CHAPTER XXXIII.

OUTLINE OF EUROPEAN PHILOSOPHY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, AND THE EARLY PART OF THE EIGHTEENTH,

HAVING in the second volume of this work referred to the state of philosophy in relation to the Reformation, and the influence of that revolution in stimulating inquiry, an outline of the philosophic thought of Europe in the seventeenth century and the early part of the eighteenth will be an appropriate introduction to the subsequent history of Scottish philosophy. This will enable us to estimate the position and the claims of Scottish philosophy. Although the stream of European thought seems to run in several channels, these meet and cross and influence each other at numerous points, and thus it is hardly possible to attain a just appreciation of the philosophy of one school or nation, without some general knowledge of the preceding and the contemporaneous schools. So far as we know, there is nothing in the universe completely isolated, and as all systems of philosophy are more or less related to each other, an absolutely original idea is a rare phenomenon. But the field thus opened is exceedingly vast, and cannot be covered within the limits at our disposal. Therefore it is to be distinctly understood that the aim of this outline is only to indicate the historical connections of the philosophy which subsequently arose in Scotland,—a matter of such interest and importance as to justify the attempt to elucidate its historical significance and relation to preceding systems of thought.

After the series of struggles which issued in the Reforma

tion, the human mind continued to strive after independence and freedom for more than a century. Most of the philosophers of the sixteenth century were scholars and men of research, rather than unfettered thinkers, and exerted themselves in collecting old MSS., translating, annotating, and lecturing on the writings of Aristotle and Plato, some of them manifesting a tendency to theosophy, and others sliding into materialism and scepticism. The veneration for the opinions of antiquity and the shackles of authority were not easily broken, and many curious moves were made ere reason and common-sense attained sway. At length men began to enter more and more on independent investigation of nature and of mind, and the problem of moral freedom.

When undeterred by fear, by interest, or by authority, the human mind is the most powerful and wonderful thing in the universe. This was anew exemplified in the rapid development of mathematical science, and the adoption of more accurate modes of investigation, in the seventeenth century, and ever since the progress of discovery and of invention have been continuous. It is our task to indicate briefly some of the intense wrestlings of those strong and exalted minds who have contributed to weaken the arms of traditional authority, to brave the force of ignorance, of biting scorn, and of death itself.

Giordano Bruno was one of the boldest thinkers of the sixteenth century. Born at Nola, in the province of Naples, in 1548, he entered the Order of the Dominicans, but relinquished it when he found his convictions in conflict with the doctrines of the Church. From that time onwards he lived a wandering life, sometimes sojourning in France, in England, in Germany, and sometimes in other countries. But having returned to Venice, he fell into the hands of the Inquisition in 1592, and after suffering a long imprisonment in Rome, was tried for heresy, condemned, and burned in 1600.

He was a voluminous author, and wrote both in Italian and in Latin, but several of his treatises and tracts are lost. He

was gifted with a lively, a warm, and an exuberant imagination, which often impelled him to express himself in a poetical form, and thus sometimes he embodied his thoughts in a haze of clouds; but at other times he delivered his opinions with remarkable force and clearness. The elements of sympathy were excessively strong in him, and entered into his modes of thought and coloured all his philosophic efforts.

Bruno boldly essayed the reconstruction of the universe, on the principle of the unity and the universality of substance. In astronomy he embraced the Copernican view, and expounded it. According to him, the universe is infinite in time and in space, the solar system being merely one of innumerable worlds, of which God is the original and immanent cause. The attributes of God are power, wisdom, and love. The stars are not moved by a prime mover, but by the souls inherent in them. He rejects the idea of a dualism of matter and form, and identifies the form, moving cause, with the end and matter of all organic things; thus matter contains in herself the forms of all things, and brings them forth from her own bosom as the travailing mother expels her offspring. The elements of all that exists are the monads, which are a kind of points, not entirely unextended but spherical, and at once material and psychical. The soul is a monad, and it is never wholly without a body. God is the monad of monads, and he is the least, as all things are external to him, and at the same time the greatest, because all things are in him. God caused the worlds to spring out of himself, not by an act of mere will, but by an inner necessity, moving freely and without any compulsion. worlds being nature realised, and God nature working, thus God is present in all things. Each of the worlds is perfect in its kind, and there is no positive evil. All individual objects and living organisms are subject to change, but the universe remains in its entire perfection always like itself.

