On the Philosophy of Discovery, Chapters Historical and Critical. William Whewell
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they were prohibited by authority, as we see in the case of Galileo54.
But this disinclination to recognize philosophy as independent of religion, and this disposition to find in new theories, even in physical ones, something contrary to religion or scripture, are, it would seem, very natural tendencies of theologians; and it would be unjust to assert that these propensities were confined to the periods when the authority of papal Rome was highest; or that the spirit which has in a great degree controlled and removed such habits was introduced by the Reformation of religion in the sixteenth century. We must trace to other causes, the clear and general recognition of Philosophy, as distinct from Theology, and independent of her authority. In the earlier ages of the Church, indeed, this separation had been acknowledged. St. Augustin says, "A Christian should beware how he speaks on questions of natural philosophy, as if they were doctrines of Holy Scripture; for an infidel who should hear him deliver absurdities could not avoid laughing. Thus the Christian would be confused, and the infidel but little edified; for the infidel would conclude that our authors really entertained these extravagant opinions, and therefore they would despise them, to their own eternal ruin. Therefore the opinions of philosophers should never be proposed as dogmas of faith, or rejected as contrary to faith, when it is not certain that they are so." These words are quoted with approbation by Thomas Aquinas, and it is said55, are cited in the same manner in every encyclopedical work of the middle ages. This warning of genuine wisdom was afterwards rejected, as we have seen; and it is only in modern times that its value has again been fully recognized. And this improvement we must ascribe, mainly, to the progress of physical science. For a great body of undeniable truths on physical subjects being accumulated, such as had no reference to nor connexion with the truths of religion, and yet such as possessed a strong interest for most men's minds, it was impossible longer to deny that there were wide provinces of knowledge which were not included in the dominions of Theology, and over which she had no authority. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the fundamental doctrines of mechanics, hydrostatics, optics, magnetics, chemistry, were established and promulgated; and along with them, a vast train of consequences, attractive to the mind by the ideal relations which they exhibited, and striking to the senses by the power which they gave man over nature. Here was a region in which philosophy felt herself entitled and impelled to assert her independence. From this region, there is a gradation of subjects in which philosophy advances more and more towards the peculiar domain of religion; and at some intermediate points there have been, and probably will always be, conflicts respecting the boundary line of the two fields of speculation. For the limit is vague and obscure, and appears to fluctuate and shift with the progress of time and knowledge.
Our business at present is not with the whole extent and limits of philosophy, but with the progress of physical science more particularly, and the methods by which it may be attained: and we are endeavouring to trace historically the views which have prevailed respecting such methods, at various periods of man's intellectual progress. Among the most conspicuous of the revolutions which opinions on this subject have undergone, is the transition from an implicit trust in the internal powers of man's mind to a professed dependence upon external observation; and from an unbounded reverence for the wisdom of the past, to a fervid expectation of change and improvement. The origin and progress of this disposition of mind;—the introduction of a state of things in which men not only obtained a body of indestructible truths from experience, and increased it from generation to generation, but professedly, and we may say, ostentatiously, declared such to be the source of their knowledge, and such their hopes of its destined career;—the rise, in short, of Experimental Philosophy, not only as a habit, but as a Philosophy of Experience, is what we must now endeavour to exhibit.
CHAPTER X.
The Innovators of the Middle Ages
1. General Remarks.—In the rise of Experimental Philosophy, understanding the term in the way just now stated, two features have already been alluded to: the disposition to cast off the prevalent reverence for the opinions and methods of preceding teachers with an eager expectation of some vast advantage to be derived from a change; and the belief that this improvement must be sought by drawing our knowledge from external observation rather than from mere intellectual efforts;—the Insurrection against Authority, and the Appeal to Experience. These two movements were closely connected; but they may easily be distinguished, and in fact, persons were very prominent in the former part of the task, who had no comprehension of the latter principle, from which alone the change derives its value. There were many Malcontents who had not the temper, talent or knowledge, which fitted them to be Reformers.
