seu Animadversiones in X. Librum Diogenis Laertii" (1649), "Syntagma Philosophiæ Epicuri" (1649), the lastnamed being his principal work. He was the author of works in physical science possessing some value. At one time inclined towards the revived Aristotelianism, Gassendi was prevented from remaining an Aristotelian by the study of the natural sciences in their modern character. He sought reconciliation between "science and religion," and found it, as he thought, in a modified Epicureanism. Philosophy, according to Gassendi, is the pursuit of wisdom. Its parts are Physics (whose object is truth) and Ethics. (whose object is virtue), Logic being merely propedeutic to philosophy proper. The path of knowledge lies between scepticism and dogmatism. There are no innate ideas. All knowledge originates in sense-perception, from the data proceeding from which reason deduces causes and arrives at universal ideas. The first principle and matter of things is the atom. Atoms differ in magnitude, weight, and form. The number of atoms is not, as Epicurus taught, infinite, but finite: the same is true of the extent of space. Atoms are not eternal a parte ante, but were created by God; the world formed of atoms is not a product of chance, but a work of providence. The world and mankind were created to receive and manifest the goodness of God. All creation culminates in man, who alone is capable of leading the world or creation back to God. In all men there is a certain presentiment of a divine nature and a providence sustaining all things, a doctrine, we may observe, not quite consistent with the denial of “innate ideas." Man possesses both a material and a rational soul, having a joint seat in the brain; the rational soul is not, as Epicurus taught, composed of minute fiery atoms, but is simple and immaterial, and immortal, since it possesses a knowledge of the supersensible and universal, etc. Freedom of will is indifference of choice, resulting from indifference in the understanding. The object, directly or indirectly, of all our effort is pleasure, or painlessness of body, and peace

of soul: the virtues are merely safeguards against hindrances to pleasure or happiness.

§ 17.

II. THE ASSOCIATION OF PHILOSOPHY WITH (PROTESTANT) THEOLOGY. - Next after the revivals of ancient systems of thought, and before the first original and independent efforts coincident in time with them, we may consider the efforts of philosophical thought in the service of and at the same time aided by the at least would-be free spirit of the Protestant religion. Protestantism, a religion of "faith," felt the need of a certain basis in "reason." The chief Protestant, Martin Luther, abhorred philosophy, whether Scholastic or ancient; but Melanchthon, the associate leader of the Protestant movement, was clearly convinced that without positive method and dogma, as educational instrumentalities, Protestantism as a practical movement must succumb to confusion, to want of organization; and he taught and wrote energetically and thoroughly in accordance with this conviction. Besides Melanchthon, have to be treated in the present connection Nicolaus Taurellus, and the socalled "Mystics" Sebastian Franck, Valentin Weigel, and Jacob Boehme. For distinction's sake, we may style

Melanchthon and Taurellus Semi-Rationalists.

§ 18.

(1) Philip Melanchthon (1497-1560), the "teacher of the whole German world in philosophy, as well as in theology," was educated at the Academy of Pfortzheim and at the Universities of Heidelberg and Tübingen, at which latter university he studied law, medicine, and theology. Brilliant scholarship secured for him, soon after graduation, a professorship in Greek in the University of Wittenberg. Here he taught in the spirit of the Renaissance, and especially labored to make Greek philosophy a source of advantage to Protestantism. As a teacher of Greek he awakened the admiration of Luther, and became associated with him in

the revision of his translation of the Bible and the carrying on of the Reformation so-called, his objective intellectual equanimity and conservatism supplementing the subjective moral intensity and radicalism of Luther. He has been called the scribe of the Reformation, as having drafted "most of the public documents" of the "Reformers."

Works. Melanchthon's philosophical works (mostly text-books) are, - "Dialecticæ Libri IV." (1520), “De Anima" (1520), "Initiæ Doctrinæ Physica" (1547), "Epitome Philosophiæ Moralis" (1538), "Ethicæ Doctrinæ Elementa" (1550), and "Declamationes (1544– 1586), which consists of discourses on ancient philosophy, the practical value of philosophy, etc.

