A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

by James, Vorstius was of course called an atheist. He was in reality not a Socinian, but a "strict Arian, who believed that the Son of God was at first created by the Father, and then delegated to create the universe--a sort of inferior deity, who was nevertheless entitled to religious homage" (James Nichols, note to App. P. on Brandt's Life of Arminius in Works of Arminius, 1825, i, 218). Nichols gives a full survey of the subject, pp. 202-237. Fuller (Ch. Hist. B. x, cent. 17, sec. iv, §§ 1-5) tells the story, and pronounces the opinions of Vorstius "fitter to be remanded to hell than committed to writing." [87] Bayle (art. cited, Note F) says both Universities, as does Fuller. At the Synod of Dort, however, the British representatives read only, it seems, a decree (dated Sept. 21, 1611) of the Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge, ordering the burning of the book there. (Nichols, Account of the Synod of Dort, in Works of Arminius, i, 497). [88] Gardiner, pp. 129-30. Fuller (as last cited, §§ 6-14) gives a list of Legate's "damnable tenets." See it in Mrs. Bradlaugh Bonner's Penalties upon Opinion, pp. 12-14. [89] Gardiner, as cited. Fuller is cheerfully acquiescent, though he notes the private demurs, which he denounces. "God," he says, "may seem well pleased with this seasonable severity." [90] In 1580 Stow records how one Randall was put on trial for "conjuring to know where treasure was hid in the earth and goods feloniously taken were become"; and four others were tried "for being present." Four were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. Randall was executed, and the others reprieved. (Ed. 1615, p. 688.) [91] Fuller actually alleges that "there was none ever after that openly avowed these heretical doctrines"--an unintelligible figment. [92] All reprinted in 1816 for the Hanserd Knollys Society, with histor. introd. by E. B. Underhill, in the vol. Tracts on Liberty of Conscience and Persecution, 1614-1661. They do not speak of Legate or Wightman. [93] Atheomastix, 1622, pref. Sig. B. 3, verso. The work was posthumous and incomplete. [94] Bk. i, ch. i, p. 5. [95] In the Advancement of Learning, bk. i (Routledge ed. p. 54), he himself notes how, long before his time, the new learning had in part discredited the schoolmen. [96] Filum Labyrinthi--an English version of the Cogitata et Visa--§ 7. [97] Cp. Huarte, cited above, p. 471. [98] Nov. Org. bk. i. Aph. 62 (Works, Routledge ed. p. 271). [99] Id. Aph. 65. [100] Id. ib. Cp. the Advancement of Learning, bk. ii, and the De Augmentis, bk. ix, near end. (Ed. cited, pp. 173, 634.) [101] Nov. Org. Aph. 89. Cp. Aph. 46, 49, 96; the Valerius Terminus, ch. xxv; the English Filum Labyrinthi, § 7; and the De Principiis atque Originibus (ed. cited, p. 650). [102] Valerius Terminus, cap. i. (Ed. cited, p. 188.) [103] Id. p. 187; Filum Labyrinthi, p. 209. [104] Bk. ix, ch. i. (Ed. cited, p. 631.) Compare Valerius Terminus, ch. i (p. 186), and De Aug. bk. iii, ch. ii (p. 456), as to the impossibility of knowing the will and character of God from Nature, though (De Aug. last cit.) it reveals his power and glory. [105] Advancement, bk. i (ed. cited, p. 45). Cp. Valerius Terminus, ch. i (p. 187). [106] Advancement, bk. ii; De Augmentis, bk. iii, chs. iv and v; Valerius Terminus, ch. xxv; Novum Organum, bk. i, Aph. 48; bk. ii, Aph. 2. (Ed. cited, pp. 96, 205, 266, 302, 471, 473.) [107] De Principiis atque Originibus. (Ed. cited, pp. 649-50.) Elsewhere (De Aug. bk. iii, ch. iv, p. 471) he expressly puts