The authority which was questioned, in the struggle of which we speak, was that of the Scholastic System, the combination of Philosophy with Theology; of which Aristotle, presented in the form and manner which the Doctors of the Church had imposed upon him, is to be considered the representative. When there was demanded of men a submission of the mind, such as this system claimed, the natural love of freedom in man's bosom, and the speculative tendencies of his intellect, rose in rebellion, from time to time, against the ruling oppression. We find in all periods of the scholastic ages examples of this disposition of man to resist overstrained authority; the tendency being mostly, however, combined with a want of solid thought, and showing itself in extravagant pretensions and fantastical systems put forwards by the insurgents. We have pointed out one such opponent56 of the established systems, even among the Arabian schoolmen, a more servile race than ever the Europeans were. We may here notice more especially an extraordinary character who appeared in the thirteenth century, and who may be considered as belonging to the Prelude of the Reform in Philosophy, although he had no share in the Reform itself.
2. Raymond Lully.—Raymond Lully is perhaps traditionally best known as an Alchemist, of which art he appears to have been a cultivator. But this was only one of the many impulses of a spirit ardently thirsty of knowledge and novelty. He had57, in his youth, been a man of pleasure, but was driven by a sudden shock of feeling to resolve on a complete change of life. He plunged into solitude, endeavoured to still the remorse of his conscience by prayer and penance, and soon had his soul possessed by visions which he conceived were vouchsafed to him. In the feeling of religious enthusiasm thus excited, he resolved to devote his life to the diffusion of Christian truth among Heathens and Mahomedans. For this purpose, at the age of thirty he betook himself to the study of Grammar, and of the Arabic language. He breathed earnest supplications for an illumination from above; and these were answered by his receiving from heaven, as his admirers declare, his Ars Magna by which he was able without labour or effort to learn and apply all knowledge. The real state of the case is, that he put himself in opposition to the established systems, and propounded a New Art, from which he promised the most wonderful results; but that his Art really is merely a mode of combining ideal conceptions without any reference to real sources of knowledge, or any possibility of real advantage. In a Treatise addressed, in A.D. 1310, to King Philip of France, entitled Liber Lamentationis Duodecim Principiorum Philosophiæ contra Averroistas, Lully introduced Philosophy, accompanied by her twelve Principles, (Matter, Form, Generation, &c.) uttering loud complaints against the prevailing system of doctrine; and represents her as presenting to the king a petition that she may be upheld and restored by her favourite, the Author. His Tabula Generalis ad omnes Scientias applicabilis was begun the 15th September, 1292, in the Harbour of Tunis, and finished in 1293, at Naples. In order to frame an Art of thus tabulating all existing sciences, and indeed all possible knowledge, he divides into various classes the conceptions with which he has to deal. The first class contains nine Absolute Conceptions: Goodness, Greatness, Duration, Power, Wisdom, Will, Virtue, Truth, Majesty. The second class has nine Relative Conceptions: Difference, Identity, Contrariety, Beginning, Middle, End, Majority, Equality, Minority. The third class contains nine Questions: Whether? What? Whence? Why? How great? How circumstanced? When? Where? and How? The fourth class contains the nine Most General Subjects: God, Angel, Heaven, Man, Imaginativum, Sensitivum, Vegetativum, Elementativum, Instrumentativum. Then come nine Prædicaments, nine Moral Qualities, and so on. These conceptions are arranged in the compartments
If there were any doubt on this subject, we might refer to the writers who afterwards questioned the supremacy of Aristotle, and who with one voice assert that an infallible authority had been claimed for him. Thus Laurentius Valla: "Quo minus ferendi sunt recentes Peripatetici, qui nullius sectæ hominibus interdicunt libertate ab Aristotele dissentiendi, quasi sophos hic, non philosophus."
Algazel. See
Tenneman, viii. 830.