Philosophy.-Melanchthon taught a somewhat modified Aristotelianism. He seems to have adopted in full the Aristotelian logic, adding to it certain principles borrowed from Cicero and Christian theology, as that the sources and criteria of knowledge are, besides logical inference, universal experience, or consensus gentium, innate ideas, and the truths of Revelation. With a perceptible leaning, in metaphysics, towards Plato (with whom, however, he regarded Aristotle as in substantial accord), he adopted the Aristotelian physics (except as to the doctrine of the eternity of the world), the Aristotelian psychology (except as to the doctrine of the future life), and the Aristotelian Ethics, Christianized somewhat. In Melanchthon's Christianized Aristotelian Ethics, the moral law is God's will; virtue is the knowledge of God and obedience to him; Revelation (the Decalogue in particular) the highest statement of moral truth; natural right comprises innate universal principles (together with their consequences), and is based, as "regards duties to God, upon the dependence of creature on the Creator, as regards duties to fellow-men, upon the necessity of human society;" positive right consists of the enactments, depending on circumstances, of civil authority; civil authority is directly of and from God; the state, though not to be ecclesiastically ruled, must cherish religion,

enact no laws contrary to the divine commandments, and be subject to the condition that religious necessity may make it right that the citizen resist authority, and even, in case of tyranny, murder the civil ruler. It has been maintained, apparently with perfect justice, that except in the departments of natural and civil law, Melanchthon's philosophy was entirely borrowed; that by his "substitution of the Bible for canon law" he helped to promote the evolution of the philosophy of law.1

§ 19.

Nicolaus Taurellus (1547-1606). - Taurellus studied theology and philosophy at the University of Tübingen, and took the degree of doctor of medicine at the University of Basel. He was successively physician to the Duke of Würtemburg, professor of philosophy and medicine at Basel, and professor in the same sciences at Altdorf.

Works. - Works of Taurellus are "Philosophiæ Triumphus, seu metaphysica philosophandi Methodus " (1573), "Synopsis Aristotelis Metaphysices ad Normam Christianæ Religionis Explicatæ, Emendatæ et Completa" (1596), "Cosmologia" (1603), "De Rerum Æternitate" (1604),

etc.

Philosophy. Taurellus seeks to "free philosophy from the fetters of (Scholastic) Aristotelianism and to bring it into harmony with the fundamental doctrines of Christianity." Philosophy is a propedeutic or intellectual preparation for theology: it shows men their spiritual ignorance, and points the way to that which alone is capable of satisfying their spiritual needs. It is that "knowledge of things human and divine which we obtain by the inborn power of thought," a power which is the "same in all men, and subsists without increase or diminution; it is knowledge through conceptions, which are "not something coming to us from without, but produced by us from within." It is

1 See Erdmann, § 232, 3.

concerned with necessary and eternal truths. "General notions" are abstractions from individual things, which alone are real. Everything has a cause, and at the head of all causes is a First Cause, God. In his pure essence, God is mere causa sui, not the cause of anything else. Every cause is more perfect than its effect; and the activity of God in going out of himself becomes less than perfect, — i. e., becomes finite. Hence the world is finite, and must have had a beginning. The like holds of matter. The eternal as such is unchangeable, and from it no world of atoms could have been formed: the created world must have been formed from nothingness. Further, infinite power needs no such thing as matter for the bringing forth of finite things. Though philosophy discovers necessary and eternal truths, it cannot attain to the knowledge of the will of God; hence the necessity of a revelation for man. But of the truths commonly supposed to be merely revealed truths, some— e. g. those of the resurrection and the Trinity—are philosophically necessary.1

1

§ 20.

(2) Sebastian Franck (1500-1545).- Franck studied at Heidelberg, and afterwards became a historical writer of eminence. He had a profound acquaintance with the works of the German Mystics of the fourteenth century. Works of Franck are "Paradoxa" (1542), "De Arbore Scientiæ Boni et Mali" (1561). According to Franck, God is the only good. He created things, not at any particular time and once for all, but eternally creates and sustains. Apart from him, things are nothing: he is in everything, and constitutes the being of everything. Man is free in will, though limited in act. He is truly himself when he wills God: otherwise he is nothing. All men are one man. In every man both Adam and Christ exist, and redemption is not something that began to be just fifteen hundred years ago. He who is dead to his individual self and serves his spiritual

1 See Erdmann, § 239, 14.