examine and all verify pretensions to revelation.' The obscurity of his own thoughts and expressions, and the dominion at that time enjoyed by the Empirical system of philosophy, caused him to be but little noticed in his day. He was, however, attacked by Divines, as a Naturalist and as an enemy to Christianity.

VII. Mystical Naturalists and Theosophists of this

period.

FEUERBACH, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie von Bacon bis Spinoza (1833) 1844, § 150--214.

CARRIERE, Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit, 1847, § 609-725.

HAMBERGER, Die Lehre des deutschen Philosophen Jacob Böhme,

1844.

BAUR, Die christliche Gnosis, 1835, § 557--611.

329. J. Baptist van Helmont about this time united a study of the phenomena of Nature to a degree of mysticism. He had been taught at Louvain the meagreness of the Scholastic system, by the Jesuit Martin del Rio; and had imbibed from the study of Kempis, Tauler (§ 277), and Paracelsus, a degree of enthusiasm which he carried into his art, that of medicine. With many fanciful notions of his own, he nevertheless detected errors in others, and started several good ideas. In order to effect by means of Alchemy and Philosophy a reformation in his own art, he sought a Philosophy over the Universum. With such a design, he attached himself principally to the doctrines of Paracelsus, and derived all knowledge from direct and immediate illumination of the Reason, by God. He maintained that all Nature is animated; but, at the same time, asserted that neither things nor their operating causes partake of the Divine Nature, which is incommunicable. All corporeal beings are replete with spirits (Archei), which by means of air and water, the only true elements, and their mutual fermentation, produce every thing else. Such were the principles of his spiritual Physiology. His son Fr. Mer

1 De Veritate, p. 265, sqq.; 282, sqq.

2 Born at Brussels, 1577; died at Vilvoorde, near Brussels, 1644. 3 † J. J. Loos, J. Baptista van Helmont, Heidelberg. 1807, 8vo.

curius van Helmont, endeavoured to enlarge the "Holy Art," (Theosophy); and by a new division of its nature and its relation to Unity, sought to compose a system which combined, in an original manner, the doctrines of the Platonists and Cabbalists with those of Christianity. He taught especially the theory of an universal Sympathy of all things,* a transition of the soul and of the body, and of the body to the soul, asserting that they differed not in essence but in form, and stood in the relation of Male and Female, and therefore are present in all visible forms. To this he added a sort of Metempsychosis, combined with a belief in the necessity of a future judgment after death." Marcus Marci von Kronlands set forth a system of Cosmology of his own, in which he blended the Ideas of Plato with the Forms of Aristotle, and endeavoured to destroy the qualitates occulta of the Schoolmen to make way for his idea seminales, which he affected to consider more intelligible. Ideas are the powers of Nature which, with the aid of light, create and form all things. Nay, the very constellations operate on the sublunary world by means of light, and by the agency of the Ideas.

330. In England, the enthusiastic system of Paracelsus found a patron in the learned physician Robert Fludd, who See also B. ab Helmont. Opera, Amstel. 1648, 4to.; and Francf. 1659, 3 vols. fol.

1 Born 1618: spent his life in travelling in Germany and England; and died 1699.

*It is now well established that J. B. Van Helmont, as well as the Ancients, anticipated Mesmer in the discovery of the power of Animal Magnetism. See Van Helmont's admirable Dissertation, and his Mentis Imago; and also Colquhoun's Hist. of Magic.-ED.

2 Paradoxical Discourses, Lond. 1690. Seder Olam, sive Ordo Sæculorum, hoc est historica enarratio Doctrinæ Philosophicæ per unum in quo sunt omnia, 1693, 12mo.

3 Died 1676.

4 JOH. MAC. MARCI A KRONLAND, Idearum Operatricium Idea sive Delectio et Hypothesis illius Occultæ Virtutis, quæ Semina fœcunda et ex iisdem Corpora Organica producit, Prag. 1635, 4to. Philosophia Vetus restituta, in qua de mutationibus quæ in Universo sunt, de Partium Universi Constitutione, de Statu Hominis secundum Naturam et præter Naturam, et de Curatione Morborum, etc. libb. V. Prag. 1662, 4to.

