesiastic is well illustrated by an order of 
 Queen Elizabeth, that no clergyman should presume to 
 marry a servant-girl without the consent of her master or 
 mistress. 
 
 The clergy, however, had not fallen into this condition 
 without in a measure deserving it. Their time had been 
 too much occupied in persecuting Puritans and other 
 sectaries, with whom they would have gladly dealt in 
 the same manner as they had dealt with the Jews, who, 
 from the thirteenth century till Cromwell, were altogether 
 interdicted from public worship. The University of 
 Oxford had ordered the political works of 
 £oSand f Buchanan, Milton, and Baxter to be publicly 
 persecution of burnt in the court of the schools. The immortal 
 preac er s . vagabond, Bunyan, had been committed to jail 
 for preaching the way of salvation to the common people, 
 
CH. VII.] 
 
 A < i E OF FA 1111 IN ENGLAND. 
 
 243 
 
 and had remained there twelve years, the stout old man 
 refusing to give his promise not to offend in that manner 
 again. The great doctrine inculcated from the pulpit was 
 submission to temporal power. Men were taught that 
 rebellion is a sin n«»i less (badly than witchcraft. On a 
 community thirsting after the waters of life were still 
 inllicled wearisome sermons respecting 14 the wearing of 
 surpliees, position at the I hr harist, or the sign of the cross 
 at baptism," things that were a stench in the The 1 » uritan . 8 
 nostrils of the lank-haired Puritan, who, with his hatred <>for- 
 h inds clasped on his bosom, his face corrugated thod, ' xy - 
 with religious astringenc} r , the whites of his eyes turned 
 upward to heaven, rocking himself alternately on his 
 heels and the tips of his toes, delivered, in a savoury prayer 
 uttered through his nose, all such abominations of the 
 liabvlonish ballot to the Devil, whose affairs they were. 
 
 In administering the law, whether in relation to 
 political or religious offences, there was an , }rutal adm4i 
 incredible atrocity. In London, the crazy old titration of 
 bridge over the Thames was decorated with t,,cl;lXN - 
 grinning and mouldering heads of criminals, under an idea 
 that these ghastly spectacles would fortify the common 
 people in their resolves to act according to law. The 
 toleration of the times may be understood from a law 
 enacted by the Scotch Parliament, May 8, 1 h'85, that 
 whoever preached or heard in a conventicle should be 
 punished with death and the confiscation of his goods. 
 That such an infamous spirit did not content itself with 
 mere dead-letter laws there is too much practical evidence 
 to permit any one to doubt. A silly labouring man, who 
 had taken it into his head that he could not conscientiously 
 attend the Episcopal worship, was seized by a troop of 
 soldiers, "rapidly examined, convicted of non-conformity, 
 and sentenced to death in the presence of his wife, who led 
 one little child by the hand, and it was easy to see was 
 about to give birth to another. He was shot before her 
 face, the widow crying out in her agony, 4 Well, sir, well, 
 the day of reckoning will come.' Shrieking Scotch 
 Covenanters were submitted to torture by crushing their 
 knees flat in the boot; women were tied to stakes on the 
 
 §oq aanda and drowned by the dowly advancing tide 
 
 B 2 
 
244 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [CH. VII. 
 
 because they would not attend Episcopal worship, or 
 branded on their cheeks and then shipped to America; 
 gallant but wounded soldiers were hung in Scotland for 
 fear they should die before they could be got to England. 
 In the troubles connected with Monmouth's rising, in one 
 county alone, Somersetshire, two hundred and thirty-three 
 persons were hanged, drawn and quartered, to say nothing 
 of military executions, for the soldiers amused themselves 
 by hanging a culprit for each toast they drank, and making 
 the drums and fifes play, as they said, to his dancing. It 
 is needless to recall such incidents as the ferocity of Kirk's 
 lambs, for such was the name p >] tularly given to the soldiers 
 of that colonel, in allusion to the Paschal lamb they bore 
 on their flag ; or the story of Tom Boilman, so nicknamed 
 from having been compelled by those veterans to seethe the 
 remains of his quartered friends in melted pitch. Women, 
 for such idle words as women are always using, were 
 sentenced to be whipped at the cart's-tail through every 
 market town in Dorset ; a lad named Tutching was 
 condemned to be flogged once a fortnight for seven years. 
 Eight hundred and forty- one human beings judicially 
 condemned to transportation to the West India islands, 
 and suffering all the horrible pains of a slave-ship in the 
 middle passage, " were never suffered to go on deck ;" in 
 the holds below," all was darkness, stench, lamentation, 
 disease, and death/' One fifth of them were thrown 
 overboard to the sharks before they reached their destina- 
 tion, and the rest obliged to be fattened before they could 
 be offered in the market to the Jamaica planters. The 
 court ladies, and even the Queen of England herself, were 
 so utterly forgetful of womanly mercy and common hu- 
 manity as to join in this infernal traffic. That princess 
 requested that a hundred of the convicts should be given 
 to her. " The profit which she cleared on the cargo, after 
 making a large allowance for those who died of hunger and 
 fever during the passage, cannot be estimated at less than a 
 thousand guineas." 
 
 It remains to add a few words respecting the state of 
 Profligate condi- literature. This, at the end of the seven- 
 th of literature, teenth century, had become indescribably 
 profligate, and, since the art of reading was by no means 
 
ch. vn.] 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 245 
 
 generally cultivated, the most re«dy method of literary 
 oommunioatioD was through theatrical representation, it 
 was for that reason that play-writing was the best means 
 of literary remuneration, if we except the profit derived 
 from the practice which, to some extent, survives, though 
 its disgraceful motive has ceased, of dedicating books to 
 rich men for the sake of the fee they would give. It is 
 said that hooks have actually heen printed in consideration 
 of the profits of the dedication. Especially in the com- 
 position of plays was it judged expedient to minister to 
 the depraved public taste l»y indecent expressions, or 
 allusions broad and sly. The playwright was at the 
 mercy of an audience who were critical on that point, and 
 in a position, if he should not come up to the required 
 standard, to damn him and his work in an instant. From 
 those remarks must be excepted the writings of Milton, 
 which are nowhere stained by such a blemish. And yet 
 posterity will perhaps with truth assert that Miitnnvpara- 
 
 ' Paradise Lost" has wrought more intellectual (ll! *eLost." 
 evil than even its base contemporaries, since it has 
 familiarized educated minds with images which, though 
 in one sense sublime, in another are most unworthy, and 
 has taught the public a dreadful materialization of the 
 great and invisible (Jod. A Manichean composition in 
 reality, it was mistaken for a Christian poem. 
 
 The progress of English literature not only offers 
 striking proofs of the manner in which it was TheEngiisb 
 affected by theatrical representations, but also thealrc - 
 furnishes an interesting illustration of that necessary 
 
 jourse through which intellectual development must pass. 
 It is difficult for us, who live in a reading community, to 
 
 comprehend the influence once exercised by the pulpit and 
 the stage in the instruction of a non- reading people. 
 
 As late as the sixteenth century they were tne only 
 
 Q< ins of mental access to the public, and we should find, 
 i t we were to enter on a detailed examination of either one 
 or the other, that they furnish a vivid reflexion of the 
 popular intellectual condition. Leaving to others such 
 inter, sting researches into the comparative anatomy of the 
 El glial) pulpit, I may, lor a moment, direct attention to 
 ! heatrioal exhibil ions. 
 
246 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [_CH. VU, 
 
 There are three obvious phases through which the 
 Its successive drama has passed, corresponding to as many 
 phases. phases in the process of intellectual development, 
 These are respectively the miracle play, corresponding tc 
 .he stage of childhood ; the moral, corresponding to that 
 of youth ; the real, corresponding to that of manhood. In 
 them respectively the supernatural, the theological, the 
 positive predominates. The first went out of fashion soon 
 after the middle of the fifteenth century, the second con- 
 tinued for about one hundred and fifty years, the third 
 still remains. By the miracle play is understood a re- 
 presentation of Scripture incidents, enacted, however, 
 without any regard to the probabilities of time, place, or 
 action , such subjects as the Creation, the fall of man, the 
 Deluge, being consider, d as suitable, and in these scenes, 
 without any concern for chronology, other personages, as 
 the Pope or Mohammed, being introduced, or the Virgin 
 Mary wearing a French hood, or Virgil worshipping the 
 Saviour. Our forefathers were not at all critical historians ; 
 they indulged without stint in a highly pleasing credulity. 
 They found no difficulty in admitting that Mohammed 
 was originally a cardinal, who turned heretic out of spite 
 because he was not elected Pope ; that, since the taking of 
 the true cross by the Turks, all Christian children have 
 twentv-two instead of thirty-two teeth, as was the case 
 before that event ; and that men have one rib less 
 than women, answering to that taken from Adam. The 
 moral play personifies virtues, vices, passions, goodness, 
 courage, honesty, love. The real play introduces human 
 actors, with a plot free from the supernatural, and pro- 
 bability is outraged as little as possible. Its excellence 
 consists in the perfect manner in wdiich it delineates 
 human character and action. 
 
 The miracle play was originally introduced by the 
 Miracle plays Church, the first dramas of the kind, it is said, 
 their cha- * ' having been composed by Gregory Nazianzen. 
 Tacter. They were brought from Constantinople by the 
 Crusaders ; the Byzantines were always infatuated with 
 theatrical shows. The parts of these plays were often 
 enacted by ecclesiastics, and not unfrequently the repre- 
 sentations took place at the abbey gate. So highly did 
 
CH. VII.] 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 247 
 
 tho Italian authorities prize the influence of these exhibi- 
 tions on the vulgar, that the pope granted a thousand 
 days of pardon to any prison who should submit to the 
 pleasant penance of attending them. All the arguments 
 that had been used in behalf of picture-worship were ap- 
 plicable to these plays; even the Passion, Insurrection, 
 and Ascension were represented. Over illiterate minds a 
 coarse but congenial influence was obtained; a recollec- 
 tion, though not an understanding of sacred things. In 
 the play of 41 the Fall of Lucifer," that personage was 
 introduced, according to the vulgar acceptation, with 
 horns, and tail, and cloven hoof; his beard, however, was 
 red, our forefathers having apparently indulged in a 
 singular antipathy against hair of that colour. There 
 still remain accounts of the expenses incurred on some of 
 these occasions, the coarse quaintness of which is not only 
 amusing, but also shows the debased ideas of the times. 
 For instance, in " Mysteries," enacted at Coventry, are 
 such entries as 44 paid for a pair of gloves for God ; " 
 "paid for gilding (iod's coat;" " dy vers necessaries foi 
 the trimmynge of the Father of Heaven." In the play of 
 the " Shepherds " there is provision for green cheese and 
 Ilalton ale, a suitable recruitment after their long journey 
 to the birthplace of our Saviour. 44 Payd to the players 
 for rehearsal : imprimis, to God, lis. viiid. ; to Pilate his 
 wife, ins*. ; item, for keeping fyer at hell's mouth, irk/." 
 A strict at ten! ion to chronology is not exacted; Herod 
 swear* by Mohammed, and promises one of his councillors 
 to make him pope. Noah's wife, who, it appears, was a 
 termagant, swears by the Virgin Mary that she will not 
 go into tli.' ark, and, indeed, is only constrained so to do 
 by a M>uml cudgelling administered by the patriarch, the 
 rustic justice of the audience being particularly directed 
 to the point that such a flogging should not be given with 
 it stick thicker than her husband's thumb. The sentiment 
 of modesty seems not to have been very exacting, since in 
 tho play of Mho Pall of Man" Adam and Eve appear 
 entirely naked; one of the chief incidents is the adjust- 
 ment of the fig-leaves. Many such circumstances might 
 be related, impressing us perhaps with an idea of the 
 obscenity and profanity of the times. But this would 
 
248 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [CH. rfl. 
 
 scarcely be a just conclusion. As the social state improved, 
 we begin to find objections raised by the more thoughtful 
 ecclesiastics, who refused to lend the holy vestments foj 
 such purposes, and at last succeeded in excluding these 
 exhibitions from consecrated places. After dwindling 
 down by degrees, these plays lingered in the booths at 
 fairs or on market-days, the Church having resigned them 
 to the guilds of different trades, and these, in the end, 
 giving them up to the mountebank. And so they died. 
 Their history is the outward and visible sign of a popular 
 intellectual condition in process of passing away. 
 The mystery and miracle plays were succeeded by the 
 
 Moral ulaye moral play. It has been thought by some, who 
 their cha- . have studied the history of the English theatre, 
 thai these plays were the result of the Reforma- 
 tion, with the acl ivity i »f which m< rvement their popularity 
 was coincident. But perhaps the reader who is impressed 
 with the principle of that definite order of social advance- 
 ment so frequently referred to in this book, will agree 
 with me that this relation of cause and effect can hardly 
 be sustained, and that devotional exercises and popular 
 recreations are in common affected by antecedent condi- 
 tions. Of the moral play, a very characteristic example 
 still remains under the title of " Everyman." It often 
 delineates personification and allegory with very consider 
 able power. This short phase of our theatrical career 
 deserves a far closer attention than it has hitherto obtained, 
 for it has left an indelible impression on our literature. I 
 think that it is to this, in its declining days, that we are 
 indebted for much of the machinery of Bunyan's " Pilgrim's 
 Progress." Whoever will compare that work with such 
 plays as " Everyman " and " Lusty Juventus," cannot fail 
 to be struck with their resemblances. Such personages as 
 "Good Council," "Abominable Living," * Hypocrasie," in 
 the play, are of the same family as those in the Progress. 
 The stout Protestantism of both is at once edifying and 
 amusing. An utter contempt for " holy stocks and holy 
 stones, holy clouts and holy bones," as the play has it, 
 animates them all. And it can hardly be doubted that 
 the immortal tinker, in the carnal days when he played at 
 tipcat and romped with the girls on the village green at 
 
CH. VII. J 
 
 A G B OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 249 
 
 EHfltow, indulged himself in tlie edification of witnessing 
 tliese dramatic representations. 
 
 As to the passage from this dramatic phase to the real, 
 in which the character and actions of man are Real plays, 
 portrayed, to the exclusion or with the su hordina- Shakespeare, 
 tion of the supernatural, it is only necessary to allude with 
 brevity indeed, it is only necessary to recall one name, and 
 that one name is Shakespeare. He stands, in his relations 
 to English literature, in the same position that the great 
 (J reek sculptors stood with respect to ancient art, embody- 
 ing conceptions of humanity in its various attributes with 
 indescribable skill, and with an exquisite agreement to 
 nature. 
 
 Not without significance is it that we find mystery in 
 the pulpit and mystery on the stage. They ap- The pulpit 
 pertain to social infancy. Such dramas as those and the stage. 
 I have alluded to, and many others that, if space had 
 permitted, might have been quoted, were in unison with 
 the times. The abbeys were boasting of such treasures as 
 the French hood of the Virgin, "her smocke or shifte," 
 the manger in which Christ was laid, the spear which 
 pierced his side, the crown of thorns. The transition 
 from this to the following stage Lfl iidI without its political 
 attendants, the prohibition of interludes containing any- 
 thing against the Church of Borne, the royal proclamation 
 against preaching out of one's own brain, the appearance 
 01 the Puritan upon the national stage, an increasing 
 acerbity of habit and sanctimoniousness of demeanour. 
 
 With peculiar facility we may, therefore, through an 
 examination of the state of the drama, determine national 
 mental condition. The same may be done by a like ex- 
 amination of the state of the pulpit. Whoever will take 
 the trouble to compare the results cannot fail to observe 
 how remarkably they correspond. 
 
 Such was the state of the literature of amusement; as 
 to political literature, even at the close of the period we 
 are considering, it could not be expected to flourish after 
 the judges had declared that no man could pub- Newspa pen, 
 list political news except, he had been duly and coffee- 
 authorized by the crown. Newspapers were, house8 
 however, beginning to be periodically issued, and, if occasion 
 
250 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 [CH. VIL 
 
 called for it, broadsides, as they were termed, were added 
 In addition, newsletters were written by enterprising in- 
 dividuals in the metropolis, and sent to rich persons who 
 subscribed for them ; they then circulated from family to 
 family, and doubtless enjoyed a privilege which has not 
 descended to their printed contemporary, the newspaper, 
 of never becoming stale. Their authors compiled them 
 from materials picked up in the gossip of the coffee-houses. 
 The coffee-houses, in a non-reading community, were quite 
 an important political as well as social institution. They 
 were of every kind, prelatical, popish, Puritan, scientific, 
 literary, Whig, Tory. Whatever a man's notions might 
 be, he could find in London, in a double sense, a coffee- 
 house to his taste. In towns of considerable importance 
 the literary demand was insignificant ; thus it is said that 
 the father of Dr. Johnson, the lexicographer, peddled 
 books from town to town, and was accustomed to 
 open a stall in Birmingham on market-days, and it is 
 added that this supply of literature was equal to the 
 demand. 
 
 The liberty of the press has been of slow growth. 
 Liberty of the Scarcely had printing been invented when it 
 press slowly was found necessary everywhere to place it 
 under some restraint, as was, for instance, done 
 by Kome in her " Index Expurgatorius " of prohibited books, 
 and the putting of printers who had offended under the 
 ban ; the action of the University of Paris, alluded to 
 in this volume, p. 198, was essentially of the same kind. 
 In England, at first, the press was subjected to the common 
 law ; the crown judges themselves determined the offence, 
 and could punish the offender with fine, imprisonment, or 
 even death. Within the last century this power of determi- 
 nation has been taken from them, and a jury must decide, 
 not only on the fact, but also on the character of the pub- 
 ts present lication, whether libellous, seditious, or otherwise 
 ondition. offensive. The press thus came to be a reflector 
 of public opinion, casting light back upon the public ; yet 
 as with other reflectors, a portion of the illuminating power 
 is lost. The restraints under which it is laid are due, not 
 so much to the fear that liberty will degenerate into 
 license, for public opinion would soon correct that ; they 
 
CH. VII.] 
 
 AGE OF FAITH IN ENGLAND. 
 
 251 
 
 are rather connected with the necessities of the social 
 state. 
 
 Whoever will examine the condition of England at suc- 
 cessive periods during her passage through the Contrast 
 Age of Faith will see how slow was her pro- between pro 
 gress, and will, perhaps,. be surprised to find at f^fofVaith 
 its close how small was her advance. The ideas and Reason, 
 that had served her for so many centuries as a guide had 
 rather obstructed than facilitated her way. But whoever 
 will consider what she has done since she fairly entered 
 on her Age of Eeason will remark a wonderful contrast. 
 There has not been a progress in physical conditions only 
 — a securing of better food, better clothing, better shelter, 
 swifter locomotion, the procurement of individual happi- 
 ness, an extension of the term of life. There has been a 
 great moral advancement. Such atrocities as those men- 
 tioned in the foregoing paragraphs are now impossible, 
 and so unlike our own manners that doubtless we read of 
 them at first with incredulity, and with difficulty are 
 brought to believe that these are the things our ancestors 
 did. What a difference between the dilatoriness of the 
 past, its objectless exertions, its unsatisfactory end, and 
 the energy, and well-directed intentions of the present 
 age, which have already yielded results like the prodigies 
 of romance. 
 
( 252 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 REJECTION OF AUTHORITY A \ 1 1 TRADITION, AND ADOPTION OF SCIENTIFIC 
 TRUTH. — DISCOVERY OF THE TRUE l'OSITION OF THE EARTH IN THE 
 UNIVERSE. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Attempt to enfora f!<> Geocentric Doctrine that the 
 Earth is the Centre of th< Universe, and the most important Body 
 in it. 
 
 The Heliocentric Doctrine that the Sun is the Centre of the Solar 
 System, and the Earth, a a mall Planet, comes gradually into 
 Prominence. 
 
 Struggle between the Ecclesiastical and Astronomical Parties. — Activity 
 of the Inquisition — Burning of Bruno. — Imprisonment of Galileo. 
 
 Invention of the Telescope. — Complete Overthrow of the Ecclesiastical 
 Idea. — Rise of Physical Astronomy. — Newton. — Rapid and resistless 
 Development of all Branches of Natural Philosophy. 
 
 Final Establishment of the Doctrine that the Universe is under the Do- 
 minion of mathematical^ a nd, therefore, necessary Laws. 
 
 Progress of Man from the Anthropocentric Ideas to the Discovery of his 
 true Position and Insignificance in the Universe. 
 
 The Age of Reason in Europe was ushered in by an astro- 
 nomical controversy. 
 
 Is the earth the greatest and most noble body in the 
 An astronom- universe, around which, as an immovable centre, 
 icai problem, sun, and the various planets, and stars re- 
 volve, ministering by their light and other qualities to the 
 wants and pleasures of man, or is it an insignificant orb — 
 a mere point — submissively revolving, among a crowd of 
 compeers and superiors, around a central sun? The 
 former of these views was authoritatively asserted by the 
 Church ; the latter, timidly suggested by a few thoughtful 
 and religious men at first, in the end gathered strength 
 and carried the day. 
 
CH. VIII.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF RhASOX. 
 
 253 
 
 Behind this physical question — a mere scientific problem 
 — lay something of the utmost importance — the its important 
 position of man in the universe. The conflict consequences, 
 broke out upon an ostensible issue, but every one saw 
 what was the real point in the dispute. 
 
 In the history of the Age of Kcasmi in Europe, which is 
 to fill the remaining pages of this book, I am Treatmout 
 constrained to oommenoe with this astronomical of the Age 
 controversy, and have therefore been led by ofHeason - 
 .hat oircamstanoe to complete the survey of the entire 
 period from the same, that is, the scientific point of view. 
 Many different modes of treating it spontaneously present 
 themselves ; but so vast are the subjects to be brought 
 under consideration, BO numerous their connexions, and 
 so limited the Bpaoe at my disposal, that I must give the 
 preference to one which, with Buffieienl copiousness, offers 
 also precision. Whoever will examine the progress of 
 European intellectual advancement thus far manifested 
 will find that it has oonoerned itself with three great 
 questions: L. The ascertainment of the position of the 
 darth in the universe; 2. The hi>tory of the earth in 
 time; 3. The position of man among living beings. Under 
 this last is ranged all that he has done in scientific discovery, 
 and all those inventions which are the characteristics of 
 the present industrial age. 
 
 What am I? Where am I? we may imagine to have 
 been the first exclamations of the first man awakening to 
 conscious existence. Here, in our Age of lieason, we have 
 been dealing with the same thoughts. They are the 
 same which, as we have seen, occupied Greek intellectual 
 life. 
 
 W hen Halley's comet appeared in 1456, it was described 
 by those who saw it as an object of "unheard- Roman astro- 
 of magnitude ; " its tail, which shook down nonieal idea* 
 "diseases, pestilence, and Avar"' upon earth, reached over 
 a third part of the heavens. It was considered as con- 
 nected with the progress of Mohammed II., who had just 
 then taken Constantinople. It struck terror into all people. 
 Prom his seat, invisible to it, in Italy, the sovereign 
 pontiff, Calixfus III., issued his ecclesiastical fuhuina- 
 tions ; but the comet in the heavens like the sultan on 
 
254 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. [CH. VIII. 
 
 the earth, pursued its course undeterred. In vain were 
 all the bells in Europe ordered to he rung to scare it 
 away ; in vain was it anathematized ; in vain were prayers 
 put up in all directions to stop it. True to its time, it 
 punctually returns from the abysses of space, uninfluenced 
 by anything save agencies of a material kind. A signal 
 lesson for the meditations of every religious man. 
 
 Among the clergy there were, however, some who had 
 More correct more correct cosmic ideas than those of Calixtus. 
 ideas among A century before Copernicus, Cardinal de Cusa 
 3Sm? rtaw na( ^ ] ,art i ;l ^. v adopted the heliocentric theory, 
 as taught in the old times by Philolaus, Pytha- 
 goras, and Archimedes. I [e ascri I »ed to the earth a globular 
 form, rotation on its axis, and a movement in space; he 
 believed that it moves round the sun, and both together 
 round the pole of the universe. 
 
 By geocentric theory is meant that doctrine which 
 The geocentric asserts the earth to be the immovable centre of 
 and heiiocen- the universe; by heliocentric theory that which 
 tnc eones. demonstrates the sun to be the centre of our 
 planetary system, implying, as a necessary influence, that 
 the earth is a very small and subordinate body revolving 
 round the sun. 
 
 I have already, in sufficient detail, described how the 
 Roman Church had been constrained by her position to 
 rhe e c n uphold the geocentric doctrine. She had come 
 tricdocSSe to regard it as absolutely essential to her system, 
 ihe^huich rlie intellectual basis of which she held would 
 be sapped if this doctrine should be undermined. 
 Hence it was that such an alarm was shown at the asser- 
 tion of the globular form of the earth, and hence the sur- 
 passing importance of the successful voyage of Magellan's 
 ship. That indisputable demonstration of the globular 
 figure was ever a solid support to the scientific party in 
 the portentous approaching conflict. 
 
 Preparations had been silently making for a scientific 
 Pre arations rev °l u tion i n various directions. The five 
 for the heiio- memoirs of Cardinal Alliacus " On the Con- 
 centric doc- cordance of Astronomy with Theology," show 
 the turn that thought was taking. His "Imago 
 Mundi" was published in 1460, and is said to have been a 
 
CH. VIII.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OE REASON. 
 
 255 
 
 favourite work witli Columbus. In the very Cathedral 
 of Florence, Toscanclli had constructed his celebrated 
 gnomon, 1468, a sun-ray, auspicious omen ! being admitted 
 through a plate of brass in the lantern of the cupola. 
 .John Bfuller, better known as Begiomontanus, had pub- 
 lished an abridgment of Ptolemy's "Almagest;' 1520. 
 Euclid had been printed with diagrams on copper as long 
 before as 14Sl>, and again in Venice twenty-three years 
 subsequently. The Optics of Vitello had been published 
 1533. Fernel, physician to Henry IT. of Fiance, had even 
 ventured so far. supported by Magellan's voyage, as to 
 incisure, 1.VJ7, the size of the earth, his method being to 
 observe the height of the pole at Paris, then to proceed 
 northward until its elevation was increased exactly one 
 degree, and to ascertain the distance between the stations 
 by the number of revolutions of his carriage wheel. He 
 concluded that, it is 1*4,480 Italian miles round the globe. 
 The last attempt of the kind had been that of the Khalif 
 Almaimon seven hundred years previously on the shore of 
 A he lied Sea, and with nearly the same result. The 
 mathematical sciences were undergoing rapid advance- 
 ment. Kli;eticus had published his trigonometrical tables; 
 Cardan, Tartaglia, Scipio Ferreo, and Stefel were greatly 
 improving algebra. 
 
 The first formal assertion of the heliocentric theory was 
 made in a timid manner, strikingly illustrative of the ex- 
 pected opposition. It was by Copernicus, a Copernicus, 
 Prussian, speaking of the revolutions of the the work8 ot 
 heavenly bodies ; the year was about 1536. In his pre- 
 faoe, addressed to Pope Paul III., whether written by 
 himself, or, as some have affirmed, for him by Andreas 
 Osiander, he complains of the imperfections of the existing 
 system, states that he has sought among ancient writers 
 tor a better way, and so had learned the heliocentric 
 doctrine. "Then I too began to meditate on the motion 
 of the earth, and, though it appeared an absurd opinion, 
 yet, since 1 knew that in previous times others had been 
 allowed the privilege of feigning what circles they chose 
 in order to explain the phenomena, I conceived that I 
 might take the liberty of trying whether, on the supposi- 
 tion of the earth's motion, it was possible to find better 
 
256 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 explanations than the ancient ones of the revolutions of 
 the celestial orbs." 
 
 " Having, then, assumed the motions of the earth, 
 which are hereafter explained, by laborious and long 
 observation I at length found that, if the motions of the 
 other planets be compared with the revolution of the earth, 
 not only their phenomena follow from the suppositions, but 
 also that the several orbs and the whole system are so 
 connected in order and magnitude that no one point can be 
 transposed without disturbing the rest, and introducing 
 confusion into the whole universe." 
 
 The apologetic air with which he thus introduces his 
 introduction doctrine us again remarked in his statement that 
 «f hteeystem. he had kept his book for thirty-six years, and 
 only now published it at the entreaty of Cardinal Schom- 
 berg. The cardinal had begged of him a manuscript copy. 
 "Though 1 know that the thoughts of a philosopher do 
 not depend on the judgment of the many, his study 
 being to seek out truth in all things as far as is permitted 
 oy God to human reason, yet, when I considered how 
 absurd my doctrine would appear, I long hesitated whether 
 I should publish my book, or whether it were not better to 
 follow the example of the Pythagoreans and others, who 
 delivered their doctrine only by tradition and to friends." 
 He fears being ^ e concludes : " If there be vain babblers who, 
 accused of ° knowing nothing of mathematics, yet assume 
 beresv. r ight of judging on account of some place 
 
 of Scripture perversely wrested to their purpose, and who 
 blame and attack my undertaking, 1 heed them not, and 
 look upon their judgments as rash and contemptible." 
 
 Copernicus clearly recognized not only the relative 
 position of the earth, but also her relative magnitude. He 
 says the magnitude of the world is so great that the 
 distance of the earth from the sun has no apparent magni- 
 tude when compared with the sphere of the fixed stars. 
 
 To the earth Copernicus attributed a triple motion — a 
 daily rotation on her axis, an annual motion 
 tionoftne 60 " round the sun, a motion of declination of the 
 ^pemican axis. The latter seemed to be necessary to 
 account for the constant direction of the pole ; 
 but as this was soon found to be a misconception, the 
 
CH. Vill.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 257 
 
 theory was relieved of it. With this correction, the doc- 
 trine of Copernicus presents a clear and great advance, 
 though in the state in which be offered it he was obliged 
 to retain the mechanism of epicycles and eccentrics, because 
 he considered the planetary motions to be circular. It was 
 the notion that, since the circle is the most simple of all 
 geometrical forms, il mtisi therefore be the most natural, 
 which led to this imperfection . Bis work was published 
 in L543. He died a few days after he had Been a copy. 
 
 Against the opposition it had to encounter, the helio- 
 oentric theory made its way Blowly at first. Among those 
 who did adopt it were some whose connexion served 
 rather to retard its progress, because of the nltraism 
 of their views, or the doubtfulness of their Giordano 
 social position. Such was Bruno, who con- BrunoofNola. 
 trihuted largely to its introduction into England, and 
 who was the author of a work on the Plurality of 
 Worlds, and of tin- c< >neept i« »n thai every star is a sun, 
 having opaque planets revolving round it — a conception 
 to which the ( '« »j iernioan system suggestively leads. Bruno 
 was horn seven years after the death of Copernicus. He 
 became a Dominican, but, like so many other thoughtful 
 men of the times, was led into heresy on the doctrine 
 of transubstantiation. Not concealing his opinions, he 
 was persecuted, fled, and led a vagabond life in foreign 
 Countries, testifying that wherever he went he found 
 scepticism under the polish of hypocrisy, and that he 
 foughl QOt against the belief of men, but against their 
 pretended belief. For teaching the rotation of He teaches 
 the earth he had to flee to Switzerland, and ihe heliocen- 
 thence to England, where, at Oxford, he gave tllctheory> 
 lectures on cosmology. Driven from England, France, 
 and Germany in succession, he ventured in his extremity 
 to return to Italy, and was arrested in Venice, where he 
 was kepi in prison in the Piombi for six years without 
 books, or paper, or friends. Meantime the Inquisition 
 demanded him as li t ving written heretical works. He was 
 therefore surrendered to Borne, and, after a farther im- 
 prisonment of two years, tried, excommunicated, and 
 delivered over to the secular authorities, to be punished 
 **as mercifully as possible, and without the shedding of his 
 
 VOL. II. s 
 
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. Vl> 
 
 blood," the abominable formula for burning a man alive. 
 11c had collected all the observations that had been made 
 respecting the new star in Cassiopeia, 1572 ; he had taught 
 that space is infinite, and that it is filled with self-luminous 
 and opaque worlds, many of them inhabited — this being 
 his capital offence. He believed that the world is ani- 
 mated by an intelligent soul, the cause of forms but not 
 of matter ; that it lives in all things, even such as seem 
 not to live ; that every thing is ready to become organized ; 
 that matter is the mother of forms and then their grave, 
 that matter and the son] of the world together constitute 
 God. His ideas were therefore pantheistic, u Est Deus in 
 nobis." In his"Cena de le Cenere" he insists that the 
 Scripture was nol intended to teach science, but morals 
 only. The severity with which he was treated was pro- 
 voked by his asseverations thai he was struggling with an 
 orthodoxy that had neither morality nor belief. This was 
 the aim of his work entitled " The triumphant Beast/ 1 
 and is burnt was burnt at Borne, February 16, 1P>00. 
 
 aUveasa AYith both a present and prophetic truth, he 
 
 nobly responded, when the atrocious sentence 
 was passed upon him, 4 4 Perhaps it is with greater fear 
 that ye pass this sentence upon me than I receive it.'* 
 His tormentors jocosely observed, as the flames shut him 
 out for ever from view, that he had gone to the imaginary 
 worlds he had so wickedly feigned. 
 
 This vigorous but spasmodic determination of the Church 
 to defend herself was not without effect. It enabled her 
 to hold fast the timid, the time-servers, the superficial. 
 
 Among such niav be mentioned Lord Bacon, 
 
 Lord Bacon. , 0 \ , • ~ . 
 
 who never received the Copernican system. 
 With the audacity of ignorance, he presumed to criticize 
 what he did not understand, and, with a superb conceit, 
 ry . disparaged the great Copernicus. He says, " In 
 
 Injects the 1 & * . 1 ,1 J 
 
 copernican the system oi Copernicus there are many and 
 doctrine. grave difficulties ; for the threefold motion with 
 which he encumbers the earth is a serious inconvenience, 
 and the separation of the sun from the planets, with which 
 he has so many affections in common, is likewise a harsh 
 step; and the introduction of so many immovable bodies 
 in nature as when he makes the sun and stars immovable, 
 
CH. VIII. 1 
 
 j 
 
 THK EUROPEAN AmE OF KEASoN. 
 
 259 
 
 the bodies which arc peculiarly lucid and radiant, and his 
 making the moon adhere to the earth in a sort of epicycle, 
 and h<»me other tilings which he assumes, are proceedings 
 which mark a man who thinks nothing of introducing 
 fictions of any kind into nature, provided his calculations 
 turn out well." The more closely we examine the writings 
 uf hold Bacon, the more unworthy does he seem to have 
 hern of the great reputation which has been awarded to 
 him. The popular delusion to which he owes so much 
 originated at a time when the history of science was un- 
 known. They who first brought him into notice knew 
 nothing of the old school of Alexandria. This boasted 
 founder of a new philosophy could not comprehend, and 
 would not accept, the greatest of all scientific doctrines 
 when it was plainly set before his eyes. 
 
 It has been represented that the invention of the true 
 method of physical science was an amusement of Bacon's 
 hours of relax ition from the more laborious studies of law 
 and duties of a court. His chief admirers have been 
 person- of a literary turn, who have an idea that scientific 
 discoveries are accomplished by a mcchanico mental opera 
 tion. Bacon never produced any great practical 
 
 , . , • , c 1 . , • - i ? 1 The practical 
 
 result himselt, no great physicist has ever made us .i« -ssne^ 
 any use of his method. He has had the same jj^ 5 ** 10 " 
 to do with the development of modern science 
 that the inventor of the orrery has had to do with the 
 discovery of the mechanism of the world. Of all the 
 important physical discoveries, there is not one which 
 shows that its author made it by the Baconian instrument. 
 Newton never seems to have been aware that he was 
 under any obligation to Bacon. Archimedes, and the 
 Alexandrians, and the Arabians, and Leonardo da Vinci 
 did very well before he was born ; the discovery of America 
 by Columbus and the circumnavigation by Magellan can 
 hardly be a 1 1 ributed to him, yet they were the consequences 
 of a truly philosophical reasoning. But the investigation 
 of nature is an affair of genius, not of rules. No man can 
 invent an organon for writing tragedies and Epic poems. 
 Bacon's system is, in it own terms, an idol of the theatre. 
 It would scarcely guide a man to a solution of the riddle of 
 /ftlia 1 ,;elia ( 'rispis, or to that of the charade of Sir Hilary. 
 
 s 2 
 
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [~CH. VIII, 
 
 Few scientific pretenders have made more mistakes than 
 His scientific Lord Bacon. He rejected the Copernican system, 
 errors. an( j spoke insolently of its great author ; he 
 undertook to criticise adversely Gilbert's treatise " De 
 Magnete;" he was occupied in the condemnation of any 
 investigation of final causes, while Harvey was deducing 
 the circulation of the blood from Aquapendente's discovery 
 of the valves in the veins ; he was doubtful whether 
 instruments were of any advantage, while Galileo was 
 investigating the heavens with the telescope. Ignorant 
 himself of every branch of mathematics, he presumed that 
 they were useless in science, but a few years before Newton 
 achieved by their aid his immortal discoveries. It is time 
 that the sacred name of philosophy should be severed from 
 its long connexion with that of one who was a pretender 
 in science, a time-serving politician, an insidious lawyer, a 
 corrupt judge, a treacherous friend, a bad man. 
 
 But others were not so obtuse as Bacon. Gilbert, one of 
 Adoption of * ne ^est °f * ne ear ty English experimentalists, 
 theCopemi- an excellent writer on magnetism, adopted the 
 ** dockrine " views of Copernicus. Milton, in " Paradise Lost," 
 set forth in language such as he only could use the objections 
 to the Ptolemaic, and the probabilities of the Copernican 
 system. Some of the more liberal ecclesiastics gave their 
 adhesion. Bishop WilMns not only presented it in a very 
 popular way, but also made some sensible suggestions 
 explanatory of the supposed contradictions of the new 
 theory to the Holy Scriptures. It was, however, among 
 geometricians, as Napier, Briggs, Horrox, that it met with 
 its best support. On the continent the doctrine was daily 
 making converts, and nightly gathering strength from the 
 accordance of the tables of the motions of the heavenly 
 bodies calculated upon its principles with actual obser- 
 vation. 
 
 It is by no means uninteresting to notice the different 
 classes of men among whom this great theory was steadily 
 winning its way. Experimental philosophers, Eepublican 
 poets, Episcopal clergymen, Scotch lords. West of England 
 schoolmasters, Italian physicists, Polish pedants, pains- 
 taking Germans, each from his own special point of view, 
 was gradually receiving the light, and doubtless, from 
 
CH. VIII.] 
 
 TflE KUl:<"»rEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 261 
 
 6ueh varied influence, the doctrine would have vindicated 
 its supremacy a1 last, though it might have taken a long 
 time. On a sudden, however, there occurred a fortunate 
 event, which led forthwith to that result hy a invention of 
 new train of evidence, bringing the matter, the telescope, 
 under the mo>t brilliant circumstances, clearly to the 
 Apprehension of every one. Tin's great and fortunate 
 event was the invention of the telescope. 
 
 It is needless to enter on any examination of the author- 
 ship of this invention. It is enough for our purpose to 
 \-now that Lipper>hey, a Dutchman, had made one toward 
 the close of lOOS, and thai ( i alileo, hearing of the Galileo am- 
 eircumstanee, but w ithout knowing the particu- structsone. 
 lars <>f the c< instruct ion, in April or May of the following 
 year invented a form of it for himself. Not content with 
 admiring how elose and large it made terrestrial objects, 
 he employed it f-r examining the heavens. On turning 
 it to the moon, he found that she has mountains casting 
 shadows, and valleys like these of the earth. T ,, loscopIc 
 The discovery of innumerable fixed stars — not ■stronomtea] 
 fewer than forty were counted by him in the discoverks - 
 well-known group of the Pleiades— up to that time unseen 
 by man, was felt afc once to offer an insuperable argument 
 againsl the opinion thai these bodies were created only to 
 illuminate the night ; indeed, it maybe said that this was 
 a death-blow to the time-honoured doctrine of the human 
 destiny of the universe. Already Galileo began to en- 
 counter vulgar indignation, which accused him loudly of 
 impiety. On January 7th, 1610, he discovered three of 
 Jupiter's satellites, and a few days later the fourth. To 
 these he gave the designation of the Medicean stars, and 
 in his "Sidereal Messenger" published an account of the 
 facts he had thus far observed. As it was perceived at 
 onoe that this planet offered a miniature representation of 
 the ideas of Copernicus respecting the solar system, this 
 discovery was received by the astronomical party with the 
 liveliest pleasure, by the ecclesiastical with the most bitter 
 Opposition, seme declaring that it was a mere optical 
 deception, some a proposed farad, some that it was sheer 
 blasphemy, and some, fairly carrying out to its consequences 
 the absurd philosophy of the day, asserted that, since the 
 
262 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OK REASON. 
 
 [_CH. VIII. 
 
 pretended satellites were invisible to the naked eye, they 
 must he useless, and, being useless, they could not exist 
 Continuing his observations, Galileo found that Saturn 
 differs in an extraordinary manner from other planets ; 
 but the telescope he used not being sufficient to demon- 
 strate the ring, he fell into the mistake that the body of 
 the planet is triple. This was soon followed by the dis- 
 covery of the phases of Venus, which indisputably esta- 
 blished for her a motion round the sun, and actually con- 
 verted what had hitherto, on all hands, been regarded as 
 one of the weightiest objections against the Oopernican 
 theory, into a most solid support. "If the doctrine of 
 Copernicus he true, the planet Venus ought to show phases 
 like the moon, which is not the case;" so said the objectors. 
 Copernicus himself saw the difficulty, and tried to remove 
 it by suggesting that the planet might be transparent. 
 The telescope of Galileo for ever settled the question by 
 showing that the expected phases do actually exist. 
 
 In the gardon of Cardinal Bandini at Rome, a.j>. 1(511, 
 Galileo publicly exhibited the spots upon the sun. He had 
 commencing observed them the preceding year. Goaded on 
 opposition to by the opposition his astronomical discoveries 
 were bringing upon him, he addressed a letter 
 in 1613 to the Abbe Castelli, for the purpose of showing 
 that the Scriptures were not intended as a scientific 
 authority. This was repeating Bruno's offence. Here- 
 upon the Dominicans, taking alarm, commenced to attack 
 him from their pulpits. It shows how reluctantly, and 
 with what misgivings the higher ecclesiastics entered upon 
 the quarrel, that Maraffi, the general of the Dominicans, 
 apologized to Galileo for what had taken place. The 
 astronomer now published another letter reiterating his 
 former opinions, asserting that the Scriptures were only 
 intended for our salvation, and otherwise defending him- 
 self, and recalling the fact that Copernicus had dedicated 
 his book to Pope Paul III. 
 
 Through the suggestion of the Dominicans, Galileo was 
 He is summon- now summoned to Eome to account for his 
 ed to Rome, conduct and opinions before the Inquisition. 
 He was accused of having taught that the earth moves ; 
 that the sun is stationary ; and of having attempted to 
 
CH. VIII.] THI KUBOPKAS AOJC OK REASON. 263 
 
 reconcile these doctrines with the Scriptures. The sen- 
 I .nee was that he must renounce these heretical opinions 
 and pledge himself that ho would neither publish nor 
 defend them for th<> future. In the event ot his , 5 ,,„„, ,,„„., 
 ,, tl ,sal he was to 1, imprisoned. With the late ^ i™.™- 
 „f I'.mno in his reeolleetion. he assented to the 
 r ,,„ired recantation, and gave the promise demanded. 
 
 Ti e Inquisition then pr led to deal with the Copcnncan 
 
 BVstem. condemning it as heretical : the Otters of Galileo, 
 which had given rise to the trouble, were prohibited; also 
 Kc dcrs epitome of the Coperniean theory and also the 
 work of Copernicus. In their decree prohibiting whlchc „„. 
 this work "De Kevolntionihus." the < -mgrega- 
 tion of the Ind.x. March 5. 1«H5. denounced the m- ;;;; 
 new system of the universe as "that talse 
 Pythagorean doctrine utterly contrary to the Holy Scrip- 
 
 tn Again it appears how reluctant the Roman a"thoritics 
 were to interfere and how they were impelled lathn 
 by the necessity of their position than by their per*ma 
 belief in the course they had heen obliged o tak, . A AU 
 all that had passed, the Pope. Pan \ .. admitted Gab o 
 tl , Iin audience, at which he professed to h„n personalh the 
 kindest sentiments, and assured him ot salety. TbywMMl 
 When I rhan Mil. succeeded to the pontihca 
 chair Galileo received the distinction ot not 
 less than six audiences; the Pope conferred on him several 
 presents, and added the promise oi P<;-'» J* h» ■ ' p 
 , „, ^ Duke of Florence his Holiness used the 
 most liberal language, Mated how dear to him Galileo was 
 She "ad very Unglv embraced him. ami requested 
 the duke to show him every tnvour. 
 
 Whcthei it was that, under these auspicious circum- 
 ■Jc£ Galileo believed he could with nnp^ty break 
 throuith the engagement he had made, or whethei an 
 Stive hatred of that intellectual despotism and hypo- 
 crisy which was weighing upon Europe became 
 irrepressible in his hreast. in 1632 he ventured r,, 
 on the publication of Ids work, entitled L he „„,„,„,,,•• 
 Svst.au of the World," its object hemg to es- 
 SBbthe faith of the 'Coperniean doctrine. It .composed 
 
264 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [ch. Yin. 
 
 in the dialogue form, three speakers being introduced, two 
 of them true philosophers, the third an objector. Whatever 
 may have been the personal opinion of the Pope, there can 
 be no doubt that his duty rendered it necessary for him to 
 act. Galileo was therefore again summoned befor the 
 Inquisition, the Tuscan ambassador expostulating against 
 the inhumanity of thus dealing with an old man in ill 
 health. But no such considerations were listened to, and 
 Galileo was compelled to appear at Home, February, 1633, 
 md surrender himself to the Holy Office. The Pope's 
 nephew did all in his power to meet the necessity of the 
 Church and yet to spare the dignity of science. He paid 
 every attention to the personal comfort of the accused. 
 When the time "came for Galileo to be put into solitary 
 confinement, he endeavoured to render the imprisonment 
 as light as possible; but, finding it to prey upon the 
 spirits of the aged philosopher, he, on his own responsi- 
 bility, liberated him, permitting him to reside in the 
 house of the Tuscan ambassador. The trial being com- 
 pleted, Galileo was directed to appear, on June 
 demnedby 22nd, to hear his sentence. Clothed in the peni- 
 the/nquisi- tential garment, lie received judgment. His 
 heretical offences were specified, the pledges he 
 had violated recited ; he was declared to have brought upon 
 himself strong suspicions of heresy, and to be liable to the 
 penalties thereof; but from these he might be absolved if, 
 with a sincere heart, he would abjure and curse his 
 heresies. However, that his offences might not altogether 
 go unpunished, and that he might be a warning to others, 
 he was condemned to imprisonment during the pleasure of 
 the Inquisition, his dialogues were prohibited by public 
 edict, and for three years he was directed to recite, once a 
 week, the seven penitential psalms. 
 
 In his garment of disgrace the aged philosopher was 
 Hisdegrada- now ma( le to fall upon his knees before the 
 tion and pun- assembled cardinals, and, with his hand on the 
 Gospels, to make the required abjuration of the 
 heliocentric doctrine, and to give the pledges demanded. 
 He was then committed to the prison of the Inquisition ; 
 the persons who had been concerned in the printing of his 
 book were punished ; and the sentence and abjuration were 
 
265 
 
 CH. VIII.] THK EUROPEAN AG B OF REASON. 
 
 formally promulgated, and ordered to be publicly read in 
 ihe universities. In Florence, the adherents of Galileo 
 were ordered to attend in the Church of banta Croce to 
 witness his disgrace. After a short imprisonment m the 
 jail of the Inquisition, he was ordered to Arcetri, and 
 confined in his own house. Here severe misfortunes 
 awaited him: his favourite daughter died; he fell into a 
 Mate- of melancholy; an application that he might go to 
 riorenee for the sake of medical advice was refused. It 
 became evident that there was an intention to treat him 
 with inexorable severity. After five years of confinement, 
 permission was reluctantly accorded to him to remove to 
 Florence for his health; but still he was forbidden to 
 leave his house, or receive his friends, or even to attend 
 mass during Passion Week without a special order. Ihe 
 (Irand-duke tried to abate this excessive seventy, directing 
 his ambassador at the court of Koine to plead the venerable 
 and ill health of the immortal convict, and that it was 
 desirable to permit him to communicate certain scientific 
 discoveries he had made to some other person, such as 
 Father Castelli. Nol even that was accorded unless the 
 interview took place in the presence of an official of the 
 Inquisition. Soon after Galileo was remanded to Arcetri. 
 Be spent the weary hours in composing his work on Local 
 Motion, his friends causing it to be surreptitiously pub- 
 lished in Bolland. His infirmxties and misfortunes now 
 increased. In 1637 he became totally blind. Thecalami . 
 in a letter he plaintively says, referring to this ties of his old 
 calamity, " So it pleases God, it shall therefore 1 ' 
 please me also." The exquisite refinement of ecclesiastical 
 vengeance pursued him remorselessly, and now gave him per- 
 mission to see his friends when sight was no longer possible. 
 It wasaf this period that an illustrious stranger, the author 
 of " Paradise Lost," visited him. Shortly after he became 
 totally deaf; but to the last he occupied himself with 
 investigations respecting the force of percussion. He 
 died, January, 1642, in the seventy-eighth year m8 death; 
 of hie age, the prisoner of the Inquisition, js^JJ** 
 True to its instincts, that infernal institution _ 
 followed him beyond the grave, disputing his right to 
 make a will, and denying him burial m consecrated 
 
266 
 
 THE EUROPEAN A.GE OF REASON. 
 
 ich. vin. 
 
 ground. The pope also prohibited his friends from raising 
 to him a monument in the church of Santa Croce, in 
 Florence. It was reserved for the nineteenth century to 
 erect a suitable memorial in his honour. 
 
 The result of the discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo 
 was thus to bring the earth to her real position 
 vimclfonhe of subordination and to give sublimer views <>{ 
 copernican the universe. MoestliD expresses correctly the 
 state of the case when he says, "What is the 
 earth and the ambient air with respect to the immensity 
 of space? It is a point, a punctule, or something, if then 4 
 bo any thing, less."' It had been brought down to the 
 condition of one of the members of a family — the solar 
 system. And sinoe it could be no longer regarded as 
 holding all other bodies in submissive attendance upon it, 
 dominating over their movements, there was reason to 
 suppose that it would be found to maintain interconnex- 
 ions with them in the attitude of an equal or subordinate; 
 in other words, that general relations would be discovered 
 expressive of the manner in which all the planetary 
 members of the solar system sustain their movements 
 round the sun. 
 
 Among those whose minds were thoroughly occupied 
 Kepler his with this idea, Kepler stands pre-eminently 
 mode of in- conspicuous. It is not at all surprising, con- 
 <llliry ' sidering the tone of thought of those times, 
 
 that he regarded his subject with a certain mysticism. 
 They who condemn his manner of thus viewing things do 
 not duly appreciate the mental condition of the generation 
 in which he lived. Whatever may be said on that point, 
 no one can deny him a marvellous patience, and almost 
 superhuman painstaking disposition. Guess after guess, 
 hypothesis after hypothesis, he submitted to computations 
 of infinite labour, and doubtless he speaks the melancholy 
 truth when he says, " I considered and reflected till 1 was 
 almost mad." Yet, in the midst of repeated disappoint- 
 ment, he held, with a truly philosophical determination, 
 firmly to the belief that there must be some physical 
 interconnexion among the parts of the solar system, and 
 that it would certainly be displayed by the discovery of 
 laws presiding over the distances, times, and velocities of 
 
< H. VIII.] 
 
 THE FA' ROPE AX AGE OF RKASOX. 
 
 267 
 
 1 1 1 < 5 planets. In these speculations he was immersed 
 before the publications of Galileo. In his 44 Mysteriurn 
 Oosmographicum " he says, "In the year 1505 I was 
 brooding with the whole energy of my mind on the subject 
 of the Copernican system." 
 
 In 1609 he published his work entitled 44 On the Motion 
 of Mars." This was the result of an attempt, Discovery of 
 upon which h<> had been engaged since the Kepler's laws, 
 beginning of the century, to reconcile the motions of that 
 planet to the hypothesis of eccentrics and epicycles. It 
 ended in the abandonment of that hypothesis, and in the 
 discovery of the two great laws now known as the first 
 and second laws of Kepler. 'They are respectively that 
 the orbits of the planets are ellipticcil, and that the areas 
 described by a line drawn from the planet to the sun are 
 proportional to tho times. 
 
 In 1(517 he was again rewarded by the discovery which 
 passes under the designation of Kepler's third law: it 
 expresses the relation of the mean distances of the planets 
 from the sun with the times of their revolutions — 44 the 
 .wpiares of the periodic times are in the same proportion 
 as the cubes of tho distances/' In his "Epitome of the 
 Oopernican Astronomy, ' published 16'J2, he showed that 
 this law likewise holds good for the satellites of Jupiter as 
 regards their primary. 
 
 Humboldt, referring to the movement of Jupiter's satel- 
 lites, remarks : "It was this which led Kepler, ,,. 
 
 mj M Ti • _ _ i • i «i i uis remon- 
 
 m his 'llarmoniccs Mundi, to state, with the Btranoe with 
 
 firm confidence and security of a German spirit fcheChnroh - 
 of philosophical independence, to those whoso opinions 
 bore sway beyond the Alps, 4 Eighty years have elapsed 
 during which the doctrines of Copernicus regarding the 
 movement of the earth and the immobility of the sun 
 havo been promulgated without hindrance, because it was 
 deemed allowable to dispute concerning natural things 
 and to elucidate the works of God, and, now that new 
 testimony is discovered in proof of the truth of those 
 doctrines testimony which was not known to the spiritual 
 judges, ye would prohibit the promulgation of the true 
 system of the structure of the universe.' 
 
 Thus we see that the heliocentric theory, as proposed bj 
 
268 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 Copernicus, was undergoing rectification. The circular 
 Rectification movements admitted into it, and which had bur- 
 Df.the Coper- dened it w r ith infinite perplexity, though they 
 mean theory, hitherto been recommended by an illusive 
 
 simplicity, were demonstrated to be incorrect. They were 
 replaced by the real ones, the elliptical. Kepler, as was 
 his custom, ingenuously related his trials and disappoint- 
 ments. Alluding on one occasion to this, he says: "My 
 first error was that the path of a planet is a perfect circle 
 — an opinion which was a more mischievous thief of my 
 time, in proportion as it was supported by the authority of 
 all philosophers, and apparently agreeable to metaphysics." 
 
 The philosophical significance of Kepler's discoveries 
 The n was lvcu & ll ^ / ' <J ^ ecclesiastical party at 
 
 sophicaiim- first. It is chiefly this, that they constitute a 
 port of these most important step to the establishment of the 
 doctrine of the government of the world by law. 
 But it was impossible to receive these laws without seeking 
 for their cause. The result to which that search event 
 ually conducted not only explained their origin, but also 
 showed that, as laws, they must, in the necessity of nature, 
 exist. It may be truly said that the mathematical exposi- 
 tion of. their origin constitutes the most splendid monu- 
 ment of the intellectual power of man. 
 
 Before the heliocentric theory could be developed and 
 made to furnish a clear exposition of the solar system, 
 which is obviously the first step to just views of the 
 universe, it was necessary that the science of mechanics 
 Necessity for snou ^ be greatly improved — indeed, it might 
 mechanical be said, created ; for during those dreary ages 
 science. following the establishment of Byzantine power, 
 nothing had been done toward the acquisition of correct 
 views either in statics or dynamics. It was impossible 
 that Europe, in her lower states of life, could produce men 
 capable of commencing where Archimedes had left off. 
 She had to wait for the approach of her Age of Eeason for 
 that. 
 
