conceptions of mediævalism. As though, to quote Voltaire’s admirable criticism, God had given to the lower animals reason and feeling to the end _that they might not feel and reason_. It was not thus, as the same writer reminds us, that Locke and Newton argued.[118] In 1646 Gassendi became Regius Professor of Mathematics in the University of Paris, where his lecture-room was crowded with listeners of all classes. His _Life and Morals of Epikurus_ (_De Vitâ et Moribus Epicuri_), his principal work, appeared in the year 1647. It is a triumphant refutation of the prejudices and false representations connected with the name of one of the very greatest and most virtuous of the Greek Masters, which had been prevalent during so many ages. Neither his European reputation, nor the universal respect extorted by his private as well as public merits, could corrupt the simplicity of Gassendi; and his sober tastes were little in sympathy with the luxurious or literary trifling of Paris:-- “He had only with difficulty resolved to quit his southern home, and being attacked by a lung complaint, he returned to Digne, where he remained till 1653. Within this period falls the greater part of his literary activity and zeal in behalf of the philosophy of Epikurus, and simultaneously the positive extension of his own doctrines. In the same period Gassendi produced, besides several astronomical works, a series of valuable biographies, of which those of Kopernik and Tycho Brahe are especially noteworthy. He is, of all the most prominent representatives of Materialism, the only one gifted with a historic sense, and that he has in an eminent degree. Even in his _Syntagma Philosophicum_ he treats every subject, at first historically from all points of view.... Gassendi did not fall a victim to Theology, because he was destined to fall a victim to Medicine. Being treated for a fever in the fashion of the time, he had been reduced to extreme debility. He long, but vainly, sought restoration in his southern home. On returning to Paris he was again attacked by fever, and thirteen fresh blood-lettings ended his life. He died October 24th, 1655.” Lange, from whom we have quoted this brief notice, proceeds to vindicate his position as a physical philosopher:-- “The reformation of Physics and Natural Philosophy, usually ascribed to Descartes, was at least as much the work of Gassendi. Frequently, in consequence of the fame which Descartes owed to his Metaphysics, those very things have been credited to Descartes which ought properly to be assigned to Gassendi. It was also a result of the peculiar mixture of difference and agreement, of hostility and alliance, between the two systems that the influences resulting from them became completely interfused.”[119]