in ly offfpring of error and ingenuity: and to speak freely, the features of both parents were all along equally blended in the complexions of the daughter. To trace at length the rise, progress, and variations of this philofophy, would be an undertaking not only curious but instructive; as it would unfold to us all the inazes, which the force, the subtlety, the extravagance of human wit can lose themselves: till not only profane learning, but divinity itself was at last, by the refined frenzy of those, who taught both, fubtilized into mere notion and air. Their philosophy was neither that of Aristotle entirely, nor altogether differing from his. Whatever opinions the first founders of it had been able to draw, from Boëtius his Latin commentator, or from the wretched translations above mentioned, these they methodized and illustrated, each according to his several talent, and the genius of the age he lived in. But this, instead of producing one regular and consistent body of Science, even from wrong principles, ended in a Monster, made up of parts everywhere mishapen and dissimilar. Add to this, that they left natural knowledge wholly uncultivated; to hunt after occult qualities, abstract notions, and questions of impertinent curiosity: by which they rendered the very Logic, their labours chiefly turned upon intricate, ufelcis, unintelligible. Alftedius, in his chronology of the Schoolmen, has divided their. hiftory into three principal periods or fucceffions: the firft beginning with Lanfranc Archbishop of Canterbury, who flourished about the middle of the eleventh century; and ending with Albert the Great two ages later: the second, that commences from him, determining in Durand; as the third and laft ended in Luther, at the reformation. Morhoff, however, ftre ftrenuously contends, that Recelinus an Englishman, was properly the father of the fchoolmen: and that to him, the fect of the Nominalists owed its rife and credit. He adds, that it revived afterwards in the perfon of Occam, 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 scholaftic Doctors were all distinguished 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 deftruction of common fénfe and language, but in the real mutilation and death of the combatants. For, to the disgrace of human reafon, mankind in all their controverfies, whether about a notion or a thing, a predicament or a province, have inade their laft appeal to brute force and violence. The titles with which these leaders were honoured by their followers, on account of the fublime 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 thofe 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. १ ed 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 some 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 construction of spectacles, of telescopes, of all forts of glasles, that magnify or diminish objects, the composition of gunpowder (which Bartholdus Swartz is thought, tọ have first hit upon, almost a century later) are some of the many inventions with justice ascribed to him. For all which, he was in his life-time calumniated, 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 perfons 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 fynod 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 stigmatized his na me, and endeavoured to reprobate his doctrines. Mor hoff has reckoned up a still greater number of his com mentators, 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-time he was fufpected of irreligion, and, by the Pagan priesthood, marked out for deftruc 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 treatise on the fubject, and mentioned eight different revolutions in the fortune and reputation of Ariftotle's philofophy. To pafs 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 herefy; condemned them to the flames, and commanded all perfons, on pain of excommunication, not to 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 ap plaufe: and whoever difputed their orthodoxy, I had almost faid their infallibility, was perfecuted 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 university of Paris took the alarm hotly, and cryed out against this attempt as deftructive of all good learning, and of fatal tendency to religion itself. The affair was brought be ހ 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 ftill extant, which declares Ramus infolent, impudent, and a lyar. His books are thereby for ever condemned, fupressed, abolished: and, what is a strain of unexampled feverity, 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 philofopher was held fo facred, philofophy itself must have been tho roughly understood, and cultivated with uncommon fuccefs. But the attachment of those Doctors was to a name, not to truth, or valuable science: and our Author very justly compares them to the Olympic Wrest lers, who abftained from neceffary labours, that they might be fit for such as were not fo. 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 difpute 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 philofophy, 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 use to explain and ascertain myfteries, it ferved only to darken and render doubtful the most necessary truths, by the chicanery of argumentation, with which it fupplied each fect in defence of their peculiar, and favou |