• Robert Fludd, or De Fluctibus, born at Milgate in Kent, 1574.

He

sought to ally it to the Mosaic history of the creation. was answered by Gassendi. In Germany a like theosophic enthusiasm excited the pious and truth-loving temper of the shoemaker of Görlitz, Jacob Böhm, who, with a mind highly moved by the study of the Scriptures, to which he added the natural philosophy of Paracelsus and his contemporaries, with a peculiar depth of spirituality, although in a rude unscientific manner and a barbarous style (partly composed of the terms of Chemistry then in use), gave vent to deep philosophical truths, intermingled with singular and extravagant dreams respecting the Deity and the origin of all things. He delivered these as Divine Revelations, and wrote in his native language, whence his appellation of Philosophus Teutonicus. A considerable analogy may be traced between Swedenborg and Böhm, but the former never borrowed from the latter. They approximate naturally in the depth and volume of their spirituality and their giant sweep of thought. Böhm's mysticism gained disciples in Germany, and even abroad, being adopted in France by Poiret, and in England by H. More and John Pordage, a clergyman and physician, who even wrote a commentary on him. Of all these hereafter. In more recent times, St. Martin has given, as it were, a new and able version of this species of Theosophy.

331. Böhm and Fludd had endeavoured to find authority in the Bible for the extravagancies of their fanciful speculations. A Mosaic philosophy is so naturally connected with the character of the Cabbala and of Theosophy, that we ought not to be surprised at its diffusion. The like attempt was made by others, particularly by Jo. Amos Comenius,3 who in his Synopsis Physices ad lumen Divinum reformatæ,

died 1637. His works are numerous, and form 6 vols. fol. The most complete list of them is given by EBERT, Bibliogr. Dict. 4to. Lips. 1821--30.

Historia Macro- et Microcosmi, Metaphysica, Physica, et Technica, Oppenh. 1717. Philosophia Mosaïca, Gudæ, 1638.

2 Born at Alt-Seidenberg, near Görlitz, 1575; died 1624. Jacob Böhm: a Biographical Essay, Dresden, 1802, 8vo.

Works of J. Böhm. Amsterd. 1620, 4 vols. 8vo. etc.; 1730, 10 vols. 8vo. Selections from his Works, Amst. 1718; Francf. 1801, 8vo. Translated from the Dutch and English.

3 Of the village of Comna, near Prerau in Moravia; born 1592, died at Amsterdam 1671. 4 Lips. 1632, 8vo.; 1663, 8vo.

detailed more clearly the opinions of Fludd and others. He supposes three elementary principles of all things; Matter, Spirit, and Light. The first is the corporeal essence, the second is subtile, self-existing, invisible, imperceptible, dispensed by the Divine Being to all living creatures, to animate and possess them. Light is the plastic spirit; an intermediate essence, which penetrates matter and prepares it for the admission and reception of spirit, investing it at the same time with a form. He has also originated some remarkable ideas on philanthropy, in which he followed Val. Andreæ. J. Baier, the successor of Comenius, and some others, have bequeathed works to the same effect.*

VIII. Sceptics.

332. Scepticism was revived in a complete form by Fr. Sanchez (Franc. Sanctius), a Portuguese, who taught medicine and philosophy at Toulouse with considerable reputation, up to the time of his death, which happened in 1632. He was obliged by his office to teach the Aristotelian system, and not venturing openly to controvert it, assailed it under cover of his Scepticism; and having proved by means of arguments already brought forward, but to which his lively manner imparted an air of novelty, the uncertainty of all human knowledge, he undertook to give in another work a method of his own for attaining to certainty. This promised work, however, never made its appearance. François de la Mothe le Vayer, an author of great learning, talent, and

See several articles in the Tageblatt des Menschheitlebens, published by CH. CHRIST. FR. CRAUSE, 1811, No. XVIII, sqq., on a work of Comenius, entitled, General Observations on the Improvement of Human Nature, etc., Halle, 1702. 2 About 1606.