it that the system of Democritus, which "removed God and mind from the structure of things," was more favourable to true science than the teleology and theology of Plato and Aristotle. [108] Id. pp. 651, 657. [109] Id. p. 648. [110] De Augmentis, bk. iii, ch. ii; bk. iv, ch. ii. (Ed. cited, pp. 456, 482.) [111] Id. bk. ii, ch. i. (Ed. cited, p. 428.) [112] De Augmentis, ed. cited, p. 73. [113] No. xviii, Diomedes. Ed. cited, p. 841. [114] De Principiis atque Originibus, p. 664. [115] Nov. Org. i. 89; Filum Labyrinthi, § 7; Essay 16. [116] Francis Osborn, pref. to his "Miscellany," in Works, 7th ed. 1673. [117] Cp. Valerius Terminus, ch. i. [118] This is noted by Glassford in his tr. of the Novum Organum (1844, p. 26); and by Ellis in his and Spedding's edition of the Works. (Routledge ed. pp. 32, 473, note.) [119] De Augmentis, bk. iii, ch. iv, end. [120] Essay 57, Of Anger. [121] Valerius Terminus, ch. xxv. [122] De Principiis, ed. cited, pp. 648-49. Cp. pp. 612-43. [123] Id. p. 648. [124] Valerius Terminus, ch. ii; De Augmentis, bk. v, ch. iv. Ed. cited, pp. 199, 517. [125] Cp. Brewster, Life of Newton, 1855, ii, 400-404; Draper, Intel. Devel. of Europe, ed. 1875, ii, 258-60; Dean Church, Bacon, pp. 180-201; Fowler, Bacon, ch. vi; Lodge, Pioneers of Science, pp. 145-51; Lange, Gesch. d. Materialismus, i, 197 sq. (Eng. tr. i, 236-37), and cit. from Liebig--as to whom, however, see Fowler, pp. 133, 157. [126] Novum Organum, ii, 46 and 48, § 17; De Aug. iii, 4; Thema Coeli. Ed. cited, pp. 364, 375, 461, 705, 709. Whewell (Hist. of Induct. Sciences, 3rd ed. i, 296, 298) ignores the second and third of these passages in denying Hume's assertion that Bacon rejected the Copernican theory with "disdain." It is true, however, that Bacon had vacillated. The facts are fairly faced by Prof. Fowler in his Bacon, 1881, pp. 151-52, and his ed. of Novum Organum, Introd. pp. 30-36. See also the summing-up of Ellis in notes to passages above cited, and at p. 675. [127] Aubrey, Lives of Eminent Persons, ed. 1813, vol. ii, pt. ii, p. 383. [128] See notes in ed. cited, pp. 50, 53, 61, 63, 68, 75, 76, 84, 110. [129] Fowler, ed. of Nov. Org. § 14, pp. 101-104. [130] Id. § 14, p. 108; Ellis in ed. cited, p. 643. [131] Rawley's Life, in ed. cited, p. 9; Osborn, as above cited; Fowler, ed. of Nov. Org. Introd. § 14; T. Martin, Character of Bacon, 1835, pp. 216, 227, 222-23. [132] Cp. Fowler, Bacon, pp. 139-41; Mill, Logic, bk. vi, ch. v, § 5; Jevons, Princ. of Science, 1-vol. ed. p. 576; Tyndall, Scientific Use of the Imagination, 3rd ed. pp. 4, 8-9, 42-43; T. Martin, as cited, pp. 210-38; Bagehot, Postulates of Eng. Polit. Econ. ed. 1885, pp. 18-19; Ellis and Spedding, in ed. cited, pp. x, xii, 22, 389. The notion of a dialectic method which should mechanically enable any man to make discoveries is an irredeemable fallacy, and must be abandoned. Bacon's own remarkable anticipation of modern scientific thought in the formula that heat is a mode of motion (Nov. Org. ii, 20) is not mechanically yielded by his own process, noteworthy and suggestive though that is. [133] Pref. Epistle. [134] Works, ed. Dublin. 1766, p. 159; ed. 1910, p. 344. [135] Kohlrausch, Hist. of Germany, Eng. tr. p. 385. [136] Moritz Ritter, Geschichte der deutschen Union, 1867-73, ii, 55. [137] Menzel, Geschichte der Deutschen, 3te Aufl. Cap. 416. [138] Cp. Gardiner, Thirty Years' War, pp. 12-13; Kohlrausch, p. 438; Pusey, Histor. Enq. into Ger. Rationalism, pp. 9-25; Henderson, Short Hist. of Germany, i, ch. xvi. [139] Kohlrausch, p. 439. A specially strong reaction set in about