 The man of capacity at last came. Leonardo da Vinci 
 Leonardo da was /born a.d. 1452. The historian Hallam, 
 Vinci. enumerating some of his works, observes, " His 
 
 knowledge was almost preternatural." Many of his writings 
 
CH. VIII.] THE BTOOFKAU AGE OF REASON'. 269 
 
 , r i,„,l Ton"- before Bacon, he laid 
 still remain ^Pf^^e^lnd observation must be 
 
 tf mathematics, and £ cn <l^m „ ^ 
 
 their supreme ^vantage • ^en ^ ^ ^ ^ 
 
 of Columbus, tins gie.it ma re cxpos ition of 
 
 mathematician, and eng.nee -g. • . J cU ai 1 fow 
 
 thC A S be ^efl^^^ 
 
 Kr u ^^ tuc 
 
 demonstrated by An«^^ 
 
 velocities; de f nb ?Vi^otive the nature of coloured 
 
 I'-ta. uiubrsf I -™ ^ ^ ^ of the duration 
 
 shadows the use of the i s. .ml " WC U on 
 
 of ' ml 'T- -' "r, Castell \„ hydraulics, occupied 
 
 with", " f of ..''li,,: on tlJ hypothesis of the 
 himself with tin ii f desceut along 
 
 earth's ro ation, tie. U I o the ti natu ro of 
 
 inclined phu.es and cnculai aics « clcaniWJS , rosnira- 
 — hines. He considered w th s gl > clca ^ ^ 1^ 
 ti,,,, !VU d combustio a . I * ^ 1 0 f continents. 
 ^^KmSiS the movement in Natural 
 PhSphy; it was followed ap ^the^ca- 
 7. f ' wnrk on the principles of equUiiumm uy movcmcnt ,„ 
 " , ,m T i this the author established s.„„rM m- 
 
 „, n ,carol. a litlH't . ™'» d ith h tei llia„t astro- 
 
 »2?S?S3S«y *«^~ j» j-jg: saw 
 
 tl„. iblishment of the three lawsot motion. moUon 
 The; « to the following effect, as given by 
 
 Ne (T0 ^very body perseveres in its state of rest or of 
 
270 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 uniform motion in a right line unless it is compelled tc 
 change that state by forces impressed thereon. 
 
 (2.) The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the 
 motive force impressed, and is made in the direction of the 
 right line in which that force is impressed. 
 
 (-').) To every action there is always opposed an equal 
 reaction, or the mutual actions of two bodies upon each 
 other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. 
 
 Up to this time it was the general idea that motion can 
 only be maintained by a perpetual application, impression, 
 or expenditure of force. Galilee) himself for many years 
 entertained that error, but in 1638 he plainly states in his 
 tk Dialogues on Mechanics'" the true law of the uniformity 
 and perpetuity of motion. Such a view necessarily implies 
 a correct and clear appreciation of the nature of resistances. 
 No experimental motion that man can establish is unre- 
 strained. But a perception of the uniformity and per- 
 petuity of motion lies at the very basis of physical 
 astronomy. With difficulty the true idea was attained. 
 The same may be said as respects rectilinear direction, for 
 many supposed that uniform motion can only take place in 
 a circle. 
 
 The establishment of the first law of motion was essen- 
 tial to the discovery of the laws of falling bodies, 
 ment of the hi which the descent is made under the influence 
 first law of 0 f a continual] v acting force, the velocity in- 
 
 motion 
 
 creasing in consequence thereof. Galileo saw 
 clearly that, whether a body is moving slowly or swiftly, 
 it will be equally affected by gravity. This principle was 
 with difficulty admitted by some, who were disposed to 
 believe that a swiftly moving body would not be as much 
 affected by a constant force like gravity as one the motion 
 of which is slower. W ith difficulty, also, was the old 
 Aristotelian error eradicated that a heavy body falls more 
 swiftly than a light one. 
 
 The second law of motion was also established and illus- 
 tnd of the trated by Galileo. In his " Dialogues " he shows 
 #econd, that a body projected horizontally must have, 
 from what has been said, a uniform horizontal motion, but 
 that it will also have compounded therewith an accelerated 
 motion downward. Here again we perceive it is necessary 
 
QU, vill.j OIK BUBOPKAM AG* OF BBAflOH. 271 
 
 to retain a steady oonoeption of tins intermingling of 
 forces without deterioration, and, though it may seem 
 bimple enough to ns, there were some eminent men of 
 those til... s who .H.l not receive it as true, tho special 
 case offered hv Galileo is tlicorctically connected with the 
 paths of military projectiles, though in practice, since 
 Sey move in a resisting medium, the air, their path 
 is essentially different from the paraU.la. Curvilinear 
 motions, which ueoesaarily arise from the constant action 
 of a centra] force, making a body depart from the recti- 
 linear oath it must otherwise take, are chiefly ot interest, 
 as wo shall pnscntly find, in the movements ot the 
 celestial Ik "lies. 
 
 A thorough exposition of the third law ot motion was 
 left hv (ialileo to his successors, who had di- :1 „,ioftiie 
 noted their attention especially to the deter- *"»»• 
 
 minati. f the laws ..f impact, lnd.-ed. the whole subjeot 
 
 was illustrated and tlie truth of the three laws verified in 
 manv different cases hv an examination ..f the phenomena 
 
 of freely Calling bodies, pendulums, projectiles, and the 
 like. Among those who occupied themselves with such 
 labours mac he mentioned Torricellt. I 'astelli. Viviani, 
 hiorelli. (lassendi. Through the investigations ot these, 
 and other Italian, French, and English natural philo- 
 sophers the principles of Mechanics were solidly esta- 
 blished, and a necessary preparation made for their appli- 
 cation in astronomy. By this time every one had become 
 ready to admit that the motion of the planetary bodies 
 Willi Id find an explanation on these principles. 
 
 The steps thus far taken for an explanation of the move- 
 ments of the planets in curvilinear paths there- Application 
 tore consisted in the removal of the old nuscon- 0 f Mechanics 
 oeption that for a hotly to continue its motion 
 
 tial motions. 
 
 forward in a straight line a continued applica- 
 tion of force is necessary, the first law of motion disposing 
 Of t hat error. In the next place, it was necessary that clear 
 and distinct ideas should be held of the combination or com- 
 position of forces, each continuing to exercise its influence 
 without deterioration or diminution by the other. The time 
 had now come for it to be shown that the perpetual move- 
 ment of the planets is a consequence of the first law ot 
 
272 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 L CH. VIII. 
 
 motion ; their elliptic paths, such as had been determined 
 by Kepler, a consequence of the second. Several persons 
 almost simultaneously had been brought nearly to this 
 conclusion without being able to solve the problem com- 
 pletely. Thus l>orelli, a.d. 1066, in treating- of the mo- 
 tions of Jupiter's satellites, distinctly shows how a cir- 
 cular motion may arise under the influence of a central 
 force ; he even uses the illustration so frequently intro- 
 duced of a stone whirled round in a sling. In the same 
 year a paper was presented to the Royal Society by Mr. 
 Hooke, "explicating the inflection of a direct motion into 
 a circular by a supervening a1 1 raol i ve principle." I luygens 
 also, in his "Horologium Oscillatorium," had published 
 some theorems on circular motions, but no one as yet had 
 been able to show how elliptical orbits OOuld, upon these 
 principles, be accounted for, though very many had become 
 satisfied that the solution of this problem would before 
 long l>e given. 
 
 In April, 1686, the M Frincipia" of Newton was presented 
 Newton -pub- *° ^ ne Royal Society. This immortal work not 
 b cation of the only laid the foundation of Fhysical Astronomy, 
 ■Prindpia. it also carried the structure thereof very far 
 toward its completion. It unfolded the mechanical theory 
 of universal gravitation upon the principle that all bodies 
 tend to approach each other with forces directly as their 
 masses, and inversely as the squares of their distances. 
 
 To the force producing this tendency of bodies to 
 approach each other the designation of attraction of 
 gravitation, or gravity, is given. All heavy bodies fall to 
 the earth in such a way that the direction of their move- 
 ment *s toward its centre. Newton proved that 
 the the"ry S of this is the direction in which they must neces- 
 universai sarily niove under the influence of an attraction 
 gravi a ion. ^ every one of the particles of which the earth 
 is composed, the attraction of a sphere taking effect as if 
 all its particles were concentrated in its centre. 
 
 Galileo had already examined the manner in which 
 Preparation gravity acts upon bodies as an accelerating force, 
 for Newton. an( ^ determined the connexion between the 
 spaces of descent and the times. He illustrated such facts 
 experimentally by the use of inclined planes, by the aid of 
 
cir. vui.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 273 
 
 which the velocity may be conveniently diminished with- 
 out otherwise changing the nature of the result. He had 
 also demonstrated that the earth's attraction acts equally 
 on all bodies. This he proved by inclosing various sub- 
 stances in hollow spheres, and showing that, when they 
 were suspended by strings of equal length and made to 
 vibrate, the time of oscillation was the same for all. On 
 the invention of the air-pump, a more popular demonstra- 
 tion of the same fact was given by the experiment proving 
 that a gold coin and a feather fall equally swiftly in an 
 exhausted receiver. Galileo had also proved, by experi- 
 ments on the leaning tower of Pisa, that the velocity of 
 falling bodies is independent of their weight. It was for 
 these experiments that lie was expelled from that city. 
 
 Up to the time of Newton there were only very vague 
 ideas that the earths attraction extended to any consider- 
 able distance. Newton was led to his discovery Kxtcn8ion uf 
 by reflecting that at all altitudes accessible to attraction or 
 man, gravity appears to be undiminished, and gravity - 
 that, therefore, it may possibly extend as far as the moon, 
 and actually be the force which deflects her from a 
 rectilinear path, and makes her revolve in an orbit round 
 tho earth. Admitting the truth of the law of the inverse 
 squares, it is easy to compute whether the moon falls from 
 the tangent she would describe if the earth ceased to act 
 upon her by a quantity proportional to that observed in 
 the case of bodies falling near the surface. In the first 
 calculations made by Newton, he found that the moon is 
 deflected from the tangent thirteen feet every minute ; but, 
 if fche hypothesis of gravitation were true, her deflection 
 should be fifteen feet. It is no trifling evidence of the 
 scrupulous science of this great philosopher that hereupon 
 he put aside the subject for several years, without, however, 
 abandoning it. At length, in 1682, learning the result of 
 the measures of a degree which Picard had executed in 
 France, and which affected the estimate of the magnitude 
 of the earth he had used, and therefore the distance of the 
 moon, he repeated the calculations with these improved 
 data. It is related that u he went home, took out his old 
 papers, and resumed his calculations. As they drew to a 
 close, he became so much agitated that he was obliged to 
 
 VOL. II. T 
 
274 
 
 TilE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 desire a frieur. to finish them." The expected coincidence 
 was verified. And thus it appeared that the moon is re- 
 tained in her orbit and made to revolve round the earth by 
 the force of terrestrial gravity. 
 
 These calculations were founded upon the hypothesis 
 that the moon moves in a circular orbit with a uniform 
 velocity. But in the " Principia " it was demonstrated that 
 when a body moves under the influence of an attractive 
 force, varying as the inverse square of the distances, it 
 must describe a conic section, with a focus at the centreof 
 force, and under the circumstances designated by Kepler's 
 The cause of laws. Newton, therefore, did far more than 
 Kepler's laws, furnish the expected solution of the problem of 
 elliptical motion, and it was now apparent that the 
 existence of those laws might have been foreseen, since 
 they arise in the very necessities of the case. 
 
 This point gained, it is obvious that the evidence was 
 becoming unquestionable, that as the moon is 
 epreadofthe made to revolve round the earth through the 
 heliocentric influence of an attractive force exercised by the 
 earth, so likewise each of the planets is com- 
 pelled to move in an elliptical orbit round the sun by his 
 attractive force. The heliocentric theory, at this stage, 
 was ] (resenting physical evidence of its truth. It was also 
 becoming plain that the force we call gravitation must 
 be imputed to the sun, and to all the planetary bodies as 
 well as to the earth. Accordingly, this was what Newton 
 asserted in respect to all material substance. 
 
 But it is a necessary consequence of this theory that 
 perturbations many apparent irregularities and perturbations 
 accounted fur. 0 f |j ie "bodies of the solar system must take place 
 by reason of the attraction of each upon all the others. If 
 there were but one planet revolving round the sun, its 
 orbit might be a mathematically perfect ellipse ; but the 
 moment a second is introduced, perturbation takes place 
 in a variable manner as the bodies change their positions 
 or distances. An excessive complication must therefore 
 be the consequence when the number of bodies is great. 
 Indeed, so insurmountable would these difficulties be, that 
 the mathematical solution of the general problem of the 
 aolor system would be hopeless were it not for the fact that 
 
PH. Vlil.J 
 
 THE EUEOPifiAH AGE OF REASON. 
 
 275 
 
 the planetary bodies are at \ery great distances from one 
 another, and their masses, compared with the mass of the 
 6im, very small. 
 
 Taking the theory of gravitation in its universal ac- 
 ceptation, Newton, in a manner that looks as if R e suitsof the 
 he were divinely inspired, succeeded in demon- theory of gra- 
 cttrating the chief inequalities of the moon and J 10 
 planetary bodies; in determining tho figure of the eartL 
 — that it is not a perfect sphere, but an oblate spheroid; 
 in explaining the precession of the equinoxes and the tides 
 of the ocean. To BUoh perfection have succeeding mathe- 
 maticians brought his theory, that the most complicated 
 movements and irregularities of the- solar system have been 
 satisfactorily accounted for and reduced to computation. 
 Trusting to these principles, not only has it been found 
 possible, knowing the mass of a given planet, to determine 
 the perturbations it may produce in adjacent ones, but 
 even the inverse problem has been successfully attacked, 
 and from the perturbations 1 he ] >lace and mass of a hithertc 
 unknown planet determined. It was thus that, from the 
 deviations of I'ranus from his theoretical place, the neces- 
 sary existence of an exterior disturbing planet was fore- 
 seen, and our times have witnessed the intellectual triumph 
 of mathematicians directing where the telescope should 
 point in order to find a new planet. The discovery of 
 Neptune was thus accomplished. 
 
 h adds to our admiration of the wonderful intellectual 
 powers of Newton to know that the mathematical instru- 
 ment he used was the ancient geometry. Not until 
 subsequently was the analytical method resorted to and 
 cultivated. This method possesses the inappreciable ad- 
 van tage of relieving us from the mental strain which 
 would otherwise oppress us. It has been truly said that 
 the Bylnbols think for us. Mr. Whewell observes: "No 
 one for M\t \ years after the publication of tho The M Princi- 
 4 Principia,' and, with Newton's methods, no one Its .V 1 " 
 
 i t 1 _ _ _ 1 . comparable 
 
 up to the present day, has added anything of merit 
 value to bis deductions. We know that he calculated all 
 the principal lunar inequalities; in many of the cases he 
 has given us his processes, in others only his results. But 
 who has presented iu his beautiful geometry or deduced 
 
 t 2 
 
276 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 from his simple principles any of the inequalities which ho 
 left untouched 9 The ponderous instrument of synthesis, 
 so effective in his hands, has never since been grasped by 
 any one who could use it for such purposes ; and we gaze 
 at it with admiring curiosity, as on some gigantic imple- 
 ment of war which stands idle among the memorials of 
 ancient days, and makes us wonder what manner of man 
 he was who could wield as a weapon what we can hardly 
 lift as a burden." 
 
 Such was the physical meaning of Newton's discoveries; 
 
 their philosophical meaning was of even greater 
 toporta? 0 * 1 importance. The paramount truth was resist- 
 Newton'a lessly coming into prominence—that the govern- 
 disooverfe*. ment of the g0 ] ar svs tem is under necessity, and 
 that it is mathematically impossible for the laws presiding 
 over it to be other than they are. 
 
 Thus it appears that the law of gravitation holds good 
 throughout our Bolar svstem. But the heliocentric theory, 
 in its "most general acceptation, considers every fixed star 
 
 as being, like the sun. a planetary centre. Hence, 
 ;n n thec°o f n. ,ca before It can be asserted that the theory of 
 Btructioo of gravitation is truly universal, it must bo shown 
 
 the universe. ^ ^ good ' in the case 0 f a H ot h e r SUch 
 
 systems. The evidence offered in proof of this is altogether 
 based upon the observations of the two Herschels on the 
 motions of the double stars. Among the stars there are 
 some in such close proximity to each other that Sir W. 
 Hersehel was led to suppose it would be possible, from 
 observations upon them, to ascertain the stellar parallax. 
 While engaged in these inquiries, which occupied him for 
 many years, he discovered that many of these stars are not 
 merely optically in proximity, as being accidentally in the 
 same line of view, but are actually connected physically, 
 revolving round each other in regnlar orbits. The motion 
 of these°double suns is, however, in many instances so 
 slow as to require many years for a satisfactory deter- 
 mination. Sir J. Hersehel therefore continued the obser- 
 Gravitationof vations of his father, and with other mathe- 
 doubie *tar 3 . maticians, investigated the characteristics of 
 these motions. The first instance in which the true elliptic 
 elements of the orbit of a binarv star were determined 
 
OH. VIII.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 277 
 
 w as given by M. Savary in tlie case of £ Ursao Majoris, 
 indicating an elliptic orbit of 58J years. But the period 
 <»f others, since determined, is very much longer; thus, in 
 cr Coronae, it is, according to Mr. Hind, more than 736 
 years. From the fact that the orbits in which these stars 
 move round each other are elliptical, it necessarily follows 
 that the law of gravitation, according to the inverse 
 tsquare, holds good in them. Considering the prodigious 
 distances of these bodies, and the departure, as regards 
 structure of the systems to which they belong, from the 
 conditions obtaining in our unisolar system, we may per- 
 haps assert the prevalence of the law of gravitation 
 throughout the universe. 
 
 If, in association with these double suns — sometimes, 
 indeed, they are triple, and occasionally, as in the case of 
 c Lyra', quadruple there are opaque planetary globes, 
 Mich solar systems differ from ours not only in having 
 several suns instead of a single one, but, since the light 
 emit ted isoften of different tints, one star shining Colnlirod liglu 
 with a crimson and another with a blue light, of double 
 the colours not always complementary to one btar8 ' 
 another, a wonderful variety of phenomena -must be the 
 result, especially in their organic creations; for organic 
 forms, both vegetable and animal, primarily depend on the 
 relations of coloured light. How varied the effects where 
 there are double, triple, or even quadruple sunrises, and 
 sunsets, and noons, and the hours marked off by red, or 
 purple, or blue tints. 
 
 It is Impossible to look back on the history of the theory 
 of gravitation without sentiments of admira- , f 
 
 . 0 -i-Ti r ' i tt Grandeur of 
 
 tlOD and, indeed, 01 pride. How fellCltOUS Newton's 
 
 has been the manner in which have been ex- dlscuvenes - 
 plained the Inequalities of a satellite like the moon under 
 the disturbing influence of the sun; the correspondence 
 between the calculated and observed quantities of these 
 inequalities; the extension of the doctrine to satellites of 
 other planets, as those of Jupiter; the determination of 
 the earth's figure ; the causes of the tides ; the different 
 force of gravity in different latitudes, and a multitude 
 of other phenomena. The theory asserted for itself that 
 authority which belongs to intrinsic truth. It enabled 
 
278 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON'. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 mathematicians to point out facts not yet observed, and 
 to foretell future events. 
 
 And yet how hard it is for truth to force its way when 
 bigotry resists. In 1773, the University of Salamanca, 
 being urged to teach physical science, refused, and this 
 was its answer; "Newton teaches nothing that would 
 make a good logician or metaphysician ; and Gassendi and 
 Descartes do not agree so well with revealed truth as 
 Aristotle does." 
 
 Among the interesting results of Newton's theory may 
 be mentioned its application t<> secular inequalities, such 
 The earth in the acceleration of the moon's mean motion, 
 that satellite moving somewhat quicker now 
 than she did ages ago. Laplace detected the cause of this 
 phenomenon in the influence of the sun upon the moon, 
 combined with the secular variation of the eccentricity of 
 the earth's orbit. Moreover, he showed that this secular 
 inequality of the motion of the moon is periodical, that it 
 requires millions of } T ears to re-establish itself, and that, 
 after an almost inconceivable time, the acceleration be- 
 comes a retardation. In like manner, the same mathe- 
 matician explained the observed acceleration in the mean 
 motion of Jupiter, and retardation of that of Saturn, as 
 arising from the mutual attraction of the two planets, and 
 showed that this secular inequality has a. period of 9294 
 years. With such slow movements may be mentioned the 
 diminution of the obliquity of the ecliptic, which has 
 been proceeding for ages, but which will reach a limit and 
 then commence to increase. These secular motions ought 
 not to be without interest to those who suffer themselves 
 to adopt the patristic chronology of the world, who suppose 
 that the earth is only six thousand years old, and that it 
 will come to an end in about one thousand years more. 
 They must accept, along with that preposterous delusion, 
 its necessary consequences, that the universe has been so 
 badly constructed, and is such a rickety machine, that it 
 can not hold together long enough for some of its wheels 
 to begin to revolve. Astronomy offers us many illustrations 
 of the scale upon which the world is constructed as to 
 time, as well as that upon which it is constructed as to space. 
 
 From what has been said, the conclusion forces itself 
 
ch. vin. | 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON 
 
 270 
 
 Upon us that the general laws obtaining as respects the 
 earth, hold good likewise foT all other parts Domipionot 
 of the universe; a conclusion sustained not lawinthe 
 mily by the mechanism of such motions as umver8e - 
 wo have been considering, but also by all evidence of a 
 physical kind accessible to us. The circumstances under 
 which our sun emits light and heat, and thereby vivifies 
 his attendant planets, are indisputably the same as those 
 obtaining in the case of every fixed star, each of which is 
 a self-luminous sun. There is thus an aspect of homo- 
 geneousness in the structure of all systems in the universe, 
 which, though some have spoken of it as if it were the 
 indication of a uniformity of 'plan, and therefore the evi- 
 dence of a primordial idea, is rather to be looked upon as 
 the proof of unchangeable and resistless law. 
 
 What, therefore, now becomes of the doctrine authorita- 
 tively put forth, and made to hold its sway for R uinofaT1 _ 
 so many centuries, that the earth is not only the thropocontric 
 central-body of the universe, but in reality, the u,eu9 ' 
 most noble body in it ; that the sun and other stars are 
 mero ministers or attendants for human use? In the 
 place of these utterly erroneous and unworthy views, far 
 ditVerent conceptions must be substituted. Man, when he 
 looks upon the countless multitude of stars — when he 
 reflects that all he sees is only a little portion of those 
 which exist, vet that each is a licrht and life-divine sun to 
 multitudes of opaque, and therefore, invisible worlds — 
 when he considers the enormous size of these various 
 bodies and their immeasurable distance from one another, 
 may form an estimate of the scale on which the world is 
 constructed, and learn therefrom his own unspeakable 
 insignificance. 
 
 In one beat of a pendulum a ray of light would pasa 
 eight times round the circumference of the earth. ... , maa 
 
 <~> Aids tor moa- 
 
 Lhus we may take the Sunbeam as a carpenter surementa in 
 does his measuring-rule; it serves as a gauge in the umverse - 
 our measurements of the universe. A sunbeam would re- 
 quire more than three years to reach us from a Centauri ; 
 nine and a quarter years from 61 Cygni ; from a Lyra? 
 twelve years. These are stars whose parallax has been 
 
 determined, and which are therefore nearest to us. 
 
280 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 Of suns visible to the naked eve there are about 8000, 
 but the telescope can discern in the Milky Way more than 
 eighteen millions, the number visible increasing as more 
 clusters of powerful instruments are used. Our cluster of 
 Btars - stars is a disc divided into two branches at about 
 
 one-third of its length. In the midst of innumerable com- 
 peers and superiors, the sun is not far from the place 
 of bifurcation, and at about the middle of the thickness. 
 Outside the plane of the Milky Way the appearance would 
 be like a ring, and. still farther off, a nebulous disc. 
 
 From the contemplation of isolated suns and congre- 
 Distribntion gftted clusters we arc led to the stupendous pro- 
 of matter and blem of the distribution of matter and force 
 iurce m spacv. j.p. lC0j alu \ f 0 interpretation of those 
 
 apparent phantoms of Belf-luminoiis vapour, circular and 
 
 elliptic discs, spiral wreaths, rings and fans, whose edges 
 
 fade doubtfully away, twins and triplets of phosphorescent 
 
 haze connected together by threads of light and grotesque 
 
 forms of indescribable complexity. Perhaps in some of 
 
 these -learning apparitions we see the genesis, in some the 
 
 melting away of universes. There is nothing motionless 
 
 in the sky. In every direction vast transformations are 
 
 occurring, yet all things proclaim the eternity of matter 
 
 and the undiminished perpetuity of force. 
 
 The theory of gravitation, as delivered by Newton, thus 
 
 i ■« - leads us to a knowledge of the mathematical 
 Limit of the . ° , 
 
 theory of construction oi the solar svstem, and mferen- 
 gravitation. tiaUy likewise to that of other systems ; but it 
 leaves without explanation a large number of singular 
 facts. It explains the existing conditions of equilibrium 
 of the heavenly bodies, but it tells us nothing of their 
 genesis ; or, at the best, in that particular it falls back on 
 the simple fiat of God. 
 
 The facts here referred to conduct us, however, to 
 Phenomena of an °ther and far higher point of view. Some of 
 the solar sys- them, as enumerated by Laplace, are the follow- 
 tem ' ing : — 1 . All the planets and their satellites move 
 
 in ellipses of such small eccentricity that they are nearly 
 circles ; 2. The movements of the planets are in the same 
 direction and nearly in the same plane ; 3. The movements 
 of the satellites are in the same direction as those of the 
 
ML VIII. J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 281 
 
 planetfl ; 4. The movements of rotation of these various 
 bodies and of the sun are in the same direction as their 
 arbitual motions, and in planes little different. 
 
 The nebular hypothesis requires us to admit that all 
 the ponderable material now constituting the The nebular 
 various bodies of the solar system once extended hypothesis, 
 in a rarefied or nebulous and rotating condition, beyond 
 the confines of the most distant planet. That postulate 
 granted, the structure and present condition of the system 
 may be mathematically deduced. 
 
 For, as the vast rotating spheroid lost its heat b} 
 radiation, it contracted, and its velocity of rotation was 
 necessarily increased ; and thus were left behind from its 
 equatorial zone, by reason of the centrifugal force, rotating 
 rings, the same result occurring periodically again and 
 again. These rings must lie all in one plane. They 
 might break, collapsing into one rotating spheroid, a 
 planet; or into many, asteroids; or maintain the ring- 
 like form. From the larger of these secondary rotating 
 spheroids other rings might be thrown off, as from the 
 parent mass; these, in their turn breaking and becoming 
 spheroids, constitute satellites, whose movements corre- 
 spond to those of their primaries. 
 
 We might, indeed, advance a step farther, and show 
 how, by the radiation of heat from a motionless nebula, a 
 movement of rotation in a determinate direction could be 
 engendered, and that upon these principles, the existence 
 •fa nebulous matter admitted, and the present laws and 
 foroes of nature regarded as having been unchanged, the 
 manner of origin of the solar system might be deduced, and 
 all those singular facts previously alluded to explained; 
 and not only so, but there is spontaneously suggested the 
 can. so of many minor peculiarities not yet mentioned. 
 
 For it follows from the nebular hypothesis that the 
 largo planets should rotate rapidly, and the Fact8account . 
 Small ones more slowly; that the outer planets edforbyit. 
 and satellites should be larger than the inner ones. Of 
 the satellites ol Saturn, the largest is the outermost; 
 of those of Jupiter, the Largest is the outermost save one. 
 Of the planets themselves, Jupiter is the largest, and 
 outermost save three. These cannot be coincidences, but 
 
282 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 must be due to law. The number of satellites of each 
 planet, with the doubtful exception of Venus, might be 
 x joreseen, the presence of satellites and their number being 
 determined by the centrifugal force of their primary. The 
 hypothesis also points out the time of revolution of the 
 planets in their orbits, and of the satellites in theirs; it 
 furnishes a reason for the genesis and existence of Saturn's 
 rings, whioh are indeed its remaining witnesses — their 
 position and movements answering to its requirements. It 
 accounts for the physical state of the sun, and also for the 
 physical state of the earth and moon as indicated by their 
 geology. It is also not without furnishing reasons for 
 t lie existence of comets as integrant members of our sys- 
 tem; for their singular physical state; for the eccentric, 
 almost parabolic orbits of so many of them ; for the fact 
 that there are as many of them with a retrograde as with 
 a direct motion; for their more frequent occurrence about 
 the axis of the solar system than in its plane; and for 
 their general antithetical relations to planets. 
 
 If these and very many other appaiwntly disconnected 
 Whether ne- f ac ^s follow as the mechanical necessities o f 
 i roiae actually the admission of a gravitating nebula — a very 
 simple postulate— it becomes important to ascer- 
 tain whether, by actual observation, the existence of such 
 material forms may be demonstrated in any part of the 
 universe. It was the actual telescopic observation of such 
 objects that led Herschel to the nebular hypothesis. He 
 concluded that there are two distinct kinds of nebula3, 
 one consisting of clusters of stars so remote that they 
 could not be discerned individually, but that these may 
 be discerned by sufficient telescopic power; the other 
 being of a hazy nature, and incapable of resolution. 
 Nebulae do not occur at random in the heavens : the 
 regions poorest in stars are richest in them ; they are 
 few in the plane of our sidereal system, but numerous 
 about its poles, in that respect answering to the occurrence 
 of comets in the solar system. The resolution of many of 
 these hazy patches of light into stars by no means disproves 
 the truly nebulous condition of many others. 
 
 Fortunately, however, other means than telescopic 
 observation for the .settlement of this question are avail- 
 
CH. VIII.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 28:> 
 
 able. In 1846, it was discovered by the author of this 
 book that the spectrum of an ignited solid is continuous, 
 that is, has neither dark nor bright fixed lines. Fraunhofei 
 had previously made known that the spectrum of ignited 
 gases is discontinuous. Here, then, is the means of de- 
 termining whether the light emitted by a given nebula 
 comes from an incandescent gas, or from a congeries of 
 ignited solids, stars, or suns. If its spectrum be discon- 
 tinuous, it is a true nebula or gas; if continuous, a 
 rongeries of stars. 
 
 In 1st; 1, Mr. I[uggins made this examination in the case 
 of a nebula in the constellation Draco. It proved to be 
 ga-oous. 
 
 Subsequent observations have shown that of sixty 
 nebulas examined, nineteen give discontinuous or gaseous 
 spectra ; the remainder continuous ones. 
 
 It may, therefore, be admitted that physical evidenco 
 has at length he n obtained, demonstrating the existence 
 of vast masses of matter in a gaseous condition, and at a 
 temperature of incandescence. The hypothesis of Laplaco 
 has thus a firm basis. 
 
 Notwithstanding the great authority of the astronomers 
 who introduced it, the nebular hypothesis has o rr , riSitloM to 
 encountered much adverse criticism; not so tin* nebular 
 much, however, from its obvious scientific defects, h w oth<,81s - 
 such as its inability to deal with the cases of Uranus and 
 Neptune, as from moral and extraneous considerations. 
 There is a line in Aristophanes which points out precisely 
 the difficulty : 
 
 'O Zci/s ui>K &v, a\\' avr y avrov A7vos vvv\ /3a<n\€uoov. 
 
 A reluctance to acknowledge the presidency of law in 
 the existing constitution and movements of the solar 
 system has heen yielded only to be succeeded by a reluc- 
 tance to acknowledge the presidency of law in its genesis. 
 And jrel whoever will reflect on the subject will be drawn 
 t » the conclusion that the principle involved was really 
 nettled hy Newton in his * k Principia" — that is to say, when 
 
 it became geometrically certain that Kepler's la ws originate 
 in a mathematical necessity. 
 As matters now stand, the nebular hypothesis may be 
 
284 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [oh. VIII. 
 
 regarded as the first superficial, and therefore imperfect, 
 glimpse of a series of the grandest problems soon to present 
 themselves for solution — the mathematical distribution of 
 matter and force in space, and the variations of that dis- 
 tribution in time. 
 
 Such is the history of the dispute respecting the position 
 of the earth in the universe. Kot without reason, therefore, 
 
 have I assigned the pontificate of Nicolas V. as 
 tual ruin of" the true close of the intellectual dominion of the 
 ecciesias- Cliurch. From that time the sceptre had passed 
 
 into another hand. In all directions Nature was 
 investigated, in all directions new methods of examina- 
 tion were yielding unexpected and beautiful results. On 
 the ruins of its ivy-grown cathedrals, Ecclesiasticism, 
 surprised and blinded by the breaking day, sat solemnly 
 blinking at the light and life about it, absorbed in the 
 recollection of the night that had passed, dreaming of new 
 phantoms and delusions in its wished-for return, and 
 vindictively striking its talons at any derisive assailant 
 who incautiously approached too near. I have not space 
 to describe the scientific activity displayed in all directions ; 
 to do it justice would demand volumes. Mathematics, 
 physics, chemistry, anatomy, medicine, and all the many 
 branches of human knowledge received an impulse. 
 Simultaneously with the great events I have been relating, 
 
 every one of these branches was advancing, 
 development Vieta made the capital improvement of using 
 ntific letters as general symbols in algebra, and applied 
 
 that science to geometry. Tycho, emulating 
 Hipparchus of old, made a new catalogue of the stars ; he 
 determined that comets are beyond the moon, and that 
 they cut the crystalline firmament of theology in all 
 directions. Gilbert wrote his admirable book on the 
 magnet; Gesner led the way to zoology, taking it up at 
 the point to which the Saracens had continued Aristotle, 
 by the publication of his work on the history of animals ; 
 Belon at the same time, 11)40, was occupied with fishes 
 and birds. Fallopius and Eustachius, Arantius and Varo- 
 lius, were immortalizing themselves by their dissections : 
 the former reminding us of the times of Ptolemy Phila- 
 delphus, when he naively confesses " the Duke of Tuscany 
 
CH. VIII. I 
 
 TIIK KUROPKAN AG E OF REASON. 
 
 285 
 
 was obliging enough to send living criminals to us, whom 
 we killed and then dissected." Piccolomini laid the 
 foundations of general anatomy by his description of 
 cellular tissue. Goiter created pathological anatomy, 
 Prosper Alpinus diagnosis, Hater the classification of 
 disease, and Ambrose Tare modern surgery. Such were 
 the occupations and prospect of science at the close of the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
 Scarcely had the seventeenth opened when it became 
 obvious that the movement, far from slacken- The movement 
 ing. was gathering force. It was the age of becomes still 
 ( ialileo. Descartes introduced the theory of an niore %Ig010lLs - 
 ether and vortices; but, hearing of the troubles that had 
 befallen Galileo, was on the point of burning his papers. 
 Several years later, he was restrained from publishing his 
 " Cosmos" " from a pious desire not to treat irreverently the 
 decrees of the holy chair against the planetary movement 
 of the earth." This was in 1683, when the report of the 
 sentence of the Inquisition was made known. He also 
 developed Yieta's idea of the application of algebra to 
 geometry, and brought into prominenco the mechanical 
 fact, destined to an important application in physical 
 astronomy, that every curvilinear deflection is due to a 
 controlling force. To him, among Europeans, also is 
 to be attributed the true ex planation of the rise of water 
 in an exhausted space — " the weight of the water counter- 
 balances that of the air." Napier perfected his great and 
 useful invention of logarithms. Hydraulics was created 
 by ( astelli ; hydrostatics by Torricelli, who also discovered 
 barometric variations : both weie pupils of Galileo. Fabri- 
 cius ab A<|uapendente discovered the valves in the veins; 
 Servetus almost detected the course of the circulation. 
 Harvey completed what Servetus had left unfinished, and 
 described the entire course of the blood; Asellius dis- 
 covered the lacteals; Van Helmont introduced the theory 
 of vitality into medicine, and made the practice or art 
 thereof oonsisl in regulating by diet the Archeus, whose 
 Mat be affirmed to be in the stomach. In strong contrast 
 with this phantasy, Sanetorio laid the foundation of modern 
 physiology by introducing the balance into its inquiries. 
 Pascal, by a decisive experiment, established the doctrines 
 
286 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 of the weight and pressure of the air, and published some 
 of the most philosophical treatises of the age : " his Pro- 
 vincial Letters did more than any thing to ruin the name 
 of the Jesuits." The contagion spread to the lawyers ; in 
 1672 appeared Puffendorfs work on the "Law of Nature 
 and Nations." The phlogistic theory, introduced by 
 Beccher and perfected by Stahl, created chemistry, in 
 contradistinction to the Arabian alchemy. Otto Guericke 
 invented the air-pump, Boyle improved it ; Hooke, among 
 many other discoveries, determined the essential conditions 
 of combustion. Far above all contemporaries in mathe- 
 matical learning and experimental skill, Newton was al- 
 ready turning his attention to the "reflexions, refractions, 
 inflexions and colours of light," and introducing the idea 
 of at i rad L< 'iis into physics. I tay led the way to comparative 
 anatomy in his synopsis of quadrupeds; Swammerdam im- 
 proved the art of dissection, applying it to the general 
 history of insects ; Lister published his synopsis of shells ; 
 Tournefort and Malpighi devoted themselves to botany; 
 Grew discovered the sexes of plants; Brown the quinary 
 arrangement of flowers. Geology began to break loose 
 from the trammels of theology, and Burnet's Sacred theory 
 of the Earth could not maintain its ground against more 
 critical investigations. The Arabian doctrine of the move- 
 ment of the crust of the earth began to find supporters. 
 Lister ascertained the continuity of strata over great 
 distances ; Woodward improved mineralogy ; the great 
 mathematician, Leibnitz, the rival of Newton, propounded 
 the doctrine of the gradual cooling of the globe, the de- 
 scent of its strata by fracture, the deposit of sedimentary 
 rocks, and their induration. Among physicians, Willis 
 devoted himself to the study of the brain, traced the coursG 
 of the nerves and classified them, and introduced the 
 doctrine of the localization of functions in the brain. 
 Malpighi and Lewenhoeck applied the microscope as an 
 Aid to anatomy ; the latter discovered spermatozoa. Graaf 
 studied the function of the generative organs ; Borelli 
 attempted the application of mathematics to muscular 
 movement ; Duverney wrote on the sense of hearing, 
 Mayow on respiration ; Buysch perfected the art of injec- 
 tion, and improved minute anatomy. 
 
ch. vm.J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OE REASON. 
 
 287 
 
 But it is in vain to go on. Tho remainder of these 
 pages would be consumed in an attempt to record the 
 names of the cultivators of science, every year increasing 
 in number, and to do justice to their works. From the 
 darkness that had for so many ages enveloped it, the 
 human mind at last emerged into light. The intellectual 
 motes were dancing in the sunbeam, and making it visible 
 in every direction. 
 
 Despairing thus to do justice to individual philosophers 
 and individual discoveries, there is, however, Instltut j cn of 
 one most important event to which I must scientific 
 prominently allude. It is the foundation of 60C1L ' llc^, • 
 learned societies. Imitating the examples of the Academia 
 Secretorum Naturae, instituted at Naples, 1560, by Baptista 
 Porta, and of the Lyncean Academy, founded 1603 by 
 Prince Frederic Cesi at Rome for the promotion of natural 
 philosophy, the Accadeniia del Ciniento was established 
 at Florence, 1637; the Royal Society of London, 1645 ; and 
 the Koyal Academy of Sciences in Paris, 1666. 
 
 Arrived at the °loso of the description of this first great 
 victory of scientific truth over authority and Reviewer an- 
 tradition, it is well for us to pause and look thropocentrie 
 back on the progress of man from the erroneous P hIk,6 °i H1 ^ 
 inferences of his social infancy to the true conclusions of 
 his maturity — from anthropocentric ideas, which in all 
 nations and parts of the world have ever been the same, 
 to tin- discovery of his true position and insignificance in 
 the universe. 
 
 \\ 1 1 an i placed in a world surrounded with illusions. The 
 daily events of our life and the objects before us tend 
 equally to deceive us. If we cast our eyes on the earth, 
 it seems to be made only to minister to our pleasures or 
 our wants. If we direct our attention to the The sky 
 sky, thai blue and crystalline dome, the edges apparent 
 of which rest on the flat land or the sea— a Mtureof - 
 glacial vault, which Fanpedocles thought was frozen air, 
 and the fathers of the Church the lowest of the seven 
 concentric strata of heavens — we find a thousand reasons 
 for believing that whatever it covers was intended by 
 some Good Being for our use. Of the various living 
 
288 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 things placed with us beneath it, all are of an inferior 
 grade when compared with ourselves, and all seem intended 
 for us. The conclusions at which we thus arrive are 
 strengthened by a principle of vanity implanted in our 
 hearts, unceasingly suggesting to us that this pleasant 
 abode must have been prepared for our reception, and 
 furnished and ornamented expressly for our use. 
 
 But reflexion teaches us that we came not hither of 
 ourselves, and that doubtless the same Good Being who pie- 
 Anthropo- pared I his delig] 1 1 lul abode brought us as tenants 
 centric ideu into it. From the fact of our own existence, we 
 are insensibly and inevitably led to infer the 
 existence of God; from the favourable circumstances in 
 which our lot is cast, we gather evidences of His goodness ; 
 and in the energy which natural phenomena often display, 
 we see the tokens of J I is power. What other explanation 
 can we give of tempests in the sea or lightning in the 
 heavens ? Moreover, it is only during a part of our time — 
 our waking hours — that we are brought into relation with 
 these material things ; for the rest, when we are asleep, a 
 state in which we spend more than a third part of our 
 life, we are introduced to other scenery, other beings, 
 of the world another world. From these we gather that 
 and heaven, there are agents of an intangible and more 
 ethereal mould, perhaps of the nature of Him who 
 brought us here, perhaps His subordinates and messen- 
 gers. Whence do they issue and whither do they go? Is 
 there not beyond the sky above us a region to which 
 our imperfect vision cannot penetrate, but which may be 
 accessible to them from the peaks of elevated mountains, 
 or to be reached only with wings ? And thus we picture 
 to ourselves a heaven shut off from earth, with all its sins 
 and cares, by the untroubled and impenetrable sky — a 
 place of light and repose, its pavement illuminated by the 
 sun and countless other shining bodies — a place of peace, 
 but also a place of power. 
 
 Still more, a thousand facts of our life teach us that we are 
 Of evil beings exposed to influences of an evil nature as well 
 and heii. as to those that are good. How often, in our 
 dreams, does it happen that we are terror-stricken by the 
 approach of hideous forms, faces of fearful appearance, 
 
CH. VIII.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 289 
 
 from which we vainly struggle to escape. Is it not 
 natural for us to attribute the evil we see in the world to 
 these as the good to these? and, since we can not conceive 
 of the existence ol beings without assigning them a place, 
 where shall we find for these malignant spirits a habita- 
 tion? Is it not in the dark region beneath the ground, 
 faraway from the realms of light— a region from which, 
 through the volcano, smoke and burning sulphur are cast 
 into this upper world— a place of everlasting fire and 
 darkness, whoso portals are in caves and solitudes of 
 
 unutterable gloom? 
 
 Placed thus on the boundary between such opposing 
 powers, man is the sport of circumstances, sus- or man, the 
 tained by beings who seek his happiness, and supernatural, 
 tempted by those who desire his destruction. Ts it at 
 all surprising that, guided by such obvious thoughts and 
 simple reasonings, he becomes superstitious? that he sees 
 in every shadow a spirit, and peoples every solitary placo 
 with invisibles ? that he casts a longing look to tho good 
 beings who can protect him, seeking to invoke their aid 
 by entreaties, and to propitiate their help by free-will 
 sacrifices of things that are pleasant and valuable? Open 
 to such influences himself, why should ho not believe in 
 tho efficacy of prayer? His conscious superiority lends 
 force to his suspicion that he is a worthy object for the 
 opposing powers to contend for, a conclusion verified by 
 the inward strifes ho feels, as well as by the trials of life to 
 which ho is exposed. 
 
 But dreams at night, and sometimes visions by day, 
 servo to enforce the conclusion that life is not H isimmor. 
 limited to our transitory continuance here, but taitty and 
 endures hereafter. How often at night do we luture lllc * 
 see the well-known forms of those who have been dead a 
 long time appearing before us with surprising vividness, 
 and hear their almost forgotten voices? These are admo- 
 nitions full of the most solemn suggestions, profoundly 
 indicating to us that tho dead still continue to exist, and 
 that what has happened to them must also happen to 
 us, and wo too are destined for immortality. Perhaps 
 involuntarily we associate these conclusions with others, 
 expecting that in a future life good men will enjoy the 
 
 VOL. II. »t 
 
200 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 society of good beings like themselves, the evil being 
 dismissed to the realms of darkness and despair. And, as 
 human experience teaches lis that a final allotment can 
 only be made by some superior power, we expect that He 
 who was our Creator shall also be our Judge ; that there 
 is an appointed time and a bar at which the final destina- 
 tion of all who have lived shall be ascertained, and eterna* 
 justice measure out its punishments and rewards. 
 
 From these considerations there arises an inducement 
 inducements for us to lead a virtuous life, abstaining from 
 to morality, wickedness and wrong ; to set apart a body ot 
 men who may mediate for us, and teach us by precept and 
 example the course it is best for us to pursue ; to consecrate 
 places, such as groves or temples, as the more immediate 
 habitations of the Deity to which we may resort. 
 
 Such are the leading doctrines of Natural Theology of 
 primitive man both in the old and new continent. They 
 arise from the operations of the human mind considering 
 the fitness of things. 
 
 Just as we have in Comparative Anatomy the structure 
 of different animals examined, and their identities and 
 differences set forth, thereby establishing their true rela- 
 tions; just as we have in Comparative Physiology the 
 functions of one organic being compared with those of 
 another, to the end that we may therefrom deduce their 
 Course of proper connexions, so, from the mythologies of 
 Comparative various races of men, a Comparative Theology 
 Theology. ma y constructed. Through such a science 
 alone can correct conclusions be arrived at respecting this, 
 the most important of the intellectual operations of man — 
 the definite process of his religious opinions. But it must 
 be borne in mind that Comparative Theology illustrates 
 the result or effect of the phase of life, and is not its 
 cause. 
 
 As man advances in knowledge he discovers that of his 
 Corrections of primitive conclusions some are doubtless erro- 
 anthropocen- neous, and many require better evidence to 
 tnc ideas. establish their truth incontestably. A more 
 prolonged and attentive examination gives him reason, in 
 some of the most important parti julars, to change his 
 mind. He finds that the earth on which he lives is not a 
 
CH. VIII.] THE EjliOPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 291 
 
 floor covered over with a starry dome, as lie once supposed, 
 but a globe self-balanced m space. The crystalline vault, 
 or sky, is recognized to be an optical deception. It rests 
 upon the earth nowhere, and is no boundary at all , there 
 is no kingdom of happiness above it, but a limitless space, 
 adorned with planets and suns. Instead of a realm oi 
 darkness and woe in the depths on the other side of the 
 earth, men like ourselves are found there, pursuing, in 
 Australia and New Zealand, the innocent pleasures and 
 encountering the ordinary labours of life. By the aid of 
 such lights as knowledge gradually supplies, he comes at 
 last to discover that this, our terrestrial habitation, instead 
 of being a chosen, a sacred spot, is only one of similai 
 myriads, more numerous than the sands of the sea, and 
 prodigally scattered through space. 
 
 Never, perhaps, was a more important truth discovered. 
 All the visible evidence was in direct opposition 
 to it. The earth, which had hitherto seemed to of Severing 
 be the very emblem of immobility, was demon- j£e ^^ of 
 strated to be carried with a double motion, with ea 
 prodigious velocity, through the heavens; the rising and 
 setting of the stars were proved to be an illusion ; Detection of 
 and, as respects the size of the globe, it was itsinsig- 
 shown to be altogether insignificant when com- mficance - 
 pared with multitudes of other neighbouring ones — in- 
 significant doubly by reason of its actual dimensions, and 
 by the countless numbers of others like it in form, and 
 doubtless, like it, the abodes of many orders of life. 
 
 And so it turns out that our earth is a globe of about 
 twenty-five thousand miles in circumference. The voyager 
 who circumnavigates it spends no inconsiderable portion 
 of his life in accomplishing his task. It moves round the 
 sun in a year, but at so great a distance from that 
 luminary that, if seen from him, it would look like a little 
 spark traversing the sky. It is thus recognized as one of 
 the members of the solar system. Other similar other solar 
 bodies, some of which are of larger, some of bodi es. 
 smaller dimensions, perform similar revolutions round the 
 aim in appropriate periods of time. 
 
 If the magnitude of the earth be too great for us to 
 attach to it any definite conception, what shall we say oi 
 
 u 2 
 
292 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. VIII. 
 
 the compass of the solar system? There is a defect in 
 Magnitude of the human intellect which incapacitates us for 
 the universe, comprehending distances and periods that are 
 either too colossal or too minute. We gain no clearer 
 insight into the matter when we are told that a comet 
 which does not pass beyond the bounds of the system may 
 perhaps be absent on its journey for more than a thousand 
 years. Distances and periods such as these are beyond our 
 grasp. They prwe to us how far human reason excels 
 imagination, the one measuring and comparing things of 
 which the other can form no conception, but in the 
 attempt is utterly bewildered and lost. 
 
 But as there are other globes like our earth, so too there 
 The infinity are other worlds like our solar system. There 
 of worlds. are self-luminous suns exceeding in number all 
 computation. The dimensions of this earth pass into 
 nothingness in comparison with the dimensions of the 
 solar system, and that system, in its turn, is only an 
 invisible point if placed in relation with the countless 
 hosts of other systems which form, with it, clusters of 
 stars. Our solar system, far from being alone in the 
 universe, is only one of an extensive brotherhood, bound 
 by common laws and subject to like influences. Even on 
 the very verge of creation, where imagination might lay 
 the beginning of the realms of chaos, we see unbounded 
 proofs of order, a regularity in the arrangement of inani- 
 mate things, suggesting to us that there are other intellec- 
 tual creatures like us, the tenants of those islands in the 
 abysses of space. 
 
 Though it may take a beam of light a million of years 
 to bring to our view those distant worlds, the end is not yet. 
 Far away in the depths of space we catch the faint gleams 
 of other groups of stars like our own. The finger of a man 
 can hide them in their remoteness. Their vast distances 
 from one another have dwindled into nothing. They and 
 their movements have lost all individuality ; the innumer- 
 able suns of which they are composed blend all their 
 collected light into one pale milky glow. 
 
 Thus extending our view from the earth to the solar 
 insignificance system, from the solar system to the expanse of 
 of man. the group of stars to which we belong, we behold 
 
CH. VIII. J 
 
 THE EUR0FEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 293 
 
 a series of gigantic nebular creations rising up one after 
 another, and forming greater and greater colonies of 
 worlds. No numbers can express them, for they make 
 the firmament a haze of stars. Uniformity, even though 
 it bo the uniformity of magnificence, tires at last, and 
 we abandon the survey, for our eyes can only behold a 
 boundless prospect, and conscience tells us our own un- 
 speakable i n si gn i fi can ce . 
 
 But what lias become of the time-honoured doctrine of the 
 human destiny of the universe? that doctrine Triumph of 
 for the sake of which the controversy I have scientific 
 described in this chapter was raised, it lias truth ' 
 disappeared. In vain was Bruno burnt and Galileo im- 
 prisoned; the truth forced its way, in spite of all opposi- 
 tion, at last. The end of the conflict was a total rejection 
 of authority and tradition, and the adoption of scientific 
 truth. 
 
C 294 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON — [Continued). 
 
 HISTORY OF THE EARTH. — HER SUCCESSIVE CHANGES IN THE COURSE OF 
 
 TIME. 
 
 Oriental and Occidental Doctrines respecting the Earth in Time. — 
 
 Gradual Weakening of the hitter by astronomical Facts, and the Rise 
 
 of Scientific Geology. 
 Impersonal Manner in which the Problem teas eventually solved, chiefly 
 
 through Facts connected with Heat. 
 Proofs of limitless Duration from inorganic Facts. — Igneous and Aqueous 
 
 Rochs. 
 
 Proofs of the same from organic Facts. — Successive Creations and Ex- 
 tinctions of living Forms, and their contemporaneous Distribution. 
 
 Evidences of a slowly declining Temperature, and, therefore, of a long 
 Time. — The Process of Events by Catastrophe and by Law. — Analogy 
 of Individual and Race Development. — Both are determined by 
 unchangeable Law. 
 
 Conclusion that the Plan of the Universe indicates a Multiplicity of 
 Worlds of infinite Space, and a Succession of Worlds in infinite Time. 
 
 A victory could not be more complete nor a triumph more 
 Age of the brilliant than that which had been gained by 
 earth - science in the contest concerning the position of 
 
 the earth. Though there followed closely thereupon an 
 investigation of scarcely inferior moment — that respecting 
 the age of the earth — so thoroughly was the ancient 
 authority intellectually crushed that it found itself in- 
 capable of asserting by force the Patristic idea that our 
 planet is less than six thousand years old. 
 
 Not but that a resistance was made. It was, however, 
 The question °f an indirect kind. The contest might be 
 is impersonal- likened rather to a partisan warfare than to the 
 iy solved. deliberate movement of regular armies under 
 recognized commanders. In its history there is no central 
 
pa. ix.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 295 
 
 figure like Galileo, no representative man, no brilliant and 
 opportune event like the invention of the telescope. The 
 question moves on to its solution impersonally. A little 
 advance is made here by one, there by another. The war 
 was finished, though no great battle was fought. In the 
 chapter wo are entering upon there is, therefore, none of 
 that dramatic int. -rest connected witli the last. Imper- 
 
 Bonallj the question was decided, and, therefore, imper- 
 sonally I must describe it. 
 
 In Oriental countries, where the popular belief assigns 
 to the creation of man a very ancient date, and oriental and 
 even asserts for some empires a duration of JJjJ^Jj?* 
 hundreds of thousands of years, no difficulty as age of the 
 respects the age of the earth was felt, there l ' lirth - 
 seeming to have been time enough for every event that 
 human researches have detected to transpire. But in the 
 West, where the doctrine that not only the earth, but the 
 universe itself, was intended for man, has been carried to 
 its consequences with exacting rigour, circumstances forbid 
 us to admit that there was any needless delay between the 
 preparation of the habitation and the introduction of the 
 tenant. They also force upon us the conclusion that a few 
 centuries constitute a very large portion of the time of 
 human existence, sine.', if we adopt the doctrine of an 
 almost limitless period, we should fall into a difficulty in 
 explaining what has become of the countless myriads of 
 generations in the long time so past, and, considering that 
 we are taught that the end of the world is at hand, and 
 must be expected in a few years at the most, we might 
 Beem to arraign the goodness of God in this, that He has 
 left to their fate immeasurably the larger proportion of 
 OUT race, and lias restricted His mercy to us alone, who are 
 living in the departing twilight of the evening of the 
 W( »rld. 
 
 I >ut in this, as in the former case, a closer examination 
 if the facts brings us to the indisputable conclusion that 
 we have decided unworthily and untruly; that Corroctionof 
 >ur guiding doctrine of the universe being in- ti^ Kuropoan 
 tended for us is a miserable delusion; that the doctnne - 
 seal-- on which the world is constructed as to time answers 
 to that on which it is constructed as to space; that, as 
 
29G 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [Off. IX. 
 
 respects our planet, its origin dates from an epoch too 
 remote for our mental apprehension; that myriads of 
 centuries have been consumed in its coming to its present 
 stale; that, by a slow progression, it lias passed from 
 stage to stage, uninhabited, and for a long time unin- 
 habitable by any living thing; that in their proper order 
 and in due lapse of time, the organic scries have been its 
 inhabitants, and of these a vast majority, whose numbers 
 are so great that we cannot offer an intelligible estimate 
 of them, have passed away and become extinct, and that 
 finally, for a brief period, we have been its possessors. 
 
 Of the intentions of God it becomes us, therefore, to 
 speak with reverence and reserve. In those ages when 
 there was not a man upon the earth, what was the object? 
 Was the twilight only given that the wolf might follow 
 his lleeing prey, and the stars made to shine that the royal 
 tiger might pursue his midnight maraudings? Where was 
 the use of so much that was beautiful and orderly, when 
 there was not a solitary intellectual being to understand 
 and enjoy? Even now, when we are so much disposed 
 to judge of other worlds from their a] parent adaptedness 
 to be the abodes of a thinking and responsible order like 
 ourselves, it may be of service to remember that this 
 earth itself was for countless ages a dungeon of pestiferous 
 exhalations and a den of wild beasts. 
 
 It might moreover a] -pear that the conclusions to which 
 it elevates Ave come, both as respects the position and age 
 de tb adesthe °^ w01 '-^' mus * necessarily have for their 
 position of consequences the diminution and degradation of 
 man. man, the rendering him too worthless an object 
 
 for God's regard. But here again we fall into an error. 
 True, we have debased his animal value, and taught him 
 how little he is — how insignificant are the evils, how vain 
 the pleasures of his life. But, as respects his intellectual 
 principle, how does the matter stand? What is it that 
 has thus been measuring the terrestrial world, and weigh- 
 ing it in a balance ? What is it that has been standing 
 on the sun, and marking out the orbits and boundaries of 
 the solar system ? What is it that has descended into the 
 infinite abysses of space, examined the countless worlds 
 that they contain, and compared and contrasted them 
 
CH. EX.] 
 
