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Sepulveda, a learned Spaniard of the fixteenth century, who, 

 though an excellent, and, in all other points, an orthodox Ca- 

 tholick, pubHcly fuftained, and printed his opinion, that the 

 foul of Ariftotle was beatified in heaven. 



We fhall not be furprifed at the prevalence of the Platonic 

 and Ariftotelian philofophies in the more weftern regions at the 

 firft dawn of literature, when we confider that thefe were the 

 fafhionable fciences among the modern Greeks, who had refined 

 upon their refinements, and rendered their obfcurity ftill lefs 

 intelligible, and that Conftantinople was, in efFed, the fource 

 from which learning flowed into Italy, the great refervoir of 

 knowledge, where it would naturally retain its original form and 

 qualities ; and this caufe will appear ftill more probable when we 

 reflect that, though originally derived from the Greeks, it was 

 brought into the weftern parts of the world by the Arabians, who, 

 in their conqueft of the Afiatic provinces had made themfelves 

 acquainted with all the learning of Greece, and whofe fpeculative, 

 fubtle, and romantic genius, perfedly adapted to metaphyfical 

 difquifition and to artificial dialedic, had eagerly feized, and 

 adopted with a preference thofe fciences to which it was beft 

 fuited. This fpecies of erudition which they had found prevalent 

 among the conquered Greeks, by their frequent incurfions into 

 the weftern regions, and principally by their fettlements in Spain 

 and Africa, they had diffufed and eftablifhed among the unlettered 

 inhabitants. Manufcipts of all kinds they had in their vi(£lorious 

 progrefs colleded, and tranflated with avidity ; and that Arif- 

 totle in particular was, and long continued, their favourite author, 



may 



