and the uniform observance of the duties of life," is represented by Cicero as having brought philosophy down from heaven. Thus descended, Pythagoras had already given her" a name, whereby she might be known among men," having defined those to be philosophers, « who made light of all other pursuits,and assiduously applied themselves to the study of nature, and the search after wisdom." The history of philosophy and that of letters are so intimately blended, that it is impossible to distinguish between those causes, which have retarded the progress of the one, without involving the fate of the other. One event, indeed, seems to have happened to them both. Like the Ben fuctors of mankind, in all ages they have shared largely of ingratitude; by turns the sport of wantonness and the victims of savage cruelty; sometimes in perils, like St. Paul, from false bretaren, and sometimes suffocated by the smoke or reduced to cinders by the flames, which casualty or design have enkindled in the midst of their dwelling places. . The errours of the human mind deserve consideration, not on their own account, but because we may use them as beacons to admonish us of danger, and as they point out the shouls, upon which others have made shipwreck. Shall we think with Hume* and Priestley, who concur in sentiment that "the devastations of barbarians and the destruction of records, with other monuments of antiquity, have been rather favourable, than adverse to the arts and sciences, by breaking the progress of authority"? Then, indeed, may consolation spring from some e vents, which other eyes have view. ed, and history records, as the consummation of calamity. The soldiers of Julius Cæsar and the Saracen caliph Omar, in league with the elements, tried by this test, were the first philanthropists. The progress of authority could not have been more effectually checked, than by the burning of those almost innumerable volumes, which the wealth of the Egyptian Ptolemies had amassed in the Alexandrian libraries. "An amazing repository of ancient science," the annihilation of which the accomplished author of the Observer‡ deplores, as the loss of the most valuable treasure upon earth. "It was buried in ashes," says this animated writer, "by the wellknown quibbling edict of a barbarous fanatick." "If, said the em 66 perour, these volumes contain "doctrines conformable to the Ko❝ran, then is the Koran alone suf"ficient, without these volumes; "but if what they teach be repug"nant to God's book, then is it fitting they were destroyed." "Thus, with false reason for their judge, and false religion for their executioner, perished an in numerable company of Poets, Philosophers, and Historians, with almost every thing elegant in Art and edifying in Science, which the most illuminated people on earth had, in the luxuriance of their genius, produced. In vain did the philosopher John, surnamed the Grammarian) intercede to save them. Universal condemnation to the flames was the sentence, ignorance denounced against these literary martyrs. The flow of wit, the flights of fancy, and the labours of learning, alike contributed to feed the fires of those baths, in which the savage conquerors recreated themselves after the toils of the siege." "Need we inquire, when art and science were extinct, if darkness overspread the nations? It is a period too melancholy to reflect upon and too vacant to record. History passes over it, as over the chart of an ocean without a shore, with this cutting recollection accompanying it, that in this ocean are buried many of the brightest monuments of ancient genius." The furious zeal of this Mahometan prince in favour of his religion, which thus laid science in ruins, has unhappily found a parallel in the annals of the Christian Church. At a period, when philosophy had incurred disgrace, by the perverseness and treachery of some unworthy professors, a Roman emperour waged war against the whole race of philosophers. Instigated by an inveterate aversion to those, who still practised pagan idolatry, Justinian shut up the schools, which still remained at Athens, and deprived the teachers of their revenues; and a Roman pontiff, inflamed by a similar hatred, under the pretext of confining the attention of the clergy to the sacred scriptures, at another time, consigned to the flames the valuable collections of books, formed by the Roman emperours. That learning should have survived these accumulated disasters is scarcely credible. As an epoch in the history of Philosophy, may it not be ranked with the general deluge of the world? And as the genealogy of princes, after the flood, could be traced no higher than the head of a single family, by whom the world was renewed, so, for a genealogy of letters, are we not compelled to look up to the solitary and scattered remnants, which escaped these general conflagrations? These, together with the Scriptures of Truth, have rebuilt and repeopled the desolate places of wisdom; and, if we listen to the self complacency of the present age, the light of Science now shines with brighter lustre and more expanded rays, than at any former period. As one proof, among many, of the prevalence of this opinion, an appeal to French authority may not be deemed unpardonable. A distinguished member of the French Academy,* contrasting the merits of ancient and modern researches into the arcana of