Volume 3

Introduction to the literature of Europe, in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries / by Henry Hallam.

  • Hallam, Henry, 1777-1859.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introduction to the literature of Europe, in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries / by Henry Hallam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    publishing their objections to his Meditations with his own replies. In the universities, bigoted for the most part to Aristotelian authority, he had no chance of public reception ; but the influence of the universities was much diminished in France, and a new theory had perhaps better chances in its favour on account of their opposition. But the Jesuits, a more powerful body, were in general adverse to the Cartesian system, and especially some time afterwards, when it was supposed to have the countenance of several leading Jansenists. The Epicurean school, led by Gassendi and Hobbes, pre- sented a formidable phalanx; since it in fact compre- hended the wits of the world, the men of indolence and sensuality, quick to discern the many weaknesses of Car- tesianism, with no capacity for its excellences. It is un- necessary to say how predominant this class was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, both in France and England. 110. Descartes was evidently in considerable alarm lest the church should bear with its weight controversy upon his philosophy.11 He had the censure on Voet. Galileo before his eyes, and certainly used some chicane of words as to the earth’s movement upon this account. It was, however, in the Protestant country which he had chosen as his harbour of refuge that he was doomed to encounter the roughest storm. Gisbert Voet, an eminent theologian in the university of Utrecht, and the head of the party in the church of Holland, which had been vic- torious in the synod of Dort, attacked Descartes with all the virulence and bigotry characteristic of his school of divinity. The famous demonstration of the hems' of God he asserted to be a cover for atheism, and thus excited a flame of controversy, Descartes being not without supporters in the university, especially Eegius, professor of medicine. The philosopher was induced by these assaults to change his residence from a town in the province of Utrecht to Leyden. Voet did not cease to pursue him with outrageous calumny, and succeeded in k On a tellement assujetti la thdologie ft foi touchant l’dtendue du monde: savoir Aristote, qu’il est impossible d’expliquer s’il est fini ou plutot infini, et si tout cc une autre philosophic qu’il ne semble qu’on appelle espaces imaginaires soieut d abord quelle soit centre la foi. Et des corps creds et vdri tables. Vol. vi. apropos de ceci, je vous prie de me man- p. 73. der s’il n’y a rien de ddtermind en la