His

the credit of the Platonic and Cabbalistical doctrines. nephew, J. Fr. Picus of Mirandola (killed 1533), followed his steps, without possessing his abilities; but more exclusively devoted than his uncle to Revealed philosophy,' he opposed at the same time the Heathen and the Scholastic systems.

Cabbalistic and Magical Systems.

+ BUHLE, History of Cabbalistic Philosophy in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century, in his History of Modern Philosophy, II, 1, 360, 8qq.

289. John Reuchlin, a zealous restorer of philosophy and classical literature, travelled into Italy, where his intimacy with Ficinus and Picus inclined him to the PythagoricoPlatonic doctrine, and to the study of Cabbalistic writings:3 which he disseminated in Germany by means of his works, De Verbo Mirifico, and De Arte Cabbalistica. The extravagant performance of the Franciscan monk Franc. Giorgio Zorzi, De Harmonia Mundi istius, Cantica tria, Venet. 1525, doubtless was thought too full of daring reveries, and was far from possessing the influence enjoyed by the works of H. Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim." The latter united to great talents universal information; but his greediness of reputation and money, and his fondness for occult sciences, imparted a character of indecision and inconsistency to his life as well as to his works. At Dôle he gave with the greatest success public lectures on the work of Reuchlin, De Verbo Mirifico; and at the suggestion of Tritheim, the most celebrated adept of his time, he composed his treatise, De

He wrote: De Studio Divinæ et Humanæ Sapientiæ, edid. J. F. BUDDEUS, Hal. 1702, 8vo. Examen Doctrinæ Vanitatis Gentilium. De Prænotionibus. In the Opp. utriusque Pici (see above): Epp. ed. CHPH. CELLARIUS, Jen. 1682, 8vo.

2 Called also Capnio. He was born 1455, at Pforzheim, was professor at Tübingen, and died 1522.

3 Life of Reuchlin, in the work of MEINERS already quoted, part I, No. 2. S. F. GEHRES, Life of John Reuchlin, etc., Carlsruhe, 1815, 8vo. 4 Libri III, Bas. fol. (1494).

5 Libri III, Hagen. 1517-1530, fol.

6 Franciscus Georgius, surnamed Venetus, because a native of that city. He flourished in the beginning of the sixteenth century.

i Born at Cologne, 1486.

Occulta Philosophia, a system of visionary philosophy, in which Magic, the complement of philosophy, as he terms it, and the key of all the secrets of Nature, is represented under the three forms of Natural, Celestial, and Religious or Ceremonial; agreeably to the three-fold division of the Corporeal, Celestial, and Intellectual Worlds.* He there enumerates, with a superficial show of scientific classification, the hidden powers which the Creator has assigned to the different objects of the Creation, through the agency of the Spirit of the World. It was natural that Agrippa should become a partisan of Raymond Lulli (§ 271), and he accordingly wrote a commentary on his Ars Magna. Nevertheless his caprice sometimes inclined him to opinions directly the reverse; and in such a mood he composed his Cynical treatise, as he terms it, De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum. This work, which had great reputation in its day, occasionally presents us with sophistical arguments; occasionally with admirable remarks on the imperfections and defects of scientific pursuits.3 Agrippa and his follower John Weir, were of service to philosophy by opposing the belief in witchcraft. After an adventurous life, Agrippa died (1535) at Grenoble.

Theosophy.

290. The physician and theosophist Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus (such were the names he assumed3), ̄blended Chemistry and Therapeutics with the Neoplatonic and Cabbalistic mysticism. He was an ingenious and original man, with much practical information, and a profound spirit of 1 Lib. I, 1531; lib. II, Colon. 1533, 8vo.

* There is little doubt that several of the mystical writers of this age were acquainted with the phenomena of Mesmerism, which unlocks many of their secrets.-ED.

2 Cologne, 1537; Paris, 1529; Antwerp, 1530, 4to.

3 On this writer cousult MEINERS, Lives, etc.; and SCHELHORN, in the Amænitat. Litt., tom. II, p. 553.

Ejus Opera, in duos tomos digesta, Lugd. Bat. without date, 8vo.; republished 1550 et 1600.

Born at Grave in Brabant, 1515; died 1588.

5 His real names were Philip Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim; born at Einsiedeln in Switzerland, 1493; died at Salzbourg,

observation, who, though destitute of scientific information, aspired to the character of a reformer in Medicine. To effect this he made use of the Cabbalistic writers, whom he endeavoured to render popular, and expounded with a lively imagination. Among the principal theosophic and theurgic ideas which he enlarged upon without method or consistency (very frequently so as scarcely to be intelligible), were those of an internal illumination*—an emanation from the Divinity, the universal harmony of all things, the influence of the stars on the sublunar world,—and the vitality of the elements, which he regarded as spirits encased in the visible bodies presented to our senses. His grand principle was a pretended harmony and sympathy between Salt, the Body, and the Earth: between Mercury, the Soul, and Water; between Sulphur, Spirit, and Air. His views found a great number of partisans. As a mystic and theosophist, Valentine Weigel, followed the steps of Paracelsus and Tauler (§ 277); but the doctrines of the former were espe cially propagated by the society of the Rosy-Cross, formed in the seventeenth century, probably in consequence of a satiric poem of the theologian Valentine Andreæ (born at Würtemberg, 1586, died 1654).

* Evidently Clairvoyance.-See Colquhoun's Hist. of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism, 1 vol.—ED.