nature, indulges in the following strain." No sooner had the first Philosophers looked about them, than they believed at once that they knew every thing. Their first impressions seem to have been-we see all things, and we are at no loss to account for the cause of all things. As in a dream, they be held the universe rising to view ; they dreamt of the principles, the properties, and the origin of things, and they never awoke from their slumbers." "Thus the ancients, in other words, those who deserve precedence in ignorance, believed themselves wise. Unfortunately, because they believed it themselves, nobody else doubted it. "Professing themselves to be wise they be came fools;" but this fact was not discovered for some ages. Seniority was, in their estimation, the best title to knowledge, and supplied all scientifick deficiences. The Egyp tians are a law to the Greeks, the Greeks to the Romans; and in *M. L'Abbé Condillac. Cours d'Etudes. Tom. 6. our day both Greeks and Romans are a law to us." "Empires are subverted, and nations are buried under their ruins, but opinions endure; they survive all ages, and never grow old. An ostensible change in modes of thinking is often less a proof of novelty, than of an old fashion in disguise." "Formerly philosophers undertook to explain every thing, without previous experiment; raising doubts, without knowing whether they were susceptible of solution; flattering themselves with hopes of new discoveries, without possessing the means of investigation, and even when they knew not what they sought. Alone inquisitive respecting things above their reach or comprehension, they associated vague ideas, obscure or fallacious. They framed hypotheses, and because they took no note of them, they were constantly reproducing the same opinions in a new shape; so that nobody need be surprised at the information, that all the opinions of the ancient philosophers are comprized in a small compass of ideas, wherein they are confounded with each other. No one has ever adventured beyond it, and, as to a common centre, all are attracted thither by ignorance, their guide." "Truc philosophy is but of yesterday, and it is because experiment has lent her aid to genius, that the sphere of knowledge is enlarged. Whatever may be the extent of this sphere, it is nevertheless bounded, and we cannot overleap its limits. Being" children of darkness rather than light," we are perpetually seeking that port, whence we departed on the voyage of discovery. But, if many things are impenetrably hid from our view, it is, at least, in our power to avoid many errours. Let us habituate ourselves to passing judgment upon things, of which we can attain true knowledge-let us be ignorant of the rest, and without fear avow it." In the same spirit, though more highly seasoned, is the opinion which the Baron Montesquieu* has left behind him, of the small advances, made by the ancients, in several branches of learning. At the close of a preface to one of his sallies of levity (called the Temple of Gnidus) he remarks, that, "if grave people should desire of him a less frivolous work, he is ready to satisfy the demand; having laboured thirty years upon a book of twelve pages, which will contain all our knowledge of metaphysicks, politicks, and morals, and every thing which the greatest authors have forgotten, in the volumes they have written upon those respective sciences." The term philosophy admits and has received a very large interpretation. "At some periods its signification has been extended so far, as to include, not only all ́speculative science, but also skill in municipal law; the knowledge of medicine; the art of criticism and the whole circle of polite literature. The Christian religion was called sacred philosophy, and ecclesiastical doctors and monks were styled philosophers." "The history of philosophy, according to Dr. Enfield,* is the history of the human understanding; clearly shewing the extent of its capacity, the causes of its perversion, and the means, by which it may be recalled from its unprofitable wanderings, and suc cessfully employed in subserviency to the happiness of mankind." That spirit of inquiry, which we derive from nature, and which commonly discovers itself with the first dawning of the human intellect, may be aptly denominated the love of wisdom. In this sense the prattling infant is as much a philosopher, as the hoary-headed sage. Curiosity, which, instead of being satiated, grows hungry by indulgence, first busies itself about the names of natural bodies; next, their peculiar properties and appropriate uses; then, the causes of their existence. Such is the philosophy of nature; and moral philosophy, necessarily, pursues the same track in her investigation of the operations of mind; for valuable or useful discoveries, both depend upon a previous knowledge of fact, obtained by careful experiment and critical observation. While the study of moral philosophy has confessedly fallen into neglect, the institutions of modern times are chiefly designed to facilitate the acquisition of natural knowledge; but, for lessons of mcrality, we have the inestimable privilege of resorting to the temples of our God. It is to be feared, that the rage of innovation, aided by an artificial aversion and an unnatural distaste for ancient wisdom, which infidelity has lately wrought up to a pitch of extravagance, has