SECT. IV.

Of the Revival of the Doctrine of Parmenides.

THOSE circumstances attending the Aristotelian philosophy, which contributed towards the revival of the Grecian sects, led in a single instance to the restoration of the physical doctrine of Parmenides. Aristotle having obscured the subject of natural philosophy, by involving it in metaphysical subtlety, Telesius attempted to raise a new edifice of physics, on the foundation of principles, which Parmenides had long before taught in Greece.

Bernard Telesius,50 a Neapolitan, born in the year 1508, received the first part of his education at Milan, where he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Latin and Greek Languages. After passing two years at Rome, where he made great proficiency in polite learning, he removed to Padua, and applied with indefatigable assiduity to the study of mathematics and philosophy. He very judiciously employed mathematical learning in explaining and establishing the laws of physics, and was particularly successful in investigating truths before unknown in the doctrine of optics. Accustomed to mathematical accuracy, he grew dissatisfied with the conjectural explanation of natural appearances given by Aristotle, and expressed great surprise that this philosopher should have been, for so many ages, followed in his numerous errors by so many learned men, by whole nations, and almost by the whole human race. He pursued his researches with great ingenuity as well as freedom, and wrote two books "On Nature," in which he attempted to overturn the physical doctrine of the Peripatetic school, and to explain the phenomena of the material world upon new principles. When this treatise was first published at Rome, it obtained great and unexpected applause, and Telesius was prevailed upon, by the importunity of his friends at Naples, to open a school of philosophy in that city. The Telesian school soon became fa

50 Toppii Bibl. Neap. p. 344. Pantapolog. Calab. Neap. 1715. Imp. Mus. p. 70. Comnen. Papadopol. Hist. Gymn. Patav. p.'ii. c. 32. Lot1er. de Vit. Teles. Lips. 1733. Teisser Elog. t. iii. p. 449.

mous, not only for the number of its pupils, but for the abilities of its professors, who distinguished themselves by their bold opposition to the doctrines of Aristotle, and by the judicious manner in which they distributed their labours, in order to enlarge the boundaries of natural knowledge. The founder of the school was highly esteemed by all who were desirous of studying nature rather than dialectics; and he was patronized by several great men, particularly by Ferdinand, Duke of Nuceri. But his popularity soon awakened the jealousy and envy of the monks, who loaded him and his school with calumny, for no other offence, than that he ventured to call in question the autho rity of Aristotle. The vexations which he suffered from this quarter brought on a bilious disorder, which, in 1588, terminated in his death.

Although, during the life of Telesius, his innovations were patiently borne, both in Rome and Naples; after his death his writings were proscribed in the Index Expurgatorius of the holy inquisition. Notwithstanding which, his philosophy continued to have many admirers, and his works were republished at Venice, in the year 1590, by his friend Antonius Persius, who also wrote a compendium of his philosophy in the vernacular tongue. Besides his principal work, De Natura Rerum, “On the Nature of Things," he wrote on the Air, the Sea, Comets, the Milky Way, the Rainbow, Colours, Respiration, Sleep, and other subjects. Lord Bacon has given a brief explanation of the philosophy of Telesius.51

The physical system which Telesius attempted to substitute in the room of the subtleties and fictions of the Stagyrite, was founded upon the Parmenidean doctrine, that the first principles in nature, by means of which all natural phenomena are produced, are cold and heat. The sum of his theory is this: Matter, which is in itself incapable of action, and admits neither of increase nor diminution, is acted upon by two contrary incorporeal principles, heat and cold, From the perpetual opposition of these arise the several forms in nature; the prevalence of cold in the lower regions producing the earth and terrestrial bodies;

De Principiis Parmenidis et Telcsii.

and that of heat in the superior, the heavens and celestial bodies. All the changes of natural bodies are owing to this conflict; and according to the degree in which each principle prevails, are the different degrees of density, resistance, opacity, moisture, dryness, &c. which are found in different substances. In the heavens, heat has its fixed residence, without any opposition from the contrary principle; and within the earth, and in the abyss of the sea, cold remains undisturbed, heat not being able to penetrate thither. At the borders of each of these regions, that contest between the opposite principles begins, which is carried on through all the intermediate space. All animal and vegetable life is from God.52

This system, which Telesius evidently borrowed from Parmenides, whose doctrine is particularly described in Plutarch's treatise De Primo Frigido, "On the Principle of Cold," was exceedingly ingenious; but it is, after all, nothing more than a baseless fabric, raised upon a fanciful conversion of mere attributes and properties into substantial principles. For, as Lord Bacon well observes, Telesius, no less than Plato or Aristotle, places abstract notions at the foundation of his system, and produces his world of real beings from nonentities. We readily admit that this philosopher was a lover of truth, and a friend to science; but we think him chiefly commendable for the boldness of his attack upon the principles of Aristotle, in which he succeeded much better than in his attempt to raise a new structure of natural philosophy; for in changing the attributes of matter into incorporeal principles, he left his doctrine exposed to the same objection, which he himself had brought against that of Aristotle. It was probably owing to this cause, that the Telesian system did not long survive its author, 53

"Teles. de Natura rerum juxta propria Principia. Neap. 1586. Morhoff. Polyhist. t. ii. l. ii. p. i. c. 13.

