[BRETT] REVOLT AGAINST REASON 11 



which can easily be traced to the Stoic idea of instinct, that natural 

 faculty in all created things which operates undisturbed when the 

 reason does not interfere with its promptings. Thus for a century 

 before Descartes there had been a distinct tendency to dispute the 

 primacy of man even in the moral sphere. It was argued that if 

 man was made in the likeness of God but had defaced that likeness 

 by his arbitrary choice of evil and his fall from grace, the animals 

 having no such freedom of will preserved what Cicero had called their 

 uncorrupted nature; they are either created evil or not evil at all. 



The tide of opinion was turning against man. The reason for this 

 is to be sought in the whole change which came over the dream of 

 human perfectibility. The end and aim of knowledge had for long 

 been put in the world above, its significance had not been of this 

 world. Hobbes, the contemporary of Descartes, following in the 

 steps of Macchiavelli and of Bacon, states abruptly the opposite 

 point of view; for these men knowledge was power, the peculiar 

 power of the human being by which he could devise more cunningly 

 than other animals, by which he could secure advantages for himself 

 and satisfy desire. The intellect that invented gunpowder was not 

 amenable to the old definitions; it was a new variety and these 

 writers believed in adapting their definitions to the facts. The 

 curious enquirer could find in Hobbes the curt remark that speech 

 enables a man to utter what he does not think, that it leads him to 

 deceive and so "by discourse man is not made better, but more power- 

 ful. He might go further back still and produce from Paracelsus 

 some bold statements that could only have escaped notice through 

 being regarded as utter insanity. The discovery of America gave 

 trouble, and some dispute arose as to the origin of the American 

 Indians. The authorities boldly ruled in 1512 that they have des- 

 cended from Adam and Eve. In 1520 Paracelsus declared that there 

 had been another Adam, as if there could have been two first men! 

 He delivered himself further as follows: "It cannot be proved that 

 the men who inhabit the hidden countries are descended from Adam; 

 but it is credible that they were born there after the deluge; and 

 perhaps they have no souls. In speech they are like parrots and have 

 no souls unless God be pleased to join them in the bonds of matrimony 

 with those who have souls." We are left in no doubt about the in- 

 tention of Paracelsus to write a new account of the origin of man, 

 for he says explicitly that Moses wrote theologically and according 

 to the faith but was not acquainted with natural science. Further, 

 in 1616 Vanini suggested that man was originally a quadruped. 

 Vanini was burned. In 1665 Peyrère talked about Pre- Adamites, 