 THE EUKOI'EAN AOS OF REASON. 
 
 297 
 
 together? "What is it that has shown itself capable of 
 dealing with magnitudes that are infinite, even of com- 
 paring infinites together! What is it that has not hesi- 
 tated to trace things in their history through a past 
 eternity, and been found capable of regarding equally the 
 transitory moment and endless duration? That which is 
 competent to do all this, so far from being degraded, rises 
 before us with an air of surpassing grandeur and inap- 
 preciable worth. It is the soul of man. 
 
 From the facts given in the last chapter respecting the 
 relations of the earth in space, we are next led nobtions of the 
 to her relations in time. earth in time, 
 
 So long as science was oppressed with the doctrine of 
 the human destiny of the universe, which, as its con- 
 sequence, made this earth the great central body, and 
 elevated man to supreme importance, there was much 
 difficulty in treating the problem of the age of the world. 
 The history of the earth was at first a wild and fictitious 
 cosmogony. Scientific cosmogony ar<»se, not from any 
 theological considerations, but from the telescopic ascer- 
 tainment of the polar compression of the planet Jupiter, 
 and the consequent determination by Newton that the 
 earth is a spheroid of revolution. With a true cosmogony 
 came a better chronology, 'flic patristic doc- Anthropoc. n- 
 trine had been that the earth came into existence jjj JSjjJ, 
 but little more than live thousand years ago, and end of the 
 and to this a popular opinion long current was world - 
 added, that its end might be very shortly expected. From 
 time to time periods were set by various authorities 
 determining the latter event, and, as true knowledge was 
 extinguished, the year 1000 came to be the universally 
 appointed date. In view of this, it was not an uncommon 
 thing for persons to commence their testamentary bequests 
 m itli the words, k * In expectation of the approaching end 
 of the world. M But the tremendous moment passed by, 
 and still the sun rose and set, still the seasons were 
 punctual in their courses, and Nature wore her accus- 
 tomed aspect. A later day was then predicted, and again 
 and again disappointment ensued, until sober-minded men 
 began to perceive that the Scriptures were never intended 
 to give information on such subjects, and predictions of 
 
298 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX 
 
 the end of the world fell into discredit, abandoned to the 
 illiterate, whose morbid anticipations they still amuse. 
 
 As it was thus with the end of our planet, so it was as 
 regards her origin. By degrees evidence began to ac- 
 cumulate casting a doubt on her recent date, evidence 
 continually becoming more and more cogent. In no in- 
 significant manner did the establishment of the 
 doctrine©! heliocentric theory, aided by the discoveries of 
 illimitable the telescope, assist in this result. As I have 
 said, it utterly ruined past restoration the doc- 
 trine of the human destiny of the universe. With that 
 went down all arguments which had depended on making 
 man the measure of things. Ideas of unexpected sub- 
 limity as to the scale of magnitude on which the world is 
 constructed soon enforced themselves, and proved to be 
 the precursors of similar ideas as to time. At length it 
 was perceived by those who were in the van of the move- 
 ment that the Bible was never intended to deliver a 
 chronological doctrine respecting the beginning any more 
 than the end of things, and that those well-meaning men 
 who were occupied in wresting it from its true purposes 
 were engaged in an unhappy employment, fur its tendency 
 could be no other than to injure the cause they designed 
 to promote. Nevertheless, so strong were the ancient 
 persuasions, that it was not without a struggle that the 
 doctrine of a long period forced its way — a struggle for 
 the age of the earth, which, in its arguments, in its ten- 
 dencies, and in its results, forcibly recalls the preceding 
 one respecting the position of the earth ; but, in the end, 
 truth overrode all authority and all opposition, and the 
 doctrine of an extremely remote origin of our planet ceased 
 to be open to dispute. 
 
 In a scientific conception of the universe, illimitable 
 spaces are of necessity connected with limitless time. 
 
 The discovery of the progressive motion of light offered 
 indications de- "the means of an absolute demonstration of this 
 pending on the connexion. Kays emitted by an obiect, and 
 
 progressive , . -i -i p -x i • • • 
 
 motion of making us sensible 01 its presence by impinging 
 light. on e j e ^ no ^. peach us instantaneously, but 
 
 consume a certain period in their passage. 
 
 If any sudden visible effect took place in the sun, we 
 
CH. IX.] 
 
 Till; EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 299 
 
 Bhotlld not seo it at the absolute moment of its occurrence, 
 but about eight minutes and thirteen seconds later, this 
 being the time required for light to cross the intervening 
 distance. All phenomena take place in reality anterior 
 to the moment at which we observe them by a time 
 longer in proportion as the distance to be travelled is 
 greater. 
 
 There are objects in the heavens so distant that it 
 would take many hundreds of thousands of years for their 
 light to reach us. Then it necessarily follows, since we 
 oan sec them, that they must have been created and must 
 have been shining so long. 
 
 The velocity with which light moves was first deter- 
 mined by the Danish astronomer K timer from the eclipses 
 of Jupiter's satellites, November, 1075. It was, therefore, 
 a determination of the rate for reflected solar light in a 
 vacuum, and gave 198,000 miles in a second. In 1727, 
 I>radley determined it for direct stellar light by his great 
 discovery of the aberration of the fixed stars. More 
 recently, the experiments of M. Foucault and those of M 
 Fizeau, by the aid of rotating mirrors or wheels, havo 
 confirmed these astronomical observations, Fizeau's de- 
 termination of tho velocity approaching that of Homer. 
 Probably, however, the most correct is that of Struve, 
 191,015 miles per second. 
 
 This astronomical argument, which serves as a general 
 introduction, is strengthened by numerous phy- lnvcstjgation 
 sical and physiological facts. But of the dif- of the age of 
 ferent methods by which the ago of the earth Sro^Mhe 
 may be elucidated, I shall prefer that which phenomena 
 approaches it through the phenomena of heat. ofbcat - 
 Sudi a manner of viewing the problem has led to its 
 determination in the minds of many thinking men. 
 
 As correct astronomical ideas began to prevail, it was 
 perceived that all the heat now on tho surface 
 of our planet is derived from the sun. Through heat alone on 
 the circumstance of the inclination of her axis of J* 6 ®*^' 8 
 rotation to tho plane of her annual motion, or 
 through tho fact of her globular form occasioning tho 
 presentation of different parts of her surface, according to 
 their latitudes, witli more or less obliquity, and hence the 
 
300 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX. 
 
 reception of less or more of the rays, there may be local 
 and temporary variations. But these do not affect the 
 general principle that the quantity of heat thus received 
 must be the same from year to year. 
 
 This thermometric equilibrium not only holds good for 
 The equiiibri- ^ ne sur f ace > it may also be demonstrated for the 
 um of Ulterior whole mass of the planet. The day has not 
 shortened by the J (( - of a second since the time of 
 Hipparchus, and therefore the decrease of heat cannot have 
 been so much as the 3-^5- of a Fahrenheit degree, on the 
 hypothesis that the mean dilatation of all terrestrial 
 substances is equal to that of glass, tttoWtf f° r one degree. 
 If a decline had taken place in the intrinsic heat of the 
 earth, there must have been a diminution in her size, and, 
 as a necessary consequence, the length of the day must 
 have become less. The earth has therefore reached a 
 condition of equilibrium as respects temperature. 
 
 A vast body of evidence has, however, come into pro- 
 its ancient liiinence, establishing with equal certainty that 
 decline. there was in ancient times a far higher tempera- 
 ture in the planet; not a temperature concerned with ^ 
 fraction of a degree, but ranging beyond the limits of our 
 thermometric scale. The mathematical figure of the earth 
 offers a resistless argument for its ancient liquefied con- 
 dition—that is, for its originally high temperature. But 
 how is this to be co-ordinated with the conclusion just 
 mentioned? Simply by the admission that there have 
 elapsed prodigious, it might almost be said limitless, periods. 
 As thus the true state of affairs began to take on shape, 
 it was perceived that the age of the earth is not a question 
 Necessity for of authority, not a question of tradition, but a 
 a long time, mathematical problem sharply denned : to de- 
 termine the time of cooling of a globe of known diameter 
 and of given conductibility by radiation in a vacuum. 
 
 In such a state of things, what could be more unwise 
 than to attempt to force opinion by the exercise of autho- 
 rity ? How unspeakably mischievous had proved to be 
 a like course as respects the globular form of the earth, 
 which did not long remain a mere mathematical abstrac- 
 tion, but was abruptly brought to a practical issue by the 
 voyage of Magellan's ship. And on this question of the 
 
CH. IX.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AG E OF REASON. 
 
 301 
 
 ago of the cartli it would have been equally unwise to 
 become entangled with or committed to the errors of 
 patristicism — errors arising from well-meant moral con- 
 siderations, but which can never exert any influence on 
 the solution of a scientific problem. 
 
 One fact alter another bearing upon tho question 
 gradually emerged into view. It was shown In(lic<u . f 
 that tho diurnal variations of temperature — that the interior 
 is, those connected with night and day — extend ^ t t b of thc 
 hut a few inches beneath the surface, the seasonal 
 ones, connected with winter and summer, to many feet ; 
 but beyond this was discovered a stratum of invariable 
 temperature, beneath whi'-h, if wo descend, thc heat in- 
 creases at the rate of 1° Fahr. for every fifty or seventy 
 feet. The uniformity of this rate seemed to imply that, 
 at depths quite insignificant, a very high temperature 
 must exist. This was illustrated by such facts that the 
 water which rushes up from a depth of 1791 feet in tho 
 Artesian well of Grenelle has a temperature of 82° Fahr. 
 The mean temperature of I'aris being about 51° Fahr., 
 these numbers give a rate of 1 for every fifty-eight feet. 
 If, then, the increase of heat is only 100° per mile, at a 
 depth of less than ten miles every thing must be red hot, 
 and at thirty or forty in a melted state. It was by all 
 admitted that the rise of temperature with the depth is 
 not at all local, but occurs in whatever part of the earth 
 tho observation may be made. Tho general conclusion 
 thus furnished was re-enforced by the evidence of volca- 
 noes, which could no longer be regarded as merely local, 
 depending on restricted areas for the supply of melted 
 material, since they are found all over the land and under 
 tho sea, in the interior of continents and near tho shores, 
 beneath thc equator and in the polar regions. It had 
 been estimated that there are probably two" thousand aerial 
 or subaqueous eruptions every century. Some volcanoes, as 
 /Ktna, have for thousands of years poured forth their lavas, 
 and still there is an unexhausted supply. Kverywhero 
 a common sourco is indicated by tho rudely uniform 
 materials ejected. Tho fact that the lines of volcanic 
 activity shift pointed to a deep source; tho periodic incre- 
 ments and decrements of force bore the same interpretation. 
 
502 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CR /X. 
 
 They far transcend the range of history. The volcanoes 
 of central France date from the Eocene period ; their 
 power increased in the Miocene, and continued through 
 the Pliocene ; those of Catalonia belong to the Pliocene, 
 probably. Coupled with volcanoes, earthquakes, with their 
 vertical, horizontal, and rotary vibratio s, having a linear 
 velocity of from twenty to thirty miles per minute, 
 indicated a profound focus of action. The great earth- 
 quake of Lisbon was felt from Norway to Morocco, from 
 Algiers to the West Indies, from Thuringia to the Cana- 
 dian lakes. It absolutely lifted the whole bed of the 
 North Atlantic Ocean, lis origin was in no superficial 
 point. 
 
 A still more universal proof of a high ten i])LTaturo 
 j 'roof f nan the affecting the whole mass of the interior of the 
 mean dinsity. o i 0 l, c was believed to be presented in the small 
 mean density of the earth, a density not more than 5*66 
 times that of water, the mean density of the solid surface 
 being 2'7, and that of the solid and sea-surface together 
 1*6. But this is not a density answering to that which 
 the earth should have in virtue of the attraction of her 
 own parts. It implied some agent capable of rarefying 
 and dilating, and the only Buch agent is heat. Although 
 the law of the increase of density from the upper surface 
 to the centre is unknown, yet a comparison of the earth's 
 compression with her velocity of rotation demonstrated 
 that there is an increasing density in the strata as we 
 descend. The great fact, however, which stands pro- 
 minently forth is the interior heat. 
 
 Not only were evidences thus offered of the existence of 
 a high temperature, and, therefore, of the lapse of a long 
 time by the present circumstances of the globe ; every 
 trace of its former state, duly considered, yielded similar 
 indications, the old evidence corroborating the new. And 
 soon it appeared that this would hold good whether 
 considered in the inorganic or organic aspect. 
 
 In the inorganic, what other interpretation could l\* 
 inorganic put on the universal occurrence of igneous rocks, 
 fonSfer°higb some i n enormous mountain ranges, some ejected 
 temperature, from beneath, forcing their tortuous way through 
 the resisting superincumbent strata ; veins of various 
 
CI I. IX.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON, 
 
 303 
 
 mineral constitution, and, as their relations with one 
 another showed, veins of very different dates? What 
 other interpretation of layers of lava in succession, ono 
 under another, and often with old disintegrated material 
 between ? What of those numerous volcanoes which have 
 never been known to show any signs of activity in the 
 period of history, though they sometimes occur in countries 
 like France, eminently historic? Wliat meaning could be 
 assigned to all those dislocations, subsidences, and eleva- 
 tions which the crust of the earth in every country 
 presents, indications of a loss of heat, of a contraction in 
 diameter, and its necessary consequence, fracture of tho 
 exterior consolidated shell along lines of least resistance? 
 And though it was asserted by some that the catastrophes 
 of which these are the evidences were occasioned by forces 
 of unparalleled energy and incessant operation — unparal- 
 leled when compared with such terrestrial forces as we are 
 familial- with — that did not, in any respect, change the 
 interpretation, for there could have been no abrupt 
 diminution in the intensity of i\io^v forces, which, if they 
 had lessened in power, must have parsed through a long, 
 a gradual decline. Jn that very decline there tiipso necs- 
 thus spontaneously came forth evidences of a pariiy imply 
 long lapse of time. The whole course of Nature 
 hat islies us how gradual and deliberate arc her proceedings ; 
 that there is no abrupt boundary between the past and 
 tho present, but that the one insensibly shades off into the 
 other, the present springing gently and imperceptibly out 
 of t lie past. If volcanic phenomena and all kinds of 
 igneous manifestations — if dislocations, injections, the in- 
 trusion of melted material into strata were at one time 
 more frequent, more violent — if, in the old times, mundane 
 forces possessed an energy which they have now lost, their 
 present diminished and deteriorated condition, coupled 
 with the fact that for thousands of years, throughout the 
 range of history, they have been invariably such as w r e 
 find them now, should be to us a proof how long, how 
 very long ago those old times must have been. 
 
 Thus, therefore, was perceived the necessity of co-ordi- 
 nating the scale of timo with tho scale of space, and such 
 views of the physical history of the earth were extended 
 
304 
 
 Tin: EUROPE AX AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX. 
 
 to celestial bodies which were considered as having passed 
 Support from through a similar course. In one, at least, this 
 astronomical assertion was no mere matter of speculation, hut 
 of actual observation. The br< >ken surface of the 
 moon, its volcanic cones and craters, its mountains, with 
 their lava-clad sides and ejected blocks glistening in the 
 sun, proved a succession of events like those of the earth, 
 and demonstrated that there is a planetary as well as a 
 terrestrial geology, and that in our satellite there is evidence 
 of a primitive high temperature, of a gradual decline, and, 
 therefore, of a long process of time. Perhaps also, con- 
 sidering the rate of heat-exchange in Venus by reason of 
 her proximity to the sun, the pale light which it is said 
 has been observed on her non-illuminated part is the de- 
 clining trace of her own intrinsic temperature, her heat 
 lasting until now. 
 
 If astronomers sought in systematic causes an explana- 
 tion of these facts— if, for instance, they were 
 ftwta°impiy disposed to examine how far changes in the ob- 
 tow secular Equity of the ecliptic are connected therewith 
 — it was necessary at the outset to concede that 
 the scale of time on which the event proceeds is of pro- 
 digious duration, this secular variation observing a slow 
 process of only 45*7" in a century ; and hence, since the 
 time of Ilipparchus, two thousand years ago, the plane of 
 the ecliptic has approached that of the equator by only 
 a quarter of a degree. Or if, again, they looked to a 
 diminishing of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, they 
 were compelled to admit the same postulate, and deal with 
 thousands of centuries. Under whatever aspect, then, the 
 theory was regarded, if once a former high temperature 
 were admitted, and the fact coupled therewith that there 
 has been no sensible decline within the observation of man, 
 whether the explanation was purely geological or purely 
 astronomical, the motion of heat in the mass of the earth 
 is so slow, yet the change that has taken place is so great, 
 the variations of the contemplated relations of the solar 
 system so gradual — under whatever aspect and in what- 
 ever way the fact was dealt with, there arose the indis- 
 pensable concession of countless centuries. 
 
 To the astronomer such a concession is nothing extra- 
 
I CH - rx -l TIf ^ EtTBOPEAH AGE OF REASON. 305 
 
 I ordinary. It is not because of the time required that he 
 entertains any doubt that the sun and his system acoom- 
 | plish a revolution round a distant centre of gravity in 
 ! nineteen millions of years, or that the rear of* Lvra> is 
 | half a million of ours. Ho looks forward to that distant 
 day when Sinus will disappear from our skies, and the 
 | Southern Cross he visible, and Vega the polar star. lie 
 I looks back to the time when y Draconis occupied that 
 conspicuous position, {m «l the builders of the great pyra- 
 • mid, b.c. 3970, gave to its subterranean passage an inclina- 
 | tion of 20 l.V. corresponding to the inferior culmination 
 H o, that star. He fdls us that the Southern Cross becran to 
 I be invisible in 52 3 30' N., 2000 years before our era, and 
 t,i;tt ]t ,l;l<1 previously attained an altitude of more 'than 
 10 . When it disappeared from the horizon of the countries 
 nn the P>altie,the pyramid of Cheops had been erected more 
 than a tliousand years. 
 
 We must pass by a copious mass of evidence furnished by 
 aqueous causes of change operating on the earth's P r , 
 
 thougl! these add very weighty proof frZ^t 
 to the doctrine of a long period. The filling up ****** 
 ;<d' lakes, the formation of deltas, the cutting power of 
 running water, the deposit of travertines, the denudation 
 of immense tracts of country, the carrying of their detritus 
 into the sea, the changes of shores by tides and waves, the 
 formation of strata hundreds of miles in length, and the 
 imbedding therein of fossil remains in numbers almost 
 beyond belief, furnished many interesting and important 
 facts. ( If these not a few presented means of computation. 
 it would not be difficult to assign a date for such geo- 
 graphical events as the production of the Caspian and Dead 
 Seas from ^ an examination of the sum of saline material 
 contained m their waters and deposited in their bed, with 
 the annual amount brought into them by their supplying 
 rivers. Such computations were executed as respects the 
 growth of Lower Egypt and the backward cutting of 
 Niagara Falls, and, though they might be individually 
 jpen to criticism, their mutual accordance and tendency 
 unnshrd an evidence that could not be gainsaid. The 
 continual accumulation of such evidence ought not to be 
 vithout its weight on those who arc still disposed to treat 
 VOL. If. x 
 
300 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [cm ix. 
 
 slightingly the power of geological facts in developing 
 truth. 
 
 To such facts were added all those, with which volumes 
 might be filled, proving the universality of the 
 movements of movements of the solid crust of the earth — 
 tneearth'fl strata once necessarily horizontal now inclined 
 atall angles, strata unconformable to one another 
 — a body of evidence most copious and most satisfactory, 
 yet demonstrating from the immensity of the results how 
 slowly the work had gone on. 
 
 How was it possible to conceive that beds many hundred 
 feet in thickness sin mid have been precipitated suddenly 
 from water? Their mechanical condition implied slow 
 disintegration and denudation in other localities to furnish 
 material; their contents showed no trace of violence ; they 
 rather proved the deposition to have occurred inatranquil 
 and quiet way. What interpretation could be put upon 
 facts continually increasing in number like those observed 
 in the south-east of England, where fresh-water beds a 
 thousand feet thick are covered by other beds a thousand 
 feet thick, but of marine origin? What upon those in the 
 north of England, where masses once uplifted a thousand 
 feet above the level, and. at the time of their elevation, 
 presenting abrupt precipices and cliffs of that height, as is 
 proved by the fractures and faults of the existing strata, 
 have been altogether removed, and the surface left plain? 
 In South Wales there are localities where 11,000 feet in 
 thickness have been bodily carried away. Whether, there- 
 fore, the strata that have been formed, and which remain 
 to strike us with astonishment at their prodigious mass, 
 were considered; or those that have been destroyed, not, 
 however, without leaving unmistakable traces of them- 
 selves ; the processes of wearing away to furnish material 
 as well as the accumulation, of necessity required the lapse 
 of long periods of time. The undermining of cliffs by the 
 beating of the sea, the redistribution of sands and mud at 
 the bottom of the ocean, the washing of material from hills 
 into the lowlands by showers of rain, its transport by river 
 courses, the disintegration of soils by the influence of frost, 
 the weathering of rocks by carbonic acid, and the solution 
 of limestone by its aid in water — these are effects which, 
 
'"• 11 1 TI:E BOBOPKAM AGE OF REASON. 307 
 
 vcn at the quickest, seem not to amount to much in the 
 P»>0f«ha life of a man. A thousand years could yield 
 ut a trifling result. 
 
 We have already alluded to another point of view from 
 rhich them meohamcal effects were considered. The level 
 
 I the- land and sea has unmistakable changed. There are 
 "'7"''!"' CI ."'ncnees ten or fifteen th-msand feet in altitude 
 the interior of continents over which, or through which 
 h- Is and other products of the sea are profnselv Scattered 
 n« t hou K h, oonsnlering the proverbial immobility of the 
 '1.-1 land and the proverbial instability of the water it 
 ight at first he supposed much more likely that the sea 
 >d subsided than that , ho land had risen, a more critieal 
 .animation soon led to a change of opinion. Before < ur 
 vs in some countries elevations and depressions are 
 lvn.fr place sotnetunes in a slow Bt . C ular manner, as m 
 ■uwayand Sweden that peninsula „„ the north risins 
 d on the south sink, at such a rate that, to accompli 
 
 ^™ '"'""-ed feel ,,f movement, more than 
 
 only-seven thousand years would he required if n 
 ' ••'luavs Peon „,,„,„„ as now. Elsewhere, as on the 
 Jth- estorn coast, ot South America, the movement ,s 
 ' oxvsnul, the shore hue lifting for hundreds of miles 
 tantaueously, and then pausing for many years, In th 
 W8 also range after range of old sea-cliffi, exist, some of 
 in more than a thousand feet high, with terraces at i 
 »of each; hut the Morca has been well known for 
 t ■ twentr-hvo centuries, and in that time 1ms undergone 
 S ,T,al C,l ''"'f • :Vain, in Sicily, similar intX 
 -cliffs a re see... the rubbish at their bases containing the 
 ,? ^ l"I'rq"'.ta.n„s and mammoth, proofs of the 
 at change the climate has undergone siuco the set 
 ■bed those ancient beaches. Italy, pre-eminently tin 
 ™ country, ,„ which, within the' Memory o m n no 
 -ml change of configuration has taken pW since the 
 JcKstocene period, very hate geologically VakinT ha! 
 xperteneed clcvat.ons of fifteen hundred feet. 1 Thc'e 
 Wb of Rome are of the Pliocene, with fluviatile ,1000: ,'' 
 fiber T) * h f* tw » ******* *« abov • \L 
 
 «e newer a penod of enormous length, as is demonstrated 
 
 11M 
 
 nati 
 
308 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. [CH. IX - 
 
 bv the accumulated effects taking place in it, and, indeed 
 he same may be said of every juxtaposed pair of distinctly 
 marked strata. It demanded an inconceivable time for 
 bed T once horizontal at the bottom of the sea to be tilted 
 lo Seat inclTnations ; it required also the enduring exertion 
 of fprodiious force Ascent and descent may be detected 
 n sSa o g f every age. movements sometimes pa-xys-a , 
 but more often of tranquil and secular kind, ine coai 
 wStrata by gradual submergence, attained m South 
 Hi 11 ickAess of 12,000 feet, and in Nova Scotia, a total 
 Sues o ? 1^570 feet; the uniformity of the process of 
 submerTence and its slow steadiness is indicated by the 
 «S of erect trees at different levels : seventeen such 
 renetitlons mav be counted in a thickness of 4o 15 feet. 
 The age o/Se trees is proved by their size, some being 
 four feet in diameter. Bound them, as they gradually 
 wLt down with the subsiding soil, calamity • grew ^ne 
 level after another. In the Sidney coal-field fifty-nine , 
 
 connected with inorganic nature. t w«U 
 organic proofs x emp i ia tic endorsement from the organic 
 of a former mufcU c r , • intimate connexion 
 
 fS*"**"' A* fteSerl Sd well-bemg both o, 
 pknt S a»ar^.,.ndth.tott„wMoha^.«P^ 
 
 ta,,«tlfln'J temporal dimate, but . are 
 
 ™di«io„ of L lite, a»d eertair; limit* of heat a.d eeld 
 
 to rise and in the course of some centuries, the tempera 
 ^ Swltaining in Florida should *tam -^J 
 the orange and lemon would certainly be lounu 
 
CH. IX.] THE EUROPEAN AGE OF EEASON. 309 
 
 With the increasing heat those plants would commence a 
 northward march, steadily advancing as oppor- 
 tunity was given. Or, if the reverse took place, SSSfaSby 
 and for any reason the heat of the torrid zone heat 
 declined until the winter's cold of New York should be at 
 last reached under the equator, as the descent went on the 
 orange and lemon would retreat within a narrow and 
 narrower region, and end by becoming extinct, the con- 
 ditions of their exposure being incompatible with the 
 continuance of their life. From such considerations it is 
 therefore obvious that not only does heat arrange the limits 
 ot the distribution of plants, erecting round them boun- 
 daries which, though invisible, are more insuperable than 
 a wall of brass, it also regulates their march, if march 
 there is to be-nay, even controls their very existence, and 
 duration^ species ' and individuals appoints a period of 
 
 _ Such observations apply not alone to plants ; the animal 
 kingdom offers equally significant illustrations. „ . 
 Why does the white bear enjoy the leaden sky iSSft&u 
 ot the poJe and his native iceberg' Why does as P la,Jts - 
 the tiger restrict himself to the jungles of India ? Can it 
 be doubted that, if the mean annual temperature should 
 decline, the polar bear would come with his iceberg to 
 corresponding southern latitudes, or, if the heat should rise 
 the tiger would commence a northward journey ? Does he 
 not, indeed, every summer penetrate northward in Asia as 
 fai as the latitude of Berlin, and retire again as winter- 
 comes on ?_ Why is it that, at a given signal, the birds of 
 passage migrate, pressed forward in the spring bv the 
 heat, and pressed backward in the autumn by the cold? 
 ihe annual migration of birds illustrates the causes of 
 geological appearances and extinctions. Do we not herein 
 recognize the agent that determines animal distribution? 
 We must not deceive ourselves with any fancied terrestrial 
 impediment or restraint. Let the heat rise but a few 
 degrees, and the turkey-buzzard, to whose powerful wing 
 distances are of no moment and the free air no impediment 
 would be seen hovering over New York; let it fall a few 
 degrees, and he would vanish from the streets of Charleston ; 
 let it tall a little more, and he would vanish from the 
 
310 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. [CH. IX. 
 
 earth Shell-fish, once the inhabitants of the British seas 
 retired during the glacial period to the Mediterranean, and 
 with the returning warmth have gone back northward 
 
 ^Animals are thus controlled by heat in an indirect as 
 Control ofani- well as a direct way. Indirectly; for, if their 
 nui s bv food. f 0 od be diminished, they must seek a more ample 
 supply; if it fails, they must perish. Doubtless it was 
 insufficient fix id, as well as the setting in of a more rigorous 
 climate, that occasioned the destruction of the mastodon 
 rieanteus, which abounded in the United States after the 
 Srift period. Such great elephantine forms could not 
 ? . .ssil.lv sustain themselves against the rigors of the 
 present winters, nor could they find a sufficient supply of 
 f l for a considerable portion of the year. J he disap- 
 pearance of animals from the face of the earth was, as 
 Palseontology advanced, ascertained to have been a deter- 
 minate process, a condition of their existence, and either 
 inherent in themselves or dependent on their environment. 
 It was proved that the forms now existing are only an 
 insignificant part of the countless tribes that have lived. 
 
 ° The earth has been the theatre of a long succes- 
 5i5?&* sion of appearances and removals, of creations 
 tmctions. an) j extinctions, reaching to the latest times, in 
 the Pleistocene of Sicily, T 3 A of the fossil shells are ex- 
 tinct • in the hone caverns of England, out of thirty-seven 
 mammals eighteen are extinct. But judging, from what 
 may be observed of the duration of races contemporary 
 with us, that their life is prolonged for thousands of years, 
 successive generations of the same species m a long order 
 replacing their predecessors before final removal occurs, 
 this again resistlessly brought forward the same conclusion 
 to which all the foregoing facts had pointed, that there 
 have transpired since the introduction of animal life upon 
 this globe very long periods of time. , 1 
 
 Through the operation of this law of extinction and ol 
 creation, animated nature, both on the continents and in 
 the seas, has undergone a marvellous change. In the iias 
 and oolitic seas, the Enaliosauria, Cetiosauna, and Croco- 
 dilia dominated as the Delphinidse and I Balamidee do in 
 ours • the former have been eliminated, the latter produced. 
 
CH. IX.] THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 311 
 
 Along with the cetaceans came the soft-scaled Cycloid 
 and Ctenoid fishes, orders which took the place of the 
 Ganoids and Plaooids of the Mesozoic times. One after 
 another successive species of air-breathing reptiles have 
 emerged, continued for their appointed time to exist, and 
 then died out. The development has been, not in the 
 descending, but in the ascending order; the Amphitheria, 
 Spalacotheria, Triconodon of the Mesozoic times were sub- 
 stituted by higher tertiary forms. Nor have these muta- 
 tions been abrupt. If mammals are the chief character- 
 istic of the Tertiary ages, their first beginnings are seen 
 far earlier; in the triassio and oolitic formations there 
 are a few of the lower orders struggling, as it were, to 
 emerge. The aspect of animated nature has altogether 
 changed. No longer does the camelopard wander over 
 Europe as he did in the Miocene and Pliocene times ; no 
 longer are great elephants seen in the American forests, 
 the hippopotamus in England, the Rhinoceros in Siberia. 
 The hand of man has introduced in the New the horse of 
 the Old World; but the American horse, that ran on the 
 great plains contemporary with the megatherium ana 
 megalonyx, has for tens of thousands of years been extinct. 
 Even the ocean and the rivers arc no exception to these 
 changes. 
 
 What, then, is the manner of origin of this infinite 
 succession of forms ? It is often sufficient to see Croations anC 
 clearly a portion of a plan to be able to determine extinctions 
 with some degree of certainty the general ar- by lttW * 
 rangemenl of the whole; it is often sufficient to know with 
 precision a part of the life of an individual to guess with 
 probable accuracy his action in some forthcoming event, or 
 to determine the share he has borne in affairs that are 
 past. It is enough to appreciate thoroughly the style of i 
 master to ascertain without doubt the authenticity of an 
 imputed picture. And so, in the affairs of the universe, it 
 is enough to ascertain the manner of operation of a part 
 in order to settle the manner of operation of the whole. 
 When, therefore, it was perceived how the disappearance 
 
 of vanishing forms from the surface of the globe is ac- 
 complished —that it is not by a sudden and grand provi- 
 dential intervention — that there is no visible putting forth 
 
312 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON 
 
 [CH. IX. 
 
 of the Omnipotent hand, but slowly and silently, yet 
 surely, the ordinary laws of Nature are permitted to take 
 their course — that heat, and cold, and want of food, and 
 dryness, and moisture, in the end, as if by an irresistible 
 destiny, accomplish the event, it seemed to indicate that, 
 as regards the introduction of new-comers, a suitableness 
 of external conditions had called them forth, as an un- 
 suitableness could end them. Changes in the constitution 
 of the air or its pressure, in the composition of the sea or 
 its depth, in the brilliancy of light or the amount of heat, 
 in the inorganic material of a medium, will modify old 
 forms into new ones, or compel their extinction. Birth 
 and death go hand in hand ; creation and extinction are in- 
 separable. The variation of organic form is continuous ; 
 it depends upon an orderly succession of material events ; 
 appearances and eliminations are managed upon a common 
 principle ; they stand connected with the irresistible course 
 of great mundane changes. It was impossible that geo- 
 logists could reach any other conclusion than that such 
 phenomena are not the issue of direct providential inter 
 ventions, but of physical influences. The procession of 
 organic life is not a motley march ; it follows the procession 
 of physical events ; and, since it is impossible to re-establish 
 a sameness of physical conditions that have once come to 
 an end, or reproduce the order in which they have occurred, 
 it of necessity follows that no organic form can reappear 
 after it has once died out — once dead, it is clean gone for 
 ever. 
 
 In the course of the liio of individual man, the parts 
 interstitial ^hat constitute his system are undergoing mo- 
 moiecuiar mentary changes; those of to-day are not the 
 creations. same as those of yesterday, and they will be 
 replaced by others to-morrow. There have been, and are 
 every instant, insterstitial deaths of all the constituent 
 particles, and an unceasing removal of those that have 
 performed their duty. In the stead of departing portions, 
 new ones have been introduced, interstitial births and 
 organizations perpetually taking place. In physiology it 
 became no longer a question that all this proceeds in a 
 determinate way under the operation of principles that are 
 fixed, of laws that are invariable. The alchemists intro- 
 
CH. IX.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 313 
 
 duced no poetical fiction when they spoke of the micro- 
 cosm, asserting that the system of man is emblematical of 
 the system of the world The intercalation of a new 
 organic molecule in a living being answers to the intro- 
 duction of a new form in the universal organic series. It 
 requires as much power to call into existence a living 
 molecule as to produce a living being. Both are accom- 
 plished upon the same principle, and that principle is not 
 an incessant intervention of a supernatural kind, but the 
 operation of unvarying law. Physical agents, working 
 through physical laws, remove in organisms such molecules 
 as have accomplished their work and create new ones, and 
 physical agents, working through physical laws, control 
 the extinctions and creations of forms in the universe of 
 life. The difference is only in the time. What is accom- 
 plished in the one case in the twinkling of an eye, in the 
 other may demand the lapse of a thousand centuries. 
 
 The variation of organic forms, under the force of 
 external circumstances, is thus necessary to be understood 
 in connexion with that countless succession of living 
 beings demonstrated by geology. It carries us, in common 
 with so much other evidence, to the lapse of a long time. 
 Nor are such views as those to which we are thus con- 
 strained inconsistent with the admission of a Providential 
 guidance of the world. Man, however learned and pious he 
 ma v be, is not always a trustworthy interpreter of the ways 
 of God. In deciding whether any philosophical doctrine 
 is consistent or inconsistent with the Divine attributes, 
 we are too prone to judge of those attributes by our own 
 finite and imperfect standard, forgetting that the only test 
 to which we ought to resort is the ascertainment if the 
 doctrine be true. If it be true, it is in unison with God. 
 Perhaps some who have rejected the conception of the 
 variation of organic forms, with its postulate — limitless 
 duration, may have failed to remember the grandeur of 
 the universe and its relations to space and to time ; 
 perhaps they do not recall the system on which it is 
 administered. Like the anthropomorphite monks of the 
 Kile, they conceive of God as if he were only a very large 
 man ; else how could it for a moment have been doubted 
 that it is far more — I use the expression reverently — in 
 
314 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASOxl. 
 
 jCH. IX. 
 
 the style of the great Constitutor to carry out his inten- 
 D -fence of the tions by the summary operations of law? It 
 process of uii might be consistent with the weakness and 
 th.ngsb} law. jg norance 0 f man to be reduced to the necessity 
 of personal intervention for the accomplishment of his 
 plans, bat would not that be the very result of such 
 ignorance ? Does not absolute knowledge actually imply 
 procedure by preconceived and unvarying law? Is not 
 momentary intervention altogether derogatory to the 
 thorough and absolute sovereignty of God? The astro- 
 nomical calculation of ancient events, as well as the 
 prediction of those to come, is essentially founded on the 
 principle that there has not in the times under considera- 
 tion, and that there will never be in the future, any 
 exercise of an arbitrary or overriding will. The corner- 
 stone of astronomy is this, that the solar system — nay, 
 even the universe, is ruled by necessity. To operate by 
 expedients is for the creature, to operate by law for the 
 Creator ; and so far from the doctrine that creations and 
 extinctions are carried on by a foreseen and predestined 
 ordinance— a system which works of itself without need 
 of any intermeddling — being an unworth} 7 , an ignoble con- 
 ception, it is completely in unison with the resistless 
 movements of the mechanism of the universe, with what- 
 ever is orderly, symmetrical, and beautiful upon earth, 
 and with all the dread magnificence of the heavens. 
 
 It was in Italy that particular attention was first given to 
 Historical organic remains. Leonardo da Vinci asserts that 
 sketch of early they are real shells, or the remains thereof, and 
 Paleontology. ^he land and sea must have changed 
 
 their relative position. At this time fossils were looked upon 
 as rare curiosities, no one supposing that they were at all 
 numerous, and many were the fantastic hypotheses pro- 
 posed to account for their occurrence. Some referred them 
 to the general deluge mentioned in Scripture; some to a 
 certain plastic power obscurely attributed to the earth ; 
 pome thought that they were engendered by the sunlight, 
 heat, and rain. To Da Vinci is due the first clear assertion 
 of their true nature, that they are actually the remains of 
 organic beings. Soon the subject was taken up by other 
 eminent Italians. Fracaster wrote on the petrifactions of 
 
CH. IX.] 
 
 Till: EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 315 
 
 Verona; SciJla, a Sicilian on marine bodies turned into 
 *tone, illustrating his work by engravings. Still later, 
 Vallisneri, 1721, published letters on marine bodies found 
 in rocks, attempting by their aid to determine the extent 
 of the marine deposits of Italy. These early cultivators 
 of geology soon perceived the advantage to be gained by 
 the establishment of museums and the publication of 
 catalogues. The first seems to have been that of John 
 Kent man, an example that was followed by Calceolarius 
 .and Vallisneri. Subsequently Fontanelle proposed the 
 construction of charts in accordance with fossil remains; 
 but the principle involved was not applied on the great 
 scale' as a true geological test until introduced by Smith in 
 connexion with the IJnglish strata. 
 
 To Steno, a Dane, is due the recognition of prc-organio 
 in contradistinction to organic rocks, a distinc- Thepre-o> 
 tion the terms of which necessarily involve sometime, 
 t !ie idea of time. Soon it became generally recognized 
 that the- strata in which organic remains occur are of a 
 later date than those devoid of them, the pro-organic rocks 
 demonstrating a pro-organic time. Moreover, as facts were 
 developed, it was plain that there are essential differences 
 in the relations of fossils, and that, though in Italy tho 
 same species of shells may occur in tho mountains that 
 occur in the adjacent seas, this was very far from being 
 the case uniformly elsewhere. At length the truth began 
 to emerge, that in proportion as the strata under examina- 
 tion aro of an older date, so are the differences between 
 their organic remains and existing species more marked. 
 Jt was also discovered that tho same species often extends 
 Superficially over immense districts, but that in a vertical 
 examination one species after another rapidly appears in a 
 descending order— an order which could be verified in 
 spite of the contortions, fractures, and displacements of 
 the Btrata. A very important theoretical conclusion was 
 h< re presented ; for the rapid succession of essentially dif- 
 ferent organic forms, as the rocks were older, was clearly 
 altogether inconsistent with one catastrophe, as the uni- 
 versal deluge, to which it had been generally referred. 
 ] t was plain that the thickness of the strata in which they 
 Vrere i nveloped, and the prodigious numbers in which they 
 
316 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [oh. IX. 
 
 occurred, answered in some degree to the period of life of 
 those fossils, since every one of them, large or small, must 
 have had its time of birth, of malurity, and of death, 
 insufficiency When, therefore, it could be no longer doubted 
 of a single that strata many hundreds of feet in thickness 
 catastrop ie. were crowded with such remains, it became 
 altogether out of the question to refer their entombment 
 to the confusion of a single catastrophe, for every thing 
 indicated an orderly and deliberate proceeding. Still more 
 cogent did this evidence become when, in a more critical 
 manner, the fossils were studied, and some strata were 
 demonstrated to be of a fresh-water and others of a marine 
 origin, the one intercalated with the other like leaves in a 
 book. To this fact may be imputed the final overthrow of 
 the doctrine of a single catastrophe, and its replacement 
 by a doctrine of periodical changes. 
 
 From these statements it will therefore be understood 
 The orderly that, commencing with the first appearance of 
 progression of organization, an orderly process was demon- 
 organization. strated f rom f ormfl altogether unlike those with 
 which we are familiar, up to those at present existing, a 
 procedure conducted so slowly that it was impossible to 
 assign for it a shorter duration than thousands of centuries. 
 Moreover, it seemed that the guiding condition which had 
 controlled this secular march of organization was the same 
 which still determines the possibility of existence and the 
 distribution of life. The succession of organic forms 
 indicates a clear relation to a descending temperature. 
 The plants of the earliest times are plants of an ultra- 
 tropical climate, and that primitive vegetation seemed to 
 demonstrate that there had been a uniform climate — a 
 climate of high temperature — all over the globe. The 
 coal-beds of Nova Scotia exhibited the same genera and 
 species as those of Europe, and so well marked was the 
 botanical connexion with the declining temperature in 
 successive ages that attempts were made to express eras by 
 their prevailing organisms ; thus Brongniart's division is, 
 for the Primary strata, the Age of Acrogens ; the Secondary, 
 exclusive of the Cretaceous, the Age of Gymnogens ; the 
 third, including the Cretaceous and Tertiary, the Age of 
 Angiosperrns. It is to be particularly remarked that the 
 
CH. IX.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 317 
 
 Cretaceous flora, in the aggregate, combines the antecedent 
 and succeeding periods, proving that the change was not by 
 crisis or sudden catastrophe, but that the new forms rose 
 gently among the old ones. After the Eocene period, 
 dicotyledonous angiosperms became the prevalent form, 
 and from that date to the Pleistocene the evidences of a 
 continued refrigeration are absolute. 
 
 As thus an examination was made from the most ancient to 
 the later ages, indications were found of a climate arrange- 
 ment more and more distinct — in the high lati- climates in 
 tildes, from the ultratropical through the tropical, timeandin 
 the temperate, down to the present frigid state; plaC( " 
 in lower latitudes the declining process stopping short at 
 an earlier point. It therefore appeared that there has 
 been a production of climates both in an order of time and 
 in an order of locality, the greatest change having occurred 
 in the frigid /one, which has passed through all mean 
 temperatures, an intermediate change in the temperate, 
 and a minimum in the torrid /.one. The general elfect has 
 thus been to present a succession of surfaces on the same 
 planet adapted to a varied organization, and offering a 
 more magnificent spectacle than if we were permitted to 
 inspect many different planets; for in them there might 
 be qo necessary connexion of their forms of life, but in 
 this there LS, so that, were our knowledge of Comparative 
 Physiology more perfect, we might amuse ourselves with 
 intercalating among the plant and animal organisms 
 familiar to us hypothetical forms that would make the 
 Belies complete, and verify our principles by their subse- 
 quent discovery in the deep strata of the earth. 
 
 Does do1 this progression of life in our planet suggest a 
 like progression for the solar system, which in its aggregate 
 is passing in myriads of years through all organic phases? 
 May we qo1 also. Prom our solar system, rise to a similar 
 conception for the universe? 
 
 There are two very important considerations, on which 
 we must dwell for the complete understanding of the 
 consequences of these changes: 1st. The mechanism of 
 the declining temperature; 2d. Its effect in the organic 
 
 world. 
 
 1st. A uniformly high temperature could never be 
 
318 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX. 
 
 manifested all over the surface of our planet through any 
 . heating influence of the sun. A high and 
 
 The nature of -r > i • i , 
 
 t. rr. striai de- uniform temperature unerringly points to an 
 
 cliningtem- internal cause: and the gradual appearance of 
 perature. » . foil. 
 
 climates, mamlesting a relatively increasing 
 
 power of the sun, indicates the slow diminution of that 
 internal heat. But this is precisely the conclusion which 
 was conic to from a contemplation of the earth from a 
 purely physical point of view. So long as its intrinsic 
 heat overpowered that derived from the sun, it was not pos- 
 sible that any thing answering to climates could be esta- 
 blished ; and, until a certain degree of cooling by radiation 
 had been accomplished, the heat must have been compara 
 tively uniform in all latitudes; but, that point gained, there 
 necessarily ensued an arrangement of zones of different 
 temperatures, or, in other .v<>rds, climates appeared, the 
 process being essentially slow, and becoming slower as the 
 loss of heat went on. Finally, when loss of heat from the 
 earth ceased, an equilibrium was reached in the climate 
 arrangement as we now find it. Thus purely physical as 
 well as geological considerations "brought philosophers on 
 this point to the same conclusion — that conclusion which 
 has been so often repeated — very long periods of time. 
 2nd. As to the effect on the organic world. Nothing can 
 
 live at a temperature higher than the boiling- 
 SffectonThe point of water, for the condition of life implies 
 Ftoraand that there shall circulate from part to part of a 
 
 living mechanism a watery liquid, sap, or blood. 
 From this it necessarily follows that a planet, the tem- 
 perature of which is above a certain limit, must necessarily 
 have a lifeless surface ; and this seemed to be the inter- 
 pretation of that pre-organic time to which we have re- 
 ferred. Moreover, when the temperature suitably descends 
 so as to come within the limit at which life is possible, 
 its uniformity over the surface of a planet will produce a 
 sameness in the organization. It would be an identity if 
 heat were the only regulating condition of life. At this 
 stage of things, the solar heat being overpowered, and a 
 sensibly uniform temperature in all latitudes existing, still 
 the only possible organic forms are those consistent with a 
 high temperature, uniformity in the physical condition 
 
cil. |X.] 
 
 THK EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 319 
 
 impressing a general uniformity in the aspect of life 
 geographically. Hut the moment that climate 
 arrangement has become possible, variety 01 and distribu- 
 organic form ln'comos possible. Now also ensues t><"> <»/ ^>w 
 
 fe , li • x i. li. 1 • l v organisms. 
 
 another all-important result — geographical dis- 
 tribution. I)oth of plants and animals, those whoso vital 
 conditions are inconsistent with the occurring change- must 
 retiro from the affeoted locality. In plants this retroces- 
 sion is brought to pass by the gradual sickening and 
 death of individuals, or the impossibility of reproduction; 
 in animals there is added thereto, because of their power 
 of locomotion, voluntary retirement, at least in the case of 
 individuals, and immobility in the species is corrected by 
 locomotion in the individual. The affected region has 
 heroine unsuitable, cheerless, uncomfortable; they abandon 
 it; and as the boundary they thus, iu the one case, can 
 not, and in the other will not overpass, advances, so do 
 they recede before it. If the change were abrupt, or took 
 place by a sudden crisis, there would seem to he no other 
 possible event than an overcrowding of the unaffected 
 region and a desolation of the part that had varied. But, 
 since a developing cell under a new condition produces a 
 new form, and sinco tho physical change is taking place 
 with extreme slowness, the appearance of modified struc- 
 tures ensues. And thus, by decline of temperature, two 
 distinct results aro accomplished — first tho production or 
 organic forms in an order of succession, new ones re- 
 placing the old, as if they were transmutations of them, 
 and, secondly, geographical distribution. 
 
 In my kl Physiology " 1 have endeavoured to explain in 
 detail the principles here set forth. I have en- d c1usIvp ra . 
 deavouivd to show that the aspect of sameness turret" organic 
 presented by an animal or plant is no proof of t,qm ' lbnum - 
 unchangeability. Those forms retain in our times their 
 Special aspect because tho conditions of the theatre in 
 which they live do not change; but let the mean tempo 
 rature rise, let the sun-rays beconio brighter, change the 
 composition of the air, and forthwith the world of organi- 
 zation would show how profoundly it was affected. Nor 
 Deed such changes, In one sense, be more than insignificant 
 to produce prodigious results. Thus the air contains only 
 
320 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX. 
 
 ttoVo of its volume of carbonic acid gas. That apparently 
 trifling quantity taken away, in an instant the whole 
 surface of the earth would become a desolate waste, without 
 the possibility of vegetable life. 
 
 As physical geology advanced, the Coal period was per- 
 The Coal ceived to be the chief epoch in the history of our 
 period. planet. Through a slow decline of temperature, 
 a possibility had gradually been attained, so far as the 
 condition of heat was concerned, for a luxuriant vegetable 
 growth. All that prodigious mass of carbon now found in 
 the earth in the various forms of coal existed as carbonic 
 acid in the atmosphere. The proportion of free oxygen 
 was less than at present by a volume equal to the excess 
 of carbonic acid. A change in the constitution of this 
 primaeval atmosphere was occasioned by the action of the 
 Effects of light ttgb^J for, under the influence of the sun-rays, 
 on the atmo- plants decompose carbonic acid, appropriating 
 sphere, -£ g car ]3 0n? anc ^ f or ^he mos t part, setting the 
 oxygen free. The quantity of carbon which can thus be 
 condensed for the use of a plant, and, indeed, every such 
 decomposing action by light, is directly proportionate to 
 the quantity of light consumed, as experiments which ] 
 have personally made have proved. For the production 
 of so great a weight of combustible matter a very long 
 period of time was necessarily required, that the sun might 
 supply the necessary luminous influence. 
 
 Age after age the sunbeams continued their work, 
 changing the mechanical relations and composition of the 
 atmosphere, the constitution of the sea, and the appear- 
 ance of the surface of the earth. There was a prodigious 
 growth of ferns, lepidodendra, equisetaceae, coniferae. The 
 percentage of oxygen in the air continually increased, that 
 of carbonic acid continually declined ; the pressure of the 
 air correspondingly diminished, partly because of the 
 replacement of a heavy gas by a lighter one, and partly 
 because of the general decline of temperature slowly taking 
 place, which diminished the absolute volume of vapour, 
 and also on The sea, in its deepest abysses, was likewise 
 the sea. affected by the sunlight; not directly, but in an 
 indirect way ; for, as the removal of carbonic acid from 
 the atmosphere went on, portions of that gas were per- 
 
OH. IX.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON". 
 
 321 
 
 an 
 
 petually surrendered by the ocean in order to maintain a 
 diffusion- equilibrium between its dissolved gas and tho 
 freo gas of the air. And now no longer could be held in 
 transparent solution by the water those great quantities of 
 carbonate of lime which had once been concealed in it, the 
 deposit of a given weight of coal in the earth being in- 
 evitably followed by the deposit of an equivalent weight 
 of carbonate of lime in the sea. This might have taken 
 place as an amorphous precipitate; but the probabilities 
 were that it would occur, as in fact it did, under forms of 
 organization in the great limestone strata coeval with and 
 posterior to the coal. The air and the ocean were thus 
 snlVciing an invisible change through the disturbing 
 agency of tho sun, and the surface of the solid earth was 
 likewise undergoing a more manifest, and, it may be said 
 more glorious alteration. Plants, in wild luxuriance, were 
 developing themselves in the hot and dank climate, and 
 the possibility was now approaching for the appearance of 
 imal types very much higher than any that had yet 
 orated. In the old heavy atmosphere, full of a noxious 
 gas, none but slowly-respiring cold-blooded r , 
 animals could maintain themselves; but after SSmaJ^S 
 the greal change in the constitution of the air oeededb J lw *. 
 ™d teen accomplished, the quickly-respiring and hot- 
 1,1 [eA forms migh.1 exist. Eitherto the highest advance- 
 ment thai animal life could reach was in batrachian and 
 uzard-like organisms; yet even these were destined to 
 |?articipate in the change, increasing in magnitude and 
 vital capacity. The pterodactyl of the chalk, a flyino- 
 lizard, measures nearly seventeen feet from tip to tip of 
 Its wings. The air had now become suitable for mammals, 
 both placenta] and implacental, and for birds. One after 
 another, in their duo order, appeared the highest verte- 
 » r ates marine, as the cetacean; aerial, as the bat; and in 
 1,M : terrestrial, reaching, in the Eocene, quadrumanous 
 puinals, hul not, until after the Pliocene, man. 
 
 Although the advance of geology may here- Thedateof 
 atter lead to a correction of some of the con- organisms 
 elusions thus attained to respecting the first 
 dates oi different organic forms, and carry them not - 
 back to more ancient times, it is scarcely likely that any 
 vol ir. Y 
 
322 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX. 
 
 material modification of their order of occurrence will ever 
 be made. Birds, mammals, reptiles, fishes, and inverte- 
 brates may each be detected in earlier strata; even in 
 some of those formations now regarded as non-fossiliferous, 
 organisms may be found ; but it is not at all probable that 
 the preponderance of reptiles will ever cease to be the 
 essential characteristic of the Secondary rocks, or that of 
 mammals of the Tertiary, or that a preceding period of 
 vast duration, in which the type of life had been the 
 invertebrate, will ever be doubted. Nothing, probably, 
 will ever be discovered to invalidate the physical con- 
 clusion that, while there was an excess of carbonic acid in 
 the air, the Flora would tend to be Cryptogamic and 
 Gymnospermic, and that there would be a scarcity of 
 monocotyledons and dicotyledonous angiosperms in the 
 coal ; nothing to disprove the fact that the animals were 
 slow-breathing and cold-blooded ; and that it was not until 
 after the oxygen of the air had increased and the mean 
 temperature had declined that birds made their appearance. 
 Though both placental and marsupial animals may here- 
 after be found earlier than in the Stonesfield slate ; though 
 wood and herb-eating beetles, grasshoppers, dragon-flies, 
 and May-flies may be found beneath the lias, and scorpions 
 and cockroaches beneath the coal, though, also beneath the 
 coal, salamanders and Sauroid batrachians, of which the 
 archegosaurus is an example, may occur ; though reptiles, as 
 the telerpeton, may be found deeper than the old red sand- 
 stone ; yet the connexion between aerial constitution and 
 form of life will never be shaken. Still will remain the facts 
 that the geographical distribution of types was anterior to 
 the appearance of existing species ; that organisms first 
 appeared in a liquid medium, primitively marine, then 
 tluviatile, and at last terrestrial ; that Eadiates, Molluscs, 
 Articulates, Vertebrates, were all at first aquatic, and that 
 the Eadiates have ever remained so ; that the plane of 
 greatest vital activity has ever been the sea-level, where the 
 earth and air touch each other ; that the order of individual 
 development is the order of mundane development. Still will 
 remain the important conclusions that the mammalian 
 Fauna has diverged more rapidly than the testaceous ; that 
 tot-blooded animals have not had that longevity of species 
 
CH. IX. j 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 323 
 
 which has been displayed by the cold, just as we observe 
 in the individual the possibility of muscular contraction by 
 a given galvanic force lasts much longer in the latter than 
 in the former ; that if the hot-blooded tribes have thus a 
 briefer duration, they enjoy a compensation in the greater 
 energy of their life — perhaps this being the cause and that 
 the effect ; that, notwithstanding the countless forms 
 exhibited by species, their duration is so great that they 
 outlive vast changes in the topographical configuration of 
 countries — the Fauna of some countries having been in 
 existence before those countries themselves ; that the plan 
 of individual development has ever been as it is now, and 
 that sameness of external influence produces similarity of 
 organization. 
 
