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only condemned but punished. The printing and selling of his books was forbidden through France; and Ramus was stigmatized by a sentence123 which declared him rash, arrogant, impudent, and ignorant, and prohibited from teaching logic and philosophy. He was, however, afterwards restored to the office of professor: and though much attacked, persisted in his plan of reforming, not only Logic but Physics and Metaphysics. He made his position still more dangerous by adopting the reformed religion; and during the unhappy civil wars of France, he was deprived of his professorship, driven from Paris, and had his library plundered. He endeavoured, but in vain, to engage a German professor, Schegk, to undertake the reform of the Aristotelian Physics; a portion of knowledge in which he felt himself not to be strong. Unhappily for himself, he afterwards returned to Paris, where he perished in the massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572.

      Ramus's main objection to the Aristotelian Logic is, that it is not the image of the natural process of thought; an objection which shows little philosophical insight; for the course by which we obtain knowledge may well differ from the order in which our knowledge, when obtained, is exhibited. We have already seen that Ramus's contemporaries, Cæsalpinus and Campanella, had a wiser view; placing definition as the last step in knowing, but the first in teaching. But the effect which Ramus produced was by no means slight. He aided powerfully in turning the minds of men to question the authority of Aristotle on all points; and had many followers, especially among the Protestants. Among the rest, Milton, our great poet, published "Artis Logicæ plenior Institutio ad Petri Rami methodum concinnata;" but this work, appearing in 1672, belongs to a succeeding period.

      6.(The Reformers in general).—It is impossible not to be struck with the series of misfortunes which assailed the reformers of philosophy of the period we have had to review. Roger Bacon was repeatedly condemned and imprisoned; and, not to speak of others who suffered under the imputation of magical arts, Telesius is said124 to have been driven from Naples to his native city by calumny and envy; Cæsalpinus was accused of atheism125; Campanella was imprisoned for twenty-seven years and tortured; Giordano Bruno was burnt at Rome as a heretic; Ramus was persecuted during his life, and finally murdered by his personal enemy Jacques Charpentier, in a massacre of which the plea was religion. It is true, that for the most part these misfortunes were not principally due to the attempts at philosophical reform, but were connected rather with politics or religion. But we cannot doubt that the spirit which led men to assail the received philosophy, might readily incline them to reject some tenets of the established religion; since the boundary line of these subjects is difficult to draw. And as we have seen, there was in most of the persons of whom we have spoken, not only a well-founded persuasion of the defects of existing systems, but an eager spirit of change, and a sanguine anticipation of some wide and lofty philosophy, which was soon to elevate the minds and conditions of men. The most unfortunate were, for the most part, the least temperate and judicious reformers. Patricius, who, as we have seen, declared himself against the Aristotelian philosophy, lived and died at Rome in peace and honour126.

      7.(Melancthon.)—It is not easy to point out with precision the connexion between the efforts at a Reform in Philosophy, and the great Reformation of Religion in the sixteenth century. The disposition to assert (practically at least) a freedom of thinking, and to reject the corruptions which tradition had introduced and authority maintained, naturally extended its influence from one subject to another; and especially in subjects so nearly connected as theology and philosophy. The Protestants, however, did not reject the Aristotelian system; they only reformed it, by going back to the original works of the author, and by reducing it to a conformity with Scripture. In this reform, Melancthon was the chief author, and wrote works on Logic, Physics, Morals, and Metaphysics, which were used among Protestants. On the subject of the origin of our knowledge, his views contained a very philosophical improvement of the Aristotelian doctrines. He recognized the importance of Ideas, as well as of Experience. "We could not," he says127, "proceed to reason at all, except there were by nature innate in man certain fixed points, that is, principles of science;—as Number, the recognition of Order and Proportion, logical, geometrical, physical and moral Principles. Physical principles are such as these,—everything which exists proceeds from a cause,—a body cannot be in two places at once,—time is a continued series of things or of motions,—and the like." It is not difficult to see that such Principles partake of the nature of the Fundamental Ideas which we have attempted to arrange and enumerate in a previous part of this work.

      Before we proceed to the next chapter, which treats of the Practical Reformers of Scientific Method, let us for an instant look at the strong persuasion implied in the titles of the works of this period, that the time of a philosophical revolution was at hand. Telesius published De Rerum Natura juxta propria principia; Francis Helmont, Philosophia vulgaris refutata; Patricius, Nova de Universis Philosophia; Campanella, Philosophia sensibus demonstrata, adversus errores Aristotelis; Bruno professed himself the author of a Nolan Philosophy; and Ramus of a New Logic. The age announced itself pregnant; and the eyes of all who took an interest in the intellectual fortunes of the race, were looking eagerly for the expected offspring.

      CHAPTER XIV.

      The Practical Reformers of Science

      1. Character of the Practical Reformers.—We now come to a class of speculators who had perhaps a greater share in bringing about the change from stationary to progressive knowledge, than those writers who so loudly announced the revolution. The mode in which the philosophers of whom we now speak produced their impressions on men's minds, was very different from the procedure of the theoretical reformers. What these talked of, they did; what these promised, they performed. While the theorists concerning knowledge proclaimed that great advances were to be made, the practical discoverers went steadily forwards. While one class spoke of a complete Reform of scientific Methods, the other, boasting little, and often thinking little of Method, proved the novelty of their instrument by obtaining new results. While the metaphysicians were exhorting men to consult experience and the senses, the physicists were examining nature by such means with unparalleled success. And while the former, even when they did for a moment refer to facts, soon rushed back into their own region of ideas, and tried at once to seize the widest generalizations, the latter, fastening their attention upon the phenomena, and trying to reduce them to laws, were carried forwards by steps measured and gradual, such as no conjectural view of scientific method had suggested; but leading to truths as profound and comprehensive as any which conjecture had dared to anticipate. The theoretical reformers were bold, self-confident, hasty, contemptuous of antiquity, ambitious of ruling all future speculations, as they whom they sought to depose had ruled the past. The practical reformers were cautious, modest, slow, despising no knowledge, whether borrowed from tradition or observation, confident in the ultimate triumph of science, but impressed with the conviction that each single person could contribute a little only to its progress. Yet though thus working rather than speculating,—dealing with particulars more than with generals,—employed mainly in adding to knowledge, and not in defining what knowledge is, or how additions are to be made to it,—these men, thoughtful, curious, and of comprehensive minds, were constantly led to important views on the nature and methods of science. And these views, thus suggested by reflections on their own mental activity, were gradually incorporated with the more abstract doctrines of the metaphysicians, and had a most important influence in establishing an improved philosophy of science. The indications of such views we must now endeavour to collect from the writings of the discoverers of the times preceding the seventeenth century.

      Some of the earliest of these indications are to be found in those who dealt with Art rather than with Science. I have already endeavoured to show that the advance of the arts which give us a command over the powers of nature, is generally prior to the formation of exact and speculative knowledge concerning those powers. But Art, which is thus the predecessor of Science, is, among nations of acute and active intellects, usually its parent. There operates, in such a case, a speculative spirit, leading men to seek for the reasons of that which they find themselves able to do. How slowly, and with what repeated deviations men follow this leading, when under the influence

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