the Understanding.* After this comes the fourth stage, when another eye is opened, by which man perceives things hidden from others-perceives all that will be-perceives things that escape the perceptions of Reason, as the objects of Reason escape the Understanding, and as the objects of Understanding escape the sensitive faculty. This is Prophetism. Algazzali undertakes to prove the existence of this faculty:

"Doubts respecting Prophetism must refer either to its possibility or its reality. To prove its possibility it is only necessary to prove that it belongs to the category of objects which cannot be regarded as the products of intelligence: such, for example, as Astronomy or Medicine. For whoso studies these sciences is aware that they cannot be comprehended except by Divine inspiration, with the assistance of God, and not by experience. Since there are astronomical indications which only appear once in a thousand years, how could they be known by experience? From this argument it is evident that it is very possible to perceive things which the intelligence cannot conceive. And this is precisely one of the properties of Prophetism, which has a myriad other properties; but these others are only perceptible during ecstasy by those who lead the life of the Soufis."

We are now in a position to judge of Soufism, which was not, strictly speaking, a Philosophy, nor was it a Religion. No Mussulman, according to M. Schmölders, ever regarded it as either. It was simply a rule of life, carried into practice by a body of men, similar to what in Europe would have been a monastic order. The aim of Algazzali's treatise was something more than the mere inculcation of Soufism, it was the endeavor to supply a philosophical basis for the rule of life; in other words, an attempt to reconcile Religion with Philosophy, or Philosophy with Religion; precisely analogous to that attempt which constitutes the whole philosophic activity of Scholasticism. There were two great epochs in the intellectual development of the Arabians: the

*Kant's three psychological elements, Sinnlichkeit, Verstand, Vernunft, are here anticipated.

preaching of Mahomet, and the conquest of Alexandria: the one gave them a Religion, the other gave them a Philosophy. The doctrines of the Koran were blended with those of the Neo-Platonists, and the result was that system of speculation known as Arabian Philosophy; a system different in its details, but similar in spirit and purpose to that known as Scholasticism, which blended the doctrines of Christianity with those of Grecian speculators.

§ IV. REVIVAL OF LEARNING.

However similar in spirit, Scholasticism could of course only accept, from the Arabian Philosophy, that portion which was derived from Greece, since Christianity necessarily replaced the Mahometan element. Europe was indebted to the Arabs for most ot the principal works of Aristotle; and although it has long been the cue of historians and critics to speak contemptuously of the Arabian translations-a contempt perfectly impartial, seeing that the critics could read no Arabic-we are assured by M. Schmölders that these translations were very careful, and critical. Through the schools of Cordoba, Seville, Toledo, Valencia, Murcia, and Almeria, the Greek writers penetrated everywhere.

With the revival of learning, after the fall of Constantinople came fresh streams of Grecian influence. The works of Plato became generally known; under Marsilio Ficino-to whom we owe the Latin translation of Plato*—a school of Platonists was formed, which continued to divide, with the school of Aristotle, the supremacy of Europe, under new forms, as before it had divided it under the form of Realism. The effect of this influx of Grecian influence, at a period when Philosophy was just emancipating itself from the absolute authority of the Church, and proclaiming the divine right of Reason to be heard on all rational topics, was to transfer the allegiance from the Church to Antiquity. To have suddenly cast off all authority would have been too violent a

*In many respects our best guide to Plato's meaning where he is most obscure. It is printed in Bekker's edition.

change; and it may on the whole be regarded as fortunate for human development that Philosophy did so blindly accept the new authority-one altogether human, yet without deep roots in the life of the nation, without any external constituted power, consequently very liable to disunion and disruption, and certain. to give way before the necessary insurgence of Reason insisting on freedom.