*There appears no doubt that the facts and phenomena of Animal Magnetism were familiar to a large school of writers of this age, including Paracelsus, Van Helmont, Fludd, Ficinus, Mirandola, and Maxwell, the author of Medicina Magnetica. See Colquhoun's Hist. of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism, Vol. II.-Ed.

3 Born 1562, at Bracara in Portugal.

Francisci Sanchez Tractatus de multum Nobili et Prima Universali Scientia quod nihil scitur, Lond. 1581, 4to et 12mo.; Francf. 1618, 8vo, with the remarks of DAN. HARTNACH, entitled, Sanchez aliquid sciens, Stettin. 1665, 12mo. Tractatus Philosophici, Rotterd. 1649, 21mo. 4 Born at Paris 1586; died 1672.

judgment, enlarged upon the grounds of Scepticism, with a special reference to Religion. He denied the existence of all rational principles of religion, in consequence of the diversities of belief that have always prevailed, and main tained that Reason in theology must give place to Faith, a superior faculty, and conferred immediately by Divine Grace. He represented life as a miserable farce, and virtue as almost a dream.

RATIONALISM OF DESCARTES, AND THE

SYSTEMS TO WHICH IT GAVE RISE.

I. Descartes.

BAILLET, La Vie de R. Descartes, Par. 1690, 4to; abrégée, Puris, 1693, 12mo.

GOD. GUIL. LEIBNITII Notata circa Vitam et Doctrinam Cartesii, in Thomasii Historia Sapientiæ et Stultitiæ, tom. II, p. 133, and in the 3rd vol. Epistolarum Leibnitii ad Diversos, p. 388.

Réflexions d'un Académician sur la Vie de Descartes, envoyées à un Ami en Hollande, La Haye, 1692, 12mo.

Eloge de René Descartes, par GAILLARD, Paris, 1765, 8vo; par THOMAS, Paris, 1761, 8vo; par MERCIER, Genève et Paris, 1765, 8vo. JOH. TEPELII Historia Philosophica Cartesianæ, Norimb. 1672, 12mo. De Vita et Philos. Cartesii, ibid. 1674.

Recueil de quelques Pièces curieuses concernant la Philosophie de M. Descartes (par BAYLE), Amsterd. 1684, 12mo.

PETRI DAN. HUETII Censura Philosophiæ Cartesianæ, Paris. 1689, 12mo. Philosophiæ Cartesianæ adversus censuram Pet. Dan. Huetii Vindicatio, aut D. A. P. (AUGUSTO PETERMANN), Lips. 1690, 4to. Réponse au Livre qui a pour titre : P. Dan. Huetii Censura, etc.; par P. SILVAIN REGIS, Par. 1692, 12mo. Huet answered by his (anonymous) Nouveaux Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire de Cartésianisme; par M. G. Paris, 1692, 12mo.

Admiranda Methodus Nova Philosophie Renati Descartes, Ultraj. 1643, 12mo.

BALTH. BEKKERI De Philosophia Cartesii Admonitio candida et sincera, Wesel. 1668, 12mo.

ANT. LE GRAND, Apologia pro Cartesio, contra Sam. Parkerum, Lond. 1672. 4to; Norimb. 1681, 8vo.

P. DE VILLEMANDY. See § 139.

Cinq Dialogues faits à l'Imitation des Anciens, par HORATIUS TUBERO (par FRANCOIS DE LA MOTHE LE VAYER), Mons, 1671, 12mo; 1673, 8vo. and an Answer by M. NAHLE, Berl. 1744, 8vo. Œuvres, Paris, 1654 et 1667-1684, 4 vols. fol.