everywhere turned the spirit of philosophical inquiry from frivolous or abstruse speculations, to the business and affairs of men."[1]
The revival of letters may be considered as coeval with the fall of the Eastern empire, towards the close of the fifteenth century. In consequence of this event, a number of learned Greeks took refuge in Italy, where the taste for literature already introduced by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, together with the liberal patronage of the illustrious House of Medicis, secured them a welcome reception. A knowledge of the Greek tongue soon became fashionable; and the learned, encouraged by the rapid diffusion which the art of printing now gave to their labours, vied with each other in rendering the Greek authors accessible, by means of Latin translations, to a still wider circle of readers.
For a long time, indeed, after the era just mentioned, the progress of useful knowledge was extremely slow. The passion for logical disputation was succeeded by an unbounded admiration for the wisdom of antiquity; and in proportion as the pedantry of the schools disappeared in the universities, that of erudition and philology occupied its place.
Meanwhile an important advantage was gained in the immense stock of materials which the ancient authors supplied to the reflections of speculative men; and which, although frequently accumulated with little discrimination or profit, were much more favourable to the development of taste and of genius than the unsubstantial subtleties of ontology or of dialectics. By such studies were formed Erasmus,[2] Ludovicus
- ↑ Dr. Robertson, from whom I quote these words, has mentioned this cahnge as the glory of the present age, meaning, I presume, the period which elapsed since the time of Montesquieu. By what steps the philosophy to which he alludes took its rise from the systems of jurisprudence previously in fashion, will appear in the sequel of this Discourse.
- ↑ The writings of Erasmus probably contributed still more than those of Luther himself to the progress of the Reformation among men of education and taste; but, without the co-operation of bolder and more decided characters than his, little would to this day have been effected in Europe among the lower orders. "Erasmus imagined," as is observed by his biographer, "that at length, by training up youth in learning and useful knowledge, those religious improvements would gradually be brought about, which the princess, the prelates, and the divines of his days could not be persuaded to admit or to tolerate."—(Jortin, p. 279.) In yielding, however, to this pleasing expectation, Erasmus must have flattered himself with the hope, not only of a perfect freedom of literary discussion, but of such reforms in the prevailing modes of instruction, as would give complete scope to the energies of the human mind:—for, where books and teachers are subjected to the censorship of those who are hostile to the dissemination of truth, they become the most powerful of all auxiliaries to the authority of established errors.
It was long a proverbial saying among the ecclesiastics of the Romish Church, that "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it;" and there is more truth in the remark, than in most of their sarcasms on the same subject.
