ftrenuously contends, that Recelinus an Englishman, was properly the father of the schoolmen: and that to him, the fect of the Nominalists owed its rife and credit. He adds, that it revived afterwards in the perfon of Occain, another of our country men, and the perpetual antagonist of Duns Scotus, who had declared for the Realifts, and was reckoned their ableft champion. The learned reader needs not be told, that the fcholaftic Doctors were all diftinguished into these two fects; formidable party-names, which now are as little known or mentioned, as the controverfies that once occafioned them. It is fufficient to fay, that, like all other parties, they hated each other heartily; treated each other as heretics in Logic: and that their disputes were often fharp and bloody; ending not only in the metaphorical destruction of common fenfe and language, but in the real mutilation and death of the combatants. For, to the disgrace of human reason, mankind in all their controverfies, whether about a notion or a thing, a predicament or a province, have made their laft appeal to brute force and violence. The titles with which these leaders were honoured by their followers, on account of the sublime reveries they taught, are at once magnificent and abfurd: and prove rather the fuperlative ignorance of those times, than any transcen dent merit in the men, to whom they were applied. From this cenfure we ought nevertheless to except one, who was a prodigy of knowledge, for the age he lived in, and is ackowledged as fuch by the age to which I am writing. I mean the renowned. Fryar Bacon, who fhone forth fingly thro' the profound darkness of those times; but rather dazzled than enlightened. the weaker eyes of his contemporaries. As if the name of Bacon were auspicious to philosophy, this Man, not only without a affiftance or encouragement, but infultBeisp. Samml. 8.B. 2. Abth.

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ed and perfecuted, by the unconquerable force of his genius penetrated far into the mysteries of nature; and made so many new discoveris in Aftronomy and Perspective, in Mechanies, and Chimistry, that the most sober writers even now, cannot mention them without fome marks of emotion, and wonder. It is

Dr. Friend's obfervation, that he was almost the only Aftronomer of his age: and the reformation of the Calendar, by him attempted, and in a manner perfected, is a noble proof of his skill in that science. The conftruction of fpectacles, of telescopes, of all forts of glales, that magnify or diminish objects, the compofition of gunpowder (which Bartholdus Swartz is thought, to have first hit upon, almost a century later) are some of the many inventions with juftice afcribed to him.. For all which, he was in his life-time calunniated, imprisoned, oppressed: and after his death wounded in his good name, as a magician, who had dealt in arts infernal, and abominable. He tells us, that there were but four persons then in Europe, who had made any progrefs in the Mathematics; and in Chimistry yet fewer: that those who undertook to translate Aristotle were every way unequal to the task; and that his writings, which, rightly understood, Bacon confidered as the fountain of all knowledge, had been lately condemned and burned in a synod held at Paris.

The works of that celebrated Antient have, in truth, more exercised the hatred and admiration of mankind than those of all the other philofophers together. Launoy enumerates no less than thirty seven Fathers of the Church, who have ftigmatized his name, and endeavoured to reprobate his doctrines. Morhoff has reckoned up a still greater number of his commentators, who were at the fame time implicitely his

disciples: and yet both these authors are far from having given a complete lift either of his friends or enemies. In his life-timne he was fufpected of irreligion, and, by the Pagan priesthood, marked out for destruc tion: the fuccellors of those very men, were his partizans and admirers. His works met with much the fame treatment from the Chriftian clergy: fometimes profcribed for heretical; fometimes triumphant, and acknowledged the great bulwark of Orthodoxy.

Launoy has written a particular treatife on the fubject, and mentioned eight different revolutions in the fortune and reputation of Aristotle's philosophy. To pass over the intermediate changes, I will just mention two, that make a full and ridiculous contrast. In the above mentioned Council, held at Paris about the year 1209, the Bishops there, cenfured his writings, without discrimination, as the peftilent sources of error and herely; condemned them to the flames, and commanded all perfons, on pain of excommunication, not tỏ read, transcribe, or keep any copies of them. They went farther, and delivered over to the fecular arm, no less than ten perfons, who were burned alive, for certain tenents, drawn, as those learned prelates had heared, from the pernicious books in question. Those very books, in the fixteenth century', were not only read with impunity, but every where taught with applaufe: and whoever difputed their orthodoxy, I had almost said their infallibility, was persecuted as an infidel and mifcreant. Of this the fophifter Ramus is a memorable instance. Certain animadverfions of his on the peripatetic philofophy occafioned a general commotion in the learned world. The univerfity of Paris took the alarm hotly, and cryed out against this attempt as destructive of all good learning, and of fatal tendency to religion itself. The affair was brought be

fore the parliament: and appeared of fo much confe quence to Francis the First, that he would needs take it under his own immediate cognizance. The edict is Itill extant, which declares Rainus infolent, impudent, and a lyar. His books are thereby for ever condemned, fupreffed, abolished: and, what is a strain of unexampled severity, the miferable Author is folemnly interdicted from tranfcribing, even from reading, his own compofitions! We might from hence be led to imagine, that when the authority of an antient philosopher was held fo facred, philosophy itself must have been thoroughly understood, and cultivated with uncommon fuccefs. But the attachment of those Doctors was to a name, not to truth, or valuable fcience: and our Author very justly compares them to the Olympic Wrestlers, who abstained from neceffary labours, that they might be fit for fuch as were not so. Under their management, it was a philosophy of words and notions, that seemed to exclude the study of nature; that instead of enquiring into the properties of bodies, into the laws of motion by which all effects are produced, was converfant only in logical definitions, diftinctions, and abstractions, utterly barren, and unproductive of any advantage to mankind. The great aim of those folemn triflers was rather to perplex a dispute than to clear up any point of useful disquifition; to triumph over an enemy, than to enlarge the knowledge, or better the morals of their followers. So that this capricious phi

lofophy, was a real obstacle to all advances in found learning, human and divine. After it had been adopted into the chriftian theology, far from being of ufeto explain and afcertain mysteries, it ferved only to darken and render doubtful the most neceflary truths, by the chicanery of argumentation, with which it fupplied each fect in defence of their peculiar, and favou

rite illufions.

To fo extravagant a height did they carry their idolatry of Aristotle, that some of them discovered, or imagined they discovered in his writings, the doctrine of the Trinity; that others published formal dissertations, to prove the certainty of his falva tion, tho' a heathen: and that a Patriarch of Venice is faid, to have called up the Devil exprefsly, in order to learn from him the meaning of a hard word in Aristotle's phyfics.

But the crafty Demon, who perhaps did not un derstand it himself, answer'd in a voice fo low, and inarticulate, that the good Prelate knew not a word he faid. This was the famous Hermolaus Barbaro. The Greek word, that occafioned his taking so extraordinary a step, is the Entelechia of the Peripatetics: from whence the schoolmen raised their fubftantial forms, and which Leibnitz, towards the end of the last century, attempted to revive in his Theory of motion.

The Reformation itself, that diffused a new light over Europe, that set men upon enquiring into errors and prepofeffions of every kind, ferved only to confirm the dominion of this philofophy: proteftants as well as papists entrenching themselves behind the authority of Ariftotle, and defending their feveral tenets by the weapons with which he furnifhed them. This unnatural alliance of theology with the peripatetic doctrines, rendered his opinions not only venerable but facred: they were reckoned as the landmarks of both, faith and reafon, which, to pull up, or remove, would be daring and impious. Innovations in philosophy, it was imagined, would gradually fap the very foundations of religion, and in the end lead to downright atheism. If that veil of awful obfcurity, which then covered the face of nature, fhould be once drawn; the rafh curiofity of mankind would lead them to account