There is something profoundly significant in the principle of Authority, when not exercised despotically, and something essentially anarchical in the principle of Liberty of Thought, when not restrained within due limits. Both Authority and Liberty are necessary principles, which only in misuse become paralyzing or destructive. It may be made perfectly clear to the rational mind that there can be no such thing as "liberty of private judgment" in Mathematics, Astronomy, Physics, Chemistry, or any other science the truths of which have been established; the person ignorant of these sciences does, and must, take upon trust the statements made by those who are authorities; he cannot indulge his "private judgment" on the matter, without forfeiting the respect of those who hear him. Does this mean that all men are bound blindly to accept what astronomers and chemists assert? No; to require such submission of the judgment, is to pass beyond the principle of Authority, and assume that of Despotism. The principle of Liberty assures entire freedom to intellectual activity, warrants the control of Authority, incites men to control it by submitting its positions to those elementary tests by which it was itself originally constituted. If I have made a series of experiments which have led to the disclosure of an important truth, your liberty of private judgment is mere anarchy if it assert itself in denying the truth simply out of your own preconceptions; but it is healthy freedom if it assert itself in denying the truth after having submitted my authority to its original tests (those experiments, namely, which gave it authority), and after detecting some error in my experimentation, or some inaccuracy in my induction. The authoritative statement of Sir Charles Bell, repeated by every

other anatomist, respecting the separate functions of the anterior. and posterior columns of the spinal chord, was one which permitted no liberty of private judgment, but did permit liberty of private verification; and when M. Brown-Séquard repeated the original experiments and proved the former conclusions to be erroneous," his authoritative statement replaced that of previous anatomists, and will continue to replace it, until it has undergone a similar defeat through the process of verification.

*

If this is a correct view, it will enable us to understand the long continuance of Aristotle's authority, which coerced the minds of men as the authority of one confessedly a master in his art, and one whose positions would not easily be brought to the test of verification. Hence, as Bayle says, the method employed was first to prove every thesis by authority, and next by arguments; the proofs by authority were passages of Aristotle: the arguments went to show that these passages, rightly interpreted, meant what the thesis meant.

Other causes contributed to foster this reverence for Authority; only one cause could effectually destroy it, and that was the rise of positive Science, which by forcing men to verify every step they took, led them into direct antagonism with the ancients, and made them choose between the new truth and the old dogma. As Campanella-one of the reforming thinkers-acutely saw, "the reforms already made in philosophy must make us expect its complete change; and whoever denies that the Christian mind will surpass the Pagan mind, must also deny the existence of the New World, the planets and the stars, the seas, the animals, the colonies, and the modern sects of the new cosmography." It does not come within our purpose here to trace the rise and development of Science; we must therefore pass at once to Giordano Bruno, whom we have selected as the type of the philosophical insurgents against the authority of Aristotle

and the Church.

*See Mémoires de la Société de Biologie. 1855.

+ Quoted by M. Renouvier, Manuel de Philos. Moderne, p. 7.

§ V. GIORDANO BRUNO.*

On the 17th of February, 1600, a vast concourse of people was assembled in the largest open space in Rome, gathered together by the irresistible sympathy which men always feel with whatever is terrible and tragic in human existence. In the centre stood a huge pile of fagots; from out its logs and branches rose a stake. Crowding round the pile were eager and expectant faces, men of various ages and of various characters, but all for one moment united in a common feeling of malignant triumph. Religion was about to be avenged: a heretic was coming to expiate on that spot the crime of open defiance to the dogmas proclaimed by the Church-the crime of teaching that the earth moved, and that there was an infinity of worlds: the scoundrel! the villain! the blasphemer! Among the crowd might be seen monks of every description, especially Dominicans, who were anxious to witness the punishment of an apostate from their order; wealthy citizens were jostling ragged beggars,-young and beauteous women, some of them with infants at their breasts, were talking with their husbands and fathers, and playing about amidst the crowd, in all the heedlessness of childhood, were a number of boys, squeezing their way, and running up against scholars pale with study, and bearded soldiers glittering with steel.

Whom does the crowd await? Giordano Bruno-the poet, philosopher, and heretic-the teacher of Galileo's heresy-the friend of Sir Philip Sidney, and open antagonist of Aristotle. Questions pass rapidly to and fro among the crowd; exultation is on every face, mingled with intense curiosity. Grave men moralize on the power of Satan to pervert learning and talent to evil: Oh, my friends, let us beware!-let us beware of learning! let us beware of every thing! Bystanders shake significant heads. A hush comes over the crowd. The procession solemn

* In this Section I have altered and abridged an essay of my own in the British Quarterly Review.