A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumesRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumes
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Free thought -- History
It is at this stage that we begin to realize the full play of the
Counter-Reformation, as against the spirit of science. The movement
of mere theological and ecclesiastical heresy had visibly begun to
recede in the world of mind, and in its stead, alike in Protestant
and in Catholic lands, there was emerging a new activity of scientific
research, vaguely menacing to all theistic faith. Kepler represented
it in Germany, Harriott and Harvey and Gilbert and Bacon in England;
from Italy had come of late the portents of Bruno and Galileo;
even Spain yielded the Examen de Ingenios of Huarte (1575), where
with due protestation of theism the physicist insists upon natural
causation; and now Vanini was exhibiting the same incorrigible zest
for a naturalistic explanation of all things. His dialogues are
full of such questionings; the mere metaphysic and theosophy of
the Amphitheatrum are being superseded by discussions on physical
and physiological phenomena. It was for this, doubtless, that the
De Arcanis won the special vogue over which the Jesuit Garasse was
angrily exclaiming ten years later. [253] Not merely the doubts cast
upon sorcery and diabolical possession, but the whole drift, often
enough erratic, of the inquiry as to how things in nature came about,
caught the curiosity of the time, soon to be stimulated by more potent
and better-governed minds than that of the ill-starred Vanini. And
for every new inquirer there would be a hostile zealot in the Church,
where the anti-intellectual instinct was now so much more potent than
it had been in the days before Luther, when heresy was diagnosed only
as a danger to revenue.
It was with Galileo that there began the practical application
of the Copernican theory to astronomy, and, indeed, the decisive
demonstration of its truth. With him, accordingly, began the positive
rejection of the Copernican theory by the Church; for thus far it had
never been officially vetoed--having indeed been generally treated
as a wild absurdity. Almost immediately after the publication of
Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius (1610) his name is found in the papers
of the Inquisition, with that of Cremonini of Padua, as a subject of
investigation. [254] The juxtaposition is noteworthy. Cremonini was
an Aristotelian, with Averroïst leanings, and reputed an atheist;
[255] and it was presumably on this score that the Inquisition was
looking into his case. At the same time, as an Aristotelian he was
strongly opposed to Galileo, and is said to have been one of those
who refused to look through Galileo's telescope. [256] Galileo, on
the other hand, was ostensibly a good Catholic; but his discovery
of the moons of Jupiter was a signal confirmation of the Copernican
theory, and the new status at once given to that made a corresponding
commotion in the Church. Thus he had against him both the unbelieving
pedants of the schools and the typical priests.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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