 In its early history theoretical geology presented two 
 schools — one insisting on a doctrine of catas- 
 trophes, one on a doctrine of uniformity. The 0 f catastro- 6 
 former regarded those changes which have mani- ^^.^ d uni " 
 festly taken place in the history of our planet ' 
 as having occurred at epochs abruptly. To this doctrine 
 the prevailing impression that there had been providential 
 interventions lent much force. The other school, reposing 
 on the great principle of the invariability of the laws of 
 Nature, insisted that affairs had always gone on at the 
 same rate and in the same way as they do now. Hence it 
 maintained an opposition to the catastrophists, and in this, 
 it may be said, was actually not true to its own principles. 
 Any doctrine of uniformity, rightly considered from its 
 most general point of view, includes an admission of 
 catastrophes. Numerous illustrations of this truth spon- 
 taneously suggest themselves. A tower, the foundations 
 of which are slowly yielding, may incline more and more 
 for many centuries, but the day must come in which it 
 will fall at last. In the uniformity of the disturbance a 
 catastrophe was eventually involved. And thus, in what 
 has been said respecting geological events, though they 
 are spoken of as proceeding quietly and with uniformity, 
 it may be understood that sudden crises are also con- 
 templated. Moreover, those who adopt the doctrine of 
 uniformity in an absolute sense must pay a due regard to 
 the variations in intensitv of physical acts which their 
 
 y 2 
 
324 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. [CH. IX, 
 
 own principles imply. The uniform cooling of a hot body 
 actually means a cooling at first fast, and then slower and 
 slower ; and invariability of chemical change actually im- 
 plies more violent and summary modifications at a high 
 temperature than at one which is low. 
 
 But though it may at first sight have appeared that an 
 admission of the doctrine of catastrophes is m harmony 
 with a providential government of the world, and that the 
 emergence of different organic forms in successive ages is 
 a manifestation of creative intervention, of which it was 
 admitted that as many as from twelve to twenty, it no 
 more successive instances might be recognized, we may 
 well congratulate ourselves that those important doctrines 
 rest upon a far more substantial basis. Kightly considered 
 the facts lead to a very different conclusion. Physiological 
 investigations have proved that all animals, even man, 
 during the process of development, pass m 
 fovmsTr succession through a definite cycle of forms, 
 turned by Starting from a simple cell, form after form, m a 
 definite order is assumed. In this long line of 
 advance the steps are ever, in all individuals, the same 
 But no one would surely suppose that the changed aspect 
 at any moment presented is due to a providential inter- 
 position. On the contrary, it is the inevitable 
 result of what has been taking place under the 
 mined by law. law 0 f development, and the sure precursor ol 
 what is about to follow. In the organic world, the succes- 
 sive orders, and genera, and species are the counterparts 
 of these temporary embryonic forms of the individual. 
 Indeed, we may say of those successive geological beings 
 that they are mere embryos of the latest- embryos that 
 had gained a power of reproduction. How shall we 
 separate the history of the individual from the history of 
 the whole? Do not the fortunes and way of progress of 
 the one follow the fortunes and way of progress ol the 
 other ? If, in a transitory manner, these forms are as- 
 sumed by the individual, equally in a transitory manner 
 are they assumed by the race. Nor would it be philo- 
 sophical to suppose that the management m the one 
 instance differs from the management m the other. It tne 
 one is demonstrably the issue of a law m action, so must 
 
CH. IX. J THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 325 
 
 the other be too. It does not matter that the entire cycle 
 is passed through by the individual in the course o^ a 
 tew months, while in the race it demands ages. T a- m I 
 I he standard of time that ought to be applied and race de- 
 is the respective duration of life. In man it is ESSS?* 
 inucli it he attains to threescore years and ten • the same way. 
 but the entire period of human record, embracing several 
 thousand years, offers not a single instance of the birth 
 maturity, and death of a species. They, therefore, who 
 think they find, m the successive species that have in an 
 orderly manner replaced each other in the life of the earth 
 the sure proof of Divine intervention, would do well to 
 determine at what point the production of such forms by 
 law ceases, and at what point their production by the 
 immediate act of God begins. Their task will be as hard 
 to tell where one colour in the rainbow ends and where the 
 next commences. They will also do well to remember 
 that, in great mundane events, the scale of time is ample 
 and that there may be no essential difference between a 
 course that is run over in a few days and one that requires 
 tor its completion thousands of centuries. 
 
 The co-existence of different types in the organic series 
 was the incontrovertible fact by which was de- 
 monstrated the gradual passage from form to 
 torm without catastrophes, the argument relied tlle 
 
 co-exist- 
 
 upon gathering strength from such circumstances ence ° f types - 
 as these, that even the fossil shells of the modern Italian 
 tuffs which are not extinct exhibit a slight want of corre- 
 !rt 61 ^? When com P ared with those now inhabiting 
 the Mediterranean, some of the old ones being twice and a 
 halt as large as the present, and that there is a numerical 
 passage from strata containing seventy per cent, of recent 
 shells to those that are altogether recent, or contain one 
 hundred per cent. This is manifestly indicative of a con- 
 tinually changing impression bringing on a corresponding 
 modelling. It is the proof of a slow merging into or of 1 
 measured assumption of, the new form- a transition, for 
 the completion of which probably a very long time is 
 required. That the existing reindeer is found in the same 
 nuyiatile deposits with an extinct hippopotamus seemed 
 certainly to prove that there was a condition of things in 
 
326 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 |CH. IX. 
 
 which the co-life of those animals was possible in the same 
 locality, and that, as the physical causes slowly changed, 
 the one might be eliminated and the other might be left. 
 That the regulating conditions were altogether physical 
 was obvious from such facts as that in the bone-caves 
 of Australia all the mammals are marsupial, and in the 
 pampas of South America they are allied to such forms 
 as are indigenous, armadiHoes, sloths, etc., showing the 
 tokens of lineage or hereditary transmission. For still 
 more remote times numerous instances of a similar na- 
 ture were detected; thus, throughout the whole Secondary 
 period, the essential characteristic was the wonderful de- 
 velopment of reptile life, while in the Tertiary it was the 
 development of mammals. But the appearance of mammals- 
 had commenced long before that of reptiles had ceased. 
 Indeed, the latter event is incomplete in our times; for, 
 though the marine Saurians have been almost entirely 
 removed, the fluviatile and terrestrial ones maintain them- 
 selves, though diminished both in species and individuals. 
 Now such an overlapping of reptiles and mammals was 
 altogether irreconcilable with the doctrine of a crisis or 
 catastrophe, and, in fact, it demonstrated the changing 
 of organisms in the changing of physical states. 
 
 Cuvier maintained the doctrine of the permanence of 
 
 animal species from the fac ts that the oldest 
 Cnviers doc- ^ / i_ t 
 
 trine of per- known do not appear to have undergone any 
 
 manenoe of modification, and that every existing one shows 
 a resistance to change. If his observations are 
 restricted to periods not exceeding human history, they 
 may perhaps be maintained ; but that duration cannot be 
 looked uj3on as more than a moment in the limitless pro- 
 imperfection g ress we are considering, and it was in this view 
 of evidence in that Cuvier's doctrine proved to be incapable of 
 its support. (q e f ence# Yyi iat does it signify if our domestic 
 animals show no variations when compared with the cor 
 responding images depicted on the hieroglyphic monuments 
 of Egypt, or with the descriptions left by ancient authors ? 
 Evidence of that kind is valueless. Does the geologist 
 ask of the architect his opinion whether there have ever 
 been upliftings and down-sinkings of the earth? If he 
 did, would not every structure in Europe be brought 
 
OB. IX. \ 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 327 
 
 forward as an evidence that nothing of the kind had ever 
 occurred? A leaning tower, or a church with inclining 
 walls in Italy, might pass for nothing : the Pyramids would 
 testify that Egypt itself had never undergone any disturb- 
 ance — they remain solid on their bases, undisturbed. But 
 what is the weight of all tin's when placed in opposition 
 with the mass of evidence offered by inclined and fractured 
 strata? And yet such is precisely the proof offered in 
 behalf of the permanence of animals. The facts with which 
 the zoologist deals, like those on which the architect 
 depends, are insufficient for the purpose — they are wanting 
 in extent of time. There have been movements in the 
 crust of (ho earth, though every building in the world 
 may be perpendicular ; then; have been transformations jf 
 organisms, though for four thousand years there may have 
 been no perceptible change. 
 
 If ever there had been a- universal creation of all possible 
 organic forms or combinations, forthwith vast 
 numbers of them must have disappeared, every ^"^".Vby 1 "" 
 type being eliminated which was not in corrc- Jjj^j^ 11 con " 
 Bpondence with the external conditions or with 
 the medium in which it was placed. If the environment 
 or the physical conditions underwent a variation, a cor- 
 responding variation in the forms that could by possibility 
 exist must ensue, and, from a thorough study of those not 
 eliminated, the physical conditions might be ascertained; 
 and conversely, from a thorough knowledge of the phy- 
 sical conditions, the forms that could escape elimination 
 might be designated. The facts on which Cuvier rested 
 did not demonstrate what he supposed. His immobility 
 of species was no consequence of an innate or intrinsic 
 resistance possessed by them, but merely an illustration 
 that external physical agents had not undergone any well- 
 marked variation in the time with which he was concerned. 
 
 What is here meant by variation in physical forces or 
 condition is not any intrinsic change in their 
 nature, but the varied manner in which they vJrfSionof 
 mav work by interfering with one another, or Physiol 
 
 conditions 
 
 experiencing declines of intensity. From the 
 bet that we may read in the fixed stars, through the pro- 
 gressive motion of light, the history of a million of past 
 
328 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 ' L CH. IX. 
 
 years, we may be sure that the forces of nature have under- 
 gone no intrinsic change ; that light was propagated at 
 the same rate, was capable of producing the same optical 
 and chemical effects, and varied in its intensity by distance 
 as it does now ; that heat determined corporeal magnitudes. 
 These are things that in their nature are absolutely un- 
 changeable. Always, as now, the freezing of water, and 
 its boiling under a given pressure, must have been the 
 same ; there must have been a thermometric zero of life 
 and an upward limit, no animal process ever going on 
 below 32° Fahrenheit or above 212° Fahrenheit. 
 
 But out of this invariability of natural causes variations 
 Effect thereof i ]1 their condition of action arise, and it is these 
 
 organisms, tliut affect organic forms. Of such forms, some 
 become at length incapable of maintaining themselves in 
 the slow progress of change; others acclimatize, or accom- 
 modate, or suit themselves thereto by undergoing modi- 
 fications, and this was al last discerned to be the true ex- 
 planation of extinctions and appearances, events taking 
 ] lace very slowly in untold periods of time, and rather by im- 
 perceptible degrees than by a sudden catastrophe or crisis. 
 
 The doctrine of the transmutation of species has met 
 Transmuta- with no little resistance. They who have re- 
 tionof species, fused to receive it as one of the truths of Na- 
 ture have perhaps not given full weight to physiological 
 evidence. When they ask, Has any one ever witnessed 
 such an event as the transmutation of one species into 
 another ? has any experimenter ever accomplished it by 
 artificial means? they do not take a due account of time. 
 In the Fables it is related that when the flowers were one 
 evening conversing, " Our gardener," said the rose to the 
 (ily, " will live for ever. I have not seen any change in 
 him. The tulip, who died yesterday, told me that she 
 had remarked the same thing ; she believed that he must 
 be immortal. I am sure that he never was born." 
 
 Two modes have been presented by which we may con- 
 Two modes of ceive of the influence of physical agents upon 
 action. organic forms. Their long persistent action upon 
 the individual may give rise to modifications, developing 
 one part, stunting another; and such variations, being 
 transmitted in an hereditary way, may become firmly 
 
GH. I x . J 
 
 THE EUROPE AN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 329 
 
 fixed at last. Thus a given plant may, in the course of 
 ages, under the influence of unremittingly acting physical 
 conditions, undergo a permanent change, and a really new 
 plant arise as soon as, through the repetitions of successive 
 generations, the modifications have Income so thorough, so 
 
 profound, as to be capable of transmission with certainty. 
 
 Perhaps tin's is what has taken place with many of our 
 kitchen-garden plants, of which the special varieties may 
 1)0 propagated by seeds. But there is another mode by 
 which that result may he reached, even if we decline the 
 doctrine of St. Augustine, who, in his work " De Civitate 
 ])ei, v shows how islands may he peopled with animals by 
 "spontaneous generation/' All organic forms originally 
 spring from a simple cell, the development of which, as 
 indicated by the final form attained, is manifestly de- 
 pendent on the physical conditions it has been exposed to 
 during its course. If those conditions change, that final 
 form must change correspondingly; and in this manner, 
 since all organic beings come from the same starting-point 
 — the same cell, as has been said, which helplessly submits 
 to whatever impression may be put upon it— the issue is 
 the same as though a transformation or transmutation had 
 occurred, since the descendant is not like its ancestors. 
 Such a manner of considering these changes is in harmony 
 with our best physiological knowledge, since it does not 
 limit itself to a small portion of the life of an individual, 
 but embraces its whole cycle or career. For the more 
 complete examination of this view I may refer to the 
 second chapter of the second book of my " Physiology." 
 
 Bui here has arisen the inquiry, Does the modification 
 of organic forms depend exclusively on the im- p rob i Pnio f*, hp 
 pressions of external influences, or is it due to modification 
 a nisus or force of development residing in the 0 folms ' 
 form 8 themselves? 
 
 Whether we consider the entire organic series in its 
 rucotjfision, or the progress of an individual in his de- 
 velopment, the orderly course presented might seem to 
 indicate that the operation is taking place under a law — 
 an orderly progression being always suggestive of the 
 operation of law. Bui a philosophical caution must, how- 
 ever, be bere exercised; for deceptive appearances may 
 
330 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX.. 
 
 lead us into the error of imputing to sucli a law, impressed 
 by the Creator on the developing organism, that which 
 really belongs to external physical conditions, which, on 
 their part, are following a law of their own. 'What is 
 here meant may be illustrated by the facts that occur on 
 the habitable surface of a planet suffering a gradual de- 
 Three soiu- cline of heat. On such a surface a succession 
 tionsofit. 0 f vegetable types might make its appearance, 
 and, as these different types emerged or w r ere eliminated, 
 we might speak of the events as creations and extinctions, 
 and therefore as the acts of God. Or, in the second place,, 
 we might refer them to an intrinsic force of development 
 imparted to each germ, whioh reached in due season its 
 maximum, and then declined and died out; and, com- 
 paring each type with its preceding and succeeding ones, 
 the interrelation might be suggested to us of the operation 
 of a controlling law. Or, in the third place, we might 
 look to the external physical condition — the decline of 
 heat — itself taking place at a determinate rate under a 
 mathematical law, and drawing in ite consequences the 
 organic variations observed. 
 
 Now 7 the first of these explanations in reality means the 
 arbitrary and unchallengeable will of God, who calls into 
 existence, and extinguishes according to his sovereign 
 pleasure, whatever he pleases ; the orderly progression wo 
 notice becoming an evidence that his volitions are not 
 erratic, but are according to pure reason. The second 
 implies that there has been impressed upon every germ a 
 law of continuous organic variation — it might have been 
 through the arbitrary flat of God. The third implies that 
 the successive types owe their appearance and elimination 
 to a physical influence, which is itself varying under a 
 strict mathematical necessity ; for the law of cooling, 
 wdiich the circumstances force on our attention, is such 
 a strict mathematical necessity. 
 
 If at this point we balance the probabilities of these 
 Their relative three explanations, we shall perhaps find our- 
 probabiiity. selves biassed tow r ard the last, as physiologists 
 have been, because of its rigorous scientific aspect, and 
 should not be surprised to find it supported by an array of 
 facts depending on the principle that the appearance of 
 
OB. ix. J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON'. 
 
 331 
 
 new forms docs not observe a certain inevitable order, or 
 stand in ;i certain relation to time. From individual de- 
 velopment it might seem as if the advancing procession 
 of an organism is such that specific forms ever appear in a 
 certain order one after another, and at certain intervals;, 
 hut the fallacy of such a conclusion is apparent when 
 we attend to the orderly procedure of the physical condi- 
 tions to which the developing organism is exposed. The 
 passing through a given form at a given epoch is due to 
 the relation being to space and its conditions, Development 
 not to time. And so in the life of the earth, if Is in place, 
 development were according to time, we should 00 e * 
 have an orderly succession of grades as the earth grew 
 older, and in all localities, at a given moment, the con- 
 temporary organisms would be similar; but if it were 
 according to space, that rigorous procedure would not 
 occur; in its stead we should have a broken series, the 
 affiliation being dependent on the secularly continuous 
 variation of the physical condition. 
 
 Now this was discovered to be the case. For instance, 
 throughout the northern hemisphere, during the Tertiary 
 period, an extinct placental Fauna was contemporaneous 
 with an extinct marsupial Fauna in Australia. If the 
 development was proceeding according to time, by an 
 innate nisus, and not according to external influences, the 
 types for the same epoch in the two hemispheres should 
 be the same ; if under external influences, irrespective of 
 time, they should be, as they were found to be, different. 
 
 If true-going clocks, which owe their motion to their 
 own internal mechanism, were started in all countries of 
 tho earth at the same instant, they would strike their 
 successive hours simultaneously. But sun-dials, which 
 owe their indications to an exterior cause, would in dif- 
 ferent longitudes tell different times, or, when the needful 
 light was absent, their shadows would altogether fail. 
 
 As to the vegetable kingdom, the principles that hold 
 for the animal again apply. At a very early period, even 
 before tho deposit of the coal, all the distinct forms of 
 vegetable tissue were in existence, and nothing to prevent, 
 so far as time was concerned, their being united together 
 all over the world into similar structural combinations. 
 
THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [cu. IX 
 
 And, in truth, as the botany of the Coal period proves, 
 there was a far more extensive sameness than we see a+. 
 present, simply because the distribution of heat was more 
 uniform and climates were less marked. But from this 
 point the diversity of form in climate distribution becomes 
 more and more conspicuous, though we must descend, 
 perhaps, as late as the Wealden before we discover any 
 flowering plants, except Gymnosperms, as Conifers and 
 Cycads. All this is what might be expected on the 
 doctrine of external influence, but not on the doctrine of 
 an innate and interior developmental force. 
 
 If, at this stage, attention is once again turned to the 
 animal kingdom, we lind our opinion confirmed. The 
 diminution of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, the deposit 
 of coal in the earth, the precipitation of carbonate of lime 
 in the sea, the disengagement of an increased quantity of 
 oxygen in the air, and the reduction of atmospheric pres- 
 sure —different effects contemporaneously occurring — were 
 soon followed by the consequence which they made pos- 
 sible — the appearance of hot-blooded mammals. Perhaps 
 Coldandhot- Tnose ^ r ' st arising might, like our hibernates, 
 blooded ani- lead a sluggish existence, with imperfect respi- 
 ration : but, as the media improved and the 
 temperature declined, more vigorous forms of life emerged, 
 though we have probably to descend to the Tertiary epoch 
 before we meet with birds, which of all animal: have 
 the most energetic respiration, and possess the highest 
 heat. 
 
 As with the atmosphere, so with the sea. Variations in 
 rheorganisms its composition must control the organisms it 
 of the sea. contains. "With its saline constituents its life 
 must change. Before the sunlight had removed from the 
 atmosphere so much of its carbonic acid, decomposing it 
 through the agency of plants, the weight of carbonate 
 of lime held in solution by the highly carbonated water 
 was far greater than was subsequently possible, and the 
 occurrence of limestone became a necessary event. With 
 such a disturbance in the composition of the sea-water, its 
 inhabiting organisms were necessarily disturbed. And so 
 again, subsequently, when the solar heat began to pre- 
 ponderate on the surface over the subsiding interior heat, 
 
OH, [\. 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 338 
 
 the constitution of the sea-water, as respects its salinity, 
 was altered through difference of evaporation in different 
 latitudes, an effect inevitably making a profound impres- 
 sion on marine animal life. 
 
 Supported by the facts that have been mentioned re- 
 specting the later fossils of Australia and Brazil, Naturcof 
 and their analogy to forms now existing in thoso iVmrtiry 
 countries, much stress was laid on the hereditary transllHSSlun - 
 transmission of structure, and hence the inference was 
 drawn that such examples are of a mixed nature, depending 
 in part on external agency, in part on an interior develop- 
 mental force. From marsupial animals, marsupials will 
 issue ; from placental ones, thoso that are placental. But 
 here, perhaps, an illustration drawn from the inorganic 
 kingdom may not he without interest and use. Two pieces 
 of carbonate of lime may be rolling among the pebbles 
 at the bottom of a brook, one perpetually splitting into 
 rhomboids, the other into arragonitic prisms. The frag- 
 ments differ from one another not only thus in their 
 crystalline form, but in their physical qualities, as density 
 and hardness, and in their optical qualities also. Wo 
 might say that the calc-spar crystals gave birth to calc- 
 spar crystals, and the arragonitic to arragonite ; we might 
 admit that there is an interior propensity, an intrinsic 
 tendency to produce that result, just as we say that there 
 is a tendency in the marsupial to engender a marsupial ; 
 but if, in our illustration, we look for the cause of -that 
 cause, we find it iii a physical impression long antecedently 
 ma^l'-. that tin oarl mat' 1 of lime, ciystallizing at 212° Fahr., 
 produces arragonite, and, at a lower temperature, calc- 
 spar ; and that the physical impression thus accomplished, 
 though it may have been thousands of years ago, was 
 never casl off, but perpetually manifested itself in all the 
 future history of the two samples. That which we some- 
 times speak' of as hereditary transmission, and refer to an 
 interior property, peculiarity, or force, may be nothing 
 moro than the manifestation of a physical impression 
 long antecedently made. 
 
 In the last place, the idea of an intrinsic force o: 
 development is in connexion with time and a progres- 
 sion, and only comes into prominence when we examine a 
 
334 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [Ctf. IX. 
 
 limited portion or number of the things under considera- 
 tion. The earth, though very beautiful, is very far from 
 The broken being perfect. The plants and animals we see 
 organic chain. are only the wrecks of a broken series, an in- 
 complete, and, therefore, unworthy testimonial of the 
 Almighty power. We should judge very inadequately of 
 some great author if only here and there a fragmentary 
 paragraph of his work remained ; and so, in the book of 
 organization, we must combine what is left with what we 
 can recover from past ages and buried strata before we 
 can rise to a comprehension of the grand argument, and 
 intelligibly grasp the whole work. 
 
 Of thai book it is immaterial to what pagewe turn. It 
 
 Enormona b/lls us of effects of such magnitude as imply 
 
 fthe prodigiously long periods of time for their 
 accomplishment. Its moments look to us as if 
 they were eternities. Wha1 shall we say when we read in 
 it thai there arc fossiliferous rocks which have been slowly 
 raised ten thousand feet above the level of the sea so lately 
 as since the commencement of the Tertiary times ; that 
 the Purbeck beds of the upper oolite are in themselves the 
 memorials of an enormous lapse of time ; that, since a 
 forest in a thousand years can scarce produce more than two 
 or three feet of vegetable soil, each dirt-bed is the work of 
 hundreds of centuries. "What shall we say when it tells 
 us that the delta of the Mississippi could only be formed 
 in many tens of thousands of years, and yet that is only 
 as yesterday when compared with the date of the inland 
 terraces ; that the recession of the Falls of Niagara from 
 Queens town to the present site consumed thirty thousand 
 years ; that if the depression of the carboniferous strata of 
 Nova Scotia took place at the rate of four feet in a century, 
 there were demanded 375,000 years for its completion — 
 such a movement in the upward direction would have 
 raised Mont Blanc ; that it would take as great a river as 
 the Mississippi two millions of years to convey into the 
 Gulf of Mexico as much sediment as is found in those 
 strata. Such statements may appear to us, who with 
 difficulty shake off the absurdities of the patristic chrono- 
 logy, wild and impossible to be maintained, and } r et they 
 are the conclusions that the most learned and profound 
 
CH. THE EUROPEAN AG L OF REASON. 335 
 
 geologists draw from their reading of the Book of 
 -Nature. 
 
 'Jims, as respects the aire of the earth and her relations 
 in timo, wc approach the doctrine of Orientals, Suninill . v a< 
 iv ho long ago ascertained that the scales of time n-spocts tho 
 and of space correspond to each other. More wor time - 
 fortunate than we, they had hut one point of resistance to 
 encounter, hut that lesistanee they met with dissimulation, 
 and not in an open way. They attempted to conceal the 
 tendency of their doctrine by allying or aililiating it with 
 detected errors. According to their national superstition, 
 the earth is supported on the hack of an elephant, and this 
 on a succession of animals, the last of which is a tortoise. 
 J i is not to he supposed that the Brahnians, who wrote 
 commentaries on the Surya Siddhanta, should for a moment 
 have accepted these preposterous delusions — that was im- 
 possihle fur such great geometers; yet led, perhaps, by a 
 wish to do nothing that might disturb public feeling, 
 they engaged in the hopeless ta^k of showing that their 
 profound philosophical discoveries were not inconsistent 
 with the ancient traditions ; that a globular and revolving 
 earth might be sustained on a descending succession of 
 supporting beasts. 1 Jut they had the signal advantage 
 over us that those popular traditions conceded to them 
 that limitless time for which we have had to struggle. 
 
 r l ne progression of life on t he surface of our planet is 
 under the guidance of pre-ordained and resistless The lifeof the 
 law— it is affiliated with material and corre- universe, 
 spondingly changing conditions. It suggests that the suc- 
 cession ot organic forms which, in a due series, the earth's 
 surface in the long lapse of time has presented, is the 
 counterpart of a like progress which other planets in the 
 solar system exhibit in myriads of years, and leads us to 
 the conception of the rise, development, and extinction of 
 a multiplicity of such living forms in other systems — 
 a march of life through the universe, and its passing 
 awa\\ 
 
 Magnitudes and times, therefore, go parallel with one 
 another. With the abandonment of the geocentric theory, 
 and of the doctrine of the human destiny of the universe, 
 have vanished the unworthy hypotheses of the recent date 
 
336 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. IX. 
 
 of creation and the approaching end of all things. In 
 their stead are substituted more noble ideas, 
 of worlds im- The multiplicity of worlds in infinite space leads 
 ^ncrf^worida ^° ^ e conception of a succession of worlds in 
 infinite time. This existing universe, with all 
 its splendours, had a beginning, and will have an end; it 
 had its predecessors, and will have its successors; but its 
 inarch through all its transformations is under the control 
 of laws as unchangeable as destiny. Asa cloud, which is 
 composed of myriads of separate and isolated spherules 
 of water, so minute as to be individually invisible, on a 
 summer's afternoon changes its aspect and form, disap 
 pearing from the sky, and being replaced in succeeding 
 hours by other clouds of a different aspect and shape, so 
 the universe, which is a cloud of suns and worlds, changes 
 in the immensity of time its form and fashion, and that 
 which is contemporary with us is only an example of 
 countless combinations of a like kind, which in ancient, 
 times have one after another vanished away. In periods 
 yet to come the endless succession of metamorphoses will 
 still go on a series of universes to which there is no end. 
 
( 837 ) 
 
 CHAPTEB X. 
 
 THK EUROPEAN AGE OF KEASOX-(CW„„«i). 
 Tin: SATUB1 a.m> RELATIONS OF man. 
 
 Or'' V s'V u ? ^ * v * ^ * TW^. 
 
 forrc urujinnUy ,1,-rir* d from the Sun. Wauling 
 1HE OFJCAMC Si:ijfi:s. — 1/,/// r; Member of it 7/7 > 7>~ 'f i , 
 
 i<s tn r lr /■ ,„•„,,; .1 „/,„„„/;,., I,,,tincti,;; Int.lhctnal 
 I he tame pra<,r,-**in I In; lopnant is »,-,;, in imlirulual Wan n * 
 
 th« Control „/ „n , t, mat. ,„„>, ,,„/. frr. M f J ''' ' J ""^ 
 
 Summary of the Investigate of the Petition of Man.-ProduoHon of 
 I^rganxc and Organic Con,,, by the Bun—ifature of Animals and 
 
 When the ancient doctrine of the plurality of worlds was 
 restored by Bruno, Galileo, and other modern ° 
 astronomers, the resistance it encountered was SStSST" 
 ■•inly own,- to its anticipated bearing on the ."'f"."' 0 
 nature and relations of man. It was %aid if SET* 
 round our sun. as a centre, there revolve so' many plane- 
 tan bodies, experiencing the changes of summer and 
 winter day and n.ght-bodios illuminated by satellites, 
 ami perhaps enjoying twilight and other benefits such as 
 
 them . tho allies of accountable, perhaps of sinful, heinas 
 
 V NaV - if Of the innumerable 
 
 OMd stars is, as our sun, a central focus of light, attended 
 
338 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF P.EASON. 
 
 |_CH. X. 
 
 by dark and revolving globes, is it not necessary to admit 
 that they also have their inhabitants ? But among so 
 many families of intelligent beings, how is it that we, the 
 denizens of an insignificant speck, have alone been found 
 worthy of God's regard ? 
 
 It was this reasoning that sustained the geocentric 
 theory, and made the earth the centre of the universe, the 
 most noble of created things ; the sun. the moon, the stars, 
 being only ministers for the service of man. 
 
 But, like many other objections urged in that memorable 
 m _ „ conflict, this was founded on a misconception, 
 
 1 ho fallacy , , . « , , , , ri1 , 1 \ 
 
 ofobJectioM or, rather, on imported knowledge. There may 
 tothatthe- p 0 an infinity of worlds placed under the me- 
 chanical relations alluded to, but there may not 
 be one among them that can be the abode of life. The 
 physical conditions under which organization is possible 
 are so numerous and so strictly limited that the chances 
 are millions to one against their conjoint occurrence. 
 
 In a religious point of view, Ave are greatly indebted to 
 Evidence Geology for the light it has cast on this objec- 
 Furnished by tion. It has taught us that during inconceivable 
 6601083 • lapses of time our earth itself contained no living 
 thing. These were those preorganic ages to which refer- 
 ence was made in the last chapter. Then by slow degrees, 
 as a possibility for existence occurred, there gradually 
 emerged one type after another. It is but as yesterday 
 that the life of man could be maintained. 
 
 Only in the presence of special physical conditions can 
 The transitory an animal exist, Even then it is essentially 
 nature of ephemeral. The life of it, as a whole, depends 
 living forms. Q]Q ^ e death of its integrant parts. In a water- 
 fall, which maintains its place and appearance unchanged 
 for many years, the constituent portions that have been 
 precipitated headlong glide finally and for ever away. For 
 the transitory matter to exhibit a permanent form, it is 
 necessary that there should be a perpetual supply and also 
 a perpetual removal. So long as the jutting ledge over 
 which the waters rush, and the broken gulf below that 
 receives them, remain unchanged, the cataract presents the 
 same appearance. But variations in them mould it into a 
 new shape; its colour changes with a clear or cloudy 
 
CH. A.J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 339 
 
 skyj the rainbow scon in its spray disappears when the 
 beams of the sun are withdrawn. 
 
 So in that collection of substance which constitutes an 
 animal ; whatever may l»e its position, high or low, in the 
 realm of life, there is a perpetual introduction of new 
 material and a perpetual departure of the old. It is a 
 form, rather than an individual, that we see. Its per- 
 manenee altogether depends on the permanence of the 
 external conditions, [f they change, it also changes, and 
 a new form is the result. 
 
 An animal is therefore a form through which material 
 substance is visibly passing and suffering trans- C i 1;iractcri8 _ 
 mutation into now products. In that act of tics of aatanal 
 transmutation force is disengaged. That which llf " 
 we call its life is the display of the manner in which the 
 force thus disengaged is expended. 
 
 A scientific examination of animal life must include two 
 primary facts. It must consider whence and Matter and 
 in what manner the st n am of material substance force - 
 has been derived, in what manner and whither it passes 
 away. And, since force can not be created from nothing, 
 and is in its very nature indestructible, it must determine 
 from what source that which is displayed by animals has 
 been obtained, in what manner it is employed, and what 
 disposal is made of it eventually. 
 
 The force thus expended is originally derived from the 
 sun. Plants are the intermedium for its con- Forceisdo . 
 veyance. The inorganic material of a saline na- rived from 
 ture entering into their constitution is obtained thesuiL 
 from the soil in which they grow, as is also, for the most 
 part, the water they require; but their organic substance 
 is derived from the surrounding atmosphere, and hence it 
 is strictly true that they are condensations from the air. 
 
 These statements may be sufficiently illustrated, and the 
 relation bet wren plants and animals shown, by 
 tracing the course of any one of the ingredients plants obtain 
 entering into the vegetable composition, and de- m ? tori:l1 
 rived, as has been said, from the air. For this 
 purpose, if we select their chief solid element, carbon, the 
 remarks applicable to the course it follows will hold good 
 for other accompanying elements. It is scarcely necessary 
 
 \ 2 
 
340 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASOX. 
 
 [CH. X. 
 
 to embarrass the brief exposition of vegetable life now to 
 be given by any historical details, since these will como 
 with more propriety subsequently. It is sufficient, to 
 mention that the chemical explanations of vegetable 
 physiology rest essentially on the discovery of oxygen 
 ga& by Priestley, of the constitution of carbonic acid by 
 Lavoisier, and of water by Cavendish and Watt. 
 
 While the sun is shining, the given parts of plants, 
 Action of a especially the leaves, decompose carbonic acid, 
 plant on the one of the ingredients of the atmospheric air. 
 
 This Bubstance is composed of two elements, 
 carbon and oxygen ; the former is appropriated by the 
 plant, and enters into the composition of elaborated or 
 descending sap, from which forthwith organic products, 
 such as starch, sugar, wood fibre, acids, and bases are 
 made. The other element, the oxygen, is for the most part 
 refused by the plant, and returns to the air. As the 
 process of decomposition goes on, new portions of carbonic 
 acid are presented through mechanical movements, the 
 trembling of the leaf, breezes, and currents rising from the 
 foliage warmed by the solar beams giving place to other 
 cool currents that set in below. 
 
 The action of a" plant upon the air is therefore the 
 separation of combustible material from that medium. 
 Carbon is thus obtained from carbonic acid ; from water, 
 hydrogen. Plant life is chemically an operation of re- 
 duction, for in like manner ammonia is decomposed into 
 its constituents, which are nitrogen and hydrogen ; and 
 sulphuric and phosphoric acids, which like ammonia, may 
 have been brought into the plant through its roots in the 
 form of s tit bodies, are made to yield up the oxygen with 
 which they had been combined, and their sulphur and 
 phosphorus, combustible elements, are appropriated. 
 
 Every plant, from the humblest moss to the oak of a 
 thousand years, is thus formed by the sun from 
 andrSution material obtained from the air — combustible 
 ^matter and material once united with oxygen, but now 
 separated from that body. It is of especial 
 importance to remark that in this act of decomposition, 
 force, under the form of light, has disappeared, and become 
 incorporated with the combustible, the organizing material. 
 
CH. K.J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 34.1 
 
 This force is surrendered again, or reappears whenever the 
 eonv< rse operation, combination witli oxygen, occurs. 
 
 Vegetable products thus constitute a magazine in which 
 .force is stored up and preserved for any assignable time. 
 Hence they arc adapted for animal food and for the pro- 
 curing of warmth. The heat evolved in the combustion 
 of coal in domestic economy was originally light from the 
 sun appropriated by plants in the Secondary geological 
 times, and locked up for untold ages. The sun is also the 
 source from which was derived the light obtained in all our 
 artificial operations of burning gas, oil, fat, wax, for the 
 purposes of illumination. 
 
 My own experiments have proved chat it is the light of 
 the sun, iii contradistinction to the heat, which Corrclntion 
 occasions the decomposition of carbonic acid, <)fphVS 
 furnishing carbon to plants and oxygen to the forcc8, 
 atmosphere. But such is the relation of the so-called 
 imponderable principles of chemistry to each other, and 
 tlK-ir mutual convertibility, that that which has disap- 
 peared in performing its function as light may reappear as 
 heat or electricity, or in the production of sonic mechanical 
 
 effect. 
 
 Food is used by all animals for the sake of the force it 
 thus contains, the remark applying to the car- The nature* 
 nivora as well as the hcrbivora. In both cases f,J0(i - 
 the source of supply is the vegetable kingdom, indirectly 
 or directly. r riic plant is thus indispensable to the animal. 
 It is the collector and preserver of that force the expendi- 
 ture of which constitutes the special display of animal life. 
 
 From this point of view, animals must therefore be 
 Considered as machines, in which force obtained as has 
 been described, is utilized. The food they take, or the 
 tissue that has been formed from it, is acted upon by the 
 air they breathe, and undergoes partial or total oxydation, 
 and now emerges again, in part as heat in part as nerve- 
 force, in some few instances in part as light or electricity, 
 the force that originally came from the sun. 
 L Tte ™ is - therefore, a cycle or revolution Crete through 
 through winch mat. rial particles suitable for 2d? m * Wil 
 ^organization incessantly run. At one moment r.!U! orco 
 they exist as inorganic combinations in the air or the soil, 
 
342 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. X. 
 
 then as portions of plants, then as portions of animals, 
 then they return to the air or soil again to renew their 
 cycle of movement. The metamorphoses feigned by the 
 poets of antiquity have hence a foundation in fact, and the 
 vegetable and animal, the organic and inorganic worlds are 
 indissolubly bound together. Plants arereducing, animals 
 oxydizing, machines. Plants form, animals destroy. 
 
 Thus, by the light of the sun, the carbonic acid of the 
 atmosphere is decomposed — itsox}'genis set free, its carbon 
 furnished to plants. The products obtained serve for tho 
 food of animals, and in their systems the carbon is ro- 
 oxydized by the air they respire, and, resuming the con- 
 dition of carbonic acid, is thrown back into the atmo- 
 sphere in the breath, ready to be decomposed by the 
 sunlight once more, and run through the same cycle of 
 changes again. The growth of a plant and the respiration 
 of an animal are dependent on each other. 
 
 Material particles are thus the vehicles of force. They 
 The duration undergo no destruction. Chemically speaking, 
 im^rish *key are eternal. And so, likewise, force never 
 abmtyof deteriorates or becomes lessened. It may as- 
 force. snme new phases, but it is always intrinsically 
 
 unimpaired. The only changes it can exhibit are those 
 of aspect and of distribution ; of aspect, as electricity, 
 affinity, light, heat; of distribution, as when the diffused 
 aggregate of many sunbeams is concentrated in one animal 
 form. 
 
 It is but little that we know respecting the mutations 
 and distribution of force in the universe. We cannot tell 
 fhat becomes of that which has characterized animal life, 
 though of its perpetuity we may be assured. It has no 
 more been destroyed than the material particles of which 
 such animals consist. They have been transmuted into 
 new forms — it has taken on a new aspect. The sum total 
 of matter in the world is invariable ; so, likewise, is the 
 sum total of force. 
 
 These conclusions resemble in many respects those of the 
 Theory of philosophy of Averroes, but they are free from 
 Averroes. f\ ie heresy which led the Lateran Council, under 
 Leo X., to condemn the doctrines of the great Spanish 
 Mohammedan. The error of Averroes consisted in this, 
 
OH. x.J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 343 
 
 that he confounded what is hero spoken of under the 
 designation of force with the psychical principle, and 
 erroneously applied that which is true fur animals to the 
 case of man, who is to be considered as consisting of three 
 essentially distinct parts— a material body, upon which 
 Operate various physical forces, guided and controlled by 
 an intelligent s< >ul. 
 
 In the following; paragraphs the distinction here made 
 is brought into more striking relief. 
 
 The station of any animal in tho organic series may be 
 determined fr«»m the condition of its nervous Anatomical 
 system. To this observation man himself is not in.'.ieota.-t.r. 
 an exception. Indeed, just views of his position Sm^K*'" 
 in the world, of the nature of his intellect and animal serf* 
 mental operations, can not be obtained except from the 
 solid support afforded by Anatomy. The reader has 
 doubtless remarked that, in the historical sketch of the 
 later progress of Kurope given in this book, I 
 have not referred to metaphysics, or psychology, ™£ "hl? * 
 or mental philosophy. Cultivated as they have metaphysical 
 been, it was n«»t possible for them to yield any swcncV8 - 
 other result than they did among tlie Greeks. A lever 
 is no mechanical power unless it has a material point of 
 support. ( It is only through the physical that the 
 metaphysical can be discovered. 
 
 An exposition of tho structure, the physical forces, and 
 tho intellectual operations of man must bo 
 founded on anatomy. We can only determine reSSS'/t? 
 the methods of action from the study of the Anatomy and 
 mechanism, and the right interpretation of that 1>bysiolcgy ' 
 mechanism can only be ascertained from the construction 
 of its parts, from observations of the manner in which 
 they are developed, from comparisons with similar struc- 
 tures in other animals, not rejecting even the lowest, and 
 from an investigation of their habits and peculiarities. 
 Believing that, in the present state of science, doctrines in 
 psychology, unless they are sustained by evidence derived 
 from anatomy and physiology, are not to bo relied on, I 
 have not thought it necessary to devote much space to 
 their introduction. They have not taken a part in the 
 recent advances of humanity. They belong to an earlier 
 
344 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 |CH, X. 
 
 social period, and are an anachronism in ours. I have 
 referred to these points heretofore in my work on Physio- 
 logy, and perhaps shall be excused the following extract : 
 "The study of this portion of the mechanism of man 
 brings us therefore in contact with metaphysical science, 
 and some of its fundamental dogmas we have to consider. 
 Nearly all philosophers who have cultivated in recent 
 times that branch of knowledge, have viewed with appre- 
 hension the rapid advances of physiology, foreseeing that 
 Solution of it would attempt the final solution of problems 
 psyti , i .L-K-.ii which have exercised the ingenuity of the last 
 ( i u, ' MK '" s - twenty centuries. Jn this they are not mistaken. 
 Certainly it is desirable that some new method should he 
 introduced, which may give point and precision to whatever 
 metaphysical truths exist, and enable us to distinguish, 
 separate, and dismiss what are only vain and empty specu- 
 late >ns. 
 
 "So far from philosophy being a forbidden domain to 
 the physiologist, it may he asserted that the time has now 
 Uncertaimyof conie when no one is entitled to express an; 
 imuphvsic*. opinion in philosophy unless he has first studied 
 physiology. It has hitherto been to the del riinent of truth 
 that these processes of positive investigation have been 
 repudiated. If from the construction of the human brain 
 we may demonstrate the existence of a soul, is not that a 
 gain? for there are many who are open to arguments of 
 this class on whom speculative reasoning or a n/ere dictum 
 falls without any weight. Why should we cast aside the 
 solid facts presented to us by material objects? In his 
 communications throughout the universe with us, God ever 
 materializes, lie equally speaks to us through the thou- 
 sand graceful organic forms scattered in profusion over 
 the surface of the earth, and through the motions and 
 appearances presented by the celestial orbs. Our noblest 
 and clearest conceptions of his attributes have been ob- 
 tained from these material things. I am persuaded that 
 the only possible route to truth in mental philosophy is 
 through a study of the nervous mechanism. The experience 
 of 2500 years, and the writings of the great metaphysicians 
 attest, with a melancholy emphasis, the vanity of all other 
 means. 
 
PH. -\.] Tin; KUUOPEAN age ok reason. 345 
 
 " Whatever may be said by speculative philosophers to 
 the contrary, tin- advancement of in. -la] »hysies is through 
 the study of physiology. What sort of a science would 
 optica haw been anion-- men who had purposely put out 
 
 their own eyes? WThal would have been the progress of 
 astronomy among those who disdained to look' at the 
 heavens ? ^ B1 BUofa is the preposterous course followed by 
 the so-called philosophers. They have - i veil us imposing 
 doctrines of the nature and attributes of tiie mind in ab- 
 solute ignorance of its material substratum. Of the great 
 authors who have thus succeeded one another in ephemeral 
 oelebrity, how many made themselves acquainted with the 
 structure of the human brain? Doubtless some 
 had been so unfortunate as never to see one ! Yet S^iml%?^ 
 that wonderful orpin was the basis of all their t.iti«»n of 
 speculations. In voluntarily isolating tliem- 8tructure * 
 selves from every solid fact which might serve to bo a 
 landmark to them, they may be truly said to have sailed 
 upon a shoreless sea from which the fog never lifts. The 
 only fact they teach us with certainty is. that thev know 
 nothing with certainty. It is the inherent difliculty of 
 their method that it must lead to unsubstantial results. 
 W bal is nol founded on a mat. rial substratum is necessarily 
 
 a c istle in t he air.'' 
 
 Considering thus that scientific views of the nature of 
 
 luancan only be obtained Cram an examination intellectual 
 
 of his nervous system, and that the right inter- n ations of 
 pretation of the manner of action of that system ^Z^L 
 pependfl on the guiding light of comparative V 8 ^. 
 Miatomy and physiology, 1 shall, in the following ex- 
 position, present the progress of discovery on those 
 
 principles. 
 
 . J " those low tribes of life which show the first indica- 
 tions of a nervous svstcm, its operation is purely 
 mechanical. An external impression, as a touch, 2$ Z^ZT 
 bade upon animals of thai kind. La instantly v^emii 
 
 h i ) | Wered to by a motion which they execute, automa,ic ' 
 ,nd this without any manifestation of will or conscious- 
 ness. '1 he phenomenon is exactly of the same kind as in a 
 pachine of which, if a given lever is touched, a motion is 
 instantly j.rodu.vd. 
 
046 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON". 
 
 [CH, X, 
 
 In any nervous system there are two portions anatomi- 
 Twoeiemen GSi ^J distinct. They are, 1st, the fibrous; 2d t 
 taryfo?mso"f the vesicular. It may be desirable to describe 
 ture eStrUC " briefly the construction and functions of each 
 of these portions. Their conjoint action will 
 then be intelligible. 
 
 1st. A nerve fibre consists essentially of a delicate thread 
 structure of a — the axis filament, as it is called — enveloped 
 nerve fibre. j n an oil-like substance, which coagulates or 
 congeals after death. This, in its turn, is inclosed in a 
 thin investing sheath or membranous tube. Many such 
 fibres bound together constitute a nerve. 
 
 The function of such a nerve fibre is indisputably alto- 
 Function of a gather of a physical kind, being the conveyance 
 nerve fibre is of influences from part to part. The axis 
 conduction. n l am ent is the line along which the translation 
 occurs, the investing material being for the purpose of 
 confining or insulating it, so as to prevent any lateral 
 escape. Such a construction is the exact counterpart of 
 many electrical contrivances, in which a metallic wire is 
 coated over with sealing-wax or wrapped round with silk, 
 the current being thus compelled to move in the wire 
 without any lateral escape. Of such fibres, some convey 
 their influences to the interior, and hence are called cen- 
 tripetal ; some convey them to the exterior, and hence 
 are called centrifugal. No anatomical difference in the 
 structure of the two has, however, thus far been discovered. 
 As in a conducting wire the electrical current moves in a 
 progressive manner with a definite velocity, so in a nerve 
 filament the influence advances progressively at a rate 
 said to be dependent on the temperature of the animal 
 examined. It seems in the cold-blooded to be much slower 
 than in the hot. It has been estimated in the frog at 
 eighty-five feet per second ; in man at two hundred feet — 
 an estimate probably too low. 
 
 The fibres thus described are of the kind designated by 
 physiologists as the cerebro-spinal ; there are others, passing 
 under the name of the sympathetic, characterized by not 
 possessing the investing medullary substance. In colour 
 they are yellowish-gray; but it is not necessary here to 
 consider them further. 
 
CH. X.J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE' OF REASON. 
 
 347 
 
 2nd. The other portion of the nervous structure is the 
 vesicular. As its name imports, it consists of structure of a 
 vesicles filled with a gray granular material, nerve vesicle. 
 Each vesicle has a thickened spot or nucleus upon it, and 
 appears to be connected with one or more fibres. If the 
 connexion is only with one, the vesicle is called unipolar ; 
 if with two, bipolar ; if with many, multipolar or stellate. 
 Every vesicle is abundantly supplied with blood. 
 
 As might be inferred from its structure, the vesicle differs 
 altogether from the fibre in function. I may Function of a 
 refer to my " Physiology " for the reasons which nerve vesicle, 
 have led to the inference that these are contrivances for 
 the purposes of permitting influences that have been trans- 
 lated along or confined within the fibre to escape and 
 diffuse themselves in the gray granular material. They 
 also permit influences that are coming through many 
 different channels into a multipolar vesicle to communicate 
 or mix with one another, and combine to produce new 
 results. Moreover, in them influences may be long pre- 
 served, and thus they become magazines of force. Combined 
 together, they constitute ganglia or nerve centres, on 
 which, if impressions be made, they do not necessarily 
 forthwith die out, but may remain gradually declining 
 away for a long time. Thus is introduced into the nervous 
 mechanism the element of time, and this important function 
 of the nerve vesicle lies at the basis of memory. 
 
 It has been said that the vesicular portion of the nerve 
 mechanism is copiously supplied with blood. Indeed, the 
 condition indispensably necessary for its functional activity 
 is waste by oxydation. Arterial vessels are abundantly 
 furnished to insure the necessary supply of 
 aerated blood, and veins to carry away the ^Konof 1 
 wasted products of decay. Also, through the perve action 
 
 „ j • i p • n is nerve waste. 
 
 former, the necessary materials for repair and 
 renovation are bro?ight. There is a definite waste of 
 nervous substance in the production of a definite mechanical 
 or intellectual result — a material connexion and condition 
 that must never be overlooked. Hence it is plain that 
 unless the repair and the waste are synchronously equal 
 to one another, periodicities in the action of the nervous 
 ayste?n will arise, this being the fundamental condition 
 
348 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. X. 
 
 connected with the physical theories of sleep and 
 fatigue. 
 
 The statements here made rest upon two distinct forms 
 of evidence. In part they are derived from an interpreta- 
 tion of anatomical structure, and in part from direct 
 experiment, chiefly by the aid of feeble electrical cur- 
 rents. The registering or preserving action displayed by a 
 ganglion may be considered as an effect, resembling that 
 of the construction known as Bitter's secondary piles. 
 
 It will not suit my purpose to offer more than the 
 simplest illustration of the application of the foregoing 
 facts. When an impression, either by pressure or in any 
 other way, is made on the exterior termination of a 
 centripetal fibre, the influence is conveyed with a velocity 
 such as has been mentioned into the vesicle to which that 
 Reflex action ^re * s attached, and thence, going forth along 
 ©fthener- the centrifugal fibre, may give rise to motion 
 vous system, through contraction of the muscle to which that 
 fibre is distributed. An impression has thus produced a 
 motion, and to the operation the designation of reflexion 
 is commonly given. This reflexion takes place without 
 consciousness. The three parts — the centripetal fibre, tho 
 vesicle, andt the centrifugal fibre —conjoin fcly constitute a 
 simple nervous arc. 
 
 A repetition of these arcs, each precisely like all the 
 others, constitutes the first step toward a complex 
 
 Gradual com- , ml . n . 
 
 piexity of the nervous system. Tneir manner 01 arrangement 
 tem V ° US SyS " * s rLecessar ily subordinated to the general plan 
 of construction of the animals in which they 
 occur. Thus, in the Eadiates it is circular; in the 
 Articulates, linear, or upon an axis. But, as the conditions 
 of life require consentaneousness of motion in the different 
 parts, these nerve arcs are not left isolated or without 
 connexion with each other. As it is anatomically termed, 
 they are commissured, nerve fibres passing from each to 
 its neighbours, and each is thus brought into sympathy or 
 connexion with all the others. 
 
 The next advance is a very important one, for it indicates 
 First a ear- ^ 0Le g enera l pl an on which the nervous system 
 ance of spe- is to be developed : it is the dedication of 
 «iai gangha. S p ec i a l nerve arcs to special duties. Thus, in 
 
CH. X.] THE EUROPE A AGE OF REASON. 
 
 349 
 
 the higher articulates and molluscs, there are such combi- 
 nations expressly for the purpose of respiration and deglu- 
 tition. Their action is altogether of the reflex kind; it 
 takes place without consciousness. These ganglia are com- 
 missured for the sake of sympathetic action, and frequently 
 several of them are coalesced for the sake of package. 
 
 This principle of dedication to special uses is carried out 
 in the introduction of ganglia intended to be affected by 
 light, or sounds, or odours. The impressions of those 
 agencies are carried to the ganglion by its centripetal 
 fibres. Such ganglia of special action are most commonly 
 coalesced together, forming nervous masses of conspicuous 
 size ; they are always commissured with those for ordinary 
 motions, the action being reflex, as in the preceding case, 
 though of a higher order, since it is attended with con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 Such being the elementary construction of a nervous 
 system, it is plain that animal tribes in which They are 
 it exists in no higher degree of complexity must automatic 
 be merely automata. In this remark many mechamsms - 
 insects must be included, for the instinct they display is 
 altogether of a mechanical kind, and, so far as they are 
 concerned, without design. Their actions are uniformly 
 alike ; what one does under given circumstances, under 
 the same circumstances another will certainly do. They 
 are incapable of education, they learn nothing by experi- 
 ence, and the acts they are engaged in they accomplish as 
 well at the first trial as ever after. 
 
 Of parts like those described, and of others of a highei 
 order, as will be presently seen, the most complex nervous 
 system, even that of man, is composed. It Evidencet0 
 might, perhaps, be expected that for the deter- beused C ?n° 
 mination of the duty of each part of such t ^io C i s nvesti " 
 complex system the physiologist must necessarily 1 
 resort to experiment, observing what functions have been 
 injured or destroyed when given portions have been 
 removed by his knife. At the best, however, evidence 
 of that kind must be very unsatisfactory on account of 
 the shock the entire system receives in vivisections, 
 and accordingly, artificial evidence can, for the most part, 
 fee used only in a corroborative way. But, as Cuvier 
 
350 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON, 
 
 [oh. X. 
 
 observed, the hand of Nature has prepared for us these very 
 experiments without that drawback. The animal series, 
 as we advance upward from its lowest members, proves to 
 us what is the effect of the addition of new parts in 
 succession to a nervous system, as also does any individual 
 thereof in its successive periods of development. It is one 
 of the most important discoveries of modern physiology 
 that, as respects their nervous system, we can safely 
 transfer our reasonings and conclusions from the case of 
 the lowest to that of the highest animal tribes. 
 
 The articulata present structures and a mode of action 
 illustrating in a striking manner the nervous system of man. 
 Lengthwise upon their ventral region is laid a double 
 cord, with ganglia, like a string of beads; sometimes 
 the cords are a little distance apart, but more generally 
 they are coalesced, each pair of ganglia being 
 ductionoT " fused into one. To every segment of the body 
 governing a p a f r i s supplied, each pair controlling its own 
 
 T segment, and acting toward it automatically, 
 
 each also acting like any of the others. But in the region 
 of the head there is a special pair, the cephalic ganglia, 
 receiving fibres from the eyes and other organs of sense. 
 From them proceed filaments to the ventral cord, establish- 
 ing communications with every segment. So every part 
 has two connexions, one with its own ventral ganglia, and 
 one with the cephalic. 
 
 It is not difficult to determine experimentally the func- 
 tions of the ventral ganglia and those of the cephalic. 
 If a centipede be decapitated, its body is still capable of 
 moving, the motion being evidently of a reflex kind, 
 originating in the pressure of the legs against the surface 
 on which they rest. The ventral cord, with its 
 
 But thus far , . . , ^ , . , 
 
 actions are ganglia, is hence purely an automatic mechanism. 
 tive 7 instinc " But if, in making the decapitation, we leave a 
 portion of the body in connexion with the head, 
 we recognize very plainly that the cephalic ganglia are 
 exercising a governing power. In the part from which 
 they have been cut off the movement is forward, regardless 
 of any obstacle ; in that to which they are attached there 
 are modifications in the motions, depending on sight or 
 other special senses ; obstacles are avoided, and a variety 
 
-CH. X. | 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 351 
 
 of directions pursued. Yet still the actions are not in- 
 telligent, only instinctive. The general conclusion there- 
 fore is, that the cephalic ganglia are of a higher order 
 than the ventral, the latter being simply mechanical, the 
 former instinctive ; but thus far there is no trace of intel- 
 ligence. 
 
 In man these typical parts are all present, and discharge 
 the functions specified. His spinal cord answers Nervous ana . 
 to the ventral cord of the articulates. It has its tomy of verte- 
 lateral communications in the same way, and brates > asman - 
 each segmental portion presents the same reflex action. 
 Toward its upper part it dilates to form the medulla 
 oblongata, sending forth nerves for respiration and deglu- 
 tition. Of these the action is still reflex, as is proved by 
 the involuntary movements of respiration and deglutition. 
 A portion of food being placed in the pharynx, Their aut0 _ 
 contraction instantly occurs, the will having matfcappa- 
 110 kind of control over the act of swallowing. ratus * 
 Above or in front of this enlargement is a series of ganglia, 
 to which converge the nerves of special sense — of hearing, 
 sight, smell ; these are, therefore, the equivalents Their instinc . 
 of the cephalic ganglia of insects, their function tiveappara- 
 being also the same. In the lowest vertebrates, tus * 
 as in the amphioxus, the nervous system consists of 
 nothing more. It may therefore be said to have only two 
 parts — the cord and the sensory ganglia, and to have two 
 functions — the automatic, attributable to the former, and 
 the instinctive, attributable to the latter. 
 