$3 Vidend. Bacon's Hist. of Winds, Præf. and on the Fable of Cupid. v. iii. p. 238. Gimma Idea Hist. Lit. Ital. t. ii. c. 38. Campanell. Philos. Sensibus demonst. Sorell. de Perfect Homin. p. iii. p. 413. Arnold Diss. de Novitate Philosophandi. § 11.

SECT. V.

On the Revival of the Ionic Philosophy.

THE Ionic philosophy, notwithstanding the celebrity of its first professors, soon failed in the Grecian schools, and never afterwards recovered its ancient reputation and authority. This was owing to the suspicion of impiety under which it lay in Athens, to the early growth of new branches from the Socratic stock, and to the rise and spread of the Eleatic and Epicurean philosophy. In later times, the universal prevalence of the Platonic and Aristotelian systems prevented every idea of reviving the physiology of the Ionic school, till, in the seventeenth century, an attempt was made for this purpose by Berigard, but in so circumspect and covert a manner, that this philosopher was commonly ranked among the followers of Aristotle, and even supposed to be deeply tinctured with the impiety of his system.

Claud Berigard was born at Molena, in Spain, in the year 1592, and studied first at Aix, then at Paris, and afterwards at Pisa. In this latter school he was, through the favour of the Duke of Tuscany, appointed professor of mathematics and botany. The fame of his learning, which was spread through Italy, induced the republic of Venice, in the year 1640, to appoint him with a liberal stipend, professor of philosophy in Padua. He was afterwards raised to the dignity of first professor, and received a large augmentation of his salary. He remained in this situation till his death, which happened about the year 1668, and was esteemed one of the most eminent of the Italian philosophers. He published, in 1632, under a fictitious name, a work entitled Dubitationes in Dialogos Galilæi de Terræ Immobilitate, "Doubts on the Dialogues of Galileo in Defence of the Immobility of the Earth;" but his principal work is his Circuli Pisani, "Pisan Circles," in which he relates the disputations which were held at Pisa on the physical writings of Aristotle, and gives his own sentiments upon them..

54 Bayle. Niceron. Mem. t. xxxi. p. 123. Præf. Circ. Pis. Epist. Welschii ad Bosium apud Ep. Reines. et Bos. p. 470.

35 Ed. Amst. 1649.

Berigard, during his education at Paris, where the defects. of the Peripatetic system were now freely examined, had been led to compare the doctrines of the Stagyrite with those of other philosophers, both ancient and modern, and had perceived the folly of that implicit obedience which had been so long paid to his authority. Hence he became a determined opponent of his philosophy, not indeed openly, for he could not have done this without great hazard, but in the indirect and concealed method of dialogue. Adopting the Ionic system, as it was first instituted by Thales, and afterwards improved by Anaxagoras, he framed a disputation between the Aristotelians and Ionics, in which he made Aristæus refute the reasoning of Charilaus, and support the doctrine of the Ionic school, by an appeal to experience, as well as by many ingenious arguments. This acute reasoner saw, indeed, and confessed, that both the Peripatetic and the Ionic systems were materially defective, and in many particulars erroneous, and was, on this account, much inclined to philosophical scepticism. But he endeavoured to prove, that the followers of Thales approached nearer to truth than those of Aristotle, the dangerous tendency of whose tenets, in several particulars, he clearly exposed. Among the doctrines of the Stagyrite, those which he chiefly reprobated were these That the world is eternal; that the residence of the First Mover is confined to the outer sphere of the universe; that neither the world, nor any being, can properly be said to have been created; and that there is one soul common to the whole human species. In opposition to these opinions, which he rejected as capital errors whence many others must arise, Berigard maintained the Ionic doctrine of the eternity of the primary particles of matter; of a forming and presiding Mind, by whose agency these particles were collected into distinct bodies; and of the combination and dispersion of these, as constituting the formation and dissolution of all things. In short, Berigard seems to have prepared the way for the revival of the Atomic system of Epicurus, which was, soon after this time, restored and defended by Gassendi.56

56 Vidend. Morhoff. Polyh. t. ii. p. 154. Laun. de Fortuna Arist, in Acad. Par. c. 15. Seb. Basson. Præf. Nat. Phil. Ed. Genev. Sorell, de