science, not merely in proportion to the arithmetical number of cultivated minds now combined in the pursuit of truth, but in a proportion tending to accelerate that important effect with a far greater rapidity.
Nor ought we here to overlook the influence of the foregoing causes, in encouraging among authors the practice of addressing the multitude in their own vernacular tongues. The zeal of the Reformers first gave birth to this invaluable innovation; and imposed on their adversaries the necessity of employing, in their own defence, the same weapons.[1] From that moment the prejudice began to vanish which had so long confounded knowledge with erudition; and a revolution commenced in the republic of letters, analogous to what the invention of gunpowder produced in the art of war. "All the splendid distinctions of mankind," as the Champion and Flower of Chivalry indignantly exclaimed, "were thereby thrown down; and the naked shepherd levelled with the knight clad in steel."
To all these considerations may be added the gradual effects of time and experience in correcting the errors and prejudices which had misled philosophers during so long a succession of ages. To this cause, chiefly, must be ascribed the ardour with which we find various ingenious men, soon after the period in question, employed in prosecuting experimental inquiries; a species of study to which nothing analogous occurs in the history of ancient science.[2] The boldest and most successful of this new school was the celebrated Paracelsus; born in 1493, and consequently only ten years younger than Luther. "It is impossible to doubt," says Le Clerc, in his History of Physic, "that he possessed an extensive knowledge of what
- ↑ "The sacred books were, in almost all the kingdoms and states of Europe, translated into the language of each respective people, particularly in Germany, Italy, France, and Britain."—(Moshein's Eccles. Hist. vol. iii. p. 265.) The effect of this single circumstance in multiplying the number of readers and of thinkers, and in giving a certain stability to the mutable forms of oral speech, may be easily imagined. The vulgar translation of the Bible into English, is pronounced by Dr. Lowth to be still to be still the best standard of our language.
- ↑ "Ilfæc nostra (ut sæpe diximus) felicitatis cujusdam sumt potius quam facultatis, et potius temporis partus quam ingenii."—Nov. Org. lib. i. c. xxiii.