 But as we advance from the low vertebrates upward in 
 the animal scale, we begin to detect new organs ; on the 
 medulla oblongata a cerebellum, and on the Theirintel . 
 sensory ganglia a cerebrum. From this moment lectuai appa- 
 the animal displays reasoning powers, its intel- iatus * 
 ligence becoming more strikingly marked as the develop- 
 ment of the new organs is greater. 
 
 It remains to determine with exactness the function ol 
 one of these new parts, the cerebrum ; the other Functions of 
 portion, the cerebellum, being of minor interest, the brain - 
 and connected, probably, with the locomotive apparatus. 
 For the same reason it is unnecessary to speak of the 
 sympathetic nerve, since it belongs to the apparatus of 
 
352 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. X. 
 
 organic life. Confining our attention, therefore, to the 
 true krain, or cerebrum, we soon recognize that the intel- 
 ligence of an animal is, in a general manner, proportional 
 to the relative size of this organ as compared with the 
 sensory ganglia. We are also struck with the fact that 
 the cerebrum does not send forth to other portions any 
 independent fibres of its own, nor does it receive any from 
 them, its only means of communication being through the 
 parts that have been described— that is to say, through 
 its relations the sensory and automatic apparatus. The 
 Jo th.^instin- cerebrum is therefore a mechanism of a higher 
 maticpor- order, and its relationship with the thalami 
 tions. optici and corpora striata indicate the conditions 
 
 of its functions. It can only receive impressions which 
 have come through them, and only act upon the body 
 through their intermedium. Moreover, as we ascend the 
 animal scale, we find that these cerebral parts not only 
 its secondary UMffease in size, but likewise, in their turn, give 
 and tertiary rise to offshoots ; secondary lobes emerging pos- 
 lobes. teriorly on the primary ones, and, in due season, 
 
 tertiary lobes posteriorly on the secondary. To these, in 
 human anatomy, the designations of anterior, middle, and 
 posterior lobes have been respectively given. In propor- 
 tion as this development has proceeded, the intellectual 
 qualities have become more varied and more profound. 
 
 The relation of the cerebrum to the cranio-spinal axis is 
 Action of the manifested by the circumstance that the latter 
 spinal cord can act without the former. In sleep the 
 alone * cerebrum is, as it were, torpid, but respiration, 
 
 deglutition, and other reflex actions go on. If we touch 
 the palm of a sleeping infant our finger is instantly 
 Conjoint ao gasped. But, though the axis can work with- 
 tionoftbe out the cerebrum, the cerebrum can not work 
 brainandcord. wit]lout the axis> mirations of these truths 
 
 may be experimentally obtained. An animal from which 
 the cerebrum has been purposely removed may be observed 
 to perform actions automatic and instinctive, but never 
 intelligent; and that there is no difference between 
 animals and man in this respect is demonstrated by the 
 numerous instances recorded in the works of medicine and 
 surgery of injuries by accident or disease to the human 
 
OH- X.] 
 
 THi: EUROPEAN AGE OF BEA80X. 
 
 353 
 
 nervous system, the effects corresponding to those arti- 
 ficially produced in experiments on animals. This im 
 portant observation, moreover, shows that we may with 
 correctness use the observations made on animals in our 
 investigations of the human system. 
 
 In the nervous system of man our attention is therefore 
 
 especial I y demanded l>v three essentially distinct 
 
 , ,i • i i ii i« i Three distinct 
 
 parts — the spinal cord, the sensory ganglia, and p; ,rt« <»t th* 
 
 the cerebrum. ( >f the first, the spinal cord, the nervoossy*. 
 
 action is automatic; by its aid we can walk, 
 
 from place to place, without bestowing a thought on our 
 
 movements; by it we swallow involuntarily; by it wo 
 
 respire unconsciously. The second portion, the They arc tho 
 
 sensory ganglia, is, as we have seen, the counter- {^"^j^: 
 
 part of the cephalic ganglia of invertebrates ; it tive, tbe 
 
 is the place of reception of sensuous impressions ktellectuai. 
 
 and the seat of consciousness. To these ganglia instinct 
 
 is to be referred. Their function is not at all impaired by 
 
 the cerebrum superposed upon them. The third portion, 
 
 the cerebrum, is anatomically distinct. It is the seat of 
 
 ideas. Jt does not directly give rise to motions, being 
 
 obliged to employ for that purpose its intermediate 
 
 automatic associated apparatus. In this realm of ideas 
 
 thoughts spring forth suggestively from one another in a 
 
 perpetual train or flux, and yet the highest nominating 
 
 branch of the nervous mechanism still retains control of the 
 
 traces of the modes of operation of the parts from liUtcr ' 
 
 which it was developed. Its action is still often reflex. 
 
 Keason is not always able to control our emotions, as when 
 
 we laugh or weep in spite of ourselves, under the impression 
 
 of some external incident. Nay. more; the inciting Cause 
 
 may be, as we very well know, nothing material — nothing 
 
 but a recollection, an idea — and yet it is enough. But 
 
 these phenomena are perhaps restricted to the first or 
 
 anterior lobes of the brain, and, accordingly wo remark 
 
 them most distinctly in children and in animals. As the 
 
 second and third lobes begin to exercise their power, such 
 
 c flee Is are brought under control. 
 
 There is, therefore, a regular progression, a definite 
 Improvement in the nervous system of the animal series, 
 the plan never varying, but being persistently carried 
 
 vol. ii. 2 a 
 
354 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [Cfl. X. 
 
 out, and thus offering a powerful argument for relationship 
 Progressive among all those successively improving forms, 
 nervous de- an observation which becomes of the utmost 
 theTi^mai m interest to us in its application to the verte- 
 eeries. brates. In the amphioxus, as has been said, the 
 
 cranio -spinal axis alone exists ; the Cyclostome fishes 
 are but a step higher. In fishes the true cerebrum 
 appears at first in an insignificant manner, a condition 
 repeated in the early embryonic state both of birds and 
 mammals. An improvement is made in reptiles, whose 
 cerebral hemispheres are larger than their optic lobes. As 
 we advance to birds, a further increase occurs ; the hemi- 
 spheres are now of nearly sufficient dimensions to cover 
 over those ganglia. In the lower mammals there is 
 another step, yet not a very great one. But from the 
 anterior lobes, which thus far have constituted the entire 
 brain, there are next to be developed the middle lobes. 
 In the Kodents the progress is still continued, and in the 
 Ruminants and Pachyderms the convolutions have become 
 it attains its we ^ marked. In the higher carnivora and 
 maximum in quadrumana the posterior or tertiary lobes ap- 
 pear. The passage from the anthropoid apes 
 to man brings us to the utmost development thus far 
 attained by the nervous system. The cerebrum has 
 reached its maximum organization by a continued and 
 unbroken process of development. 
 
 This orderly development of the nervous system in the 
 The same pro- animal series is recognized again in the gradual 
 gressive devei- development of the individual man. The pri- 
 
 opment occurs . . . L . . , r . ., . J- m 
 
 in each indi- mitive trace, as it iamtly appears m the germinal 
 viduai man. me mbrane, marks out the place presently to be 
 occupied by the cranio-spinal axis, and, that point of 
 development gained, man answers to the amphioxus. 
 Not until the twelfth week of embryonic life does he reach 
 the state permanently presented by birds ; at this time 
 the anterior lobes are only perceptible. In four or six 
 weeks more the middle lobes are evolved posteriorly on the 
 anterior, and, finally, in a similar manner, the tertiary or 
 p3sterior ones are formed. And thus it appears that, 
 com pared with the nervous system of other animals, that 
 of man proceeds through the same predetermined succes- 
 
CH. X.] THE EUROPEAN AGS, OF REASON. 355 
 
 sion of forms ; Theirs suffers an arrest, in some instances 
 
 £nw J?T 6r ' m w me at a hi S her Voint, but his passes 
 onward to completion. 
 
 But that is not all The biography of the earth, the 
 lite ot the entire globe, corresponds to this 
 pi ogress of the individual, to this orderly Itoccurs . 
 relation of the animal series. Commencing 
 with the oldest rocks that furnish animal re- theglobe - 
 mams and advancing to the most recent, we recognize 
 a continual improvement in construction, indicated by 
 the degree of advancement of the nervous system. The 
 earliest fishes did not proceed beyond that condition of 
 the spinal column which is to be considered as embryonic. 
 Ihe bilunati and Devonian rocks do not present it in an 
 ossified state Fishes, up to the Carboniferous epoch, had 
 a heteroeercal tail, just as the embryos of osseous fishes of 
 the present time have up to a certain period of their life 
 there was, therefore, an arrest in the old extinct forms' 
 
 the buckler-headed fishes of the Devonian rocks had their 
 respiratory organs and much of their digestive apparatus 
 in the head, and showed an approximation to the tadpoles 
 or embryos of the frog. The crocodiles of the oolite had 
 biconcave vertebras, like the embryos of the recent ones 
 which have gained the capability of making an advance 
 to a higher point. In the geological order, reptiles make 
 their appearance next after fishes, and this is what we 
 should expect on the principle of an ascending nervous 
 development Not until long after come birds, later in 
 date and higher in nervous advancement, capable not only 
 of instinct, but also of intelligence. Of mammals, the 
 nrst that appear are what we should have expected— the 
 marsupials; but among the tertiary rocks, very many 
 other forms are presented, the earlier ones, whether her- 
 bivorous or carnivorous, having a closer correspondence 
 to the archetype than the existing ones, save in their 
 embryonic states, the analogies occurring in , 
 such minor details as the possession of forty- mStyof 
 
 ,m Ur f h! 7^ * i0 f & ^ y , ° f J he earth is thus > — ti 
 on the great scale, typical of individual life tion of 
 
 even that of man, and the succession of species in the 
 
 2 a 2 
 
356 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. X. 
 
 progress of numberless ages is the counterpart of the 
 transmutation of an individual from form to form. As in 
 a dissolving view, new objects emerge from old ones, and 
 new forms spontaneously appear without the exercise of 
 any periodical creative act. 
 
 For some days after birth the actions of the human 
 Life of man are merely reflex. Its craniospinal axis 
 
 from infancy alone is in operation, and thus far it is only an 
 J^rJance yiD automaton. But soon the impressions of ex- 
 with his an- ternal objects begin to be registered or preserved 
 in the sensory ganglia, and the evidences of 
 memory appear. The first token of this is perhaps the 
 display of an attachment to persons, not through any 
 intelligent recognition of relationship, but merely because 
 of familiarity. This is followed by the manifestation of a 
 liking to accustomed places and a dread of strange ones. 
 At this stage the infant is leading an instinctive life, and 
 has made no greater advance than many of the lower 
 mammals ; but they linger here, while he proceeds onward. 
 He soon shows high powers of memory, the exercise of 
 reason in the determinations of judgment, and in the 
 adaptation of varied means to varied ends. 
 
 Such is therefore the process of development of the 
 nervous system of man ; such are the powers which con- 
 sequently he successively displays. His reason at last is 
 ] paramount. No longer are his actions exclusively prompted 
 by sensations; they are determined much more by ideas 
 that have resulted from his former experiences. While 
 animals which approach him most closely in construction 
 require an external stimulus to commence a train of 
 thought, he can direct his mental operations, and in this 
 respect is parted from them by a vast interval. The 
 states through which he has passed are the automatic, the 
 instinctive, the intellectual ; each has its own apparatus, 
 and all at last work harmoniously together. 
 
 But besides this superposition of an instinctive apparatus 
 upon an automatic one, and an intellectual 
 consists 0?°° upon an instinctive, the nervous system consists 
 two lateral 0 f two equal and symmetrical lateral portions, 
 
 individuals. . , . , 1 , p tin -mi i 
 
 a right halt and a lelt. Ji.acn person may be 
 considered as consisting in reality of two individuals. 
 
CH. X.J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN A Q E OF REASON. 
 
 357 
 
 The right half may be stricken with palsy, the left be 
 unimpaired ; one may lose its sight or hearing, the other 
 may retain them. These lateral halves lead independent 
 lives. Yet, though independent in this sense, they are 
 closely connected in another. The brain of the right side 
 rules over the Left half of the body, that of the left side 
 rules over tho right of the body. On the relationships 
 and antagonisms of the two halves of the cerebro-spinal 
 svstem must be founded our explanations of the 
 
 A-i • • r o j ii j Consequences 
 
 otherwise mysterious phenomena ot double and oftins double- 
 alternate life ; of the sentiment of pre-exi>tence : 
 
 n \i . . « ill! structiuu. 
 
 ot trains ot thought, otteii double, out never 
 triple ; of the wilful delusions of castle-building, in which 
 one hemisphere of the brain listens to the romance sug- 
 gestions of the other, though both well know that the 
 subject they are entertaining themselves with is a mere 
 fiction. The strength and precision of mental operations 
 depend as much upon the complete equivalency of the two 
 lateral halves as upon their absolute development. It 
 is scarcely to be expected that great intellectual indications 
 will be given by him, one of whose cerebral hemispheres 
 is unequal to the other. ]>ut for the detailed consideration 
 of these topics I may refer tho reader to my work on 
 Physiology. He will there find the explanation of the 
 nature of registering ganglia; the physical theory of 
 memory; the causes of our variable psychical powers at 
 different times; the description of the ear as the organ of 
 time ; the eye as the organ of space; the touch as that of 
 pressures and temperatures; the smell and taste as those 
 for the chemical determination of gases and liquids. 
 
 Prom a consideration of the construction, development, 
 and action of the nervous system of man, we 
 may gain correct views of his relations to other famthefere- 
 organic beings, and obtain true psvehical and gumgana- 
 metaphysical theories. There is not that homo- 
 geneousness in his intellectual structure which writers on 
 those topics so long supposed. It is a triple mechanism. 
 A gentle, a gradual, a definite development M , m mem- 
 reaches its maximum in him without a breach ber of the ant- 
 of continuity. Parts which, because of their mal8erie8, 
 completion, are capable of yielding in him such splendid 
 
358 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH, X. 
 
 results, are seen in a rudimentary and useless condition in 
 organisms very far down below. On the clear recognition 
 of this rudimentary, this useless state, very much depends. 
 It indicates the master-fact of psychology — the fact that 
 Averroes overlooked — that, while man agrees with inferior 
 "beings in the type of his construction, and passes in his 
 development through transformations analogous to theirs, 
 he differs from them all in this, that he alone possesses an 
 accountable, an immortal soul. It is true that there are 
 some which closely approach him in structure, but the 
 existence of structure by no means implies the exercise of 
 functions. In the still-born infant, the mechanism for 
 respiration, the lungs, is completed ; but the air may never 
 enter, and the intention for which they were formed never 
 be carried out. 
 
 Moreover, it appears that the order of development in 
 His life and * ne ^ e °^ individual man and the order of 
 that of the development in the life of the earth are the 
 planet alike. game ^ their common features indicating a common 
 plan. The one is the movement of a few hours, the othei 
 of myriads of ages. This sameness of manner in then 
 progression points out their dependence on a law immu- 
 table and universal. The successive appearance of the 
 animal series in the endless course of time has not, 
 therefore, been accidental, but as predetermined and as 
 certain as the successive forms of the individual. In the 
 latter we do not find any cause of surprise in the as 
 sumption of states ever increasing in improvement, ever 
 rising higher and higher toward the perfection destined to 
 be attained. We look upon it as the course of nature 
 Why, then, should we consider the extinctions and 
 creations of the former as offering any thing unaccount- 
 able, as connected with a sudden creative fiat or with an 
 arbitrary sentence of destruction? 
 
 In this book I have endeavoured to investigate the 
 progress of humanity, and found that it shows 
 aumanltyis all the phases of individual movement, the 
 according to evidence employed being historical, and, there- 
 fore, of a nature altogether different from that 
 Dn which our conclusions in the collateral instances rest. 
 j.t may serve to assure us that the ideas here presented are 
 
CH. X.J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 359 
 
 true when we encounter, at the close of our investigation, 
 this harmony between the life of the individual, the life of 
 society, and the life of the earth. 
 
 Is it probable that the individual proceeds in his move- 
 ment of development under law, that the planet also pro- 
 ceeds in its movements under law, but that society does 
 not proceed under law ? 
 
 Man, thus, is the last term of an innumerable series of 
 organisms, which, under the domination of law, Eternity and 
 has, in the lapse of time, been evolving. Law universality 
 has controlled the inorganic world, and caused ofthatiaw - 
 the earth to pass through various physical conditions, 
 gently and continuously succeeding one another. The 
 plastic forms of organic beings have been modelled to suit 
 those changing conditions. The invariability of that law 
 is indicated by the numberless ages through which it has 
 been maintained, its universality by its holding good in 
 the life of the meanest individual. 
 
 But it is only a part of sociology that we have considered, 
 and of which we have investigated the development. 
 In the most philosophical aspect the subject in- comparative 
 eludes comparative as well as human sociology. sociol °gy- 
 For, though there may not be society where actions are 
 simply reflex, there is a possibility of it where they are 
 instinctive, as well as where they are intellectual. Its 
 essential condition being intercommunication, there are 
 necessarily modifications depending respectively on touch 
 or upon the higher and more delicate senses. That is 
 none the less society which, among insects, depends upon 
 antennal contacts. Human society, founded on speech, 
 sight, hearing, has its indistinct beginnings, its rudiments, 
 very low down in the animal scale, as in the bell-like note 
 which some of the nudibranchiate gasteropods emit, or 
 the solitary midnight tapping with which the death-watch 
 salutes his mate. Society resting on instinct is charac- 
 terized by immobility ; it is necessarily unprogressive. 
 Society resting on intellect is always advancing. 
 
 But, for the present, declining this general examination 
 of sociology, and limiting our attention strictly to that of 
 humanity, we can not fail to be struck with the fact that 
 in us the direction of evolution is altogether toward 
 
360 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. [CH. X. 
 
 the intellectual, a conclusion equally impressed upon 
 us whether our mode of examination be anatomical or 
 The aim of historical. Anatomically we find no provision 
 Amoral 8 Sa ]jervcms system for the improvement of 
 
 intellectual the moral, save indirectly through the intellcc- 
 deveicpment. tual, tlic whole aim of development being for 
 t lie sake of intelligence. Historically, in the same manner, 
 Ave find that the intellectual has always led the way in 
 social advancement, the moral having been subordinate 
 thereto. The former lias been the mainspring of the 
 movement, the latter passively affected. It is a mistake 
 to make the progress of society depend on that which is 
 itself controlled by a higher power. In the earlier and 
 inferior stages of individual life we may govern through 
 the moral alone. In that way we may guide children, 
 but it is to the understanding of the adult that we must 
 SystemBof appeal. A system working only through the 
 behi 7 ""^ moral must sooner or later come into an anta- 
 ance there- gonism with the intellectual, and, if it do not 
 with. contain within itself a means of adaptation to 
 
 the changing circumstances, it must in the end be over- 
 thrown. This was the grand error of that lioman system 
 which presided while European civilization was developing. 
 It assumed as its basis a uniform, a stationary psychological 
 condition in man. Forgetting that the powers of the 
 mind grow with the possessions of the mind, it considered 
 those who lived in past generations as being in no 
 respect mentally inferior to those who are living now, 
 though our children at sixteen may have a wider range of 
 knowledge than our ancestors at sixty. That such an 
 imperfect system could exist for so many ages is a proof of 
 a contemporary condition of undeveloped intellect, just as 
 Ave see that the understanding of a child does not revolt 
 against the moral suasion, often intrinsically feeble, through 
 which we attempt to influence him. But it would be as 
 unphilosophical to treat with disdain the ideas that have 
 served for a guide in the earlier ages of European life, as 
 to look with contempt on the motives that have guided us 
 Vi youth. Their feebleness and incompetency are excused 
 by their suitability to the period of life to which they are 
 applied. 
 
CH. X.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 361 
 
 But whoever considers these things will see that there 
 is a term beyond which the application of such methods 
 *annot be extended. The head of a family Thc Acof 
 would act unwisely if he attempted to apply to Reason de- 
 li is sou at twenty-one the methods he had "^^Vincon- 
 successfully used at ten; sueh methods could tivesforthe 
 l)e only rendered effective by a resort to physical imiividiml - 
 compulsion. A great change in the intervening years has 
 taken place, and ideas once intrinsically powerful can 
 exert their influence no more. The moral may have 
 remained unchanged ; it may be precisely as it was — no 
 better, no worse; but that whieh has changed is the 
 understanding. Reasoning and inducements of an in- 
 tellectual kind are now needful. An attempt to persist in 
 an absolute system by constraint would only meet with 
 remonstrance and derision. 
 
 If it is thus with the individual, so it is likewise 
 with humanity. For centuries nations may live An( , th( . pame 
 under forms that meet their requirements, forms holds pood for 
 suitable to a feeble state ; but it is altogether ,ullianlty - 
 illusory to suppose that sueh an adaptedness can continue 
 for ever. A critical eye dbcerns that the mental features 
 of a given generation have become different from those of 
 its ancestors. New ideas and a new manner of action are 
 the tokens that a modification has silently taken place. 
 Though after a short interval tho change might not 
 amount to much, in the course of time there must inevi- 
 tably be exhibited tho spectacle of a society that had 
 outgrown its forms, its rules of life. 
 
 Wherever, then, sueh a want of harmony becomes 
 perceptible, where the social system is incompatible with 
 the social state, and is, in effect, an obsolete anachronism, 
 it is plainly unphilosophical and unwise to resort to means 
 of compulsion. No mat ter what the power of governments 
 OX of* human authorities may be, it is impossible for them 
 to stop the intellectual advancement, for it forces its way 
 by an organic law over which they have no kind of control. 
 
 Astronomers sometimes affirm that the sun is the cause, 
 directly or indirectly, of all the mechanical Bjunmaryof 
 movements that take place upon the earth. [Zuvi u* 
 
502 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. X, 
 
 Position of Physiologists say that he is the generator of the 
 miD - countless living forms with which her surface is 
 
 adorned. 
 
 If the light, the warmth, and other physical influences 
 of the sun could he excluded, there would bo 
 
 Influence of , x l • • v »i x j 
 
 the sun on in- a stagnant and icy sea encircling silent and 
 organic solitary shores. But the veil once withdrawn, 
 or the influences permitted to take effect, this 
 night and stillness would give place to activity and 
 change. In the morning beams 01 the day, the tropical 
 waters, expanding, would follow from east to west the 
 course of the sun, each renewed dawn renewing the 
 impulse, and adding force to the gentle but resistless 
 current. At one place the flowing mass would move 
 compactly; at another, caught by accidentally projecting 
 rocks, it would give off little i ddies, expending their share 
 
 of its force ; or, compressed in narrow passages, it would 
 rush impetuously along. I'pon its surface myriads of 
 momentary ripples would play, or opposing winds, called 
 into existence by similar disturbances in the air, would 
 force it into waves, making the shores resound with their 
 breaking surge. Twice every day, under the conjoint 
 influences of the sun and moon, as if the inanimate globe 
 itself were breathing, the tide would rise and fall again 
 upon the bosom of the deep. 
 
 The eddy, the ripple, the wave, the current, are acci- 
 dental forms through which the originally imparted force 
 is displayed. They are all expending power. Their life, 
 if such a term can be used, is not the property of 
 themselves, but of the ocean to which they belong. 
 
 Influences which thus metaphorically give life to the 
 and on or- sea, in reality give life to the land. Under 
 ganic nature, their genial operation a wave of verdure spreads 
 over the earth, and countless myriads of animated things 
 attend it, each like the eddies and ripples of the sea, 
 expending its share of the imparted force. The life of these 
 accidental forms, through w r hich power is being transposed, 
 belongs, not to itself, but to the universe of which it is 
 h part. 
 
 Of the waves upon the ocean there may not be two 
 alike. The winds, the shores, their mutual interferences, 
 
CH. S.l 
 
 j 
 
 THE EUROPE AGE OF REASON. 
 
 363 
 
 a hundred extraneous influences, mould them into their 
 ephemeral shapes. So those collections of matter Nature of 
 of which animated tilings consist offer a plastic animala 
 substance to he modified. The number of individuals counts 
 like the ripples of the sea. 
 
 As external circumstances change, animated forms 
 change with them, and thus arises a series of Thoycon>ti- 
 which the members stand in a connected rela- tut " a SiTk ' 8 - 
 tion. The alliliated sequence of the external circumstances 
 is represented in the afliliated succession of living types. 
 From parts, or from things already existing, new parts 
 and new things emerge, the new not being added or 
 juxtaposed to the old, but evolved or developed from it. 
 From the homogeneous or general, the heterogeneous or 
 special is brought forth. A new member, fashioned in 
 secrecy and apart, is never abruptly ingrafted on any 
 living thing. New animal types have never been suddenly 
 located among old ones, but have emerged from them by 
 process of transmutation. As certainly as that every 
 living thing must die, so must it reach perfection by 
 passing through a succession of subordinate forms. An 
 individual, or even a species, is only a zoological phase in 
 a passage to something beyond. An instantaneous adult, 
 like an immortal animal, is a physiological impossibility. 
 
 This bringing forth of structure from structure, of 
 function from function, incidentally presents, The duCtrim 
 upon tho whole, an appearance of progressive of process ivo 
 improvement, and for such it has been not im P rove,no,il 
 unfrequenl ly mistaken. Thus if the lowest animals, which 
 move by reflex action instantly but unconsciously, when 
 an impression is made upon them, be compared with the 
 higher ones, whose motions are executed under the influence 
 of antecedent impressions, and are therefore controlled by 
 ideas, there seems to have been such an improvement. 
 Still, however, it is altogether of a physical kind. Every 
 impression of which tho dog or elephant is conscious 
 implies change in the nerve centres, and these changes are 
 at the basis of the memory displayed by those animals. 
 Our own experience furnishes many illustrations. When 
 we gaze steadfastly on somo brightly-illuminated object, 
 and then close or turn aside our eyes, a fading impression 
 
364 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 fCH. X. 
 
 of the object at which we have been looking still remains; 
 or, when a spark is made to revolve rapidly, we think we 
 see a circle of fire, the impression upon the retina lasting 
 until the spark has completed its revolution. In like 
 manner, though far more perfectly, are impressions regis- 
 tered or stored up in the sensory ganglia, the phantoms 
 of realities that have once been seen. In those organs 
 countless images may thus be superposed. 
 
 Man agrees with animals thus approaching him in 
 Analogies be- anatomical construction in many important 
 tweenani- respects. He, too, represents a continuous 
 maisandman. sll(JCess i on 0 f matter, a continuous expenditure 
 of power. Impressions of external things are concealed 
 in his sensory ganglia, to be presented for inspection in 
 subsequent times, and to constitute motives of action. 
 But he differs from them in this, that what was pre- 
 paratory and rudimentary in them is complete and perfect 
 in him. From the instrument of instinct there has been 
 developed an instrument of intellection. In the most 
 perfect quadrupeds, an external stimulus is required to 
 start a train of thought, which then moves on in a 
 determinate way, their actions indicating that, under the 
 circumstances, they reason according to the same rules as 
 man, drawing conclusions more or less correct from the 
 facts offered to their notice. But, the instrument of 
 intellection completed, it is quickly brought into use, and 
 now results of the highest order appear. The succession 
 of ideas is under control ; new trains can be originated 
 not only by external causes, but also by an interior, a 
 spontaneous influence. The passive has become active. 
 Animals remember, man alone recollects. Every thing 
 demonstrates that the development and completion of this 
 instrument of intellection has been followed by the super- 
 addition of an agent or principle that can use it. 
 
 There is, then, a difference between the brutes and man, 
 Points of dis- n0 ^ on ty as res P ec ^ s constitution, but also as 
 tinction be- respects destiny. Their active force merges into 
 tweentnem. q^j. mil ndane forces and disappears, but the 
 special principle given to him endures. We willingly 
 persuade ourselves that this principle is actually per- 
 sonified, and that the shades of the dead resemble their 
 
CH. X.] THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 365 
 
 living forms. To Eastern Asia, where philosophy has 
 been accustomed to the abstract idea of force, the pleasures 
 we derive from this contemplation are denied, the cheer- 
 less doctrine of Buddhism likening the life of man to the 
 burning of a lamp, and death to its extinction. Perceiving 
 in the mutation of things, as seen in the narrow range of 
 human vision, a suggestion of the variations and distribu- 
 tion of power throughout nature, it rises to a grand, and, 
 it must be added, an awful conception of the universe. 
 
 But Europe, and also the Mohammedan nations of Asia, 
 have not received with approbation that view. To them 
 there is an individualized impersonation of the Tbe human 
 soul, and an expectation of its life hereafter. soul - 
 The animal fabric is only an instrument for its use. 
 The eye is the window through which that mysterious 
 principle perceives : through the ear are brought to its 
 attention articulate sounds and harmonies ; by the other 
 organs the sensible qualities of bodies are made known. 
 Erom the silent chambers and winding labyrinths of the 
 Drain the veiled enchantress looks forth on the outer 
 world, and holds the subservient body in an irresistible 
 spell. 
 
 This difference between the Oriental and European ideas 
 respecting the nature of man reappears in their 
 ideas respecting the nature of the world. The theseviews 
 one sees in it only a gigantic engine, in which Jj^e world 6 
 stars and orbs are diffusing power and running 
 through predestined mutations. The other, with better 
 philosophy and a higher science, asserts a personal God, 
 who considers and orders events in a vast panorama before 
 him. 
 
( 366 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON — ( Con tinned). 
 
 THE UNION OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 
 
 European Progress in the Acquisition of exact Knowledge. — Its Ecsem- 
 blance to thai of ( hn < tn . 
 
 Discoveries respecting the Air. — Its mechanical and chemical Properties. 
 — Its Relation to Animals and Hants. — The Winds, — Meteorology.—* 
 Sounds, — Acoustic Pht nomena. 
 
 Discoveries respecting the Ocean. — Physical and chemical Phenomena. — 
 — Tides and Currents. — Clouds. — Decomposition of IVater. 
 
 Discoveries respecting otlicr material Substances. — Progress of Chemistry. 
 
 Discoveries respecting Electricity, Magnetism, Light, Heat. 
 
 Mechanical Philosophy and Inventions. — Physical Instruments. — TJie 
 liesidt illustrated by the Cotton Manufacture — Steam-engine — Bleach' 
 ing — Canals — Railways. — Improvements in the Construction of Ma- 
 chinery. — Social Changes produced, — Its Effect on intellectual Activity. 
 
 The scientific Contributions of various Nations, and especially of Italy. 
 
 The Age of Reason in Europe presents all the peculiarities 
 of the Age of Reason in Greece. There are modern re- 
 presentatives of King Ptolemy Philadelphus among his 
 furnaces and crucibles ; of Hipparchus cataloguing the 
 stars ; of Aristyllus and Timochares, with their stone 
 quadrants and armils, ascertaining the planetary motions ; 
 of Eratosthenes measuring the size of the earth ; of Hero- 
 philus dissecting the human body ; of Archimedes settling 
 the laws of mechanics and hydrostatics ; of Manetho 
 collating the annals of the old dynasties of Egypt; of 
 Euclid and Apollonius improving mathematics. There 
 Analogies be- are botanical gardens and zoological menageries 
 ^Reason rn ge ^ e ^ nose °^ Alexandria, and expeditions to the 
 Europe and in sources of the Nile. The direction of thought is 
 Greece. ^he same . b u t the progress is on a greater scale, 
 and illustrated by more imposing results. The exploring 
 
111. II.] 
 
 THE BUKOPKAA AGE OF REASON. 
 
 367 
 
 voyages to Madagascar are replaced by circumnavigations 
 of the world; the revolving .steam-engine of Hero by the 
 double-acting engine of Watt ; the great galley of Ptolemy, 
 with its many hanks of rowers, by the ocean steam-ship; 
 the Bolitary watch-fire on the Pharos by a thousand light- 
 houses, with their fixed and revolving lights ; the courier 
 on his Arab horse by the locomotive and electric telegraph ; 
 the scriptorium in the Serapion, with its shelves of papyrus, 
 by countless printing-presses ; the " Almagest" of Ptolemy 
 by the M ri-iiKMpia" of Kewton ; and the Museum itself by 
 English, French, Italian, German, Dutch, and Russian 
 philosophical societies, universities, colleges, and other 
 institutions of learning. 
 
 80 grand IS the scale on which this cultivation of 
 science has been resumed, so many are those European 
 engaged in it, so rapid is the advance, and so gJ^P reeB J" 
 greal arc the material advantages, that there is tioVofkniw 
 no difficulty in appreciating the age of which it ledge * 
 is the characteristic. Tin' most superficial outline enables 
 us to recognize at once its resemblance to that period of 
 Greet life to which I have referred. To bring its features 
 into relief, I shall devote a few pages to a cursory review 
 of the progress of some of the departments of science, 
 selecting for the purpose topics of general interest. 
 
 First, then, as respects the atmosphere, and the pheno- 
 mena connected with ir. 
 
 From observations on the twilight, the elasticity of 
 aerial bodies, and the condensing action of cold, Theatmu- 
 ihe conclusion previously arrived at by Alhazen 8 P here - 
 was established, that the atmosphere does not extend 
 uulimitedly into space. Its height is considered to be 
 about forty five miles. From its compressibility, the 
 greater part of it is within a much smaller limit; were it 
 of uniform density, it would not extend nore than 29,000 
 feet. Hence, comparing it with the dimensions of the 
 earth, it is an insignificant aerial shell, in thickness not 
 the eightieth part of the distance to the earth's centre, and 
 its immensity altogether an illusion. It bears about the 
 same proportion to the earth that the down upon a peach 
 bears to the peaoh itsolf. 
 
 A foundation for the mechanical theory of the atmo- 
 
308 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. [CH. XI 
 
 sphere was laid as soon as just, ideas respecting liquid 
 1 .ressures, as formerly taught 1 >y Archimedes, were restored, 
 the conditions of vertical and oblique pressures investi- 
 gated the demonstration of equality of pressures in all 
 directions given, and the proof furnished that the force 
 of a liquid on the bot tom of a vessel may be very much 
 greater than its weight. 
 
 Such of these conclusions as were applicable were soon 
 tomechant. transferred to the case of aerial bodies Ihe 
 ci relation*, weight of the atmosphere was demonstrated, its 
 pressure illustrated and measured ; then came the dispute 
 about the action of pumps, and the overthrow of _ the 
 \ristotelian doctrine of the horror of a vacuum. Coinci- 
 dently occurred the invention of the barometer, and the 
 vroof of its true theory, both on a steeple in Pans and on 
 a mountain in Auvergne. The invention of the air-pump, 
 and its beautiful illustrations of the properties of the 
 atmosphere, extended in a singular manner the taste tor 
 
 natural philosophy. v„i +e , „t,„ 
 
 The mechanics of the air was soon followed by its che- 
 ItBchemical mistry. From remote ages it had been num- 
 JeiatioS. bered among the elements, though considered 
 liable to vitiation or foulness. The great discovery of oxy- 
 gen -as placed its chemical relations in their proper position. 
 One after another, other gases, both simple and compound, 
 were discovered. Then it was recognized that the atmo- 
 sphere is the common receptacle for all gases and vapours, 
 and the problem whether, in the course of ages, it has ever 
 undergone change in its constitution arose tor solution. 
 The neo-ative determination of that problem, so tar as a 
 °few thousand years are concerned, was neces- 
 poni -mot Barily followed by a recognition of the anta- 
 ETand monism of animals and plants, and their mutually 
 Klams ' balancing each other, the latter accomplishing 
 their duty under the influence of the sun, though he is a 
 hundred millions of miles distant. From this it appeared 
 that it is not by incessant interventions that the sum total 
 of animal life is adjusted to that of vegetable, but that, in 
 this respect, the system of government of the world is by 
 the operation of natural causes and law a conclusion the 
 more imposing since it contemplates all living things, and 
 
m ' X1 -1 *OT KJEOPEAH AGE OF REASON. 3 C9 
 
 includes even man himself. The detail of these investiga- 
 tions proved that the organic substance of planted 
 condensed from the inorganic air to which that of all 
 animals returns the particles running in ever-repeatin 
 evch-s, "-vnUhcai^nowinplanKnowinanini no^ 
 i the air again the impulse of movement being in the 
 sun, from whom has come the force incorporated in plant 
 t ssnes, and eventually disengaged in our fires, shining 
 ZJ£T^' 0PPre88mg " 1 "- • ^ surprising us in 
 
 Organic disturbances by respiration and the growth 
 
 uniformity «.t cm,,,,,,, „,„ w ,,ul,l b 0 impossible 
 were it not for the agency of the winds and the 
 ti lesion of gases, whicli it was found would a,ld miture - 
 ahe p ace under any pressure. The winds were at len.-th 
 o perly referred to the ndluenco of the sun. whose he 
 "aims the air, causing lt to ascend, while other portions 
 own, below Th, explanation of land and scarce " 
 ^as given and n, the trade-wind was found a proof of the 
 ""7""'." 1 ,h ." Al a later period flowed t o 
 
 ^l;1.''-'at.on o. soons in the alternate heat o a d 
 
 cooling of Asia and Africa on opposite sides of the line 
 ami of tornadoes, which are diskVof air rota.no. • roui 
 tianslafed axis wuh ;l diameter of one hundred o one 
 hundred land fifty miles, the axis moving in a cnrvUinear 
 track with a progressive advance of twenty or twenty five 
 jnilea an hour, and the motions being in opposite 1 rections 
 in opposito hemispheres of the globe ons 
 The equatorial calms and trade-winds accounted for on 
 ■J t 7«' 1 .l''-"c-, I ,l..s. , t W!l s a.l.„i.t.-.l that the ,vi„«ls of lu^t 
 latitudes, proverbially uncertain as they arc, depend in 
 like manner on physical causes. utpenci m 
 
 With these palpable movements there arc others of ■! 
 less obvious kind. Through the air, and In re Zn of 
 nmtions in it.sonmls arc transmitted to us 3 
 
 the Alexandrian mathematicians made sound a favourite 
 study Modern acoustics arose from the recognition that 
 
 Doay, hut that its pans are vibrating ami tfwirreiocftr. 
 gating the medium between it and the car. Not only 
 
 2 jj 
 
370 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CIL XI 
 
 "by the air-pump, but also by observations in the rare 
 atmosphere of the upper regions, it was shown that the 
 intensity of sound depends upon the density. On the top 
 of a mountain the report of a pistol is no louder than that 
 of a cracker in the valley. As to the gradual propagation 
 of sounds, it was impossible to observe fire-arms discharged 
 at a distance without noticing that the flash appears 
 longer before the report in proportion as the distance is 
 greater. The Florentine academicians attempted a deter- 
 mination of the velocity, and found it to be 1148 feet in a 
 second. More accurate and recent experiments made it 
 1089*42 feet at the freezing-point of water ; but the velo- 
 city, though independent of the density, increases with the 
 temperature at the rate of 1*14 foot for each degree. For 
 other media the rate is different ; for water, about 4687 
 feet in a second, and in cast iron about 10^ times greater 
 than in air. All sounds, irrespective of their note or 
 intensity, move at the same velocity, the medium itself 
 being motionless in the mass. No sound can pass through 
 a vacuum. The sudden aerial condensation attending the 
 propagation of a sound gives rise to a momentary evolu- 
 tion of heat, which increases the elasticity of the air, and 
 hence the velocity is higher than 916 feet in a second, 
 otherwise the theoretical rate. 
 
 Turning from soniferous media to sounding bodies, it 
 Acoustic phe- was shown that the difference between acute 
 nomena. an( i g ra ve sounds depends on the frequency of 
 vibration. The ear can not perceive a sound originating 
 in less than thirty-two vibrations in a second, nor one of 
 more than 24,000. The actual number of vibrations in a 
 given note was counted by means of revolving wheels and 
 other contrivances. I have not space to relate the in- 
 vestigation of many other acoustic facts, the reference of 
 sounds to phases of condensation, and rarefaction in the 
 elastic medium taking place in a normal direction; the 
 affections of note, intensity, quality ; the passage in curved 
 lines and around obstacles ; the production of sympathetic 
 sounds ; nodal points ; the effect of reeds ; the phenomena 
 of pipes and flutes, and other wind instruments; the 
 various vibrations of solids, as bells ; or of membranes, as 
 drums ; visible acoustic lines ; the reflexion of undulations 
 
CH- XI. | THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 371 
 
 of speaking machines ° ' ^ the collst ™ction 
 
 standard of measure, loses very much of ^ il^' 
 
 U1 aua lu °on. Its currents, in a currents, 
 general manner, are analogous to those of the air TW 
 
 the freezing-point as +hA , nil the tomd zone to 
 
 cific gravid ^^^s^s^. a r 
 
 density necessarily varies with thcv^rir i • i hnt J¥ a 
 evaporation takes place the 7™Zt W ^ su P erficial 
 
 some degree, to counteract the expa Lin of tl S ? f^if 
 
 example Stream 18 to us the most striking 
 
 The physical action of the sun-rav« ™ ■ ■ 
 currents operates through the expSion of ln§ ' 
 
 being essentially the same as C J tne . eait ^ the action 
 
g 72 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. [CH. XI. 
 
 W water in a sea of cold, as soon as it spreads out on the 
 smfeee of Sre Atlantie in higher latitudes, liberates into 
 
 3S ,1 SSLX^£r iift and its pm ' su i ts ' T km I 
 
 also otherwise be inclement, and 
 
 places LP^^tSprXess of civilization. Whatever, 
 
 Physical ana type of liquids. This knowledge was, 
 
 chemical re- as tne y * » * 1 t • Europe for many 
 
 lationsot however, altogeinei xu&u „ „f s^mnns 
 
 water - » P-es and not regained until the time of btevmus 
 
 rfTe 6 investigations originated the .invention of th, 
 
 *onM°™^f™ t ™ states followed the great 
 Sc^ery ttt S opinion of past ages respec mg , its 
 discovery ^ i s altogether erroneous. It is not a 
 
 elementary nature is »™» ingredients, oxygen 
 
 were found to coexist m o ^f a ^ a S e of their individual 
 
OH. XI-] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 373 
 
 of vapours in a vacuum showed that the determining 
 condition is heat, the weight of vapour capable of existing 
 in a given space being proportional to the temperature. 
 31 ore scientific views of the nature of maximum density 
 were obtained, and on these principles was effected the 
 essential improvement of the low-pressure steam-engine — 
 the apparent paradox of condensing the steam without 
 cooling the cylinder. 
 
 In like manner much light was cast on the meteorological 
 functions of water. It was seen that the diurnal vaporiza- 
 tion from the earth depends on the amount of cloudsand 
 heat received, the vapour rising invisibly in the their nomen- 
 air till it reaches a region where the temperature clature * 
 is sufficiently low. There condensation into vesicles of 
 perha i >s . () J 0 ( , of an inch in diameter ensues, and of myriads 
 of such globules a cloud is composed. Of clouds, notwith- 
 standing their many forms and aspects, a classification 
 was given — cirrus, cumulus, stratus, etc. It was obvious 
 why some dissolve away and disappear when they encounter 
 warmer or drier spaces, and why others descend as rain. 
 It was shown that the drops can not be pure, since they 
 come in contact with dust, soluble gases, and organic 
 ] natter in the air. Sinking into the ground, the water 
 issues forth as springs, contaminated with whatever is in 
 the soil, and finds its way, through streamlets Thereturno f 
 and rivers, back to the sea, and thus the drainage water to the 
 of countries is accomplished. Through such a sca * 
 returning path it conies to the receptacle from which it 
 set out ; the heat of the sun raised it from the ocean, the 
 attraction of the earth returns it thereto ; and, since the 
 heat-supply is invariable from } T ear to year, the quantity 
 set in motion must be the same. Collateral results of no 
 little importance attend these movements. Every drop of 
 rain falling on the earth disentegrates and disturbs portions 
 of the soil ; every stream carries solid matter into the sea. 
 It is the province of geology to estimate the enormous 
 aggregate of detritus, continents washed away and new 
 continents formed, and the face of the earth remodelled 
 and renewed. 
 
 The artificial decomposition of water constitutes an 
 epoch in chemistry. The European form of this science, 
 
374 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. XI. 
 
 in contradistinction to the Arabian, arose from the 
 Progress of doctrine of acids and alkalies, and their neutra- 
 chemistry. Hzation. This was about a.d. 1614. It was 
 perceived that the union of bodies is connected with the 
 possession of opposite qualities, and hence was introduced 
 the idea of an attraction of affinity. On this the discovery 
 of elective attraction followed. Then came the recognition 
 that this attraction is connected with opposite electrical 
 states, chemistry and electricity approaching each other. 
 A train of splendid discoveries followed; metals were 
 obtained light enough to float on water, and even appa- 
 rently to accomplish the proverbial impossibility of setting 
 it on fire. In the end it was shown that the chemical 
 force of electricity is directly proportional to its absolute 
 Attraction. quantity. Better views of the nature of chemical 
 The elements, attraction were attained, better views of the 
 intrinsic nature of bodies. The old idea of four elements 
 was discarded, as also the Saracenic doctrine of salt, 
 sulphur, and mercury. The elements were multiplied 
 until at length they numbered more than sixty. Alchemy 
 Theory of merged into chemistry through the theory of 
 phlogiston. phlogiston, which accounted for the change that 
 metals undergo when exposed to the fire on the principle 
 that something was driven off from them — a something 
 that might be restored again by the action of combustible 
 bodies. It is remarkable how adaptive this theory was. It 
 was found to include the cases of combustive operations, 
 the production of acids, the breathing of animals. It 
 maintained its ground even long after the discovery of 
 oxygen gas, of which one of the first names was dephlo- 
 gisticated air. 
 
 But a false theory always contains within itself the 
 germ of its own destruction. The weak point of this was, 
 that when a metal is burnt the product ought to be 
 lighter than the metal, whereas it proves heavier. At 
 
 length it was detected that what the metal had 
 of the balance gained the surrounding air had lost. This 
 intochemis- discovery implied that the balance had been 
 
 resorted to for the determination of weights 
 and for the decision of physical questions. The reintro- 
 duction of that instrument — for, as we have seen, it had 
 
CH. XI. J 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF EEASON. 
 
 375 
 
 ages before been employed by the Saracen philosophers, 
 who used several different forms of it — marked the epoch 
 when chemistry ceased to be exclusively a science oi 
 quality and became one of quantity. 
 
 On the ruins of the phlogistic theory arose the theory 
 of oxygen, which was sustained with singular Theoryofoxy 
 ability. Its progress was greatly facilitated gen, and the 
 by the promulgation of a new nomenclature in nomenclatuie 
 conformity to its principles, and of remarkable elegance 
 and power. In the course of time it became necessary, 
 however, to modify the theory, especially by deposing 
 oxygen from the attitude of sovereignty to which it had 
 been elevated, and assigning to it several colleagues, such 
 as chlorine, iodine, etc. The introduction of the balance 
 was also followed by important consequences in theoretical 
 chemistry, among which pre-eminently was the establish- 
 ment of the laws of combinations of bodies. 
 
 Extensive and imposing as is the structure of chemistry, 
 it is very far from its completion. It is so present state 
 surrounded by the scaffolding its builders are of chemistry, 
 using, it is so deformed with the materials of their work, 
 that its true plan can not yet be made out. In this 
 respect it is far more backward than astronomy. It has, 
 however, disposed of the idea of the destruction and 
 creation of matter. It accepts without hesitation the 
 doctrine of the imperishability of substance : T , 
 for, though the aspect of a thing may change bmtyof 
 through decompositions and recombinations, in matter - 
 which its constituent parts are concerned, every atom 
 continues to exist, and may be recovered by suitable 
 processes, though the entire thing may have seemingly 
 disappeared. A particle of water raised from the sea may 
 ascend invisibly through the air, it may float above us in 
 the cloud, it may fall in the rain-drop, sink into the earth, 
 gush forth again in the fountain, enter the rootlets of a 
 plant, rise up with the sap to the leaves, be there decom- 
 posed by the sunlight into its constituent elements, its 
 oxygen and hydrogen ; of these and other elements, acids 
 and oils, and various organic compounds may be made : 
 in these or in its undecom posed jstate it may be received in 
 the food of animals, circulate in their blood, be essentially 
 
376 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. XI. 
 
 concerned in acts of intellection executed by the brain, it 
 may be expired in the breath. Though shed in the tear 
 in moments of despair, it may give birth to the rainbow, 
 the emblem of hope. Whatever the course through which 
 it has passed, whatever mutations it has undergone, what- 
 ever the force it has submitted to, its elementary constituents 
 endure. Not only have they not been annihilated, they have 
 not even been changed ; and in a period of time, long or 
 short, they find their way as water back again to the sea 
 from which they came. 
 
 Discoveries in electricity not only made a profound 
 impression on chemistry, they have taken no insigni- 
 ficant share in modifying human opinion on other very 
 Electrical interesting subjects. In all ages the lightning 
 discoveries, been looked upon with superstitious dread. 
 
 The thunderbolt had long been feigned to be the especial 
 weapon of Divinity. A like superstitious sentiment had 
 prevailed respecting the northern lights, universally re- 
 garded in those countries in which they display themselves 
 as glimpses of the movements of the angelic hosts, the 
 banners and weapons of the armies of heaven. A great 
 blow against superstition was struck when the physical na- 
 ture of these phenomena was determined. As to the con- 
 nexion of electrical science with the progress of civilization, 
 what more needs to be said than to allude to the telegraph ? 
 
 It is an illustration of the excellence and fertility of 
 Theories of modern methods that the phenomena of the 
 electricity. attraction displayed by amber, which had been 
 known and neglected for two thousand years, in one-tenth 
 of that time led to surprising results. First it was shown 
 Electrical that there are many other bodies which will 
 phenomena. ac ^ { n \{^ G manner ; then came the invention of 
 the electrical machine, the discovery of electrical repulsion, 
 and the spark ; the differences of conductibility in bodies ; 
 the apparently two species of electricity, vitreous and 
 resinous ; the general law of attraction and repulsion ; the 
 wonderful phenomena of the Ley den phial and the electric 
 shock ; the demonstration of the identity of lightning and 
 electricity ; the means of protecting buildings and ships 
 by rods ; the velocity of electric movement — that immense 
 distances can be passed through in an inappreciable time ; 
 
CH. XI.l 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 377 
 
 the theory of one fluid and that of two ; the mathematical 
 discussion of all the phenomena, first on one and then on 
 the other of these doctrines ; the invention of the torsion 
 balance ; the determination that the attractive and repul 
 sive forces follow the law of the inverse squares ; the 
 conditions of distribution on conductors ; the elucidation 
 of the phenomena of induction. At length, when dis- 
 covery seemed to be pausing, the facts of galvanism we&* 
 announced in Italy. Up to this time it was voitaiceiec- 
 thought that the most certain sign of the death tricit y- 
 of an animal was its inability to exhibit muscular con- 
 traction : but now r it was shown that muscular move- 
 ments could be excited in those that are dead and even 
 mutilated. Then followed quickly the invention of the 
 Voltaic pile. Who could have foreseen that the twitching 
 of a frog's leg in the Italian experiments would Results of the 
 establish beyond all question the compound discovery of 
 nature of water, separating its constituents from Galvam - 
 one another? would lead to the deflagration and dissipation 
 in a vapour of metals that could hardly be melted in a 
 furnace ? would show that the solid earth we tread upon 
 is an oxide? yield new metals light enough to swim upon 
 water, and even seem to set it on fire ? produce the most 
 brilliant of all artificial lights, rivalling if not excelling, 
 in its intolerable splendour the noontide sun ? w^ould occa- 
 sion a complete revolution in chemistry, compelling that 
 science to accept new ideas, and even a new nomenclature ? 
 that it would give us the power of making magnets 
 capable of lifting more than a ton, and cast a light on 
 that riddle of ages, the pointing of the mariner's com- 
 pass north and south, explain the mutual attraction or 
 repulsion of magnetic needles ? that it would enable us 
 to form exquisitely in metal casts of all kinds of objects 
 of art, and give workmen a means of gilding and silver- 
 ing without risk to their health? that it would sug- 
 gest to the evil- disposed the forging of bank notes, the 
 sophisticating of jeweliy, and be invaluable in the 
 uttering of false coinage? that it would carry the 
 messages of commerce and friendship instantaneously 
 across continents or under oceans, and " waft a sigh from 
 Indus to the pole ?" 
 
378 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [_CH. XI. 
 
 Yet this is only a part of what the Italian experiment, 
 carried out by modern methods, has actually done. Could 
 there be a more brilliant exhibition of their power, & 
 brighter earnest of the future of material philosophy ? 
 
 As it had been with amber, so with the magnet. Its 
 Discoveries in properties had lain uninvestigated for two 
 magnetism, thousand years, except in China, where the 
 observation had been made that its qualities may be 
 imparted to steel, and that a little bar or needle so 
 prepared, if floated on the surface of water or otherwise 
 suspended, will point north and south. In that manner 
 the magnet had been applied in the navigation of ships, 
 and in journeys across trackless deserts. The first 
 European magnetical discovery was that of Columbus, 
 who observed a line of no variation west of the Azores. 
 Then followed the detection of the dip, the demonstration 
 of poles in the needle, and of the law of attraction 
 and repulsion; the magnetic voyage undertaken by the 
 English government ; the construction of general varia- 
 tion charts ; the observation of diurnal variation ; local 
 perturbations ; the influence of the Aurora, which affects 
 all the three expressions of magnetical power ; the dis- 
 turbance of the horary motion simultaneously over thou- 
 sands of miles, as from Kasan to Paris. In the meantime, 
 the theory of magnetism improved as the facts came out. 
 Its germ was the Cartesian vortices, suggested by the 
 curvilinear forms of iron filings in the vicinity of magnetic 
 poles. The subsequent mathematical discussion was con- 
 ducted upon the same principles as in the case of 
 electricity. 
 
 Then came the Danish discovery of the relations of elec- 
 Eiectro-mag- tricity and magnetism, illustrated in England 
 netism. \)j rotatory motions, and in France adorned hy 
 the electrodynamic theory, embracing the action of currents 
 and magnets, magnets and magnets, currents and currents. 
 The generation of magnetism by electricity was after a 
 Little delay followed by its converse, the production of 
 electricity by magnetism ; and thermoelectric currents, 
 arising from the unequal application or propagation of 
 heat, were rendered serviceable in producing the most 
 sensitive of all thermometers. 
 
CH. XI.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 379 
 
 The investigation of the nature and properties of light 
 rivals in interest and value that of electricity, of light and 
 What is this agent, light, which clothes the °P tics - 
 earth with verdure, making animal life possible, extending 
 man's intellectual sphere, bringing to his knowledge the 
 forms and colours of things, and giving him information 
 of the existence of countless myriads of worlds ? What is 
 this light which, in the midst of so many realities, 
 presents him with so many delusive fictions, which rests 
 the coloured bow against the cloud — the bow once said, 
 when men transferred their own motives and actions to 
 the Divinity, to be the weapon of God ? 
 
 The first ascertained optical fact was probably the 
 propagation of light in straight lines. The optical dis- 
 til eory of perspective, on which the Alexandrian coveries. 
 mathematicians voluminously wrote, implies as much - T 
 but agreeably to the early methods of philosophy, which 
 were inclined to make man the centre of all things, it was 
 supposed that rays are emitted from the eye and proceed 
 outwardly, not that they come from exterior objects and 
 pass through the organ of vision inwardly. Even the 
 great geometer Euclid treated the subject on that erroneous 
 principle, an error corrected by the Arabians. In the 
 meantime the law of reflexion had been discovered ; 
 that for refraction foiled Alhazen, and was reserved for a 
 European. Among natural optical phenomena the form 
 of the rainbow was accounted for, notwithstanding a 
 general belief in its supernatural origin. Its colours, 
 however, could not be explained until exact ideas of 
 refrangibility, dispersion, and the composition of white 
 light were attained. The reflecting telescope was in- 
 vented ; the recognized possibility of achromatism led to 
 an improvement in the refractor. A little colours and 
 previously the progressive motion of light had white light - 
 been proved, first for reflected light by the eclipses of 
 Jupiter's satellites, then for the direct light of the stars. 
 A true theory of colours originated with the formation of 
 the solar spectrum ; that beautiful experiment led to the 
 discovery of irrationality of dispersion and the fixed lines. 
 The phenomena of refraction in the case of Iceland spar 
 were examined, and the law for the ordinary and extra- 
 
380 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. XI. 
 
 ordinary rays given. At the same time the polarization 
 of light by double refraction was discovered. A century 
 later it was followed by polarization by reflexion and 
 single refraction, depolarization, irised rings, bright arid 
 black crosses in crystals, and unannealed or compressed 
 glass, the connexion between optical phenomena and 
 crystalline form, uniaxial crystals giving circular rings and 
 biaxial oval ones, and circular and elliptical polarization. 
 