The

Bruno's philosophy is full of the unity of being, which is the principle and the end of all philosophy. God is the infinite

All, the One, the prime and the universal substance, of himself excluding all delimitation, and is not to be sought beyond the universe and the infinity of things. "Why think of any twofold substance, one corporal, and another spiritual, when in sum these have but one essence and one root, for corporal substance, which manifests to us that which it involves, must be held a thing divine, parent of natural things; and if you think aright, you will find a divine essence in all things." Yet he occasionally speaks of the supernatural. "The highest contemplation which transcends nature is impossible and null to him who is without belief, for we attain to this by supernatural, not by natural light; and such light they have not, who hold all things to be corporal, and who do not seek Deity beyond the infinite world and the infinity of things, but within this and these."

"1

It is obvious that Bruno's philosophy is a form of pantheism, one of the most fascinating systems of thought ever propounded. The system originates from the difficulty of conceiving the action of the mind or thought except when conjoined with a body, an insuperable and far-reaching difficulty, because there is no direct evidence anywhere of a mind operating without the conjunction of an organism. Hence the strong temptation to identify God and the universe in one idea or principle: that is, the universe is God and God is the universe. This is a proposition in itself conveying no light, but it is, nevertheless, the fundamental idea of the system which figures the external substance of the universe as God, from which step by step all things have issued. Thus the prime idea of pantheism is a constant quantity or unity, although the developments of

1The works in which Bruno chiefly developed his system were written in Italian, and of these the most important is the "Della Causa, Principio ed Uno," 1584, and in the same year appeared his "De l'Infinito Universo e Mondi". A complete list of his writings is given in the second volume of Ueberweg's History of Philosophy (p. 469). In the present century, the extant writings of Bruno have been carefully studied, and ably expounded, by several eminent writers and historians of philosophy.

the system in the hands of different thinkers may assume varied modifications in detail.

Bruno's views have influenced the subsequent developments of several once famous philosophies. The noted Spinoza was indebted to him for several of his ideas, but it is right to mention that the fundamental idea of pantheism is much older than the times of either of the two philosophers. Then through Spinoza's system German speculation has been widely and heavily influenced, and even some recent Scottish speculations bear distinct traces of a similar descent.

But on

In France, during the latter part of the sixteenth century, the Jesuits were the most active instructors and disseminators of doctrines. Their schools were planted in all the chief towns of the nation. They encouraged the study of classical literature, and prepared the best text-books and lexicons. the whole, they were a conservative and obstructive body, wielding much influence over the intellect of the French. At the same time a form of ancient scepticism was revived in France by Montaigne. His sceptical views were more or less directed to the doctrines of Christianity, but from whatever motive or reason, he generally concluded with a recognition of the necessity of a revelation, and thus avoided a conflict with theology. In their ultimate result his reflections point to such conclusions as: whether we are not a rather presumptuous class of beings in fancying that we have any higher faculties than those which are bestowed on other animals; whether the pursuit of truth may not be a pleasant amusement, rather than one that promises any result; whether religious forms may not be serviceable to the business of life, and therefore to be defended; whether they do not become mischievous when they lead to

2 "In fact, Montaigne represents, if he did not inaugurate, the school of French satirists, which standing between, as it were, Calvin and Rabelais, avoided both the coarseness and abandon of the latter, and the ascetic sternness and awkward pleasantries of the former."-Van Laun's History of French Literature, Vol. II., pp. 299-300.