J. J. LOES, Theophrastus Paracelsus von Hohenheim: a Dissertation in the Studien of CREUZER and DAUB, tom. 1. Cf. SPRENGEL, Hist. of Medicine, part III. Lives and Opinions of the most celebrated Physicians of the close of the Sixteenth and commencement of the Seventeenth Centuries, published by THAD. ANSELM RIXNER, and THAD. SIBER, fasc. I. Theophrastus Paracelsus, Sulzbach, 1819, 8vo.

PHIL. THEOPHRASTI PARACELSI Volumen Medicinæ Paramirum, Argent. 1575, 8vo., and Works of Parcelsus, published by Joн. HUSER, Bas. 1589, 10 vols. 4to. Strasb. 1616-18, 3 vols. fol.

2 Born at Hayne in Misnia, 1533; was a Lutheran minister at Tschopau in Misnia, and died 1588.

HILLIGER, De Vitâ, Fatis, et Scriptis Val. Weigelii; and FöRTSCH, de Weigelio, in the Miscell. Lips. tom. X, p. 171.

Weigelii Tractatus de Opere Mirabili; Arcanum Omnium Arcanorum; The Golden Touch, or the Way to learn infallibly all Things, etc. 1578, 4to., and 1616. Instruction and Introduction to the Study of German Theology, Philosophy, Mysticism, etc. 1571. Studium Universale; Nosce Teipsum, sive Theologia Astrologizata, 1618.

3The Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz, 1603. The

§ 291.

Cardanus de Vitâ Propriâ; in the first part of his Works, Lugd. 1663, 10 vols. fol.-See BAYLE's Dictionary. His Life, by W. R. BECKER, in the Quartalschrift of CANZLER and MEINERS, year 3rd, 3 qu. fasc. V. Id. In his Lives and Opinions of celebrated Physicians, etc., fasc. II, Sulzbach, 1820, 8vo.

Jerome Cardan, a celebrated physician, naturalist, and mathematician, resembled Paracelsus in his eccentricities; but was greatly superior to him in information. During his youth, a delicate constitution and tyrannical treatment retarded his progress, and the prejudices of the day in favour of astrology, and the imagination of a familiar spirit, gave a misdirection to his studies, to be traced in his writings; which treat of all sorts of subjects, and without any systematic order. Sometimes he supports, sometimes. he opposes the superstitions of the Astronomers and Cabbalists, and mixes up profound observations and ingenious and elevated ideas with the most capricious absurdities. The Theologians of his day, who condemned him as heterodox, have accused him, without sufficient grounds, of atheism.

2

II. Revival of the System of Aristotle.

Opponents of the same.

See the work of J. LAUNOY, De Varia Aristot. Fort. etc., mentioned $ 245.

W. L. G. BARON VON EBERSTEIN, On the Logical and Metaphysical System of the Peripatetics, properly so called, Halle, 1800, 8vo.

292. Nevertheless, the theories of Aristotle had many defenders. The Scholastic system had long nourished in the minds of men a profound veneration for the author of the Organum; and the education of the age inclined men to the reception of his philosophy. When his works came to be known in their original form, they were eagerly studied, explained, translated, and abridged. Among the theolosame (ANDREA); Universal Reformation of the World by means of the fama fraternitatis of the Rosy-Cross, Ratisb. 1614, 8vo.

Geronimo Cardano, born at Pavia, 1501; died 1576.

See especially his treatises. De Subtilitate, et Rerum Varietate.

gians, and physicists in particular, was formed a numerous school of his adherents. The latter especially, who were inclined to Naturalism, were enabled to restate on his authority certain doctrines belonging to natural religion and philosophy. The distinction they drew between philosophical Truth and the Belief of the Church, served to protect them from the censures of some zealous theologians. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Aristotelians were divided into two sects: the Averroists, attached to the commentary of Averroes (§ 259), and the Alexandrists, or successors of Alexander Aphrodisiensis (§ 183). These two parties drew upon themselves so much notice by the acrimony of their disputes on the principles of Thought, and the Immortality of the Soul, that in 1512 the Lateran council endeavoured to cut short the dispute by pronouncing in favour of the more orthodox party.

Italian Peripatetics.

293. Among the most renowned Peripatetics of Italy, we may remark P. Pomponatius, of Mantua. His devotion to the doctrines of Aristotle did not prevent his originating many of his own, and detecting the weak points of his master's system. He endeavoured to arouse his contemporaries to more profound investigations, discussing with singular force and acuteness various subjects, such as: the Immortality of the Soul, the relation of Free-will to Fate and Providence,-Miracles and Sorcery; or, to express it more fully-the question whether the wonderful appear1 Born 1462, died 1525 or 1530.

PETRI POMPONATII De Naturalium effectuum admirandorum Causis seu de Incantationibus liber. Ejusdem: De Fato, Libero Arbitrio, Prædestinatione, Providentia Dei, libb. V, in quibus difficillima capita et quæstiones Theologica et Philosophicæ ex sana Orthodoxa Fidei Doctrina explicantur et multis raris historiis passim illustrantur per auctorem, qui se in omnibus Canonicæ Scripturæ Sanctorumque Doctorum judicio submittit, Basil. Ven. 1425—1556-1567, fol.

Ejusdem Tractatus de Immortalitate Animæ, Bonon. 1516, etc. The latest edition, published by CHPH. GOTTFR. BARDILI, contains an account of the life of Pomponatius. See also Jo. GFR. OLEARII Diss. de Petro Pomponatio, Jen. 1709, 4to.

PORTA, De Rerum Naturalibus Principiis: de Anima et Mente Humana, Flor. 1551, 4to.