 The beautiful colours of soap-bubbles, at first mixed up 
 with those of striated and dotted surfaces, were traced to 
 their true condition — thickness. The determination of 
 thickness of a film necessary to give a certain colour was the 
 first instance of exceedingly minute measures beautifully 
 executed. These soon became connected with fringes in 
 shadows, and led to ascertaining the length of waves of 
 light. 
 
 Meantime more correct ideas respecting vision were 
 Vision- the obtained. Alhazen's explanation of the use of 
 functions of the retina and lens was adopted. This had 
 the eye. been the first truly scientific investigation in 
 physiology. The action of the e}<e was reduced to that of 
 the camera-obscura described by Da Vinci, and the old 
 notion of rays issuing therefrom finally abandoned. It 
 had held its ground through the deceptive illustration of 
 the magic-lantern. Of this instrument the name indi- 
 cates the popular opinion of its nature. In the stories 
 of necromancers and magicians of the time are to bo 
 found traces of applications to which it was insidiously de- 
 voted — the raising of the dead, spectres skipping along 
 the ground or dancing on the walls and chimneys, 
 pendulous images, apparitions in volumes of smoke. 
 Optical in- These early instruments were the forerunners 
 struments. 0 f m any beautiful inventions of later times — 
 the kaleidoscope, producing its forms of marvellous sym- 
 metry : the stereoscope, aided by photography, offering the 
 very embodiment of external scenery ; the achromatic and 
 reflecting telescope, to which physical astronomy is so 
 greatly indebted ; and the achromatic microscope, now 
 working a revolution in anatomy and physiology. 
 
 In its theory optics has presented a striking contrast to 
 acoustics. Almost from the very beginning it was recog- 
 
CH. XI.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 381 
 
 nized that sound is not a material substance emitted 
 from the sounding body, but only undulations Theunduia- 
 occurring in the air. For long, optics failed tory theory, 
 to reach an analogous conclusion. The advancement of 
 the former science has been from the general principle 
 down to the details, that of the latter from the details up 
 to the general principle. 
 
 That light consists of undulations in an elastic medium 
 was first inferred in 1664. Soon after, reflexion, refraction, 
 and double refraction were accounted for on that principle. 
 The slow progress of this theory was doubtless owing ta 
 Newton's supremacy. He gave a demonstration in the se- 
 cond book of the " Principia "(Prop. 42) that wave motions 
 must diverge into the unmoved spaces, and carried popular 
 comprehension with him by such illustrations as that we 
 hear sounds though a mountain interpose. It was thought 
 that the undulatory theory was disposed of by the impos- 
 sibility of seeing through a crooked pipe, though we can 
 hear through it ; or that we cannot look round a corner, 
 though we can listen round one. 
 
 The present century finally established it through the 
 discovery of interference, the destruction of the emission 
 theory being inevitable when it was shown that light, 
 interfering under certain circumstances with light, may 
 produce darkness, as sound added to sound may produce 
 silence — results arising from the action of undulating 
 motion. The difficulties presented by polarization were 
 not only removed, but that class of phenomena was 
 actually made a strong support of the theory. The 
 discovery that two pencils of oppositely polarized light 
 would not interfere, led at once to the theory of transverse 
 vibrations. Great mathematical ability was now required 
 for the treatment of the subject, and the special considera- 
 tion of many optical problems from this new point of 
 view, as, for example, determining the result of transverse 
 vibrations coming into a medium of different density in 
 different directions. As the theory of universal gravita- 
 tion had formerly done, so now the undulatory theory 
 began to display its power as a physical truth, enabling 
 geometers to foresee results, and to precede the experi- 
 menter in conclusions. Among earlier results of the kind 
 
882 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. XI. 
 
 was the prediction that "both the rays in the biaxial 
 crystal topaz are extraordinary, and that circular polariza- 
 tion may be produced by reflexion in a rhomb of glass. 
 The phenomena of depolarization offered no special diffi- 
 culty ; and many new facts, as those of elliptic polariza- 
 tion and conical refraction, have since illustrated the power 
 of the theory. 
 
 Light, then, is the result of ethereal undulations im- 
 The ether and Paging on the eye. There exists throughout 
 its move- the universe and among the particles of all 
 bodies an elastic medium, ether. By reason of 
 the repulsion of its own parts it is uniformly diffused in 
 a vacuum. In the interior of refracting media it exists in 
 a state of less elasticity compared with its density than in 
 vacuo. Vibrations communicated to it in free space are 
 propagated through such media by the ether in their 
 interior. The parts of shining bodies vibrate as those of 
 sounding ones, communicating their movement to the 
 ether, and giving rise to waves in it. They produce in us 
 the sensation of light. The slower the vibration, the longer 
 the wave ; the more frequent, the shorter. On wave-length 
 colour depends. In all cases the vibrations are transverse. 
 The undulatory movement passes onward at the rate of 
 192,000 miles in a second. The mean length of a wave of 
 light is 0.0000219 of an inch; an extreme red wave is 
 about twice as long as an extreme violet one. The yellow 
 is intermediate. The vibrations which thus occasion light 
 are, at a mean, 555 in the billionth of a second. As with 
 the air, which is motionless when a sound passes through 
 it, the ether is motionless, though traversed by waves of 
 light. That which moves forward is no material substance, 
 but only a form, as the waves seen running along a shaken 
 cord, or the circles that rise and fall, and spread outwardly 
 when a stone is thrown into water. The wave-like form 
 passes onward to the outlying spaces, but the water does 
 not rush forward. And as we may have on the surface of 
 that liquid waves the height of which is insignificant, or 
 those which, as sailors say, are mountains high in storms 
 at sea, their amplitude thus differing, so in the midst of 
 the ether difference of amplitude is manifested to us by 
 difference in the intensity or brilliancy of light. 
 
€H. XI. J 
 
 THE EUKOrEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 383 
 
 The hunian eye, exquisitely constructed as it is, is never- 
 theless an imperfect mechanism, being limited Tbe human 
 in its action. It can only perceive waves of eye; itscapa- 
 a definite length, as its fellow organ, the ear, bllltles - 
 can only distinguish a limited range of sounds. It can 
 only take note of vibrations that are transverse, as the ear 
 can only take note of those that are normal. In optics 
 there are two distinct orders of facts ; the actual relations 
 of light itself, and the physiological relations of our organ 
 of vision, with all its limitations and imperfections. Light 
 is altogether the creation of tbe mind. The ether is one 
 thing, light is another, just as the air is one thing and 
 sound another. The ether is not composed of the colours 
 of light any more than the atmospheric air consists of 
 musical notes. 
 
 To the chemical agency of light much attention has in 
 recent times been devoted. Already in photo- chemical in- 
 graphy, it has furnished us an art which, though fluences of 
 yet in its infancy, presents exquisite representa- llght * 
 tions of scenery, past events, the countenances of our 
 friends. In an almost magical way it evokes invisible 
 impressions, and gives duration to fleeting shadows. More- 
 over, these chemical influences of light give birth to the 
 whole vegetable world, with all its varied charms of 
 colour, form, and property, and, as we have seen in the 
 last chapter, on them animal life itself depends. 
 
 The conclusions arrived at in optics necessarily entered 
 as fundamental ideas in thermotics, or the science 0f heat . re _ 
 of beat; fur radiant heat moves also in straight flexion;'re- 
 lines, undergoes reflexion, refraction, double fractlon - 
 refraction, polarization, and hence the theory of transverse 
 vibrations applies to it. Heat is invisible light, as light 
 is visible heat. Correct notions of radiation originated 
 with the Florentine academicians, who used concave 
 mirrors ; and, in the cold-ray experiment, masses of ice of 
 five hundred pounds weight. The refraction of invisible 
 heat was ascertained in consequence of the invention of 
 the thermoelectric pile. Its polarization and depolarization 
 soon followed. Already had been demonstrated the in- 
 fluence of the physical state of radiant surfaces, and that 
 the heat comes also from a little depth beneath them. 
 
384: 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. XI. 
 
 The felicitous doctrine of exchanges of heat imparted 
 Exchanges of true ideas of the nature of calorific equilibrium 
 heat - and the heating and cooling of bodies, and of- 
 
 fered an explanation of many phenomena, as, for instance, 
 the formation of dew. This deposit of moisture occurs 
 The dew, na- after sunset, the more copiously the clearer the 
 tureof. sky; it never appears on a cloudy night; it 
 neither ascends from the ground like an exhalation, nor 
 descends Kke a rain. It shows preferences in its manner 
 of settling, being found on some objects before it is on 
 others. All these singular peculiarities were satisfactorily 
 explained, and another of the mysteries, the unaccountable 
 wonders of the Middle Ages, brought into the attitude of 
 a simple physical fact. 
 
 It is impossible, in a limited space, to relate satisfactorily 
 incandes- what has been clone respecting ignition, the pro- 
 cence. duction of light by incandescence, the accurate 
 
 measurement of the conductivity of bodies, the determina- 
 tion of the expansions of solids, liquids, gases, under increas- 
 ing temperature, the variations of the same substance at 
 different degrees, the heat of fluidity and elasticity, and 
 Physical m- specific heat, or to do justice to the great im- 
 struments. provements made in all kinds of instruments — 
 balances, thermometers, contrivances for linear and angular 
 measures, telescopes, microscopes, spectroscopes, chrono- 
 meters, aerostats, telegraphs, and machinery generally. 
 Effect of me- ^ ne tendency in every direction has been to 
 chanicaim- practical applications. More accurate knowledge 
 implies increasing power, greater wealth, higher 
 virtue. The morality of man is enhanced by the improve- 
 ment of his intellect and by personal independence. Our age 
 has become rational, industrial, progressive. In its great 
 physical inventions Europe may securely trust. There is 
 nothing more to fear from Arabian invasions or Tartar 
 irruptions. The hordes of Asia could be swept away like 
 chaff before the wind. Let him who would form a correct 
 opinion of the position of man in the present and preceding 
 phases of his progress reflect on the losses of Christendom in 
 Asia and Africa, in spite of all the machinery of an Age oi 
 Faith, and the present security of Europe from every 
 barbarian or foreign attack. 
 
CH. M.J THE EUEOl'EA N AGE OF REASON. 385 
 
 fttr? w ^J3££S3£ great was 
 
 hv filial-, ™11 „+ l ? m01eovel accompanied t0D manulac 
 
 bj such collateral events as actually overturned ture - 
 the social condition throughout * 
 
 and officers to whom that , lZ ? i? *? tlle P lace men 
 annals, whose d^ej^^^ rfWf^ 
 
 ope^tt - gWyatt, who introduced the 
 
 Arkwright; by the ?otatini V rmc ¥ 6 Perfected by 
 
 by Paul; by the iennv of g^S^e, first devised 
 water-framef tie mule invent w P Ha ^™s; the 
 was the cotton ^ttZ^^Tt^ *° ***** 
 mand an entire change in the life ofopSati^t D — t 
 
 Uc e em U ent°of V^T* = « S» 
 
 engine was introduced in+r ffw ^ 7 7 ?f S after tllat this 
 as is sometimes J"* 0 ™*, and hence it was not. 
 increase. iH^J^* 1 ^"^ f**. ^erfui 
 coincident with the invention of the ? r ° tlme l . nea % 
 
386 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [CH. XI. 
 
 If the production of textile fabrics received such advan- 
 tages from mechanics, equally was it favoured by chemistry 
 Bleaching by in the discovery of bleaching by chlorine. To 
 chlorine. bleach a piece of cotton by the action of the 
 air and the sun required from six to eight months, and 
 a large surface of land must be used as a bleach-field. 
 The value of land in the vicinity of great towns presented 
 an insuperable obstacle to such uses. By chlorine the 
 operation could be completed in the course of a few 
 hours, and in a comparatively small building, the fibre 
 being beautifully and permanently whitened. Nor were 
 Calico-print- * ne cnem ical improvements restricted to this, 
 ing by cy- Calico-printing, an art practised many thousand 
 years ago among the Egyptians, was perfected 
 by the operation of printing from cylinders. 
 
 It deserves to be remarked that the cotton manufacture 
 was first introduced into Europe by the Arabs. Abder- 
 rahman III., a.d. 930, caused it to be commenced in 
 Spain ; he also had extensive manufactures of silk and 
 leather, and interested himself much in the culture of the 
 sugar-cane, rice, the mulberry. One of the most valuable 
 Spanish applications of cotton was in the invention of 
 cotton paper. The Arabs were also the authors of the 
 printing of calicoes by wooden blocks, a great improvement 
 on the old Indian operation of painting by hand. 
 
 We may excuse the enthusiastic literature of the cotton 
 Extent of the manufacture its boasting, for men had accom- 
 cottonmanu- plished works that were nearly God-like. Mr. 
 facture. Baines, writing in 1833, states that the length 
 of yarn spun in one year was nearly five thousand millions 
 Of miles, sufficient to pass round the earth's circumference 
 more than two hundred thousand times — sufficient to reach 
 fifty-one times from the earth to the sun. It would 
 encircle the earth's orbit eight and a half times. The 
 wrought fabrics of cotton exported in one year would form 
 a girdle for the globe passing eleven times round the 
 equator, more than sufficient to form a continuous sheet 
 from the earth to the moon. And, if this was the case 
 thirty years ago, by what illustrations would it be possible 
 to depict it now (1859), when the quantity of cottoi 
 imported by England alone is more than twelve hundred 
 millions of pounds? 
 
CH. XI.] THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 387 
 
 But such a vast development in that particular manu- 
 facture necessarily implied other improvements r 
 especially in locomotion and the transmission Ss°!n 
 ot intelligence. The pedlar's pack, the pack- io ™ moti ™- 
 horse, and the cart became altogether inadequate, and in 
 succession, were replaced by the canal system of the last 
 century, and by the steam-boats and railroads of this 
 I he engineering triumphs of Brindley, whose Brindiert 
 canals were carried across valleys, over or through 
 mountains, above rivers, excited unbounded admiration in 
 Ins own times, and yet they were only the precursors of the 
 railway engineering of ours. As it was, the canal system 
 proved to be inadequate to the want, and oaken railways 
 which had long been used in quarries and coal-pits, with 
 the locomotive invented by Murdoch in 1784, were destined 
 to supplant them. It does not fall within my present 
 purpose to relate how the locomotion of the whole civilized 
 world was revolutionized, not by the act of Stephens 
 some mighty sovereign or soldier, but by George locomotives. 
 Stephenson, once a steam-engine stoker, who, by the 
 invention of the tubular boiler and the ingenious device 
 ot blowing the chimney instead of the fire, converted the 
 locomotive of the last century, which, at its utmost speed, ■ 
 could only travel seven miles an hour, into the locomotive 
 ot this, which can accomplish seventy. I need not dwell 
 on the collateral improvements, the introduc- Theraiiwav 
 tion of iron for rails, metallic bridges, tubular system, 
 bridges, viaducts, and all the prodigies of the existing 
 system ot railway engineering. 
 
 It is not only on account of the gigantic nature of the 
 work it has to execute that the machinery employed in 
 the great manufactures, such as those of cotton 
 and iron, is so worthy of our admiration ; im- ^P r0Teme >* 
 provements as respects the correctness, and 'even BtructioTof 
 the elegance of its own construction, attract our machiner y- 
 attention. It has been truly said of steam-engines that 
 they were never properly made until they made themselves 
 In any machine, the excellence of its performance depends 
 on the accuracy of its construction. Its parts must be 
 made perfectly true, and, to work smoothly, must work 
 without error. To accomplish such conditions taxed to 
 
 2 c 2 
 
388 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF HE A SON". 
 
 [CH. XI. 
 
 its utmost the mechanical ingenuity of the last century; 
 and, indeed, it was not possible to reach perfect success so 
 long as the hand alone was resorted to. Work executed 
 by the most skilful mechanic could be no more than 
 approximately correct. Not until such machines as the 
 sliding rest and planing engine were introduced could 
 any approach to perfection be made. Improvements of 
 this nature reacted at once on the primary construction of 
 machinery, making it more powerful, more accurate, more 
 durable, and also led to the introduction of greater elegance 
 in its planning or conception, as any one may see who 
 will compare the clumsy half wooden, half metal machinery 
 of the last century with the light and tasteful constructions 
 of this. 
 
 While thus the inventive class of men were gratifying 
 their mental activity, and following that pursuit which 
 has ever engrossed the energetic in all ages of the world — 
 the pursuit of riches ; for it was quickly perceived that 
 social changes sllccess i n tliis direction was the high road to 
 effected by wealth, public consideration, and honour — the 
 machinery. realization of riches greater than the wildest 
 expectations of the alchemists ; there were silently and in 
 an unobserved manner great social and national results 
 arising. The operative was correct enough in his con- 
 clusion that machinery was throwing him out of work, 
 and reflecting persons were right enough in their belief 
 that this extensive introduction of machines was in some 
 way accomplishing a disorganization of the social economy. 
 Doubtless, for the time being, the distress and misery 
 were very severe ; men were compelled to starve or to 
 turn to new avocations; families were deprived of their 
 long-accustomed means of support ; such must necessarily 
 be the incidents of every great social change, even though 
 it be a change of improvement. Nor was it until the 
 new condition of things had passed through a considerable 
 advance that its political tendency began to be plainly 
 discerned. It was relieving the labourer from the burden 
 of his toil, supplanting manual by mechanical action. In 
 Life in the the cotton-mill, which may be looked upon as 
 milL the embodiment of the new system and its 
 
 tendencies, the steam-engine down below was doing the 
 
CH. XI.] THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 389 
 
 drudgery, turning the wheels and executing the labour, 
 while the operatives above — men, women, and children — 
 were engaged in those things which the engine could not 
 accomplish — things requiring observation and intelligent 
 action. Under such a state it was not possible but that a 
 social change should ensue, for relief from corporeal labour 
 is always followed by a disposition for mental activity; 
 and it was not without a certain degree of plausibility 
 that the philanthropist, whose attention was directed to 
 this subject, asserted that the lot of the labouring man 
 was no better than it had been before : he had changed 
 the tyrant, but had not got rid of the tyranny; for the 
 demands of the insatiate, inexorable, untiring steam-engine 
 must be without delay satisfied ; the broken thread must 
 be instantly pieced ; the iron fingers must receive their 
 new supply ; the finished work must be forthwith taken 
 away. 
 
 What was thus going on in the mill was a miniature 
 picture of what was going on in the state, intellectual 
 Labour was comparatively diminishing, mental ^in- 
 activity increasing. Throughout the last century the 
 intellectual advance is most significantly marked, and 
 surprising is the contrast between the beginning and the 
 close. Ideas that once had a living force altogether died 
 away, the whole community offering an exemplification of 
 the fact that the more opportunity men have for reflection 
 the more they will think. Well, then, might those whose 
 interests lay in the perpetuation of former ideas and the 
 ancient order of things look with intolerable apprehension 
 on what was taking place. They saw plainly that this 
 intellectual activity would at last find a political expres- 
 sion, and that a power, daily increasing in intensity, 
 would not fail to make itself felt in the end. 
 
 In such things are manifested the essential differences 
 between the Age of Faith and the Age of Difference be _ 
 Reason. In the former, if life was enjoyed in tween past and 
 calmness it was enjoyed in stagnation, in un- preseDt agei " 
 productiveness, and in a worthless way. 3ut how dif- 
 ferent in the latter ! Every thing is in movement. So 
 many are the changes we witness, even in the course of 
 a very brief period, that no one, though of the largest 
 
390 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 [_CH. XX. 
 
 intellect, or in the most favourable position, can predict 
 the future of only a few years hence. We see that ideas 
 which yesterday served us as a guide die to-day, and will 
 "be replaced by others, we know not what, to-morrow. 
 
 In this scientific advancement, among the triumphs of 
 Scientific which we are living, all the nations of Europe 
 contributions have been engaged. Some, with a venial pride, 
 naUons° US claim for themselves the glory of having taken 
 the lead. But perhaps each of them, if it might 
 designate the country — alas ! not yet a nation — that 
 should occupy the succeeding post of honour, would in- 
 scribe Italy on its ballot. It was in Italy that Columbus 
 was born ; in Venice, destined one day to be restored to 
 especially of Italy, newspapers were first issued. It was in 
 Ital F- Italy that the laws of the descent of bodies to 
 
 the earth and of the equilibrium of fluids were first 
 determined by Galileo. In the Cathedral of Pisa that 
 illustrious philosopher watched the swinging of the 
 chandelier, and, observing that its vibrations, large and 
 small, were made in equal times, left the house of God, his 
 prayers unsaid, but the pendulum clock invented. To the 
 Venetian senators he first showed the satellites of Jupiter, 
 the crescent form of Venus, and, in the garden of Cardinal 
 Bandini, the spots upon the sun. It was in Italy that 
 Sanctorio invented the thermometer ; that Torricelli con- 
 structed the barometer and demonstrated the pressure of 
 the air. It was there that Castelli laid the foundation of 
 hydraulics and discovered the laws of the flowing of water. 
 There, too, the first Christian astronomical observatory 
 was established, and there Stancari counted the number 
 of vibrations of a string emitting musical notes. There 
 Grimaldi discovered the diffraction of light, and the 
 Florentine academicians showed that dark heat may be 
 reflected by mirrors across space. In our own times 
 Melloni furnished the means of proving that it may be 
 polarized. The first philosophical societies were the Italian ; 
 the first botanical garden was established at Pisa ; the 
 first classification of plants given by Caesalpinus. The 
 first geological museum was founded at Verona ; the first 
 who cultivated the study of fossil remains were Leonardo 
 da Vinci and Fracasta. The great chemical discoveries 
 
CH. XI.] 
 
 THE EUROPEAN AGE OF REASON. 
 
 391 
 
 of this century were made by instruments which bear the 
 names of Galvani and Yolta. Why need I speak of 
 science alone? Who will dispute with that illustrious 
 people the palm of music and painting, of statuary and 
 architecture ? The dark cloud which for a thousand years 
 has hung over that beautiful peninsula is fringed with 
 irradiations of light. There is not a department of 
 human knowledge from which Italy has not extracted 
 glory, no art that she has not adorned. 
 
 Notwithstanding the adverse circumstances in which 
 she has been placed, Italy has thus taken no causes of her 
 insignificant part in the advancement of science, depression. 
 I may at the close of a work of which so large a portion 
 has been devoted to the relation of her influences, political 
 and religious, on the rest of Europe, be perhaps excused 
 the expression of a hope that the day is approaching in 
 which she will, with Eome as her capital, take that place 
 in the modern system to which she is entitled. The 
 course of centuries has proved that her ecclesiastical 
 relation with foreign countries is incompatible with her 
 national life. It is that, and that alone, which has been 
 the cause of all her ills. She has asserted a jurisdiction in 
 every other government ; the price she has paid is her 
 own unity. The first, the all-important step in her 
 restitution is the reduction of the papacy to a purely 
 religious element. Her great bishop must no longer be an 
 earthly prince. Eome, in her outcry for the preservation 
 of her temporal possessions, forgets that Christian Europe 
 has made a far greater sacrifice. It has yielded Bethlehem, 
 Gethsemane, Calvary, the Sepulchre, the Mount of the 
 Ascension. That is a sacrifice to which the surrender of 
 the fictitious donations of barbarian kings is not to be 
 compared. 
 
 The foregoing paragraphs were written in 1859. Since 
 that time Italy has become a nation, Eome is its capital, 
 Venice belongs to it. In 1870-71 I was an eye-witness of 
 the presence of Italian troops in the Eternal City. 
 
( 392 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 CONCLUSION. — THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 Summary of the Argument 'presented in this Booh respecting the mental 
 
 Progress of Europe. 
 Intellectual Development is the Object of Individual Life. — It is also the 
 
 Result of social Progress. 
 Nations arriving at Maturity instinctively attempt their own intellectual 
 
 Organization. — Example of the Manner in which this has been done 
 
 in China. — Its Imperfection - - What it has accomplished. 
 The Organization of public Intellect is the End to which European 
 
 Civilization is tending. 
 
 A philosophical principle becomes valuable if it can be 
 used as a guide in the practical purposes of life. 
 
 The object of this book is to impress upon its reader a 
 General sum- conviction that civilization does not proceed in 
 mary of the an arbitrary manner or by chance, but that it 
 passes through a determinate succession of stages, 
 and is a development according to law. 
 
 For this purpose, we considered the relations between 
 individual and social life, and showed that they 
 andsociauife are physiologically inseparable, and that the 
 consider^- course of communities bears an unmistakable 
 ' resemblance to the progress of an individual, 
 and that man is the archetype or exemplar of society. 
 
 We then examined the intellectual history of Greece — 
 in the intei- a na "tion offering the best and most complete 
 lectuai history illustration of the life of humanity. From the 
 of Greece: beginnings of its mythology in old Indian 
 legends and of * its philosophy in Ionia, we saw that it 
 passed through phases like those of the individual to its 
 decrepitude and death in Alexandria. 
 
GH. XII.] 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 393 
 
 Then, addressing ourselves to the history of Europe, we 
 found that, if suitably divided into groups of andthe 
 ages, these groups, compared with each other history of 
 in chronological succession, present a striking mope - 
 resemblance to the successive phases of Greek life, and 
 therefore to that which Greek life resembles — that is to 
 bay, individual life. 
 
 For the sake of convenience in these descriptions we 
 have assumed arbitrary epochs, answering to the periods 
 from infancy to maturity. History justifies the assump- 
 tion of such periods. There is a well-marked difference 
 between the aspect of Europe during its savage The contrasts 
 and mythologic ages; its changing, and grow- its ages dis- 
 ing, and doubting condition during the Eoman play ' 
 republic and the Caesars ; its submissive contentment un- 
 der the Byzantine and Italian control ; the assertion of 
 its manhood, and right of thought, and freedom of action 
 which characterize its present state — a state adorned by 
 great discoveries in science, great inventions in art, addi- 
 tions to the comforts of life, improvements in locomo- 
 tion, and the communication of intelligence. Science, 
 capital, and machinery conjoined are producing industrial 
 miracles. Colossal projects are undertaken and executed, 
 and the whole globe is literally made the theatre of 
 action of every individual. 
 
 Nations, like individuals, are born, pass through a 
 predestined growth, and die. One comes to its end at an 
 early period and in an untimely way ; another, not until 
 it has gained maturity. One is cut off by feebleness in 
 its infancy, another is destroyed by civil disease, another 
 commits political suicide, another lingers in old age. But 
 for every one there is an orderly way of progress to its 
 final term, whatever that term may be. 
 
 Now, when we look at the successive phases of individual 
 life, what is it that we find to be their chief The object of 
 characteristic ? Intellectual advancement. And development 
 we consider that maturity is reached when in- 165 intellect - 
 tellect is at its maximum. The earlier stages are pre- 
 paratory ; they are wholly subordinate to this. 
 
 If the anatomist be asked how the human form advances 
 to its highest perfection, he at once disregards all the 
 
894 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE, 
 
 j_CH. XII. 
 
 inferior organs of which it is composed, and answers that 
 it is the same ^ * s through provisions in its nervous structure 
 m individual for intellectual improvement ; that in succession 
 it passes through stages analogous to those 
 observed in other animals in the ascending scale, but in 
 the end it leaves them far behind, reaching a point to 
 which they never attain. The rise in organic develop- 
 ment measures intellectual d'gnity. 
 
 In like manner, the physiologist considering the vast 
 andintheani- series of animals now inhabiting the earth with 
 mai series, ugj ran k s them in the order of their intelligence. 
 He shows that their nervous mechanism unfolds itself 
 upon the same plan as that of man, and that, as its ad- 
 vancement in this uniform and predetermined direction 
 is greater, so is the position attained to higher. 
 
 The geologist declares that these conclusions hold good 
 and in the ^ n ^ ne history °f the earth, and that there has 
 general life of been an orderly improvement in intellectual 
 the globe. p 0W6 r of the beings that have inhabited it 
 successively. It is manifested by their nervous systems. 
 He affirms that the cycle of transformation through which 
 every man must pass is a miniature representation of the 
 progress of life on the planet The intention in both 
 cases is the same. 
 
 The sciences, therefore, join with history in affirming 
 that the great aim of nature is intellectual 
 automatism 0 / improvement. They proclaim that the succes- 
 instinct, and B { Ye stages of every individual, from its earliest 
 m e lgence. ru( ^ men ^ ^ 0 ma turity — the numberless organic 
 beings now living contemporaneously with us, and con- 
 stituting the animal series — the orderly appearance of 
 that grand succession which, in the slow lapse of time, has 
 emerged — all these three great lines of the manifestation 
 of life furnish not only evidences, but also proofs of the 
 dominion of law. In all the general principle is to 
 differentiate instinct from automatism, and then to dif- 
 ferentiate intelligence from instinct. In man himself the 
 three distinct modes of life occur in an epochal order 
 through childhood to the most perfect state. And this 
 holding good for the individual, since it is physiologically 
 impossible to separate him from the race, what holds 
 
CH. XII.] 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 395 
 
 good for the one must also hold good for the other. Hence 
 man is truly the archetype of society. His development 
 is the model of social progress. 
 
 What, then, is the conclusion inculcated by these 
 doctrines as regards the social progress of great The obj . ect of 
 communities ? It is that all political institu- social de- 
 tions — imperceptibly or visibly, spontaneously velopment 
 or purposely — should tend to the improvement and 
 organization of national intellect. 
 
 The expectation of life in a community, as in an 
 individual, increases in proportion as the artificial con- 
 dition or laws under which it is living agree with the 
 natural tendency. Existence may be maintained under 
 very adverse circumstances for a season ; but, for sta- 
 bility and duration, and prosperity, there must be a 
 corresporsdence between the artificial conditions and the 
 natural tendency. 
 
 Europe is now entering on its mature phase of life. 
 Each of its nations will attempt its own in- Appiicationof 
 tellectual organization, and will accomplish it these prmci- 
 more or less perfectly, as certainly as that bees P lesto£ur °P e - 
 build combs and fill them with honey. The excellence 
 of the result will altogether turn on the suitability and 
 perfection of the means. 
 
 There are historical illustrations which throw light 
 upon the working of these principles. Thus, Example offer- 
 centuries ago, China entered on her Age of ed by China. 
 Reason, and instinctively commenced the operation of 
 mental organization. What is it that has given to her 
 her wonderful longevity ? What is it that insures the 
 well-being, the prosperity of a population of three hundred 
 and sixty millions — more than one fourth of the human race 
 — on a surface not by any means as large as Europe ? Not 
 geographical position ; for, though the country may in 
 former ages have been safe on the East by reason of the 
 sea, it has been invaded and conquered from the West. 
 Not a docility, want of spirit, or submissiveness of the 
 people, for there have been bloody insurrections. The 
 Chinese empire extends through twenty degrees of 
 latitude ; the mean annual temperature of i ts northern pro- 
 vinces differs from that of the southern by twenty-five 
 
306 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. XII. 
 
 Fahrenheit degrees. Hence, with a wonderful variety in 
 its vegetation, there must be great differences in the types 
 of men inhabiting it. But the principle that lies at the 
 basis of its political system has confronted successfully all 
 these human varieties, and has outlived all revolutions. 
 
 The organization of the national intellect is that princi- 
 Sheimsor P* e * broad foundation is laid in universal 
 irani //d her education. It is intended that every Chinese 
 public Intel- s h a ii know how to read and write. The special 
 
 plan then adopted is that of competitive ex- 
 aminations. The way to public advancement is open 
 to all. Merit, real or supposed, is the only passport to 
 office. Its degree determines exclusively social rank. The 
 government is organized on mental qualifications. The 
 imperial constitution is imitated in those of the provinces. 
 Once in three years public examinations are held in each 
 district or county, with a view of ascertaining those who 
 are fit for office. The bachelors, or those who are success- 
 ful, are biennially sent for renewed examination in the 
 provincial capital before two examiners deputed from the 
 general board of public education. The licentiates thus 
 sifted out now offer themselves for final examination 
 before the imperial board at Pekin. Suitable candidates 
 for vacant posts are thus selected. There is no one who 
 is not liable to such an inquisition. When vacancies 
 occur they are filled from the list of approved men, who 
 are gradually elevated to the highest honours. 
 
 It is not because the talented, who, when disappointed 
 
 constitute in other countries the most dangerous 
 stobmiyfor °f a ^ classes, arc here provided for, that sta- 
 berinstitu- bility of institutions has been attained, but 
 
 tions • • 
 
 because the political system approaches to an 
 agreement with that physiological condition which guides 
 all social development. The intention is to give a do- 
 minating control to intellect. 
 
 The method through which that result is aimed at is 
 imperfection imperfect, and, consequently, an absolute coin- 
 of the method cidence between the system and the tendency is 
 she employs. aot atta i n ed, but the stability secured by their 
 approximation is very striking. The method itself is 
 the issue of political forms through which the nation for 
 
II. til, I 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 397 
 
 ages has 1 »uen passing. Their insufficiency and imperfec- 
 tions arc incorporated with and reappear in it. 
 
 To the practical eye of Europe a political system thus 
 founded on a literary basis appears to be an i te literary 
 absurdity. But we must look with respect on basfe inade- 
 anything that one-fourth of mankind have quate * 
 concluded it best to do, especially since they have con- 
 sistently adhered to their determination for several thou- 
 sand yeais. IWgett in-- 1 hal herein they satisfy an instinct 
 of humanity which every nation, it' it lives long enough, 
 must feel, Europe often asserts that it is the competitive 
 system which has brought the Chinese to their present 
 state, and made them a people without any sense of 
 
 patriotism or honour, without any faith or vigour. 
 These are the results, not of their system, but of old age. 
 There aro octogenarians among us as morose, selfish, and 
 
 conceited as China. 
 
 The want of a clear undei m anding of our relative 
 position vitiates all our dealings' with that Iu . lative 
 ancient empire. The Chinese has heard of our u-n ot'Emopc 
 discordant opinions, of our intolerance toward amlLhlIU - 
 those who dilVer in ideas from us, of our worship of 
 wealth, and the honour we pay to birth ; ho has heard 
 that we sometimes commit political power to men who 
 are so little above the animals that they can neither read 
 HOT write; that we hold military success in esteem, and 
 regard the profession of arms as the only suitable occupa- 
 tion for a gentleman. It is so long since his ancestors 
 thought and acted in that manner that he justifies 
 himself in regarding us as having scarcely yet emerged 
 from the barbarian stage. On our side, we cherish the 
 delusion that we shall, by precept or by force, convert 
 him to our modes of thought, religious or political, and 
 that wo can infuse into his stagnating veins a portion 
 of our enterprise 
 
 A trustworthy account of the present condition of China 
 would bo a valuable gift to philosophy, and also to states- 
 manship. On a former page I have remarked what China 
 (Chap. L Vol. I.) that it demands the highest lusreaiiyac- 
 DOlioyto govern populations living in great dif- coni i lllshcd - 
 
 Ehrenoes of latitude. Yet China has not only controlled 
 
398 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CH. XII. 
 
 her climatic strands of people, she has even made them, if 
 not homogeneous, yet so fitted to each other that they 
 all think and labour alike. Europe is inevitably hastening 
 to become what China is. In her we may see what we 
 shall be like when we are old. 
 
 A great community, aiming to govern itself by intellect 
 rather than by coercion, is a spectacle worthy of admira- 
 tion, even though the mode by which it endeavours to 
 accomplish its object is plainly inadequate. Brute force 
 holds communities together as an iron nail binds 
 
 Difference in p i i ji • , i 
 
 government pieces oi wood by the compression it makes — 
 iSteUi C ence d a com P ress i° n depending on the force with 
 m e lgence. ^ j iag hammered in. It also holds 
 
 more tenaciously if a little rusted with age. But intelli- 
 gence binds like a screw. The things it has to unite 
 must be carefully adjusted to its thread. It must be 
 gently turned, not driven, and so it retains the consenting 
 parts firmly together. 
 
 Notwithstanding the imperfections of a system founded 
 on such a faulty basis, that great community has accom- 
 plished what many consider to be the object of states- 
 manship. They think that it should be permanence in 
 Institutions. But permanence is only, in an apparent 
 sense, the object of good statesmanship ; progression, in 
 accordance with the natural tendency, is the real one. 
 The successive steps of such a progression follow one 
 another so imperceptibly that there is a delusive appear- 
 ance of permanence. Man is so constituted that he is 
 never aware of continuous motion. Abrupt variations 
 alone impress his attention. 
 
 Forms of government, therefore, are of moment, though 
 not in the manner commonly supposed. Their value in- 
 creases in proportion as they permit or encourage the 
 natural tendency for development to be satisfied. 
 
 While Asia has thus furnished an example of the effects 
 of a national organization of intellect, Europe, on a smaller 
 scale, has presented an illustration of the same kind. The 
 a similar ex- P a P a l system opened, in its special circumstances, 
 ample in the a way for talent. It maintained an intellectual 
 case of Italy. or g an i za ti 0 n for those who were within its pale, 
 irrespective of wealth or birth. It was no objection that 
 
CH. X11.J 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 399 
 
 the greatest churchman frequently carne from the lowest 
 walks of life. And that organization sustained it in spite 
 of the opposition of external circumstances for several cen- 
 turies after its supernatural and ostensible basis had com- 
 pletely decayed away. 
 
 Whatever may be the facts under which, in the different 
 countries of Europe, such an organization takes place, or 
 the political forms guiding it, the basis it must 
 rest upon is universal, and, if necessary, com- Europetouni- 
 pulsory education. In the more enlightened versaieduca- 
 places the movement has already nearly reached 
 that point. Already it is an accepted doctrine that the 
 state, as well as the parent, has rights in a child and that 
 it may insist on education ; conversely also, that every 
 child has a claim upon the government for good instruction. 
 After providing in the most liberal manner for that, free 
 countries have but one thing more to do for the accomplish- 
 ment of the rest. 
 
 That one thing is to secure intellectual freedom as com- 
 pletely as the rights of property and personal liberty have 
 been already secured. Philosophical opinions Necessity of 
 and scientific discoveries are entitled to be judged intellectual 
 of by their truth, not by their relation to exist- freedom - 
 ing interests. The motion of the earth round the sun, the 
 antiquity of the globe, the origin of species, are doctrines 
 which have had to force their way in the manner described 
 in this book, not against philosophical opposition, but 
 opposition of a totally different nature. And yet the in- 
 terests which resisted them so strenuously have received 
 no damage from their establishment beyond that consequent 
 on the discredit of having so resisted them. 
 
 There is no literary crime greater than that of exciting 
 a social, and especially a theological odium against ideas 
 that are purely scientific, none against which the dis- 
 approval of every educated man ought to be more strongly 
 expressed. The republic of letters owes it to its own 
 dignity to tolerate no longer offences of that kind. 
 
 To such an organization of their national intellect, and 
 to giving it a political control, the countries The future 
 of Europe are thus rapidly advancing. They course of Europe, 
 are hastening to satisfy their instinctive tendency. The 
 
400 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE. 
 
 [CK. XII. 
 
 special form in which they will embody their intentions 
 must, of course, depend to a great degree on the political 
 forms under which they have passed their lives, modified 
 by that approach to homogeneousness which arises from 
 increased intercommunication. The canal system, so won- 
 derfully developed in China, exerted no little influence in 
 that respect — an influence, however, not to he compared 
 with that which must be the result of the railway system 
 of Europe. 
 
 In an all-ini] >< >ilant particular the prospect of Europo 
 itsho ofni * s bright. China is passing through the last 
 nesscon" " stage of civil life in the cheerlessness of Buddh- 
 KatofOJiia. * sm; Europe approaches it through Christianity. 
 
 Universal benevolence cannot fail to yield a 
 better fruit than unsocial pride. There is a fairer hope 
 for nations animated by a sincere religious sentiment, 
 who, whatever their political history may have been, have 
 always agreed in this, that they were devout, than for a 
 people who dedicate themselves to a sellish pursuit of 
 material advantages, who have lost all belief in a future, 
 and are living without any God. 
 
 I have now come to the end of a work which has occupied 
 me for many years, and which I submit, with many mis- 
 givings as to its execution, to the indulgent consideration 
 of the public. These pages will not have been written in 
 vain if the facts they present impress the reader, as they 
 have impressed the author, with a conviction that the 
 civilization of Europe has not taken place fortuitously, but 
 in a definite manner, and under the control of natural law ; 
 that the procession of nations does not move forward like 
 a dream, without reason or order, but that there is a pre- 
 determined, a solemn march, in which all must join, ever 
 moving, ever resistlessly advancing, encountering and en- 
 during an inevitable succession of events; that individual 
 life and its advancement through successive stages is the 
 model of social life and its secular variations. 
 
 I have asserted the control of natural law in the shaping 
 of human affairs — a control not inconsistent with free-will 
 any more than the unavoidable passage of an individual 
 
OH. xii. J 
 
 THE FUTURE OF EUROPE, 
 
 401 
 
 as ho advances to maturity and declines in old age is in- 
 consistent with his voluntary actions; that higher law 
 limits our movements to a certain direction, and guides 
 them in a certain way. As the Stoics of old used to say, 
 an acorn may lie toi pid in the ground, unable to exert its 
 living force, until it receives warmth, and moisture, and 
 other things needful for its germination ; when it grows, 
 it may put forth ono hud here and another hud there ; the 
 wind may Lend one branch, the frost blight another; the 
 innate vitality of tho tree may struggle against adverse 
 conditions or luxuriate in those that are congenial; but, 
 whatever the circumstances may be, there is an overruling 
 power for ever constraining and modelling it. The acorn 
 can only pr< uluce an oak. 
 
 The application of this principle to human societies is 
 completely established by a scientific study of their history ; 
 and tho more extensive and profound that study, the better 
 shall wo bo ablo to distinguish the invariable law in the 
 midst of tho varying events. But that once thoroughly 
 appreciated, we have gained a philosophical guido for tho 
 interpretation of the past acts of nations, and a prophetic 
 monitor of their future, so far as prophecy is possible in 
 human atlairs. 
 
 THE END 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
( 402 ) 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Abba Oumna, a distinguished Jewish 
 
 physician, i. 401. 
 Abbot Arnold, his sanguinary order at 
 
 the capture of Beziers, ii. 62. 
 Abdallah penetrates Africa as far as 
 
 Tripoli, i. 334. 
 Abdalmalek invades Africa, i. 334. 
 Abderrahman slain at the battle of 
 
 Tours, ii. 30. 
 Abderrahman III., description of the 
 Court of, ii. 32. 
 Introduces cotton manufacture into 
 Spain, ii. 386. 
 Abderrahman Sufi improves the pho- 
 tometry of the stars, ii. 42. 
 Abdulmalek, his scrupulous integrity 
 in regard to the church of 
 Damascus, i. 338. 
 Abelard, Peter, his character and doc- 
 trines, ii. 11. 
 Abkah, his temporary success in sub- 
 jugating Africa, i. 334. 
 Aboul Wefa discovers the variation of 
 
 the moon, i. 325. 
 Abraham Ibn Sahal, obscene character 
 
 of the songs of, ii. 35. 
 Absorption of the soul of man, the 
 
 Veda doctrine of, i. 60. 
 Abu-Bekr, the successor of Mohammed 
 
 and first Khalif, i. 334. 
 Abul Cassem, a Moorish writer of 
 the tenth century, on trade and 
 commerce, ii. 44. 
 Abul Hassan, an Arab astronomer, ii. 
 42. 
 
 Abu Othman, a Moorish writer on 
 zoology, ii. 39. 
 
 Acacius Bishop of Constantinople, 
 excommunicated by Felix, the 
 Bishop of Rome, i. 352. 
 
 Academies, accusation of heresy 
 against the Italian, ii. 213. 
 Foundation of modern learned, ii. 
 287. 
 
 Academy, Old, founded by Plato, i. 169. 
 Middle, founded by Arcesilaus, i. 
 169. 
 
 New, founded by Carneades, i. 169. 
 
 Fourth, founded by Philo of 
 Larissa, i. 170. 
 
 Fifth, founded by Antiochus of As- 
 calon. i. 170. 
 Acherusian Cave, superstitiously be- 
 lieved to lead to hell, i. 36. 
 Achilles, spear of, preserved as a 
 relic, i. 51. 
 
 Puzzle, advanced by Zeno the 
 Eleatic as one of four arguments 
 against the possibility of motion, 
 i. 122. 
 
 Acoustics, discoveries in, and pheno- 
 mena of, ii. 370. 
 
 Adrian, Pope, incurs the displeasure 
 of Charlemagne in consequence 
 of selling his vassals as slaves, i. 
 373. 
 
 Adriatic Sea, North, change of depth 
 in, i. 30. 
 
 jEneas Sylvius becomes Pope Pius II., 
 
 i. 299. 
 
 His remark on the Council of Basle, 
 
 ii. 100. 
 
 On the state of faith, ii. 103. 
 On Christendom, ii. 109. 
 Aerial martyrs, account of, i. ±15. 
 iEschylus condemned to death for 
 blasphemy, but saved by his bro- 
 ther Aminias, i. 50. 
 ^sculapius, th e> father of Greek 
 I medicine, i. 393. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 403 
 
 Affinity, first employed in its modern 
 acceptation by Albertus Magnus, 
 ii. 153. 
 
 Africa, circumnavigation of, by the 
 ships of Pharaoh Necho, i. 78. 
 Conquered by the Arabs, i. 333. 
 Effects of the loss of, on Italy, i. 350. 
 Circumnavigation of, by Vasco de 
 Gama, ii. 168. 
 Age of the earth, problem of, ii. 294. 
 
 Proofs of, ii. 334. 
 Age of Faith, Greek, i. 143. 
 Its problems, i. 217. 
 European, i. 308. 
 In the East, end of, i. 326. 
 In the West, i. 349; ii. 1, 27, 77, 
 105. 
 
 lis literary condition, ii. 128. 
 Results of, in England, ii. 229. 
 Contrast of, and age of Reason, ii. 
 389. 
 
 Age of Greek decrepitude, i. 207. 
 Age of Inquiry, Greek, its solutions, 
 i. 217. 
 
 History of, European, i. 239, 265. 
 Age of Reason, Greek, its problems, i. 
 221. 
 
 Approach of, ii. 151, 190. 
 
 History of, ii. 252, 29 4 
 Age of Reason, Greek, i. 171. 
 Ages, duration of Greek, i. 222. 
 Ages of life of man, i. 14. 
 
 Of intellectual progress of Europe, 
 
 i. 19. 
 
 Algazzali's, of life of man, ii. 52. 
 Each has its own logic, ii. 192. 
 Agriculture in a rainless country, 
 ^i. 85. 
 
 Air, modern discoveries of the rela- 
 tions of, i. 102. 
 
 Aix-la-Chapelle, adorned by Charle- 
 magne, i. 373. 
 
 Aiznadin, battle of, i. 335. 
 
 Al Abbas, a Moorish writer on botany, 
 
 ii. 39. 
 
 Alanc, capture of Rome by, i. 300. 
 AJbategnius discovers the motioc of 
 
 the sun's apogee, i. 325. 
 Determines the length of Uc 
 
 j ear, ii. 41. 
 
 Al Beithar, a Moorish writer on 
 
 botany, ii. 39. 
 Albertus Magnus constructs a brazen 
 
 man, ii. 116. 
 His extensive acquirements, ii. 153. 
 Alberuni, a Moorish writer on gems, 
 
 ii. 39. 
 
 Albigensian revolt, ii. 147. 
 
 Albucasis, a skilful surgeon of Cor- 
 dova, ii. 39. 
 
 Alby, edict of Council of, against the 
 Jewish physicians, ii. 125. 
 
 Al-Cawthor, river of, mentioned in 
 the Koran, i. 346. 
 
 Alchemists, Saracenic, i. 409. 
 
 Alchemists, minor, of England, 
 France, and Germany, ii. 155. 
 
 Alchemy, theory and object of, i. 406. 
 
 Alcuin, a Benedictine monk, founded 
 the University of Paris, i. 437. 
 
 Alemanni, Christianized at the begin- 
 ning of the sixth century, i. 365. 
 
 Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople, 
 his controversy with Arius, i. 
 285. 
 
 Alexander II. excommunicates the 
 
 Bishop of Milan, ii. 17. 
 Alexander IV., Pope, he endeavours 
 to destroy the " Everlasting 
 Gospel," ii. 78. 
 Alexander of Aphrodisais, his prin- 
 ciples and tendencies, i. 259. 
 Alexander the Great, his invasion of 
 Persia, i. 171. 
 His character, i. 174. 
 Alexandria, foundation of, i. 173. 
 Political state of, i. 200. 
 Decline of the school of, i. 204. 
 Description of, i. 323. 
 Its capture, i. 334. 
 " Alexiad " of Anna Comnena, ii. 59. 
 Algazzali, his writings and doctrines, 
 ii. 50. 
 
 Alhakem, Khalif, his extensive library, 
 ii. 32. 
 
 Alhazen discovers atmospheric refrac- 
 tion, ii. 42. 
 Review of, ii. 45. 
 
 His conclusions on the extent ot 
 the atmosphere confirmed, ii. 367 
 
 2 d 2 
 
404 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ali, believed by the Shiites to be an 
 
 incarnation of God, i. 347. 
 His patronage of literature carried 
 
 out by his successors, ii. 36. 
 Alineations, employed by Hipparchus 
 
 in making a register of the stars, 
 
 i. 202. 
 
 Alliacus, Cardinal, the five memoirs 
 
 of, ii. 254. 
 Almagest, of Ptolemy, description of, 
 
 i. 203. 
 
 Translated by Averrhoes, ii. 67. 
 Almaimon, his better to the Emperor 
 Theophilus, ii. 40. 
 Determines the obliquity of the 
 
 ecliptic, ii. 41. 
 Also the size of the earth, ii. 41. 
 His accuracy confirmed by the 
 measurements of Fernel, ii. 255. 
 Almansor patronizes learned men ir- 
 respective of their religious 
 opinions, i. 336. 
 Alps, upheaval of, i 0 31. 
 Al-Sirat bridge, spoken of in the 
 
 Koran, i. 346. 
 Alwalid I., Khalif, prohibits the use 
 
 of Greek, i. 339. 
 Amadeus, elected " Pope Felix V.," n. 
 103. 
 
 Amber brought from the Baltic, i. 
 46. 
 
 Supposed by Thales to possess a 
 
 living soul, l. 97. 
 Its electrical power imputed to a 
 
 soul residing in it, i. 100. 
 Study of its phenomena has led to 
 important results, ii. 376. 
 Ambrose of Milan converts St. Augus- 
 tine, i. 304. 
 Apology for the impostures prac- 
 tised by, i. 313. 
 Ambrose Pare lays the foundation of 
 
 modern surgery, ii. 285. 
 America, persecutions practised in, ii. 
 117. 
 
 Discovery of, ii. 163. 
 Where name first occurs, ii. 163. 
 Crime of Spain in, ii. 188. 
 Antiquity of its civilization, ii, 
 189. 
 
 America, United States of, separation 
 of Church and State in, ii. 143, 
 227. 
 
 Opportune occurrence of the Revo- 
 lution, ii. 150. 
 Culmination of the Reformation in, 
 ii. 226. 
 American tragedy, ii. 166. 
 Ammon, St., wonder related of, i. 
 427. 
 
 Ammonius Saccas, reputed author of 
 the doctrines of Neo-Piatonism, 
 
 i. 211. 
 
 Amrou, the Mohammedan general, 
 takes Alexandria, i. 333. 
 
 Amulets, whence their supposed 
 power derived, i. 403. 
 
 Anabaptists, number of, put to death, 
 
 ii. 226. 
 
 Analogy of Greek and Indian Philo- 
 sophy, i. 210. 
 Analysis, higher, commencement of 
 the, i. 134. 
 Political dangers of, i. 139. 
 Anaxagoras condemned to death for 
 impiety, i. 50. 
 His doctrines, i. 108. 
 Persecution and death of, 110. 
 Anaximander of Miletus, his doctrines, 
 i. 106. 
 
 Originates cosmogony and biology, 
 i. 107. 
 
 Anaximenes of Miletus holds the doc- 
 trine that air is the first prin- 
 ciple, i. 98. 
 
 Anchorets, number of, i. 432. 
 
 Animals, Veda doctrine of use of, i. 61. 
 Are localized as well as plants, ii. 
 309. 
 
 Order of succession of, ii. 321. 
 Animals, cold and hot-blooded, ii. 
 332. 
 
 Characteristics of, ii. 339. 
 
 In lower tribes of, movements are 
 
 automatic, ii. 349. 
 Their instinctive and intellectual 
 
 apparatus, ii. 351. 
 Their nature, ii. 363. 
 Analogy between, and Man, »• 
 
 364. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 405 
 
 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 takes part in the dispute between 
 the realists and nominalists, ii. 12. 
 
 Anthony, St., a grazing hermit, i. 
 427. 
 
 Delusions of, i. 429. 
 Anthropocentric stage of thought, J. 
 36. 
 
 Ideas, prominence of, i. 64. 
 Ruin of, ii. 279. 
 Philosophy, review of, ii, 287. 
 Antimony, its uses, and origin of its 
 
 name, ii. 156. 
 Antiochus of Ascalon, founder of the 
 
 fourth Academy, i. 170. 
 Antiochus, King of Syria, cedes his 
 European possessions to Rome, i. 
 246. 
 
 Antisthenes, founder of the Cvnical 
 
 School, i. 149. 
 Antonina, wife of Belisarius, her cruel 
 
 treatment of Sylverius, i. 354. 
 Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, Emperor, 
 
 his acknowledgments to Epic- 
 
 tetus, i. 259. 
 Antonio de Dominis, outrage on the 
 
 body of, ii. 225. 
 Apennines, upheaval of, i. 31. 
 Apocalypse, comments on, ii. 78. 
 Apollonius Pergaeus, the writings of, 
 
 i. 201. 
 
 His geometry underrated by IV 
 tristicism, i. 316. 
 Apollonius of Tyana aids in the intro- 
 duction of Orientalism, i. 210. 
 Wonders related of, ii. 115. 
 Aquinas, Thomas, a Dominican, the 
 rival of Duns Scotus, ii. 14. 
 Sojourns with Albertus Magnus, ii. 
 116. 
 
 Arabian influence, importance of, 
 i. 383. 
 Sorcery, i. 390. 
 School system, ii. 36. 
 Practical science, ii. 38. 
 Medicine and surgery, ii. 39 
 Astronomy, ii. 41. 
 Practical art, ii. 43. 
 Commerce, ii. 43. 
 Numerals, ii. 49 
 
 Arabs cultivate learning, i. 335. 
 
 Rapidity of their intellectual de- 
 velopment, i. 336. 
 
 Invade Spain, ii. 28. 
 Arabs, civilization and refinement of 
 Spanish, ii. 30. 
 
 Introduce the manufacture of cot- 
 ton into Europe, ii. 386. 
 
 Invent cotton paper, and the print- 
 ing of calico by wooden blocks, 
 ii. 386. 
 
 Aiantius, a distinguished anatomist, 
 ii. 284. 
 
 Arcesilaus, founder of the Middle 
 Academy, i. 169. 
 
 Archimedes, the writings of, i. 194. 
 His mechanical inventions held in 
 contempt by Patristicism, i. 316. 
 
 Arctinus, his poems held in venera- 
 tion, i. 51. 
 
 Arddha Chiddi, the founder of Buddh- 
 ism, life of, i. 66. 
 
 Argonautlc voyage, object of, i. 41. 
 Its real n-iture, i. 45. 
 
 Arimintum, Council of, i. 289. 
 
 Aristarchus attempts to ascertain the 
 sun's distance, i. 199. 
 
 Aristippus, the founder of the 
 Cyrenaic School, i. 149. 
 
 Aristotle keeps a druggist's shop in 
 Athens, i. 129, 397. 
 Biography of, i. 176. 
 His works translated into Arabic, 
 i. 402. 
 
 Aristotelism compared with Platonism 
 i. 177. 
 
 Arithmetic, Indian, ii. 40. 
 Anus, his heresy, i. 285. 
 His death, i. 288. 
 
 Political results of his heresy, i. 
 326. 
 