already produced alarming consequences to society. That the fetters of superstition, rivetted by ancient authority, have scarcely less retarded the progress of improvement, than the mournful desolations of war, is a favourite doctrine of the times; and it is by no means uncommon to hear a reverence for the ancients derided, as a tyrannical usurpation over human reason. In order to dethrone this despot, and restore the understanding to its natural freedom, the discipline of the schools must be utterly abolished, and the props of authority must be left to moulder away, by long interruptions in the progress of learning; youth must no longer be harassed by the study of heathen writers, vulgarly called Classicks, because of the danger of corrupting their morals; and, to finish the climax, the holy bible, instead of a code of divine inspiration, the refuge of mortals on earth and their only guide to heaven, has lately been discovered to be only a compilation of monkish impostors. The obstacles to the attainment of knowledge, one would think, were already sufficiently numerous, without the auxiliary aid of systematick degradation; for the labourers in the vineyard of wisdom, and the suitors in the courts of the Muses, have been few, in all ages, and their reward has more frequently becn stripes, than blessings, from their cotemporaries; but the honour of laying the foundation for an institute of ignorance exclusively belongs to the age of reason. Within a century past scepticism has aimed many open and many insidious blows at the purest system of morals that ever blessed mankind, by studied attempts to bring in question its divine origin. What aggravates the iniquity of these pernicious labours is, the unwelcome recollection, that they have been, for the most part, achieved by men of superiour scientifick attainments, whose exer. cises of intellect, in every other branch of learning, reflect lustre upon letters. Pitiful employment shameful perversion of mental endowments! ularize individuals, who have lent their aid to undermine the fabrick of Christian faith, becomes not this To partic occasion. How largely this philosophy has contributed to produce those revolutions of states and empires, of which the scene is principally laid in Europe, is an inquiry, which, by its interest, might reward the patient research of scholars and statesmen. It is not, in fact, nor ought it to be mentioned as any disparagement of the ancient moralists,that their writings breathe not the pure ethereal precepts of the Christian doctrines. With devotional fervour many of them sought for the knowledge of truths, which by the help of revelation are happily familiarized to us; but it did not comport with the views of God to man, that discoveries of his divine attributes should result from the most unwearied exercise of unassisted reason. Yet, by the systems of mørals which were taught in the schools of the first masters of philosophy, the condition of the human race was raised from debasement; the violence of the passions received a salutary check; and the prevalence of corruption and impiety became more rare among mankind. Had the lives and the doctrines of their adherents been coincident with the original tenets of the first teachers, Philosophy had never" given occasion for her enemies to blaspheme." She might not have been doomed to ring all the changes of the Metempsichosis of vice and impurity. Such a barometer, as has been graduated for the philosophy of Greece, had never been applied to the purpose of noting the fluctuations in the state of the moral atmosphere, even among the hea then. It could not with truth have been said of the philosophy, which Plato and Aristotle admired,that it became impious under Diagoras; vicious under Epicurus ; hypocritical under Zeno; impudent under Diogenes; covetous under Demochares; voluptuous under Metrodorus; fantastical under Crates; scurrilous under Menippus; licentious under Pyrrho; and quarrelsome under Cleanthes." It is nevertheless sufficiently attested, that the Ionick and Italick schools, at the head of which were Thales and Pythagoras, split into numerous sects, as various in their doctrines, as in their modes of teaching. Each had its favourite hypothesis, while all were confessedly occupied in the search after happiness, or the greatest good. Some place the bliss in action, some in ease, Those call it pleasure, and contentment these ; Some, sunk to beasts, find pleasure end in pain, Some, swell'd to Gods, confess ev'n vir tue vain ; Or, indolent, to each extreme they fall, To trust in every tl.ing, or doubt of all.f As the natural propensities of men dictated, and as their dispositions inclined, they were led to embrace opposite schemes for the attainment of a common end; and a supposed affinity between the different temperaments of men and the sects themselves has been assigned as the impelling motive to a choice of masters. "Nothing," says De Pauw, " being more natural, than that those, who were born with great force of mind and strong nerves, should discover a predilection for stoicism, while mortals, endowed by nature with more delicacy of fibres, fled for refuge to the myrtles of Epicurus. People, whose temper partook of no extreme, were inclined for the Lyceum, or the Academy; such as possessed solidity of understand • Encyclopædia. Tit. Philosophy. Pope. Essay on Man. |