 Arnold of Brescia, murder of, ji. 25. 
 Arnold de Villa Nova, biographical 
 
 sketch of, ii. 130. 
 Art, Black, i. 404. 
 Artesian Wells, ii. 301. 
 Articulata, anatomy of, ii. 350. 
 Asclepions, effect of the destruction 
 
 of, i. 387. 
 Nature and organization of, i. 393 
 
406 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Asellius discovers the lacteals, ii. 
 285. 
 
 Asoka, King, patronizes Buddhism, i. 
 67. 
 
 Aspasia, history of, significant, i. 132. 
 Astrolabe, known to the Saracens, ii. 
 42. 
 
 Astronomical refraction, understood 
 
 by Alhazen, ii. 46. 
 Astronomy, primitive, i. 39. 
 
 Passes beyond the fetich stage, i. 
 
 100. 
 
 Of Eratosthenes, i. 199. 
 
 How she takes her revenge on the 
 
 Church, i. 360. 
 The intellectual impulse makes its 
 
 attack through, ii. 133. 
 Astronomy affords illustration of the 
 
 magnitude and age of the world, 
 
 ii. 278. 
 
 Athanasius rebels against the Emperor 
 Constantine, i. 289. 
 First introduces monasticism into 
 Italy, i. 433. 
 Athene, statues of, i. 51. 
 Athens, her progress in art, i. 132. 
 Athens, her philosophy, i. 133. 
 
 Her fall, ii. 109. 
 Atlantic, first voyage across, ii. 162. 
 Atmosphere, height of, determined 
 by Alhazen, ii. 47. 
 Effects of light on, ii. 320. 
 The phenomena and properties of, 
 ii. 367. 
 
 Atomic theory, suggested by Demo- 
 
 critus, i. 125. 
 Attalus, King of Pergamus, effect of 
 
 his bequests to Rome, i. 247. 
 Attila, King of the Huns, "the 
 
 scourge of God," invades Africa, 
 
 i. 350. 
 
 Augsburg, Diet of, ii. 211. 
 Augustine, St., causes Pelagius to be 
 expelled from Africa, i. 294. 
 Writes the " City of God," i. 301. 
 Character of that work, i. 304. 
 Denies the possibility of the Anti- 
 podes, i. 315. 
 His notion of the Virgin, i. 361. 
 On spontaneous generation, ii. 329. 
 
 Auricular confession, introduction ol 
 ii. 65. 
 
 "Ausculta Fili," Papal bull of, ii. 83. 
 Australian, how affected by physical 
 
 circumstances, i. 26. 
 Avenzoar, a Moorish writer on phai» 
 
 macy, ii. 39. 
 Averrhoes, of Cordova, the chief com* 
 mentator on Aristotle, ii. 39. 
 His theory of the soul, ii. 193. 
 Confounded force with the psychica 
 
 principle, ii. 343. 
 His erroneous view of man, ii. 357. 
 Avicenna, the geological views of, i. 
 411. 
 
 A physician and philosopher, ii. 39. 
 Avignon, Papacy removed to, ii. 86. 
 
 Voluptuousness of, ii. 95. 
 
 Papacy leaves, ii. 96. 
 Azof, Sea of, dependency of the Medi- 
 terranean, i. 28. 
 
 Babylonian, extent of astronomical 
 
 observations, i. 192. 
 Bacon, Lord, nature of his philosophy, 
 
 ii. 258. 
 
 Bacon, Roger, titles of his works, ii. 
 120. 
 
 Is the friend of the Pope, ii. 132. 
 His history and his discoveries, ii. 
 153. 
 
 Baconian philosophy, its principles un* 
 derstood and carried into practice 
 eighteen hundred years beftra 
 Bacon was born, ii. 175. 
 
 Bactrian empire, European ideas tran> 
 mitted through, i. 45. 
 
 Badbee, John, the second English mar- 
 tyr, denies transubstantiation, ii. 
 99. 
 
 Bagdad, Khali fs of, patronize learning, 
 i. 335. 
 
 Its university founded by the Khalif 
 
 Al Raschid, i. 402. 
 Baghavat Gita, i. 65. 
 Baines on the extent of the cotton 
 
 manufacture, ii. 386. 
 Bajazet, defeats Sigismund, King of 
 
 Hungary, at the battle of Nieo- 
 
 polis, ii. 106. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 407 
 
 u Balance of Wisdom," probably writ- 
 ten by Alhazen, ii. 47. 
 
 Balboa discovers the Great South Sea, 
 ii. 174. 
 
 Ball, John, his preaching an index of 
 the state of the times, ii. 148. 
 
 Balthazar Cossa, Pope John XXIII., 
 ii. 98. 
 
 Barbarians, Northern, their influence 
 on civilization in Italy, i. 416. 
 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, surrenders Ar- 
 nold of Brescia to the Church, ii. 
 25. 
 
 Barsumas assists in the murder of the 
 Bishop of Constantinople, i. 297. 
 
 Basil Valentine introduces antimony, 
 ii. 156. 
 
 Basil, St., Bishop of Csesarea, founder 
 of the Basilean order of monks, 
 i. 436. 
 
 Basle, Council of, ii. 102. 
 
 Bavarians, Christianized, i. 365. 
 
 " Beatific Vision," questioned by John 
 XXIL, ii. 94. 
 
 Beccher introduced the phlogistic the- 
 ory, ii. 286. 
 
 Bechil, the discoverer of phosphorus, 
 
 i. 410. 
 
 Belgrade, taken by Soliman the Mag- 
 nificent, ii. 109. 
 
 Belisarius reconquers Africa, i. 327. 
 Captures Rome, i. 350. 
 
 Benedetto Gaetani, Cardinal, his parti- 
 cipation in causing the abdication 
 of Peter Morrone, Celestine V., 
 
 ii. 80. 
 
 Benedict, St., miracles related of, i. 
 435. 
 
 Benedictines, their numbers, i. 436. 
 Ben Ezra, his numerous acquirements, 
 ii, 123. 
 
 Berengar of Tours, opinions of, ii. 
 10. 
 
 Many of his doctrines embraced by 
 Wickliffe, ii. 98. 
 
 Berkeley, his doctrine on the exist- 
 ence of matter, i. 231. 
 
 Bernard of Clairvaux stimulates the 
 second Crusade, ii. 24. 
 
 Bernard, St., attacks Abelard, ii. 11. 
 
 Bernardini, Peter, the father of St. 
 
 Francis, ii. 64. 
 Bertha, Queen of Kent, assists in the 
 conversion of England to Christi- 
 anity, i. 366. 
 Beziers, the capture of, by Abbot Ar - 
 nold, ii. 62. 
 Council of, opposes the Jewish phy- 
 sicians, ii. 125. 
 Bible, translated into Latin by Je- 
 rome, i. 306. 
 Its superiority to the Koran, i. 343. 
 Translated into English by Wick- 
 liffe, ii. 99. 
 Its character and general circula- 
 tion, ii. 224. 
 Biology originates with Anaximander, 
 
 i. 107. 
 
 Birds, migration of, i. 6. 
 Bishops, rivalries of the three, i. 298. 
 Their fate, i. 306. 
 Accusation of House of Commons 
 
 against the English, ii. 235. 
 Their reply, ii. 236. 
 Black Art sprang from Chaldee no- 
 tions, i. 404. 
 Black Sea, a dependency of the Medi- 
 terranean, i. 28. 
 Bleaching by chlorine, ii. 386. 
 Blood admixture, effect of, i. 15. 
 
 Degeneration, its effect, ii. 144. 
 Boccaccio obtains a professorship for 
 
 Leontius Pilatus, ii. 194. 
 Bodin's, " De Republica," i. 6. 
 Boethius falls a victim to the wrath 
 of Theodoric, i. 353. 
 His character, i. 358. 
 Boilman, Tom, origin of the nickname, 
 
 ii. 244. 
 
 Boniface VIII., Pope, " Benedetto 
 
 Gaetani," his quarrel with the 
 
 Colonnas, ii. 80. 
 Boniface of Savoy, Archbishop of 
 
 Canterbury, his rapacity, ii. 75. 
 Boniface, an English missionary of 
 
 the seventh century, i. 366. 
 Books, longevity of, ii. 201. 
 Borelli on circular motion, ii. 272. 
 Applies mathematics to muscular 
 
 movement, ii. 286. 
 
408 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Boyle improves the air-pump, ii. 286. 
 
 Bradley determines the velocity of 
 direct stellar light, ii. 290. 
 
 Brahman, how regarded according to 
 the Institutes of Menu, i. 63. 
 Attempted to reconcile ancient tra- 
 ditions with modern philosophical 
 discoveries, ii. 335. 
 
 Brain, functions, ii. 351. 
 
 Breakspear, Nicholas, afterwards Pope 
 Adrian IV., ii. 25. 
 
 Brown, discoverer of the quinary 
 arrangement of flowers, ii. 'Jbo. 
 
 Brindlev, a millwright's apprentice, ii. 
 985. 
 
 His engineering triumph in the 
 construction of canals, ii. 387. 
 Bruchion, the library in, i. 318. 
 Bruno, Giordano, teaches the helio- 
 centric theory, ii. 257. 
 Is burnt as a heretic, ii. 258. 
 Brutes, why supposed by I>iogenes to 
 
 be incapable of thought, i. 102. 
 Buddhism, its rise, i. 65. 
 The organisation of, i. 67. 
 Its fundamental principle, i. 68. 
 Its views of the nature of man, i 
 70. 
 
 Philosophical estimate of, i. 72. 
 Bulgarians converted by a picture, I. 
 367. 
 
 Bunsen, his estimate of Eusebius\s 
 
 chronology, i. 198. 
 Bunyan, John, his writings surpass 
 those of St. Augustine, i. 305. 
 His twelve years' imprisonment for 
 
 preaching, ii. 242. 
 Probable source of much of the ma- 
 chinery of the Pilgrim's Progress, 
 ii. 248. 
 
 Burnet's M Sacred Theory of the 
 
 Earth," ii. 286. 
 Byzantine system adopted in Italy, i. 
 
 349. 
 
 Government persecutes the Nesto- 
 
 rians and Jews, i. 385. 
 Suppression of medicine, i. 386. 
 
 Cabanis, quoted on the influence of 
 the Jews, ii. 120. 
 
 Cabot, Sebastian, rediscovers New- 
 foundland, and attempts to find a 
 north-west passage to China, ii. 
 174. 
 
 Cabral discovers Brazil, ii. 174. 
 Cadesia, elfect of the battle of, i. 
 335. 
 
 Cujsalpinus first gives a classification 
 
 of plants, ii.' 390. 
 Cajsar becomes master of the world, i. 
 
 248. 
 
 Calico printing, antiquity of the art, 
 and how improved, ii. 386. 
 
 Caligula, Emperor, an adept in al- 
 chemy, i. 407. 
 
 Calixtus III., Pope, issues his fulmi- 
 nations against Halley's comet, 
 ii. 253. 
 
 Callimachus, author of a treatise on 
 birds, and a poet, i. 201. 
 
 Callistheues accompanies Alexander 
 the Great in his campaigns, i. 
 172. 
 
 Is hanged by his orders, i. 174. 
 Transmits to Aristotle records 
 
 of astronomical observations, i. 
 
 192. 
 
 Calvin establishes a new religious 
 
 sect, ii. 211. 
 Causes Servetus to be burnt as a 
 
 heretic, ii. 225. 
 Calydonian boar, hide of, preserved as 
 
 a relic, i. 51. 
 Cambvses conquers Egypt, i. 79, 
 
 186. 
 
 Canal of Egypt, reopened by Necho, i. 
 78. 
 
 A warning from the oracle of 
 Amun causes Necho to stop the 
 construction of, i. 93. 
 
 Cleared again from sand, i. 325. 
 Canals the precursors of railways, ii* 
 387. 
 
 Of China, their influence, ii, 400. 
 Cannibalism of Europe, i. 32. 
 Canonic of Epicurus, imperfection of, 
 
 i. 167. 
 
 Canosa, scene at, the King of Ger- 
 many seeking pardon of the Pope, 
 
 ii. 19. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 409 
 
 < a}KJ of Good Hope, doubled by Yasco 
 
 de Ghana, ii. 168. 
 First made known in Europe by the 
 
 Jews, ii. 175. 
 Caracalla, alluded to in the reply of 
 
 the Christians to the Pagans, i. 
 
 302. 
 
 Carat, its derivation and signification, 
 ii. 44. 
 
 Carncades, the foundei of the New 
 
 Academy, his doctrines, i. 169. 
 Cartilage, description of, i. 129. 
 
 Its ci'ii<jin.'st contemplated by Alex- 
 ander t lie Great, i. 174. 
 Mo>t ni'- rt nally controlled by inva- 
 ding Africa, i. 245. 
 Heraclius contemplates making it 
 the DMtropoUl of the Eastern em- 
 pire, i. 329. 
 Carthage stormed and destroyed by 
 
 Hassan, i. 334. 
 Carthaginian commerce, nature, anil 
 
 extent of, i. 130. 
 " Carolinian Books " published by 
 Charlemagne, against image wor- 
 ship, i. 372. 
 Caspian and Dead Seas, level of, U. 
 305. 
 
 Ca3telli Battstfl in the verification of 
 the laws of motion, ii. 271. 
 
 Creates hydraulics, ii. 285. 
 
 Lavs the foundation of hydraulics, 
 U. 390. 
 
 Oasui>try, development of, ii. 66. 
 
 Catalogue of stars contained in the Al- 
 magest of Ptolemy, i. 203. 
 
 Catasterisims of Kratosthenes, i. 196. 
 
 Catastrophe, insutliciency of a single, 
 ii. 316. 
 Doctrine of, ii. 323. 
 
 Cato causes Carueades to be expelled 
 from Rome, i. 164. 
 
 Celibacy of clergy insisted on by the 
 monks, i. 426. 
 Necessity of, ii. 16. 
 
 Celt, sorcery of the, i. 34. 
 
 Cerebral sight, important religious 
 result of, i. 4.')0. 
 
 Corinth us, his opinion of the nature 
 of Christ, i. 270. 
 
 Chadizah, the wife of Mohammed, i. 
 330, 337. 
 
 Chakia Mouni, meaning of the name, 
 i. 67. 
 
 The founder of Buddhism, i. 342. 
 Chalcedon, Council of, i. 297. 
 
 It determines the relation of the 
 two natures of Christ, i. 299. 
 Chaldee notions give rise to the black 
 
 art, i. 404. 
 Chalons, battle of, i. 350. 
 Charlemagne, his influence in the con- 
 version of Europe, i. 364. 
 Disapproves of idolatry, i. 368. 
 Developes the policy of his fathei 
 
 Pepin, i. 371. 
 Is crowned Emperor of the West, 
 i. .')7 1. 
 
 The immorality of his private life, 
 i. 374. 
 
 Charles Martel <rains the battle of 
 
 Tours, i. 368. 
 His relations to the Church, i. 369. 
 Pope Gregory 111. seeks his aid, i. 
 
 423. 
 
 Charms, the source of their supposed 
 
 power, i. 403. 
 Chemistry, fetichism of, i. 101. 
 Pythagorean, i. 116. 
 Scientific, cultivated by the Arabs, 
 i. 408, 
 
 Chemistry, progress of, ii. 374. 
 Chilperic II. permitted to retain his 
 
 title, i. 369. 
 Chilperic III. deposed and shut up 
 
 in the convent of St. Omer, i. 
 
 370. 
 
 China, her policy, ii. 395. 
 Chinese Buddhism, i. 72, 74. 
 Chosroes 11., his successes, i. 328. 
 The elfect of his wars on commerce, 
 i. 337. 
 
 Christian reply to the accusation of 
 
 the Pagans, i. 301. 
 Christianity, intiuence of Roman, i. 
 
 241. 
 
 Debased in Rome, i. 264. 
 Distinction between, and ecclesU 
 
 astical organizations, i. 267. 
 Its lirst organization, i. 269. 
 
410 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Christianity, three modifications of, i. 
 271. 
 
 Judaic, i. 271. 
 
 Gnostic, i. 273. 
 
 Platonic, i. 273. 
 
 Spreads from Syria, i. 274. 
 
 Antagonizes imperialism, i. 275. 
 
 Its persecutions, i. 277. 
 
 Hellenizcd, i. 290. 
 
 Paganization of, i. 309. 
 
 Expelled from Palestine, Asia Mi- 
 nor, Egypt, and Carthage, i. 332. 
 
 Paganisms of, i. 359. 
 
 Allied to art. i. 359. 
 Chronology of Eratosthenes, i. 197. 
 Church, Greek and Latiu, i. 291. 
 
 Effects of union of, and State, i. 
 377. 
 
 What she had done, ii. 145. 
 Services, their inlliunce on the 
 
 people, ii. 202. 
 Separation of, and State, ii. 227. 
 Cicero, his opinions and principles, i. 
 
 258. 
 
 < 'imbri, cause of their invasion, i. 30. 
 Cipher, its derivation and meaning, 
 ii. 40. 
 
 Alluded to by Pope Sylvester, ii. 49. 
 
 Circle, the quadrature of, treated by 
 Archimedes, i. 194. 
 
 Circumnavigation of Africa, why un- 
 dertaken by the Egyptian Kings, 
 i. 78. 
 
 Its repetition contemplated by Alex- 
 ander, i. 173. 
 Of the earth, ii. 172. 
 Results of, ii. 173. 
 
 Circumstances, how far man is the 
 creature of, i. 389. 
 
 Clement V., Pope, takes up his resi- 
 dence at Avignon, ii. 86. 
 
 Clement of Alexandria, his invective 
 against the corruptions of Chris- 
 tianity, i. 358. 
 
 Cleomedes, an astronomer of Alexan- 
 dria, i. 202. 
 
 Cleopatra, the last of the Ptolemies, i. 
 200. 
 
 Is presented with one of the Alex- 
 andrian libraries, i. 318 
 
 Clergy, responsible for the massacre at 
 
 Thessalonica, i. 313. 
 Support the delusion of superna- 
 
 fcnralism, ii. 113. 
 American, ii. 227. 
 English accused by the Commons, 
 
 ii. 235. 
 Discipline Act, ii. 237. 
 Degraded condition of the lower, in 
 
 England, ii. 242. 
 "Clericis Laicos," bull issued by Pope 
 
 Boniface, ii. 82. 
 
 Clermont, Council of, authorizes the 
 
 First ( 'ru^ade, ii. 21. 
 Climacus, John, author of " Ladder of 
 
 Paradise," ii. 59. 
 Climates, in time and place, ii. 317. 
 Clotilda, Queeu of the Franks, counsels 
 
 her husband Clovis, i. 3G5. 
 Clouds and their nomenclature, ii. 
 
 373. 
 
 Cnldofl, medical school of, i. 396. 
 Cnudesuya, aqueduct of, ii. 186. 
 Coal period, ii. 320. 
 
 Its botany, ii. 332. 
 Cobham, Lord, hanged for heresy and 
 
 treason, ii. 99. 
 Cochlea, its function, i. 5. 
 Ccenobitism succeeds Eremitism, i« 
 
 432. 
 
 Coffee-houses, their political and 
 social importance, ii. 249. 
 
 Coinage, its adulteration, i. 251. 
 
 Coiter creates pathological anatomy, 
 ii. 285. 
 
 Cold, influence of, on man, i. 28. 
 Colleges founded by the Jews, i. 402, 
 ii. 121. 
 
 Colonial system, origin of Greek, i. 
 128. 
 
 Colonies, Greek, essentially weak, * 
 113. 
 
 Philosophical influence of, i. 128. 
 
 Colonnas, their quarrel with Pope 
 Boniface, ii. 80. 
 
 Colossus of Rameses II., its great anti- 
 quity, i. 87. 
 
 Colours of rainbow, ii. 379. 
 
 Columban, a missionary of the siytb 
 century, i. 36G 
 
411 
 
 Columlus, his early life, ii. 159. 
 Is confuted by the Council of Sala- 
 manca, ii. L6L 
 His voyage across tho Atlantic, ii. 
 L62. 
 
 Discovery of America, ii. 163. 
 Commerce, development of Mediter- 
 ranean, i. 45. 
 Favourable to the spread of new 
 ideas, i. 127. 
 Comnn iv, many of the devices of 
 modern, known to the Carthagi- 
 nians, i. 130. 
 Community , nature ofprngross of, i. 
 
 12. 
 
 Comnena, Anna, M Alexiad " of, ii. 
 59. 
 
 Condillae, his theory of memory and 1 
 
 comparison, i. 232. 
 Coii^n of Alexandria, i. 101. 
 Constance, ( 'ouncil of, ii. 
 Coastantine the Great, the mk cess of 
 his policy, i. 277. 
 Influence of the reign of, i. 278. 
 lonmves the metropolis, i. 27'J. 
 His tendencies to Paganism, i. 'J80. 
 His relation-; to the Church, i. 'J 8 1 . 
 His policy, i. 282. 
 Coin eiMoii and death, i. 283. 
 Attempts to check the Ariau con- 
 
 trover>y, i. 286. 
 Denounces Alius as a heretic, i. 
 287. 
 
 Constantino, P"po, an usurper, his 
 cruel treatment, i. 878. 
 
 Constantino Copronymus, his icono- 
 clastic policy, i. 418. 
 
 Const antine Pala?ologogus, the last of 
 the Roman Emperors, ii. 108. 
 
 Constantinople, Council of, i. 419. 
 Determine! that Son and Holy | 
 Spirit are equal to the Father, i. 
 299. 
 
 The seventh general, held at, i. 
 
 419. 
 Sack of, ii. 56. 
 Its literature, ii. 58. 
 Slegt of, by the Turks, ii. 107. 
 Fall of, ii. 108. 
 Convocation, charges against, ii. 235. 
 
 Copais, tunnel of, i. 32. 
 Copernican system, condemned by th? 
 Inquisition, ii. 263. 
 
 Theory of, rectified, ii. 268. 
 Copernicus, the works of, ii. 255. 
 
 His doctrine, ii. 2 .">*.>. 
 
 Copronymus the Iconoclast, i. 418. 
 Cordova, description of, ii. 30. 
 Corinth] mechanical art reached its 
 perfection in, i. 182. 
 
 Her fall, ii. 109. 
 
 Coamai btdioopl enat es , his argument. 
 
 against the sphericity of the 
 
 earth, ii. 159. 
 Cosmo de' Medici, ii. 102. 
 Coamogonj, originates with Anaxi- 
 
 mander, i. 107. 
 Of Anaxagoras, i. 1^0. 
 Of Pythagoras, i. 115. 
 Cotton manufacture, ii. 385. 
 Councils, their object and nature, i. 
 
 286. 
 
 Are not infallible, i. 297. 
 Creations and extinctions, cause of, 
 ii. 811. 
 
 Criterion of truth, existence of, 
 doubted by Anaxagoras, i. 110. 
 One of the problems of Greek philo- 
 sophy, i. 230. 
 Remarks on, i. 232. 
 A practical one exists, l. 235. 
 Criticism, ellect of philosophical, i. 
 46. 
 
 Rise of, ii. 190. 
 
 Etfect of, on literature and religion, 
 ii. 224. 
 
 Cross, the true, discovered, i. 309. 
 Crotona, a Greek colonial city, i. 111. 
 
 Its extent, i. 128. 
 Crusades, origin of, ii. 20. 
 The first, ii. 22. 
 Political result of, ii. 23. 
 Atrocities in the South of France, 
 
 ii. 62. 
 Effect of, ii. 135. 
 Ctesiphon, the metropolis of Persia, 
 
 sack of, i. 335. 
 Curler, his doctrine of the permanence 
 of species, ii. 326. 
 His remark on vivisection, ii. 349. 
 
412 
 
 xNDEX. 
 
 Cuzco, the metropolis of Peru, de- 
 scription of, ii. 181. 
 
 Cycle of lite, i. 233. 
 
 Cyclopean structures, i. 32. 
 
 Cynical school, i. 149. 
 
 Cyprian, his complaints against the 
 clergy and confessors, i. 358. 
 
 Cyprian, St., his remarks at the 
 Council of Carthage, i. 291. 
 
 Cyprus taken by the Saracens, i. 335. 
 
 Cyrenaic school, i. 149. 
 
 Cyril, St., his acts, i. 821. 
 
 An ecclesiastical demagogue, i. 391. 
 
 Daille*, his estimate of the Fathers, 
 
 ii. 225. 
 Damascus taken, i. 334. 
 Damasns, riots at the election of, i. 
 
 292. 
 
 Damiani, Peter, his charges against 
 the priests of Milan, ii. 7. 
 
 Death, interstitial, i. 14. 
 
 "Defender of Peace," nature of the 
 work, ii. 93. 
 
 Deification, John Erigena on, ii. 9. 
 
 Deity, anthropomorphic ideas of, »u 
 the Koran, i. 342. 
 
 Delos, a slave market, i. 246. 
 
 Deluges, ancient, i. 30. 
 
 Delusions, of the sense, i. 230. 
 Created by the mind, i. 429. 
 
 Demetrius Phalereus, his instruc- 
 tions to collect books, i. 188. 
 
 Demetrius Poliorcetes quoted, i. 166. 
 
 Democritus asserts the unreliability 
 of knowledge, i. 124. 
 
 Descartes, his theory of clear ideas, 
 i. 231. 
 
 Introduces the theory of an ether 
 and vortices, ii. 235. 
 Desert, influences of the, j. 6. 
 Destinv, Democritus's opinion of, i, 
 125. 
 
 Stoical doctrine of, i. 185. 
 Deucalion, deluge of, i. 51. 
 Development of organisms, Alhazen's 
 
 theory of, ii. 48. 
 Dew. the nature of, ii. 384. 
 Diaphragm of Dicasarchus, i. 3 96. 
 
 Didymus, wonderful taciturnity re 
 lated of, i. 427. 
 
 Diocles, a writer on hygiene and 
 gymnastics, i. 397. 
 
 Diocletian, state of things under, i. 276. 
 
 Diogenes of Apollonia developes the 
 doctrines of Auaximenes, i. 99. 
 
 Diogenes of Sinope extends the doc- 
 trines of Cynicism, i. 149. 
 
 Dioscorus, Buhop of Alexandria, de- 
 posed by the Council of Chal- 
 cedon, i. 297. 
 
 Djafar, or Geber, an Arabian chemist, 
 describes nitric acid and aqua 
 regia, i. 410. 
 
 Djoiulesabour, medical college of, 
 founded by the Nestorians and 
 Jews, i. 591, 
 Patronized by the Khalif Al Ras- 
 chid, i. 402. 
 
 Docetes, their ideas of the nature of 
 Christ, i. 270. 
 
 Dogmatists, their theory of the treat- 
 ment of disease, i. 399. 
 
 Dominic, St., wonders related of, ii. 63. 
 
 Dominicans, they oppose Galileo, ii 
 262. 
 
 Donalists recalled from banishment 
 by Constantine, i. 281. 
 
 Drama, an index of national mental 
 condition, ii. 249. 
 
 Draper^ Physiology quoted on cere- 
 bral sight, i. 430. 
 On the benefits conferred by the 
 
 Church, ii. 145. 
 On t lie necessity of resorting to 
 anatomy ana pnysioio^. ii. 343. 
 
 Dreams, Algazzali's view o* their 
 nature, ii. 51. 
 
 Druid*, i. 241. 
 
 Du Molay,burnt at the stake, ii. 92. 
 Duns Scotus, John, a Franciscan 
 
 monk, the rival of Thomas 
 
 Aquinas, ii. 14. 
 Duverney on the sense of hearing, ii. 
 
 286. 
 
 Ear, i. 5. 
 
 Earth, globular form of, implied by 
 the voyage of Columbus, ii. 164, 
 
INDEX. 
 
 413 
 
 Eart h, globular form of, proved by 
 its shadow in eclipses of the 
 moon, ii. 171. 
 Is not the immovable centre of the 
 
 universe, ii. 254. 
 Age of, ii. 278. 
 Its slow cooling, ii. 301. 
 Mean density of, ii. 302. 
 Movement of the crust of, ii. 306. 
 I )pvelnj>nimt of life on, ii. ;>55. 
 Earthquakes, ii. 302. 
 Ea>ter, dispute respecting, i. 201. 
 Ebfonites, their doctrine of our ; 
 
 Saviour's lineage, i. 272. 
 Rhi Djani, physician to the Sultan 
 S il i liu, and author of a work 
 on the medical topography of 
 Alexandria, ii. 12 L 
 Ebn J unis, a Moorish astronomer, ii. 
 41. 
 
 Astronomical tabic of, ii. 4$ 
 Ebn Zohr, competitor of Kaschi, ii. 
 
 Eccloi i>t ici-m, its decline, it. 143. 
 
 its downfall, ii. 384 
 Eclipse, solar, predicted by Thai es, i. 
 97. 
 
 Ecliptic, discovery of obliquity of, 
 fklsely imputed to Anaximenes, 
 i. 99. 
 
 Determined with accuracy by Al- 
 maimon, ii. 41. 
 
 Slow process of its secular varia- 
 tion, ii. 304. 
 
 Ecstasy, i. 213. 
 
 Edessa, church of, re-built bv Man- 
 wivah for his Christian subjects, 
 i. 888. 
 
 Edward L of England compels the 
 
 clergy to pay taxes, ii. 81. 
 Egypt, conquest of, byCambyses, i. 79. 
 
 Antiquity of civilization in, i. 81. 
 
 Tre-histoiic Life of, i. 81. 
 
 Influence of, on Europe, i. 82. 
 
 Antiquity of its monarchy, i. 84. 
 
 Geological age of, i. 87. 
 
 < ii'o^i-.-jphy and topography of, i. 87. 
 
 Roman annexation of, i. 248. 
 Egyptian ports opened, i 77. 
 
 Theology i. 91. 
 
 Elcano, Sebastian do, the Lieutenant 
 
 of Magellan, ii. 173. 
 Eleatic philosophy, i. 118. 
 
 Influence of the school, i. 220. 
 Electricity, discoveries in, ii. 377. 
 Electro-magnetism, ii. 378. 
 Elixir of Life, i. 407. 
 
 Etlect of the search for, on medicine, 
 i. 411. 
 
 Eloquence, Parliamentary, decline 
 of its power, ii. 204. 
 Elphinstone, quotation from, i. 04. 
 Elysium, i. 36. 
 
 Emanation, doctrine of, i. 22">. 
 Empedocles, biography of, i. 123. 
 Empirics, their doctrine, i. 399. 
 England, conversion of, i. 366. 
 
 Policy of an Italian town gave an 
 
 impress to its history, ii. 17. 
 Its social condition, ii. 221*. 
 Condition of, at the suppression of 
 
 the monasteries, ii, 230. 
 Backward condition of, ii. 233. 
 State of, at the close of the seven- 
 teenth century, ii, 238. 
 Ephesus, Council of, called " Robber 
 Synod," i. 297. 
 Determines that the two natures 
 of Christ make but one person, 
 i. 299. 
 
 Epictetus, his doctrines, i. 259. 
 
 Epicureans, modern, i. 168. 
 
 Epicnms, the doctrine of, i. 165. 
 His irreligion, i. 168. 
 
 Epicycles and eccentrics, Hipparchns's 
 "theory of, i. 202. 
 
 Epochs of individual life, i. 14. 
 Of national life, i. 19. 
 
 Erasmus becomes alienated from the 
 Reformers, ii. 225. 
 Wonderful popularity of his "Col- 
 loquies," ii. 238. 
 
 Eratosthenes, the writings and works 
 of, i. 196. 
 Astronomy of, i. 199. 
 
 Bremltism, Its modifications, i. 432. 
 
 Erigena, John, a Pantheist employed 
 by the Archbishop of Rheims, ii. 9 
 
 Essenes, a species of the first hermits 
 among the Jews, i. 425. 
 
414 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Ether, movements of, ii. 382. 
 
 Ethical philosophy, i. 143. 
 
 Its secondary analysis, i. 164. 
 Ethics of Plato, i. 158. 
 Ethnical element, definition of, and 
 
 conditions of change in, i. 12. 
 Eucharist, difference of opinion about, 
 
 ii. 210. 
 
 Fuclid of Alexandria, his various 
 works, i. 193. 
 His reply to Ptolemy Philadelphus, 
 i. 398. 
 
 Euclid of Megan, an imitator of 
 Socrates, i. 148. 
 
 Eugenius IV., Pope, dethroned by 
 the Council of Basle, ii. 102. 
 
 Eumenes, King of Pergamus, esta- 
 blishes a second library in Alex- 
 andria, i. 318. 
 
 Eunapius, his opinion of Plotinus, i. 
 212. 
 
 Eunostos, harbour of, connected by a 
 canal with lake Mareotis, i. 323. 
 Euripides tainted with heresy, i. 6u. 
 Europe, description of, i. 23. 
 
 Greatest elevation of, above the 
 
 sea, i. 23. 
 Vertical displacement of, i. 29. 
 Conversion of, i. 365. 
 Psychical change in, i. 3*54. 
 Social condition of, after Charle- 
 magne, i. 376. 
 Barbarism of, ii. 27. 
 Future of, ii. 392. 
 European climate, modification of 
 Asiatic intruders by, i. 34. 
 Old religion, i. 240. 
 Priesthood, i. 240. 
 Slave-trade, i. 373. 
 Euiebius, his contempt of philosophy, 
 i. 314. 
 
 Perverts chronology, i. 197. 
 
 Is deposed, i. 297. 
 
 His apology for the Fathers, i. 314. 
 
 His chronology subverts that of 
 Manetho and Eratosthenes, i. 316. 
 
 His admission of his own want of 
 truthfulness, i. 360. 
 East acinus distinguished by his dis- 
 sections, ii. 284. 
 
 Eut ychianism, i. 296. 
 
 Kverlasting Gospel," ii. 75. 
 Existence depends on physical condi< 
 
 tious, i. 7. 
 Extinction of species, cause of, i. 8. 
 Extinctions and creations, law of, ii. 
 
 311. 
 
 Eye, arranged on refined principles 
 of optics, i. 5. 
 Functions of, ii, 380. 
 Capabilities of the human, ii. 383. 
 
 Fabricius ab Aquapendente discovers 
 the valves in the veins, ii. 285. 
 
 Fairies destroyed by tobacco, ii. 126. 
 
 Faith, two kinds of, ii. 192. 
 
 Fallopius distinguished by his dissec- 
 tions, ii. 284. 
 
 Patting, continued, its effect on the 
 mmd, i. 429. 
 
 FaustttS, his accusation to Augustine, 
 i. 310. 
 
 Felix V., Pope, abdicates, ii. 103. 
 
 Felix, Bishop of Rome, excommuni- 
 cated by Acacius, Bishop of Con- 
 stantinople, i. 352. 
 
 Fernel establishes the true nature of 
 syphilis, ii. 232. 
 Measures the size of the earth, ii. 
 255. 
 
 Fetiches supposed a panacea, i. 386. 
 Fetichism displaced by star worship, 
 i. 3. 
 
 Difficulty of early cultivators of 
 philosophy to emerge from, i. 100. 
 Feudal system, how it originated, i. 
 376. 
 
 Fire, asserted by Heraclitus to be the 
 
 first principle, i. 104. 
 Fire, liquid or Greek, used by the 
 
 Arabs, i. 408. 
 Fireworks used bv the Arabs, i, 
 
 408. 
 
 Flagellants, their origin, ii. 76. 
 
 Flavianus, Bishop of Constantinople, 
 deposed, i. 297. 
 
 Florence, the Academy of Athens re- 
 vived in the Medicean gardens 
 of, ii. 193. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 415 
 
 Florentine Academician! erroneously 
 lUppCM water to be incompres- 
 sible, ii. 372. 
 Originate correct notions of the 
 
 radiation of heat, ii. 383. 
 Show that dark heat may be re- 
 flected by mirrors, ii. 390. 
 f'lorentius, a priest, attempt! to poison 
 
 St. Benedict, i. 435. 
 Food, location of animals controlled 
 by, ii. 310. 
 Its nature, ii. 341. 
 Force, animal, its source, ii. 339. 
 Kormoaus, Pope, converted the Bul- 
 garian ij i. B07« 
 Forms contrast. -d with law. i. '22. 
 Introduction of, personified, i. 37. 
 Fictitious permanence of, fuooee- 
 
 .Mve, i. 104. 
 Pracaeta, an early cultivator of fossil 
 
 remains, ii. 391. 
 Francis St., his early lift, ii. 64. 
 
 Placed by the lowe>t of his ord«-r 
 
 in the stead of our Saviour, ii. 83. 
 Franciscans, higher English, their op- 
 
 po it ion to Pope Boniface, ii. 83. 
 Franks Christianized at the end of 
 
 the fifth century, i. 3(55. 
 
 FratricelH, their affirmation, i. 283. 
 Burned by the inquisition for he- 
 resy, ii. 79. 
 Prederi k II., Emperor of Germany, 
 
 birth of ii. 25. 
 His Mohammedan tendencies, ii. 66. 
 Free trade, its effects, i. 254. 
 Freewill not inconsistent with tho 
 
 doctrine of law, i. 21. 
 
 Galen, his opinions, i. 259. 
 
 His division of physicians into two 
 
 clashes, i. 399. 
 Galileo, the historical representative 
 
 of the intellectual impulse, ii, 
 
 134. 
 
 Invmts the telescope, ii. 261. 
 Astronomical discoveries of, ii. 261. 
 Is condemned by the Inquisition, 
 ii. 263. 
 
 Publishes "Tho System of the 
 World," ii. 263. 
 
 Galileo, his degradation and punish 
 ment, ii. 264. 
 His death, ii. 265. 
 His three laws of motion, iL 269. 
 lie-discovers the mechanical proper- 
 ties of fluids, ii, 372, 390. 
 Geber, or Djafar, the alchemist, dis- 
 covers nitric acid and aqua regia, 
 i. 409. 
 
 Gelasius, his fearless address to the 
 
 Emperor, i. 353. 
 Geminus, an Alexandrian astronomer, 
 
 i. 202. 
 
 Genoa, her commerce, ii. 158. 
 Geaseric, King of the Vandals, invite! 
 by Count Boniface into Africa, 
 
 i. 827. 
 
 Invited to Rome, i. 350. 
 Geocentric theory, its adoption by 
 the Church, ii. 254. 
 Important result of its abandon- 
 ment, ii. 335. 
 Geographical discovery, effects of, i. 
 44. 
 
 Geography, primitive, i. 39. 
 
 Its union with the marvellous, i. 42. 
 Of Ptolemy, i. 204. 
 End of Patristic, ii. 164. 
 Geological movements of Asia, i. 29. 
 Geology, ii. 294. 
 
 Evidence furnished by, as to the 
 position of man, ii. 338. 
 Gepidce, converted in the fourth cen- 
 tury, i. 365. 
 Gorbert, life of, ii. 4. 
 
 His Saracen education, ii. 4. 
 His ecclesiastical advancement, ii. 
 5. 
 
 Becomes Pope Sylvester II., ii. 6. 
 
 Is the first to conceive of a European 
 crusaJe, ii. 21. 
 
 Said to have introduced a know- 
 ledge of the Arabic numeral* 
 into Europe, ii. 49. 
 Germans not prone to idolatry, i. 415. 
 
 Insist on a reform in the Papacy, 
 
 ii. 2. 
 
 Geenar, Luther's opinion of the 
 manner of his death, ii. 117. 
 Leads the way to zoology, ii. 284. 
 
416 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Gilbert proposed to determine the 
 longitude by magnetic observa- 
 tions, ii. 167. 
 Adopts the views of Copernicus, ii. 
 260. 
 
 Publishes his book on the magnet, 
 ii. 284. 
 
 Gilbert of Ravenna elected anfipopp, 
 ii. 20. 
 
 Gisclla, Queen of Iluncrary, assists in 
 the conversion of her subjects 
 to Christianity, i. 365. 
 
 Glass, its rate of dilatation by boat, 
 ii. 300. 
 
 Globes, used by the Saracens, ii. 41. 
 3obi, dry climate of, i. J".. 
 
 Character of its botany, i. 25. 
 
 Was once the bed of a sea, i. 29. 
 Gold, Ancient value of, i, 2M. 
 
 Potable, attempts to make, i. 407. 
 
 Problem of, solved by I>jafar, i. 409. 
 Gotama, the founder of Buddhism, 
 
 life of, i. 07. 
 Goths become permanently settled in 
 the Eastern empire, i. 300. 
 
 Adopt the Byzantine system, i. 349. 
 
 Have possession of Italy, i. 350. 
 
 Date of their conversion, i. 365. 
 Gotschalk, his persecution, ii. 8. 
 Graaf, a physiologist, ii. 286, 
 Greece, Roman invasion of, i. 247. 
 Greek mythology, i. 38. 
 
 Transformations of, i. 43. 
 
 Cause of its destruction, i. 44. 
 
 Secession of literary men and 
 philosophers, i. 47. 
 
 Movements repeated in Europe, i. 
 53. 
 
 Philosophy, origin of, i. 94. 
 Summary of, i. 141. 
 Its four grand topics, i. 223. 
 Fire, i. 408. 
 
 Learning, revival of, ii. 193. 
 Cause of dislike of, ii. 195. 
 Gregory II., Pope, defends image- 
 worship, i. 421. 
 Gregory III., Pope, defies the emperor, 
 i. 423. 
 
 Gregory VI., Pope, purchases the Pa- 
 pacy, i. 381. 
 
 Gregory VII., his policy, ii. 15. 
 Gregory IX., Pope, excommunicates 
 
 Frederick II., ii. 67. 
 Gregory XL, Pope, restores the 
 
 Papacy to Rome, ii. 96. 
 Gregory XII., Pope, deposed by the 
 
 Council of Pisa, ii. 97. 
 Gregory the Great, his history, i. 355. 
 Burns the Palatine Library, i. 357. 
 Attempts to reconvert England, i. 
 
 366. 
 
 Gregory of Nazianzum, his opinion of 
 
 Councils, i. 299. 
 Grew discovers the sexes of plants, 
 
 ii. 286. 
 
 Grimaldi discovers the diffraction of 
 light, ii. 390. 
 
 GrostGte, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, 
 the result of his inquiry into 
 tiie emoluments of foreign ec- 
 clesiastics, ii. 55. 
 Makes a speaking head, ii. 116. 
 
 Grotius, his opinion of the Reforms 
 tion, ii. 225. 
 
 Guido, a Benedictine monk, the inven 
 tor of the scale of music, i. 437. 
 
 Gulf Stream, its influence on tht 
 western countries of Europe, l. 
 24; ii. 371. 
 
 Gunpowder, its composition given by 
 Maicus Grrccus, i. 408. 
 
 Hades, I. 39. 
 
 Origin of the Greek, i. 92. 
 Hadrian IV., Nicholas Breakspear, ii. 
 25. 
 
 Hallam, his opinion of Leonardo da 
 Vinci quoted, ii. 268. 
 
 Ilalley's comet, how described and 
 regarded, ii. 253. 
 
 Hallucination, fasting a frequent 
 cause of, i. 428. 
 
 Hannina, the earliest Jewish physi- 
 cian, i. 400. 
 
 Haroun, a physician of Alexandria, 
 the first to describe the small- 
 pox, i. 401. 
 
 Haroun-al-Raschid, Khalif, sends 
 Charlemagne the keys of our 
 Saviour's sepulchre, i. 3 7 4. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 417 
 
 Haroun-al-Ra.s<hid plaOM all his 
 public schools under John Masuc, ' 
 
 i. 892, 
 
 Patronizes a medical college and 
 
 founds a university, i. 402. 
 Causes Homer to be transited into 
 Svriac, ii. 34. 
 Harpalus, employed by Alexander in 
 
 his scientific undertakings, i. 173. ! 
 Harvey discovers the circulation of 
 
 the blood, ii. 285. 
 Hassan takes Carthage by storm, i. 334. 
 Bear! constructed upon the principles . 
 
 of hydraulics, i. 5. 
 Heat, control of, over life, i. 8. 
 Distribution of, in Europe, i. Jo. 
 Sources of, i. 103. 
 Boundary of organisms by, ii. 300. 
 Decline of, in the earth, ii. 318. 
 Properties of, ii. 883. 
 Helena, the mother of Constant ine the 
 Great, superintends the building 
 of monumental churches, i. 309. 
 The influence she exi-rei^ed in the 
 
 religion of the world, i. 366. 
 Her benevolence in founding hospi- 
 tals, i. 386. 
 Adopts image-worship, i. 414. 
 
 Heliocentric theorv, its meaning, ii. 
 254. 
 
 Reaietleai ipread of, ii. 274. 
 Homing Introduced .street-lamps in 
 
 England , ii. 241. 
 Henry V., Emperor of Germany, his 
 
 resistance to the Popes, ii. 24. 
 Henry VI II., King of England, had 
 
 personal reasons fox discontent, 
 
 ii. 216 
 
 The instrument, not the author, of 
 
 the revolution, ii. 2:'>8. 
 Henry the Fowler asserts the power of 
 
 the monarchical principle, i. 376. 
 Heraclitus, his philosophical system, 
 
 i. 104. 
 
 Herac litis. Emperor, resists the second 
 Persian attack, i. 820i 
 His contemplated abandonment of 
 
 Constantinople, i. 329. 
 Defeated at the battle of Aiznadin, 
 i. 3.V>. 
 
 VOT,. II. 
 
 Heraclius, the etVect on commerce o/ 
 
 his long wars, i. 337. 
 Hercules, legend of, i. 37. 
 Heresy, Pelagian, i. 293. 
 Nestorian, i. 295. 
 Eutychian, i. 296. 
 Followed the spread of literature, 
 ii. GO. 
 
 Heretics, burning of, by the Inquisi- 
 tion, ii. 75. 
 Hermits, their origin, i. 424. 
 Aerial, i. 426. 
 Grazing, i. 427. 
 Their numbers, i. 432. 
 Hero, the inventor of the first steam- 
 engine, i. 205, 387. 
 Herodotus, i. 49. 
 
 Herschels, their discoveries, ii. 27(3. 
 Hesiod extends the theogony of 
 
 Homer, i. 43. 
 Hessians, period of their conversion, 
 
 i. 365. 
 
 Biero'l crown gives origin to hydro- 
 statics, i. 195. 
 
 Hieroglyphics, their origin and value, 
 i. 83. 
 
 II ilarion, a hermit of the fourth 
 century, i. 425. 
 Said to be the first to establish a 
 monastery, i. 432. 
 Hilary, Bishop of Aries, his contumacy 
 
 denounced, i. 300. 
 Hildebrand brought on an ecclesias- 
 tical reform, ii. 3. 
 His difficulty in reconciling the 
 dogmas of the Church with the 
 suggestions of reason, ii. 12. 
 Becomes Pope Gregory VII., ii. 
 15. 
 
 Hindu polytheism, i. 34. 
 
 Philosophy, i. 56. 
 Hipparchus, the writings of, i. 202. 
 Hippocrates, hisopinion of Democritus, 
 i. 126. 
 Review of, i. 393. 
 Historians, secession of, from the 
 
 public faith, i. 49. 
 Hobbes, his philosophical opinions, u 
 231. 
 
 Holy places, loss of, ii. 134. 
 
 2 B 
 
418 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Homer, theogony of, extended by He- 
 siod, i. 43. 
 
 Honionomeriae, i. 109. 
 
 Honoriua passes a law against concu- 
 binage among the clergy, i. 359. 
 
 HonoriH8 III. compels Frederick II. to 
 marry Yoliuda de Lusignan, ii. 
 67. 
 
 Hooke, his paper to the Royal Society 
 on circular motion, ii. 272. 
 Determines the essential conditions 
 of combustion, ii. 286. 
 
 Ilormisdas, Pope, policy pursued by, 
 i. 353. 
 
 Horner's observation on the rate of 
 the mud deposit of t lie Nile, i. 
 87. 
 
 HosillS of Cordova sent to Alexandria, 
 
 i. 286. 
 
 Houris of Paradise, L 346. 
 
 Humboldt pays tribute to Erato- 
 sthenes, i. 196. 
 His remarks on the movement of 
 Jupiter's satellites, ii. 267. 
 
 Hume, his doctrine of mind and 
 matter, i. 231. 
 
 Huss, John, martyrdom of, ii. 100. 
 Adopts the theological views of 
 Wickliffe, ii. 148. 
 
 Hydrometer improved by Alhazen, ii. 
 48. 
 
 livksos, old empire of Egypt invaded 
 and overthrown by the, i. 76. 
 
 Hypatia lectures on plulosophy in 
 Alexandria, i. 322. 
 Murdered by Cyril, i. 324. 
 
 Hypocrisy, organization of, i. 54. 
 
 Iamblicus, a wonder-worker, i. 215. 
 
 Iconoclasm, i. 416. 
 
 Meal theory, Plato's, i. 153. 
 Criticism on, i. 161. 
 
 liliberis, Council of, condemns the 
 worship of images, i. 414. 
 
 Images, bleeding and winking, i. 415. 
 
 Image-worship resisted by Charle- 
 magne, i. 372. 
 Fostered by the Empress Helena, i. 
 414. 
 
 In the West i. 415 
 
 u Imitation of Christ," tendency of, 
 ii. 196. 
 
 Immortality, double, implied by Plato's 
 
 doctrine, i. 161. 
 Impulses, two, against the Church, ii. 
 
 131. 
 
 Incandescence, the production of light 
 by, ii. 384. 
 
 Incarnations, divine, necessary conse- 
 quence of the belief of, i. 91. 
 
 Incas, the ancestors of one of the 
 orders of nobili'sy among the 
 Peruvians, ii. 183. 
 
 Incombustible men, i. 409. 
 
 Index Hxpurgatorius, promulgated by 
 Paul IV., ii. 214. 
 
 Indian, American, i. 27. 
 
 Indo-Germanic invasion, i. 32. 
 
 Inductive philosophy founded by 
 Aristotle, i. 76. 
 
 Indulgences, nature of, ii. 207. 
 
 Innocent L, Pope, settles the Pelagian 
 controversy in favour of the 
 African bishops, i. 294. 
 
 Innocent III., Pope, his interference in 
 behalf of temporary political in- 
 terests, ii. 53. 
 His death, ii. 62. 
 
 Prohibits the study of science in 
 the schools of Paris, ii. 76. 
 Innocent IV., Pope, excommunicates 
 
 Frederick, ii. 72. 
 Innocent VIII., Pope, his bull against 
 
 witchcraft, ii. 116. 
 Inquisition, its origin, ii. 62. 
 
 Attempts to arrest the intellectual 
 
 revolt, ii. 74. 
 Its sacrifices, ii. 188. 
 Its effect on Protestantism in Spain 
 and Italy, ii. 220. 
 Insane, Diogenes* view of the, L 
 102. 
 
 Insect an automatic mechanism, ii. 
 349. 
 
 Institutes of Menu, i. 63. 
 
 Intellect, the primal, Anaxagoras's 
 view of, i. 108. 
 
 Intellectual class, the true representa- 
 tion of a community, i. 13. 
 Ddttpdifj ii. 52. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 419 
 
 Intellectual impulse makes its attack 
 
 through Mtronomji ii. 133. 
 Development the aim of nature, ii. 
 359. 
 
 Interstitial death, i. 14. 
 
 Creations, ii. 312. 
 Inv. -t itures, the conflict on, ii. 17. 
 Invi>ible, localization of the, i. 36. 
 Ionian philosophy, puerilities of, i. 
 106. 
 
 Irene, the Empress, puts out her son's 
 eyes, i. 374. 
 Her inperstitioM cruelty, i. 420. 
 
 I r i > , its function, i. 5. 
 Isi>, li or worship, i. 187. 
 bothermal lines, i. 24, 26. 
 
 Isralil, the angel, i. 345. 
 Italian Christ ianit v, boundaries of, ii. 
 1. 
 
 Sy.stem, its movements, ii. 150. 
 Italy, relations of, ii. 127. 
 1 >c ;raded state of, ii. 127. 
 Immorality of, ii. 136. 
 Cause of her degradation, ii. 143. 
 Seientitic contributions of, ii. 39< ». 
 Causes of her depression, ii. 801, 
 
 James I., his proe.>edings against 
 
 witchcraft, ii. 1 1 7. 
 Jason, the voyage of, i. 41. 
 
 Jaxartes, its drying up, i. 29. 
 Jerome of l'rague, his martyrdom, ii. 
 IQt 
 
 Jerome, St., denounces Pelagius, i. 
 2:'}. 
 
 Translates the Bible into Latin, i. 
 
 ;;or>. 
 
 His equivocal encomiums on mar- 
 riage, i. 359, 427. 
 
 ierosalem, position of, i. 77. 
 Bishopt of, i. 272. 
 Church of, i. 291. 
 Fall and pillage of, i. 328, 335. 
 Capture of, ii. 22. 
 
 Surrender of, to Frederick II., ii. 68. 
 Jesuits, the Order of, instituted, ii. 
 220. 
 
 The extent of their influence, ii. 
 2J1. 
 
 Cansei of their suppression, ii. 222. 
 
 Jewish physicians, their writings, ii. 
 120. 
 
 Jewish-Spanish physicians, writings 
 
 of, ii. 123. 
 Jews, conversion of, i. 270. 
 
 Are the teachers of the Saracens, i. 
 
 384. 
 
 Their influence on supernaturalism, 
 U. 119. 
 
 Medical studies among, ii. 121. 
 
 Expulsion of, from France, ii. 126. 
 
 Their geographical knowledge and 
 its results, ii. 17"'. 
 John, King of England, is excommuni- 
 cated bv Pope Innocent III., ii. 
 54. 
 
 John, Tope, died in prison, i. 353. 
 
 John VIII., Pope, pays tribute to the 
 Mohammedans, i. 379. 
 
 John XVI., Antipope, cruel and igno- 
 minious treatment of, i. 381. 
 
 John XXII., Tope, t lie practical cha- 
 racter of his policy, ii. 93. 
 
 John of Damascus takes part in the 
 Iconoclastic dispute, ii. 59. 
 
 Joshua beii Nun, a professor at Bag- 
 dad, i. 402. 
 
 Journalism is gradually supplanting 
 oratory, ii. 204. 
 
 Judgment, future, according to the 
 Kgyptian theology, i. 92. 
 According to the Koran, i. 345. 
 Right of individual, asserted by 
 Luther, ii. 209. 
 
 Jugurthine War, i. 247. 
 
 Julian. KmptTor, attempts the restor- 
 ation of paganism, i. 311. 
 
 Justinian closes the philosophical 
 schools in Athens, i. 216. 
 His re-conquest of Africa, i. 327. 
 Effect of his wars, i. 351. 
 Conquers Italy, i. 354. 
 
 Justin Martyr, his illustrations of his 
 idea of the divine ray, i. 274. 
 
 Kaleidoscope, an optical instrument, 
 ii. 380. 
 
 Kalid, the " Sword of God," defeats 
 Heraclius at the battle of Aizna- 
 din, i. 335. 
 
 2 E 2 
 
420 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Kant, his philosophical doctrines, i. 
 232. 
 
 Kempis, Thomas a, author of the 
 
 " Imitation of Christ/' ii. 196. 
 Kepler, the effect of the discovery of 
 his laws, i. 4. 
 His work prohibited by the Inqui- 
 sition, ii. 263. 
 His mode of inquiry, ii. 206. 
 discovery of his laws, ii. 267. 
 Cause of his laws, ii. 274. 
 Kiersi, Council of, quotation from, i. 
 369. 
 
 Kirk's lambs, ferocity of, ii. 244. 
 Koran, passages from the, i. 331. 
 Review of the, i. 340. 
 
 Labarum, story of, believed, i. 309. 
 Lactantius, his argument against the 
 
 globular form of the earth, i. 
 
 315. 
 
 " Ladder of Paradise," ii. 59. 
 
 Langton, Stephen, Magna Charta ori- 
 ginates from his suggestion, ii. 
 54. 
 
 Languages, modern, their effects, ii. 
 192. 
 
 Languedoc, light literature of, ii. 35. 
 Laplace discovers the cause of the 
 
 irregularity of the moon's motion, 
 
 ii. 278. 
 
 On some of the phenomena of the 
 solar system, ii. 280. 
 Lapland, cause of the contentment 
 
 and inferiority of, i. 13. 
 Lateran Council, second, vests the 
 elective power to the Papacy in 
 the Cardinals, ii. 15. 
 Third, defines the new basis of the 
 
 Papal system, ii. 18. 
 Fourth, establishes the necessity of 
 auricular confession, ii. 65. 
 Latin, the use of, as a sacred language, 
 required by the Church, ii. 191. 
 Lavaur, massacre of, ii. 62. 
 Law, the world ruled by, i. 20. 
 
 Succession of affairs determined by, 
 i. 389. 
 
 Eternity and universality of, ii. 
 359. 
 
 I Lawyers, their agencv first recognized, 
 ii. 81. 
 
 Their power antagonistic to the 
 
 ecclesiastical, ii. 82. 
 Their opposition to supernaturalism, 
 ii. 113. 
 Leaning towers, i. 30. 
 Leaves of plants, their action, ii. 339. 
 Legends of Western Saints, i. 435. 
 Legion, Roman, how constructed, i. 
 251. 
 
 Leibnitz, his doctrine of the mind, i. 
 231. 
 
 1 1 is contribution to geology, ii. 286. 
 Leif, the first discoverer of America, 
 ii. 164. 
 
 Lentu lus, spurious letter of, to the 
 
 Roman senate, i. 361. 
 Leo III., Pope, crowns Charlemagne 
 
 in St. Peter's, i. 371. 
 Assaulted bv the nephews of Adrian, 
 
 i. 378. 
 
 I Leo the Chazar continues an icono- 
 clastic policy, i. 419. 
 
 Leo the Great, i. 352. 
 
 Leo the Isaurian, the founder of a 
 new dynasty at Constantipole, i- 
 416. 
 
 Publishes an edict prohibiting the 
 worship of images, i. 417. 
 Leo X., Pope, exposed to obloquy, ii. 
 213. 
 
 His character, ii. 215. 
 Is reported to have contracted 
 syphilis, ii. 232. 
 Leontius Pilatus, description of, by 
 
 Boccaccio, ii. 194. 
 Lesches, poems of, i. 51. 
 Levites, their manner of healing, i» 
 400. 
 
 j Lewenhoeck discovers spermatozoa, ii. 
 286. 
 
 Liberty not appreciated in India, i. 
 62. 
 
 Mental when maintained, ii. 227. 
 Libraries, Alexandrian, size of, » 
 188. 
 
 Establishment of, i. 317. 
 Licinius neutralizes the policy of Con* 
 stantine, i. 278. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 421 
 
 Life, individual, is of a mixed kind, i. 
 2. 
 
 Social, its nature, i. 2. 
 First opinion of savage, i. 3. 
 Variable rapiditj of, i. 18. 
 Light, velocity of motion of, ii. 279, 
 298. 
 
 Proves the age of the world, ii. 
 
 298. 
 White, ii. 379. 
 
 Chemical influences of, ii. 383. 
 Liinot ' nc deposited from the sea, ii. 
 321. 
 
 Lipari, the crater of, supposed to be 
 the opening into hell, i. B54, 
 :i57. 
 
 Lippei\*>h«v lir.st constructs a telescope, 
 ii. 261. 
 
 Ufbon, the great earthquake of, ii. 
 302. 
 
 Listening contrasted with reading, ii. 
 203. 
 
 Lister, author of I synopsis of shells, ii. 
 286. 
 
 AfCertaixifl t lie continuity of strata, 
 ii. 286. 
 
 Literary men, their Influence, ii. 150. 
 
 Lit » r.it ure, spread of gav, from Spain, 
 ii. 60. 
 
 Profligate character of, in England, 
 ii. 244. 
 
 Lithotomy, new operations for, by 
 the Alexandrian surgeons, i. 399. 
 
 I. ivy, writings of, vindictively pur- 
 surd by Gregory the Great, i. 
 357. 
 
 Locke, hie theory of the sources of 
 ideas, i. 231. 
 
 locomotion, followed by mental deve- 
 lopment, ii. 119, 136. 
 Provisions for, show the social con- 
 dition of a nation, ii. 239. 
 
 Locomotives, invented by Murdoch, ii. 
 387. 
 
 L ric, Aristotle's, i. 177. 
 
 Character of mcdia?val, ii. 111. 
 Each age of life has its own, ii. 
 192. 
 
 " Logos," Philo'l idea of the, i. 210. 
 Justin Martyr's idea of the, i. 274. 
 
 Lombards, converted at the beginning 
 of the sixth century, i. 365. 
 
 London, condition of, towards the 
 close of the seventeenth century, 
 ii. 238. 
 
 Lorenzo de' Medici, his patronage of 
 literature and philosophy, it 195. 
 
 Loretto, miracle of, ii. 80. 
 
 Lonifl XIV., his order in council pun- 
 ishing sorcery, ii. 118. 
 
 Louis, St., his character, ii. 73. 
 
 Lucius Apuleius, i. 211. 
 
 Lucretius, the irreligious nature of his 
 poem, i. 257. 
 
 Lnitprand captures Ravenna, i. 422. 
 
 l.uitprand quoted on Constantinople, 
 ii. 58. 
 
 Luther, experiences of, ii. 117. 
 
 The revolt of, ii. 149. 
 
 History of, ii. 208. 
 
 Excommunication of, ii. 211. 
 
 Looked upon with contempt by the 
 Italians, ii. 215. 
 Lyceum, Aristotle founds a school in, 
 
 i. 176. 
 
 Lyons, Council of, ii. 71. 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, has taken too limited 
 a view of the Reformation, ii. 
 227. 
 
 Macedonian campaign opens a new 
 world to the Greeks, i. 45. 
 
 Its ruinous effects on Greece, i. 172. 
 
 Its effect on intellectual progress, i. 
 186. 
 
 Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople, 
 
 his heresy, i. 289. 
 Machiavelli, the principles of, ii. 137. 
 
 His " History of Florence," ii.143. 
 Machinery, social changes effected by, 
 
 ii. 388. 
 
 Magellan, his great voyage, ii. 169. 
 
 Magic and necromancy, Plotinus re- 
 sorts to, i. 214. 
 
 Magic lantern, ii. 380. 
 
 Magna Charts originates from a sug- 
 gestion of Stephen Langton, ii. 
 54. 
 
 Magnet supposed by Thales to have s 
 living soul, i. 97. 
 
422 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Magnetic variation, discovery of the 
 
 line of, ii. 163. 
 Erroneously supposed by Columbus 
 
 to be immovable, ii. 165. 
 Magnetism, discoveries in, ii. 378. 
 Maimonides, his life and writings, ii. 
 
 124. 
 
 Malpighi devotes himself to botany, 
 ii. 286. 
 
 Applies the microscope to anatomy, 
 ii. 286. 
 
 Man the archetype of society, i. 2. 
 Controlled by physical agents, i. 10. 
 Variations of, i. 11. 
 First form of, according to Anaxi- 
 
 mander, i. 107. 
 Nature and development of, i. 233. 
 His race connections, i. 234. 
 Apparent position of, on the helio- 
 centric theory, ii. 337. 
 Marco Polo, ii. 174. 
 Marcus Grsecus gives the composition 
 
 of gunpowder, i. 408. 
 Mareotis, Lake, i. 323. 
 Mariner's compass introduced by the 
 
 Arabs, ii. 43. 
 Marozia, her infamy and cruelty, i. 
 380. 
 
 Marriage, compulsory in the time of 
 Augustus, i. 253. 
 Sinfulness of, according to the prin- 
 ciples of the monks, i. 426. 
 
 Marsilio, his work " The Defender of 
 Peace," ii. 93. 
 
 Marsilius Ficinus, the Platonist, ii. 
 193. 
 
 Masue', John, the Nestorian, superin- 
 tendence of schools entrusted to, 
 by Haroun al Raschid, i. 392, 
 ii. 36. 
 
 Matilda, Countess, aids Gregory VII. , 
 ii. 16. 
 
 Calumniated by the married clergy, 
 ii. 17. 
 
 atter, its indestructibility, ii. 375. 
 Maximum of certainty, i. 236. 
 Maximus Tyrius, i. 259. 
 Max Miiller on language, i. 33. 
 Mayow on respiration, ii. 286. 
 Mechanical invention, effect of, ii. 384. 
 
 Medicine, Byzantine, suppression of, 
 
 i. 386. 
 
 Origin of Greek, i. 393. 
 
 Egyptian, i. 397. 
 
 Alexandrian, i. 398. 
 Mediterranean Sea, its dependencieb 
 and extent, i. 28. 
 
 Propriety of its name, i. 39. 
 
 Wonders of, i. 41. 
 
 Trade of, ii. 158. 
 Megaric school, i. 148. 
 Melanchthon, ii. 211. 
 Melissus of Samos, an Eleatic, i. 123. 
 Melloni first polarizes light, ii. 390. 
 Mendicant Orders, establishment of, 
 
 ii. 62. 
 
 Menu, institutes of, i. 63. 
 Extract from, i. 224. 
 
 Metaphysics, Aristotle's, i. 178. 
 Uncertainty of, ii. 344. 
 
 Meteoric stone, boasted prediction of 
 fall of, i. 111. 
 
 Mexico, social condition of, ii. 175. 
 
 Michael the Stammerer, his incredu- 
 lity and profanity, i. 420. 
 
 Middle Ages, their condition, i. 139. 
 
 Migration of birds, i. 6. 
 
 Milan, Bishop of, excommunicated, ii. 
 17. 
 
 Milky way, as explained by the Py- 
 thagoreans, i. 117. 
 Mill life, ii. 388. 
 
 Milton, his "Paradise Lost" a Mani- 
 chean composition, ii. 245. 
 In favour of the Copernican system, 
 ii. 260. 
 Miracle cure, i. 386. 
 
 Plays, ii. 246. 
 Missionaries, Irish and British, i. 366. 
 Mithridates, King of Pontus, studies 
 
 poisons and antidotes, i. 400. 
 Moawiyah, Khalif, sends his lieutenant 
 against Africa, i. 334. 
 Eebuilds the church of Edessa, i. 
 338. 
 
 Mcestlin quoted in favour of the Co- 
 pernican system, ii. 266. 
 
 Mohammed subject to delusions, i. 148, 
 330. 
 
 History of, i. 329. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 423 
 
 Mohammed II., ii. 107. 
 
 Mohammedanism, causes of the spread 
 of, i. 337. 
 Popular, i. 345. 
 Sects of, i. 347. 
 
 Arrest of, in Western Europe, ii. 30. 
 Literature of, ii. 34. 
 Uniformly patronized physical sci- 
 ence, ii. 121. 
 Monasteries, condition of Europe at 
 
 the suppression of, ii. 230. 
 Monasticism, amelioration of, i. 431. 
 
 Spread of, from Egypt, i. 433. 
 Monks, African and European, i. 237. 
 Labours and successes of, i. 365. 
 Their origin and history, i. 424. 
 Differences of Eastern and Western, 
 i. 434. 
 
 Their intellectual influence, i. 438. 
 Monotheism preceded by imperialism, 
 i. 256. 
 
 Roman, its boundaries, i. 261. 
 Montanus, the pretended Paraclete, i. 
 291. 
 
 Moon, variations of, discovered b 
 Aboul Wefa, i. 325. 
 Volcanic action in, ii. 304. 
 Moors boast of an Arab descent, i. 337. 
 Moral plays, ii. 248. 
 Moris, Lake, i. 96. 
 Moslems, their creed, ii. 37. 
 Motion, the three laws of, ii. 269. 
 Muggleton, Lewis, his doctrines, ii. 
 239. 
 
 Murdoch invents the locomotive, ii. 
 387. 
 
 Musa completes the conquest of Africa, 
 i. 333. 
 
 Arrested at the head of his army, i. 
 369. 
 
 Museum of Alexandria, i. 187. 
 
 Its studies arranged in four facul- 
 ties, i. 397. 
 
 Music, scale of, invented by Guido, i. 
 437. 
 
 Mycene, gate of, i. 32. 
 Mythology, Greek, origin of, i. 37. 
 
 Napier invents and perfects loga- 
 rithms, ii. 285. 
 
 Narses, tlw eunuch, sent by Justi- 
 nian against Rome, i. 351. 
 Nations, progress of, like that of in- 
 dividuals, i. 12. 
 Secular variations of, i. 16. 
 Death of, i. 17. 
 
 Are only transitional forms, i. 17. 
 
 Nearchus, an intimate friend of Alex- 
 ander the Great, i. 173. 
 
 Nebulae, existence of, ii. 282. 
 
 Nebular hypothesis, ii. 281. 
 
 Necromancy, Alexandrian, i. 404. 
 
 Neo-Platonism, its origin imputed to 
 Ammonius Saccas, i. 211. 
 
 Nervous system, general view of, ii. 
 346. 
 
 Three distinct parts of human, ii. 
 353. 
 
 Nestorians, their origin, i. 295. 
 
 Early cultivate medicine, i. 385. 
 
 Their history and progress, i. 391. 
 New academy founded by Carneades, 
 
 i. 169. 
 
 Newspapers, their origin, ii. 204. 
 
 When first regularly issued in Eng- 
 land, ii. 249. 
 
 Were first issued in Italy, ii. 390. 
 Newton, quotation from " Principia " 
 of, i. 120. 
 
 Availed himself of the doctrines of 
 Hipparchus, i. 202. 
 
 Under no obligation to Bacon, ii. 
 259. 
 
 Publication of the " Principia " of, 
 
 ii. 272. 
 
 His mathematical learning and ex- 
 perimental skill, ii. 286. 
 
 Niagara Falls furnish proof of time 
 from effect produced, ii. 305. 
 Prove the enormous age of the 
 earth, ii. 334. 
 
 Nicaea, Council of, summoned by Con- 
 stantine, i. 286. 
 Second council of, summoned by 
 Irene, i. 420. 
 
 Nicene Creed, i. 287. 
 
 Nicholas V. a patron of art, ii. 110. 
 
 Nicomedia, church of, destroyed, i. 277. 
 
 Niebuhr, his opinion of the Greek ac- 
 count of the Persian war, i. 131, 
 
424 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Nile, inundations of, i. 86. 
 Nirwana, the end of successive exist- 
 ences in the Buddhist doctrine, 
 
 i. 71, 230. 
 
 Nitria, why well adapted for monks, i. 
 432. 
 
 Nogaret, William de, the legal advi- 
 ser of Boniface, ii. 84. 
 Advises King Philip the Fair, ii. 
 91. 
 
 Nfomades, Asiatic, i. 29. 
 
 Nominalism, doctrine of, sprang from 
 
 scholastic philosophy, ii. 11. 
 Norman invasion of England favoured 
 
 by Pope Gregory VII., ii. 16. 
 Norway, depth of rain in, i. 25, 
 Elevation and depression in level of, 
 
 ii. 307. 
 
 Norwegians, diet of, accounted for, i. 
 27. 
 
 Novatus the heretic, i. 284. 
 Number the first principle according 
 to the Pythagorean philosophy, 
 
 i. 113. 
 
 Numenius, a Trinitarian, i. 211. 
 Numerals, Arabic, derived from the 
 Hindus, ii. 40. 
 Introduced into different countries, 
 
 ii. 49. 
 
 Oaks, objects of adoration among the 
 
 German nations, i. 241. 
 Obelisks, Egyptian, prodigious height 
 
 of, i. 76. 
 
 Observatories first introduced into 
 Europe by the Arabs, ii. 42. 
 
 Ocean, its size, ii. 371. 
 
 Octave, the grand standard of harmo- 
 nical relation among the Pytha- 
 goreans, i. 116. 
 
 Oliva, John Peter, his comment on 
 the Apocalypse, ii. 78. 
 
 Olympian deities, their nature, i. 50. 
 
 Omar, Khalif, takes Jerusalem, i. 
 335. 
 
 His behaviour contrasted with that 
 of the Crusaders, ii. 22. 
 Opinion and Reason, Parmenides's work 
 
 on, i. 121. 
 Optics, discoveries in, ii. 379. 
 
 Oratory supplanted by journalism, ii. 
 204. 
 
 Orchomenos, ruins of, i. 32. 
 Orders, monastic, rise and progress of, 
 i. 433. 
 
 Orestes compelled to interfere to stop 
 a riot in Alexandria, i. 322. 
 
 Organ, the, invented by Sylvester, a 
 Benedictine monk, i. 437. 
 
 Organisms, permanence of, due to ex- 
 ternal conditions, i. 8. 
 Control of physical agents over, i. 
 9. 
 
 Dates of various, ii. 321. 
 Orpheus, legend of, i. 37. 
 Osiris, daily ceremony before tomb of, 
 
 i. 89. 
 
 One of the divinities of the Egyp- 
 tian theology, i. 91. 
 Site of temple of, given to the 
 church, i. 319. 
 Osporco changes his unseemly name 
 
 into Sergius, ii. 143. 
 Ostrogoth monarchy overthrown, i. 
 351. 
 
 Otho III., Emperor, contemplates a 
 reform in the Church, and is poi- 
 soned by Stephania, ii. 6. 
 
 Otranto taken by the Mohammedans, 
 
 ii. 109. 
 
 Otto, Guericke, invented the air-pump 
 
 ii. 286. 
 Oxus, its drying up, i. 29. 
 
 Pacific Ocean crossed, ii. 171. 
 Paganism, attitude of, i. 268. 
 
 Death-blow given to, by Theodosius, 
 i. 312. 
 
 Pagans, accusation of, against the 
 
 Christians, i. 301. 
 Painting and sculpture, relation ol 
 
 the Church to, i. 360. 
 Palaeontology, historical sketch ot 
 
 early, ii. 314. 
 Palatine library burnt by Gregory 
 
 the Great, i. 357. 
 Pandataria, Sylverius banished to, i. 
 
 354. 
 
 Panttheism, theology of India under- 
 laid with, i. 59. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 425 
 
 Pa atheism adopted by Parmenides, i. 
 121. 
 
 Greek, i. 223. 
 Papacy, history of, i. 290. 
 Consolidation of its power in the 
 
 West, i. 362. 
 Signal peculiarity of, i. 378. 
 Human origin of, i. 382. 
 Paper, invention of, ii. 200. 
 Pappus, an Alexandrian geometrician, 
 i. 204. 
 
 Parabolani diverted from their ori- 
 ginal intent by Cyril, i. 321, 386. 
 
 " Paraclete," doctrines of faith dis- 
 cussed in the, ii. 10. 
 
 Paradise spoken of with clearness by 
 Mohammed, i. 345. 
 
 Parliament, its accusation against the 
 clergy, ii. 235. 
 
 Parma, John of, the General of the 
 Franciscans, ii. 77. 
 
 Parmenides, doctrines of, i. 121. 
 
 Pascal, his views of humanity, i. 18. 
 The influence of his writings, ii. 
 285. 
 
 Path -zone, i. 24. 
 
 Patristicism, introduction of, i. 314 
 
 Doctrines of, i. 315. 
 
 Conflict of, with philosophy, i. 316. 
 
 Decline of, ii. 129. 
 
 End of geography of, ii. 164. 
 
 Ethnical ideas of, ii. 165. 
 
 End of, ii. 225. 
 Paulus iEmilius, his severity, i. 249. 
 Pausanias, i. 131. 
 
 Pelagian controversy, its effect on Pa- 
 pal superiority, i. 293. 
 
 Pelagius, his doctrines, i. 293, 366. 
 
 Penances, the Veda doctrine of, i. 
 61. 
 
 Pendulum first applied to clocks by 
 
 the Moors, ii. 42. 
 Pepin, the son of Charles Martel, i. 
 
 370. 
 
 Pergamus, library of, transferred to 
 
 Egypt, i. 318. 
 Pericles embraces obnoxious opinions, 
 
 i. 50. 
 
 His the age of improvement in 
 architecture and oratory, i. 132. 
 
 Perictione, the reputed mother of 
 
 Plato, i. 151. 
 Periodicities, human cause of, i. 7. 
 Peripatetics, their philosophy, i. 178. 
 Persecutions, moral effects of, ii. 225. 
 Persepolis, burning of by Alexander 
 
 the Great, i. 174. 
 Perses, revolt of, i. 246. 
 Persia, Greek invasion of, i. 171. 
 
 Subdued by Othman III., i. 335. 
 Persian invasion of Europe, i. 130. 
 Attack on the Byzantine system, i. 
 326. 
 
 Personified forms introduced, i. 37. 
 
 Perturbations, astronomical, account- 
 ed for, ii. 274. 
 
 Peru, its coast, a rainless district, i. 
 86. 
 
 A description of, ii. 179. 
 Peter d'Apono, the alchemist, the 
 wonders imputed to him, ii. 116. 
 Peter de Brueys, his martyrdom, ii. 
 60. 
 
 Peter Morrone becomes Celestine V., 
 
 i. 79. 
 
 Peter the Hermit, ii. 22, 135. 
 
 Peter the Venerable, his acquirements, 
 
 ii. 12. 
 Peter's pence, ii. 54. 
 
 Petrarch, his opinion of Avignon, ii. 
 95. 
 
 His zeal for learning, ii. 194. 
 Pharaoh Necho, his ships first double 
 
 the Cape of Good Hope, ii. 167. 
 Philadelphus Ptolemy, i. 189. 
 Philae, mysterious temple of, i. 89. 
 Philip the Fair protects the Colonnas, 
 
 ii. 81. 
 
 Philiston, a writer on regimen, i. 397. 
 Philo of Larissa, founder of the fifth 
 
 academy, l. 170. 
 Philo the Jew thinks he is inspired, i. 
 
 209. 
 
 Compares the mind to the eye, i. 
 234. 
 
 Philosopher's stone, i. 407. 
 Philosophers, persecution of, i. 311. 
 
 The revolt of, ii. 149. 
 Philosophical criticism, effect of, i. 46 
 
 Schools, Indian, i. 65. 
 
428 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Philosophical principles, application 
 
 of, i. 237. 
 Philosophy, peripatetic, i. 178. 
 
 Greek, end and summary of, i. 217. 
 Greek and Indian, the analogy be- 
 tween, i. 236. 
 Reappearance of, ii. 3. 
 Phlogiston, theory of, ii. 374. 
 Phocaeans built Marseilles, i. 46. 
 Phoenicians, enterprise of, i. 45. 
 Phosphorus discovered by Achild Be- 
 
 chil, i. 410. 
 Photius, his two works, ii. 59. 
 Photography, ii. 383. 
 Physical instruments, improvements 
 
 in, ii. 384. 
 Physicians, classes of, i. 397. 
 Jewish, i. 400. 
 
 Oppose supernaturalism, ii. 113. 
 Are disliked by the Church, ii. 121. 
 Physics of Zeno. i. 183. 
 Physiology, its phases the same as 
 those of physics, i. 5. 
 Of Plato, i. 156. 
 Of Aristotle, i. 180. 
 Piccolomini lays the foundation of 
 
 general anatomy, ii. 285. 
 Pietro de Vinea undertakes to poison 
 
 Frederick II., ii. 72. 
 Pinzons of Palos assist Columbus, ii. 
 161. 
 
 Pisa, Council of, deposes the rival 
 Popes, ii. 97. 
 The first botanical gardens esta- 
 blished at, ii. 390. 
 Plagues, mortality of ancient, i. 250. 
 Plants, effect of seasons on, i. 6. 
 Their dependence on the air, i. 102, 
 ii. 339. 
 
 Platsea, fabulous number slain at 
 battle of, i. 130. 
 
 Plater first classified diseases, ii. 285. 
 
 Plato, his profound knowledge of hu- 
 man nature, i. 53. 
 His doctrines, i. 152. 
 
 Platonism, Plutarch leans to, i. 210. 
 Reappearance of, in Europe, ii. 193. 
 
 Plays, miracle, moral, real, ii. 246. 
 
 Pleiades, a nickname given to seven 
 Alexandrian poets, i. 201. 
 
 Plotinus, writings of, i. 212, 404. 
 
 Plutarch leans to platonizing Orien- 
 talism, i. 210. 
 
 Poggio Bracciolini quoted, ii. 101. 
 
 Polarization of light lends support to 
 the undulatory theory, ii. 382. 
 
 Pole star, ii. 305. 
 
 Polycrates, Bishop of Ephesus, op- 
 poses Victor, Bishop of Rome, i. 
 291. 
 
 Polygamy, institution of, i. 331. 
 Secured the conquest of Africa, i. 
 334. 
 
 Its influence in consolidating the 
 conquests of Mohammedanism, i. 
 338. 
 
 Polytheism, its antagonism to science, 
 i. 49. 
 
 Slowness of its decline, i. 52. 
 Pontifical power sustained by phy- 
 sical force, i. 300. 
 Popes, biography of, from A.D. 757, 
 
 i. 378. 
 
 Had no faith in the result of the 
 Crusades, ii. 23. 
 Porphyry, his writings, i. 214, 404. 
 Porsenna takes Rome, i. 244. 
 Posidonius, i. 232. 
 
 Praxagoras wrote on the pulse, i. 397. 
 Pre-existence, Plato's notion of, i. 160. 
 Press, liberty of, secured, ii. 250. 
 " Principia," Newton's, quotation 
 from, i. 120. 
 Publication of, ii. 272. 
 Its incomparable merit, ii. 275. 
 Printing, invention of, ii. 198. 
 
 Effects of, ii. 200. 
 Problems of Greek philosophy, i. 217. 
 Proclus burns Vitalian's ships, i. 215. 
 
 His theology, i. 215. 
 Procopius, the historian, secretary to 
 
 Belisarius, ii. 58. 
 Profatius, a Jew, appointed regent of 
 the faculty of Montpellier, ii. 
 125. 
 
 Prosper Alpinus writes on diagnosis, 
 
 ii. 285. 
 
 Protestant, origin of the name, ii. 211 
 Provincial letters of Pascal, influence 
 of, ii. 286. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 42? 
 
 Psammetichus overthrows the ancient 
 
 policy of Egypt, i. 75. 
 * Psam mites," a work of Archimedes, 
 
 i. 195. 
 
 Psychology, origin of, i. 101. 
 
 Solution of questions of, ii. 344. 
 Ptolemies, political position of, i. 186. 
 
 Biography of, i. 200. 
 Ptolemy, his " Syntaxis," i. 203. 
 Puffendorf, author of the "Law of 
 
 Nature and Nations," ii. 286. 
 Pulpit, influence of, affected by the 
 press, ii. 201. 
 
 Decline of eloquence of, ii. 203. 
 
 Its relation to the drama, ii. 249. 
 
 State of, an index of the mental 
 condition of a nation, ii. 249. 
 Punic wars, results of, i. 245. 
 Puranas, i. 65. 
 
 Pyramids of Egypt, size of, i. 75. 
 The Great, its antiquity and won- 
 ders, i. 81. 
 What they have witnessed, i. 84. 
 Their testimony unreliable as to 
 the age of the world, ii. 327. 
 Pyrrho, the founder of the Sceptics, 
 i. 164. 
 
 Pyrrhus, the Epirot, i. 244. 
 Pythagoras, biography of, i. 111. 
 The service he rendered us, i. 230. 
 
 Quintus Sextius, i. 258. 
 
 Quip us, a Peruvian instrument for 
 
 enumeration, ii. 185. 
 Quito, why it was regarded as a holy 
 
 place, ii. 185. 
 
 Rab, a Jewish anatomist, i. 400. 
 Rabanus, a Benedictine monk, sets 
 
 up a school in Germany, i. 437. 
 Rabbis cultivate medicine, ii. 122. 
 Radbert, his views on transubstantia- 
 
 tion, ii. 10. 
 Railways, ii. 387. 
 Rain, quantity of in Europe, i. 25. 
 
 Maximum points of, i. 25. 
 Rainless countries, agriculture in, i. 
 
 85. 
 
 Of the West, i. 86. 
 Peru one, ii. 180. 
 
 Rainy days, number of, l. 26. 
 
 Influence of, i. 27. 
 Rameses II., his policy, i. 78. 
 Raschi, his varied acquirements, ii. 
 123. 
 
 Ravenna, Gerbert appointed Arch- 
 bishop of, ii. 6. 
 
 Ray leads the way to comparative 
 anatomy, ii. 286. 
 
 Raymond Lully, said to have been 
 compelled to make gold for Ed- 
 ward II., ii. 155. 
 
 Raymond de Pennaforte compiles a 
 list of decretals, ii. 70. 
 
 Reading, its advantage over listening, 
 ii. 203. 
 
 Realism, its origin, ii. 11. 
 
 Reason, Algazzali's doctrine of the 
 fallibility of, ii. 51. 
 
 Reductio ad absurdum introduced 
 by Zeno, i. 122. 
 
 Reflection, Democritus's view of, i. 125. 
 
 Reflex action, ii. 348. 
 
 Reformation attempted in Greece, i. 
 50. 
 
 Influences leading to, ii. 190. 
 Dawn of the, ii. 204. 
 In Switzerland, ii. 210. 
 Organization of, ii. 211. 
 In Italy, ii. 212. 
 Arrest of, ii. 214. 
 Counter, ii. 219. 
 
 Culmination of, in America, ii. 226* 
 Relics, age of, i. 51. 
 
 Worship of, i. 414. 
 Eeminiscence, Plato's doctrine of, i. 
 153. 
 
 Republic of Plato, i. 159. 
 Revolution, French, ii. 150. 
 Rhacotis, Alexandria erected on the 
 
 site of, i. 192. 
 Rhazes discovers sulphuric acid, i. 410* 
 Rhazes, a Moorish writer on botany, 
 
 ii. 39. 
 
 Rheims, Gerbert appointed Arch- 
 bishop of, ii. 5. 
 
 Rhodes raised from the sea, i. 30. 
 
 Rhodians, maritime code of, i. 45. 
 
 Richard I. of England treacherously 
 imprisoned, ii. 25. 
 
428 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Richard I. of England, his treatment 
 by Saladin contrasted with that 
 he received from a Christian 
 prince, ii. 136. 
 
 Eienzi, a demagogue, ii. 95. 
 
 Rig Veda, asserted to have been re- 
 vealed by Brahma, i. 58. 
 
 " Robber Synod," the council of Ephe- 
 sus, i. 297. 
 
 Roderic, King of the Goths, ii. 28. 
 
 Roderigo de Triana, the first of 
 Columbus's crew to descry land, 
 ii. 163. 
 
 Roman power, influence of, i. 52. 
 Christianity, influence of, on the 
 
 people, i. 241. 
 History, importance of, i. 242. 
 Power, triple form of, i. 243. 
 First theocracy and legends, i. 243. 
 History, early, i. 243. 
 Slave laws, atrocity of, i. 249. 
 Slave system, social effects of, i. 249. 
 Depravity, i. 252. 
 Women, their dissoluteness, i. 253. 
 Ethnical element disappears, i. 255. 
 Conquest, effects of, i. 266. 
 Rome, cause of permanence of, i. 11. 
 Unpitying tyranny of, i. 267. 
 Fall and sack of, by Alaric, i. 300. 
 Fall and pillage of, by the Vandals, 
 
 i. 350. 
 
 Progress of, to Papal supremacy, i. 
 352. 
 
 Relations of, to Constantinople, i. 
 353. 
 
 Three pressures upon, ii. 1. 
 Pillaged, sacked, and fired by 
 
 Henry, ii. 20. 
 Immoralities of, brought to light 
 
 by the Crusades, ii. 136. 
 Its geological peculiarities, ii. 307. 
 Romer, his estimate of the velocity of 
 
 light confirmed, ii. 299. 
 Roscelin of Compiegne, an early 
 
 advocate of Nominalism, ii. 11. 
 Ruysch improves minute anatomy, ii. 
 286. 
 
 Sacramentarians, separate from the 
 Lutherans, ii. 211. 
 
 Sahara Desert affects the distribution 
 of heat in Europe, i. 24. 
 
 Saladin retakes Jerusalem, ii. 25. 
 His noble behaviour to Richard I., 
 ii. 136. 
 
 Salamanca, Columbus confuted by the 
 Council of, ii. 161. 
 Council of, its reply when urged 
 to teach physical science, ii. 
 278. 
 
 Sampson, Agnes, burnt for witch- 
 craft, ii. 117. 
 Samuel, an accomplished Jewish phy- 
 sician, i. 400. 
 Sanctorio lays the foundation of 
 modern physiology, ii. 285. 
 Invents the thermometer, ii. 390. 
 Sanscrit vocabulary, i. 33. 
 Saracens, their policy, i. 336. 
 
 Cause of their check in the conquest 
 
 of France, i. 369. 
 Are taught by the Nestorians and 
 
 Jews, i. 384. 
 They dominate in the Mediter- 
 ranean, i. 422. 
 Their chemistry, medicine, and 
 
 surgery, ii. 39. 
 Their philosophy, ii. 49. 
 Early cultivators of astronomy, ii. 
 133. 
 
 Sardica, Council of, i. 292. 
 Satan, notion of, had become debased, 
 i. 414. 
 
 Sautree, William, the first English 
 
 martyr, ii. 99. 
 Saviour, in Koran never called Son 
 
 of God, i. 342. 
 Model of, eventually received, i. 
 
 361. 
 
 Scandinavian geological motion, i. 
 30. 
 
 Discovery of America, ii. 164, 175. 
 Sceptics, rise of, i. 163. 
 Schism, causes of the great, ii. 96. 
 Scholastic philosophy, rise of, ii. 11. 
 
 Theology, rise of, ii. 12. 
 Schools, philosophical Greek, merely 
 points of reunion, i. 112. 
 The Megaric, Cyrenaic, and 
 Cynical, i. 148. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 42$ 
 
 Science, Alexandrian, suppressed, i. 
 325. 
 
 Sculpture, relation of Church to, i. 
 360. 
 
 Sea of Azof, a dependency of the 
 
 Mediterranean, i. 28. 
 Seasons, effect of, on animals and 
 
 plants, i. (5. 
 Sebastian de Elcano, the Lieutenant 
 
 of Magellan, ii. 173. 
 Secular geological movement of 
 
 Europe and Asia, i. 29. 
 Inequalities of satellites, ii. 277. 
 Semicircular canals, their function, 
 
 i. 5. 
 
 Seneca, the influence of his writings 
 
 accounted for, i. 258. 
 Sens, Council of, report of, to Rome, 
 
 ii. 11. 
 
 Sensation, Democritus confounds it 
 
 with thought, i. 125. 
 Senses, Algazzali's doctrine of the 
 
 fallibility of, ii. 50. 
 Septuagint Bible, the translators of, 
 
 entertained by Ptolemy Phila- 
 
 delphus, i. 190. 
 Serapion, causes of its umbrage to 
 
 Archbishop Theophilus, i. 318. 
 Destruction of, i. 319. 
 Serapis, establishment of the worship 
 
 of, i. 187. 
 Description of the temple of, i. 
 
 318. 
 
 Statue of, destroyed, i. 319. 
 Temple of, used for a hospital, i. 
 399. 
 
 Servetus, the burning of, by Calvin, 
 ii. 226. 
 
 Almost detected the circulation of 
 
 the blood, ii. 285. 
 Servile rebellion in Sicily, i. 247. 
 Seville, tower of, an observatory 
 
 built by the Arabs, ii. 42. 
 Shakespeare, quotation from, i. 207. 
 His position with regard to English 
 
 literature, ii. 249. 
 Shepherds, the, their exertions in 
 
 behalf of King Louis, ii. 76. 
 Shiites, one of the seventy-three 
 
 Mohammedan sects, i. 347. 
 
 Sigismund, Emperor, his treacherous 
 conduct to John Huss, ii. 101. 
 
 Silver, its comparative value in Rome, 
 i. 251. 
 
 Simon Magus, an Oriental magician, 
 wonders related of, ii. 114. 
 
 Simony, organization of, ii. 97. 
 
 Sirius, its supposed influence on the 
 waters of the Nile, i. 90. 
 
 Slave system, Roman, i. 249. 
 
 Slavery under Charlemagne, i. 373. 
 Recognized in certain cases m 
 Mexico, ii. 176. 
 
 Slavians converted by Greek mission- 
 aries, i. 367. 
 
 Smyrna, Erasistratus established a 
 school there, i. 399. 
 
 Snow, distribution of, in Europe, i. 
 26. 
 
 Snowy days, number of, at various- 
 places, i. 26. 
 
 Social war, important results of, i. 
 247. 
 
 Eminence, no preservative from so- 
 cial delusion, ii. 117. 
 Society, the intellectual class the true 
 representative of a community, 
 i. 13. 
 
 Sociology, comparative, ii. 359. 
 Socrates, Aristophanes excites th& 
 people against, i. 47. 
 His mode of teaching, and his 
 
 doctrines, i. 143. 
 Character of, in Athens, i. 146. 
 "The Mad," i. 150. 
 Solar system proves the existence of 
 law, i. 4. 
 
 Soliman the Magnificent takes Bel' 
 grade, ii. 109. 
 
 Sonnites, one of the seventy -three 
 Mohammedan sects, i. 347- 
 
 Sopater accused of magic, and decapi- 
 tated, i. 310. 
 
 Sophists, their doctrines, i. 135. 
 Their influence, i. 220. 
 
 Sorcery, intermingling of magic and, 
 i. 402. 
 
 Introduction of European, ii. 115. 
 Soul, Indian ideas of the, i. 60. 
 Purification of, i. 61. 
 
430 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Soul, Diogenes' opinion of that of the 
 world, i. 99. 
 
 Plato's doctrine of the triple con- 
 stitution of, i. 156. 
 
 Greek problem as to the nature of, 
 i. 218. 
 
 As to the immortality and absorp- 
 tion of, i. 228. 
 
 The human, ii. 365. 
 Sound, nature and properties of, ii. 
 369. 
 
 Spain, Roman annexation of, i. 247. 
 Arab invasion of, ii. 28. 
 Literature of, ii. 35. 
 Crime of, ii. 166. 
 Sparta, Lycurgus abolished private 
 
 property in, i. 129. 
 Spartacus, the gladiator, i. 248. 
 Species, Cuvier's doctrine of the per- 
 manence of, ii. 326. 
 Opposition to the doctrine of trans- 
 mutation of, ii. 328. 
 Specific gravity, Alhazen's tables of, 
 clearly approach our own, ii. 
 48. 
 
 Sphaerus, the Stoic, fraud practised 
 
 on, i, 189. 
 Spheres, music of, a belief entertained 
 
 by the Pythagoreans, i. 116. 
 Sphinxes, one of the wonders of 
 
 ancient Egypt, i. 76. 
 Spinal cord, its separate and conjoin'. 
 
 action, ii. 352. 
 Spires, first Diet of, ii. 210. 
 Spirit, in chemistry, had at first a 
 
 literal meaning, i. 405. 
 Spiritualists, their devout regard for 
 
 the " Everlasting Gospel," ii. 78. 
 Spontaneous generation, Anaxi- 
 
 mander's doctrine of, i. 107. 
 Anaxagoras's doctrine of, i. 109. 
 Stage, state of, an index of the mental 
 
 condition of a nation, ii. 249. 
 Stancari first counted the vibrations 
 
 of a string emitting musical 
 
 notes, ii. 390. 
 Stars, multiple, i. 4. 
 
 Coloured light of double, ii. 277. 
 Our cluster of, how divided, ii. 
 
 280. 
 
 Star-worship, fetichism displaced by, 
 i. 3. 
 
 The philosophy of, i. 90. 
 Steam-engine first invented by Hero, 
 
 i. 205, 387. 
 
 The nature of Watt's improvement 
 
 in, ii. 385. 
 Steno first recognizes the twofold 
 
 division of rocks, ii. 315. 
 Stephania, wife of Crescentius, poisons 
 
 Otho III., ii. 7. 
 Stephanus, a grammarian of Constan- 
 tinople, ii. 58. 
 Stephen II., Pope, consecrates Pepin 
 
 and his family, i. 370. 
 Stephen III., Pope, urges Charlemagne 
 
 against the Lombards, i. 371. 
 Stephenson, George, his improvement 
 
 in the locomotive, and its results, 
 
 ii. 387. 
 
 Stercorists, their doctrines, ii. 10. 
 Stereoscope, an optical instrument, ii. 
 380. 
 
 Stevinus, his mechanical works, ii. 
 269. 
 
 Revives correct views of the me- 
 chanical properties of water, ii. 
 372. 
 
 Stigmata, marks miraculously im- 
 pressed on the body of St. Francis, 
 ii. 64. 
 
 Stilicho, a Goth, compels Alaric to re- 
 treat, and Rhadogast to sur- 
 render, i. 300. 
 Is murdered by the Emperor, his 
 master, i. 300. 
 Stoicism, its intention, i. 183. 
 Stoics, exoteric philosophy of, i. 184. 
 Struve, his estimate of the velocity of 
 
 light, ii. 299. 
 Stylites, St. Simeon, an aerial martyr 
 
 of the fifth century, i. 426. 
 Success too often the criterion of 
 
 right, i. 332. 
 Sun, agency of, i. 103. 
 
 Aristarchus's attempts to ascertain 
 
 the distance of, i. 199. 
 The source of force, ii. 339. 
 Influence of, on organic and inor- 
 ganic nature, ii. 362. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 431 
 
 Sun-dials, invention of, wrongfully- 
 ascribed to Anaximander, i. 107. 
 
 Supererogation, the theory of, ii. 207. 
 
 Supernatural appearances, cause of, i. 
 428. 
 
 Supernaturalism, its adoption by the 
 
 age of faith, ii. 112. 
 Overthrow of, in France, ii. 126. 
 Superstitions, disappearance of, i. 255. 
 Swammerdam applies dissection to 
 
 the natural history of insects, ii. 
 
 286. 
 
 Sweden, change of level in, ii. 307. 
 Sybaris, a luxurious Italiot city, i. 
 128. 
 
 Sylverius, Pope, deposed by the Em- 
 peror's wife, Theodora, i. 354. 
 
 Sylvester, a Benedictine monk, in- 
 vents the organ, i. 437. 
 
 Sylvester II., Pope, is believed to have 
 made a speaking head, ii. 115. 
 
 Symmachus, Senator, falls a victim 
 to the wrath of Theodoric, the 
 Gothic king, i. 353. 
 
 " Syn taxis," the great work of 
 Ptolemy, i. 203. 
 
 Syphilis, moral state of Europe indi- 
 cated by the spread of, ii. 231. 
 
 Syria, importance of conquest of, to 
 the Arabs, i. 335. 
 
 Tacitus, his testimony to the depraved 
 state of Roman morality, i. 254. 
 
 Tarasius created Patriarch by Irene, 
 i. 420. 
 
 Tarik lands at Gibraltar, so called in 
 memory of his name, ii. 29. 
 
 Tartars, why they prefer a milk diet, 
 i. 27. 
 
 Tartarus, one of the two divisions of 
 hell, according to Anaximenes, i. 
 36. 
 
 Taxation, amount of Roman, i. 251. 
 Taylor, Jeremy, his testimony as to 
 
 the authority of the Fathers, ii. 
 
 225. 
 
 Telescope, invention of, ii. 261, 380. 
 
 Temperature, life can only be main- 
 tained within a narrow range, 
 i. 7. 
 
 Templars, apostasy, arrest, and 
 punishment of, ii. 90, 91, 92. 
 
 Tensons, or poetic disputations, origi- 
 nated among the Arabs, ii. 34. 
 
 Tertullian, his letter to Scapula, i. 
 275. 
 
 Denounces the Bishop of Rome as 
 
 a heretic, i. 291. 
 Denies the Scripture authority for 
 
 certain observances, i. 358. 
 His impression of the personal ap- 
 pearance of the Saviour, i. 361. 
 
 Testimony, human, value of, ii. 119. 
 
 Tetractys, the number "ten," why 
 so called, i. 114. 
 
 Tezcuco, description of, ii. 178. 
 
 Thabor, mysterious light of, ii. 59. 
 
 Thales, philosophy of, i. 95. 
 
 Thaumasius, the name of Ammonius 
 changed to, i. 322. 
 
 Theatre, the English, ii. 245. 
 
 Thebit Ben Corrah determines the 
 length of the year, ii. 41. 
 
 Theodora, Empress, restores image- 
 worship, i. 421. 
 
 Theodoric, the Ostrogoth, effect of the 
 conquest of Italy by, i. 353. 
 The change in his policy, i. 353. 
 
 Theodorus, Bishop his tongue cut 
 cut, i. 378. 
 
 Theodosius, Emperor, fanaticism of, i. 
 312. 
 
 His cruel vengeance at Thessalonica, 
 
 i. 313. 
 His acts, i. 317. 
 
 Orders the Serapion to be torn 
 down, i. 319. 
 
 Theodosius, an Alexandrian geometri- 
 cian, i. 204. 
 
 Theon, an Alexandrian geometrician, 
 and father of Hypatia, i. 204, 
 322. 
 
 Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, 
 his character, i. 317. 
 Cause of his umbrage at the 
 
 Serapion, i. 318. 
 Persecutions of, i. 319. 
 Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, first 
 introduced the word " Trinity/' 
 l. 273. 
 
432 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Theophilus, Emperor, image-worship 
 restored at his death, i. 421. 
 His surly and insolent reply to Al- 
 maimon, ii. 40. 
 
 Theosis, its meaning as employed by 
 John Erigena, ii. 9. 
 
 Therapeutae, early Egyptian hermits, 
 
 i. 424. 
 
 Thermotics, science of heat, ii. 383. 
 Thessalonica, massacre at, i. 313. 
 Thomas a Kempis, the reputed author 
 
 of " The Imitation of Christ," ii. 
 
 196. 
 
 Thought, confounded with sensation 
 
 by Democritus, i. 125. 
 Variation of human, ii. 205. 
 Thucydides, his secret disbelief of the 
 
 Trojan war, i. 49. 
 Thuringians converted in the seventh 
 
 and eighth centuries, i. 365. 
 Tides and currents explained on the 
 
 theory of gravitation, ii. 371. 
 Time, nothing absolute in, i. 17. 
 Torricelli, weight of atmosphere 
 
 understood before, ii. 47. 
 Hydrostatics created by, ii. 285. 
 Constructs the barometer, and de- 
 monstrates the pressure of the 
 
 air, ii. 390. 
 Toscanelli, a Florentine astronomer, 
 
 and friend of Columbus, ii. 
 
 160. 
 
 Constructs his gnomon in the 
 Cathedral of Florence, ii. 255. 
 
 Tours, battle of, i. 368. 
 
 Trade-wind, under the dominion of 
 law, i. 4. 
 
 Transformation, the world is under- 
 going unceasing, i. 59. 
 Transitional forms, nature of, i. 12. 
 Transmigration of souls, the Veda 
 doctrine of, i. 61. 
 The Buddhist doctrine of, i. 71. 
 The Pythagorean doctrine of, does 
 not imply the absolute immorta- 
 lity of the soul, i. 117. 
 Plato's doctrine of, i. 156. 
 Transmission, hereditary, nature of, 
 
 ii. 333. 
 
 Transmutation of metals, i. 406. 
 
 Transmutation of species, doctrine of, 
 has met with opposition, ii. 328. 
 Transubstantiation, a twin-sister of 
 transmutation, i. 407. 
 The doctrine of, first attacked by 
 
 the new philosophers, ii. 9. 
 The Italian doctrine of, rejected tv 
 the German and Swiss reformers, 
 ii. 210. 
 
 Tribonian suspected of being an 
 atheist, i. 359. 
 
 Trinitarian disputes had their start- 
 ing point in Alexandria, i. 191. 
 
 Trinity, the Indian doctrine of, i. 
 64. 
 
 The Egyptian doctrine of, i. 91. 
 Is assumed in the doctrine of Nu- 
 
 menius, i. 211. 
 The word does not occur in the 
 
 Scriptures, i. 273. 
 Triumvirate, the First, usurps the 
 
 power of the senate and people, 
 
 i. 248. 
 
 Trojan war, various views enter- 
 tained about, i. 50. 
 Horse, superstitious notions of the 
 tools with which it was made, i. 
 51. 
 
 Troubadours use the Langue d'Oc in 
 the north of France, ii. 60. 
 
 Trouveres use the Langue d'Oil in 
 the south of France, ii. 60. 
 
 Tupac Yupanqui, Inca, quoted, ii. 
 183. 
 
 Turkish invasion, effect of, ii. 110. 
 Turks, their origin and progress, ii. 
 105. 
 
 Tutching, his severe and prolonged 
 
 punishment, ii. 244. 
 Tycho makes a new catalogue of the 
 
 stars, ii. 284. 
 Tympanum, its function, i. 5. 
 Types, Platonic, i. 152. 
 Tyre, fall of, i. 80. 
 Tyrians, their enterprise, i. 45. 
 
 Ulphilas invents an alphabet for the 
 
 Goths, i. 367. 
 " Unam Sanctam," the bull of, issued 
 by Pope Boniface, ii. 83. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 43S 
 
 tfoder-world, primitive notions re- 
 specting, i. 39. 
 
 Undulatory theory of light, ii. 381. 
 
 Uniformity, doctrine of, ii. 323. 
 
 Unity of mankind, i. 10. 
 
 Religious, implies tyranny to the 
 individual, ii. 227. 
 
 Universe, unchangeability of, taught 
 by Anaxagoras, i. 108. 
 Its magnitude, ii. 292, 335. 
 
 Unreliability of sense, Zeno's illustra- 
 tion of, i. 123. 
 
 Urban II. institutes the Crusades, ii. 
 20. 
 
 Urban VI., his cruelty to his cardinals 
 and bishops, ii. 96. 
 
 Valentinian issues an edict denouncing 
 the contumacy of Hilary, k 300. 
 Is a Nicenist, i. 311. 
 
 Valerius, Count, the Pelagian question 
 settled through his influence, i. 
 294. 
 
 Vallisneri, an Italian geologist of the 
 eighteenth century, ii. 315. 
 
 Vandal attack, i. 327. 
 
 Vandals converted in the fourth cen- 
 tury, i. 365. 
 
 Van Helmont introduced the theory 
 of vitality into medicine, ii. 285. 
 
 Variation of organic forms, i. 8. 
 Man not exempt from law of, i. 
 10. 
 
 Human, best seen when examined 
 on a line of the meridian, i. 11. 
 
 The political result of human, i. 
 11. 
 
 Varolius, a distinguished anatomist, ii. 
 284. 
 
 Varro, Terentius, his scepticism, i. 
 257. 
 
 Vasco de Gama doubles the Cape of 
 
 Good Hope, ii. 167. 
 Vatican library founded by Nicholas 
 
 V., ii. 111. 
 Vedaism, the adoration of nature, its 
 doctrines, i. 58. 
 Its changes, i. 64. 
 Vedic doctrines, minor, i. 62. 
 VOL. 11. 
 
 Venice, commercial rivalry between 
 Genoa and, ii. 158. 
 Takes the lead in the publication of 
 books, ii. 199. 
 
 Venus, light of the planet, ii. 304. 
 
 Verona, Fracaster wrote on the petri- 
 factions found at, ii. 315. 
 The first geological museum esta- 
 blished at, ii. 390. 
 
 Vesicles, nerve, structure and func- 
 tions of, ii. 347. 
 
 Victor, Bishop of Rome, requires the 
 Asiatic bishops to conform to his 
 view respecting Easter, i. 291. 
 
 Victor III. denounces the life of Pope 
 Benedict IX. as foul and exe- 
 crable, i. 381. 
 
 Vienne, Council of, ii. 89. 
 
 Vieta improves algebra, and applies 
 it to geometry, ii. 284. 
 
 Vigilius purchases the Papacy for two 
 hundred pounds of gold, i. 354. 
 
 Vinci, Leonardo da, his contributions 
 to science, ii. 268. 
 First asserts the true nature of 
 
 fossil remains, ii. 314, 390. 
 Compares the action of the eye to 
 that of a camera obscura, ii. 
 380. 
 
 Virgin Mary, worship of, i. 296. 
 
 Various art types of the, i. 361. 
 Visconti, Barnabas, irreverence of, ii. 
 95. 
 
 Visigoths, spread of, through Greece, 
 
 Spain, Italy, i. 300. 
 Vision, correct ideas respecting, ii. 
 
 380. 
 
 Vitello publishes a treatise on optics 
 in the sixteenth century, ii. 255. 
 Vocabulary, Indo-Germanic, i. 32. 
 Volcanoes, ii. 301. 
 
 Volta, indebtedness of chemistry to. 
 
 ii. 391. 
 Voltaic electricity, ii. 377. 
 Voyages, minor, ii. 174. 
 Vulgate becomes the ecclesiastical 
 
 authority of the West, i. 306. 
 Jealous fears of Rome respecting 
 
 depreciation of the authority of 
 
 ii. 195.. 
 
 2 v 
 
434 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Wales, South, thickness of coal- 
 bearing strata in, ii. 308. 
 
 Waiiuf the Penniless, one of the first 
 Crusaders, ii. 22. 
 ar, effect of, on the low Arab class, 
 i. 339. 
 
 Moral state of Europe indicated by 
 the usages of war, ii. 232. 
 War system, Roman, i. 250. 
 Water, importance of, in Egypt, i. 96. 
 The curious treatise of Zosimus on 
 the virtues and composition of, 
 
 i. 408. 
 
 Physical and chemical relation of, 
 
 ii. 372. 
 
 Watt, James, has revolutionized the 
 industry of the world, i. 387. 
 His discovery of the constitution of 
 
 water, ii. 340. 
 His invention of the steam-engine, 
 ii. 385. 
 Week, origin of the, i. 403. 
 Weeping statues, held in supersti- 
 tious veneration by the vulgar, 
 
 i. 51. 
 
 Western Empire becomes extinct, i.35 1. 
 Westphalia, Peace of, the culmination 
 
 of the Reformation, ii. 212. 
 Whewell, his testimony to the incom- 
 parable merit of Newton's 
 
 " Principia," ii. 275. 
 Wickliffe translates the Bible, ii. 99. 
 
 The revolt of, ii. 148. 
 William of Champeaux opens a school 
 
 of logic in Paris, ii. 14. 
 William, Lord of Montpellier, his 
 
 edict respecting the practice of 
 
 medicine, ii. 123. 
 William de Nogaret assists King 
 
 Philip against Pope Boniface II., 
 
 ii. 84. 
 
 Also against the Templars, ii. 91. 
 
 William de Plaisian prefers a long 
 list of charges against Pope 
 Boniface, ii. 84. 
 
 Willis, his researches on the brain 
 and nervous system, ii. 286. 
 
 Winking pictures held in supersti- 
 tious veneration by the vulgar, 
 i. 51. 
 
 Witchcraft, introduction of European 
 ii. 115. 
 
 Women, condition of, in India, i. 63 
 " Sub-introduced," i. 359. 
 Exerted extraordinary influence in 
 the conversion of Europe, i. 365. 
 Woodward improves mineralogy, ii. 
 286. 
 
 World, to determine the origin and 
 manner of production of, the 
 first object of Greek philosophy, 
 i. 217. 
 
 Hindu doctrine of the absorption of, 
 
 i. 226. 
 
 Moral, is governed by principles ana- 
 logous to those which obtain in 
 the physical, i. 348. 
 Expected end of, i. 377. 
 Anthropocentric ideas of the begin- 
 ning of, ii. 297. 
 Worlds, infinity of, ii. 292. 
 
 Succession of, ii. 336. 
 Worms, synod of, ii. 18. 
 
 Xantippe, the wife of Socrates, her 
 character unfairly judged of, i 
 147. 
 
 Xenophanes, the representative of a 
 grraat philosophical advance, i. 
 118. 
 
 Xerxes, his exploits exaggerated, l. 
 130. 
 
 Ximenes, Cardinal, burns Arabic 
 manuscripts, ii. 177. 
 
 Year, length of, determined by Ai 
 bategnius and Thebit Ben Corrah, 
 
 ii. 41. 
 
 Yezed, Khalif, origin of Iconoclasm 
 imputed to, i. 417. 
 
 Yolinda de Lusignan, Frederick com- 
 pelled to marry her by Hono- 
 rius III., ii. 67. 
 
 York, Archbishop of, excommunicated, 
 ii. 75. 
 
 Yucay, the site of the national palace 
 of Peru, ii. 182. 
 
 Zachary, Pope, enters into an alliance 
 with King Pepin, i. 370. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 435 
 
 Zaryab, the musician, honour paid 
 him by the Khalif Abderrahman, 
 ii. 34. 
 
 Zedekias, physician to Charles the 
 
 Bald, fabulous story of, ii. 120. 
 Zehra, splendour and magnificence of 
 
 the palace and gardens of, ii. 32. 
 Zemzen, a well, one of the fictions of 
 
 popular Mohammedanism, i. 345. 
 Zeno the Eleatic, the doctrines of 
 
 Parmenides carried out by, i. 
 
 122. 
 
 Zeno the Stoic, rival of Epicurus, i. 
 182. 
 
 Ziska, John, desecration of the body 
 
 of, ii. 149. 
 Zosimus, Pope, annuls the decision ol 
 Innocent I., and declares the 
 opinion of Pelagius to be ortho- 
 dox, i. 294. 
 
 | Zosmus the Panopolitan, describes 
 the process of distillation, i. 408. 
 
 I Zuinglius, the leader of the Swiss Re> 
 formation, ii. 210. 
 
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( 2 7 ) 
 
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( 29 ) 
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