1808.] 
gians, this knowledge, when sublimed to 
the highest perfection it was capable of, 
and accompanied with perfect purity, was 
believed to raise the mind to an absolute 
familiarity with good angels, by whose 
assistance the possessors of the cabalic 
secrets were enabled to do miraculous 
things. This art was derived from the 
rabbinical doctors, who were at first cal- 
led Thalmudists, and about the middle 
ef the fifteenth century, according to 
Pica de Mirandola*, its professors were 
denominated Cabalici, Cabalei, or Ca- 
baliste, according to their different de- 
grees of perfection: they afterwards 
however departed from their masters the 
Thalmudists; the latter, according to 
Reuchlinus, being chiefly intent upon the 
law-and the explanation of it, while the 
‘former, paying less regard to what concer- 
ned human affairs, aimed chiefly at ele- 
vation of mind and thought. ‘The ideas 
and doctrines of the Cabalists seein to 
have been well known to Milton, and 
perhaps suggested some passages in Para- 
dise Lost. In Reuchlinus’s Exposition of 
their mysteries there is a curious passage 
describing the speech of the Deity to the 
heayenly spirits after the fall of Adam, 
with the future prospect of redemption 
by the incarnation of the Messiah, whom 
the Cabalists recognized in the character 
of a celestial Adam}+; and among the 
‘books relating to these doctrines,whichare 
said to be lost, mention is made of “ Liber 
Beliorum Domini” The mysteries of 
the Pythagorean philosophy, which, ac- 
cording to Philolaus apud Reuchlinum 
Sprung from the same source, were also 
studied and taught with great fervency 
during this period. Mirandola and Pau- 
Jus Riccius were the first who explained 
the Cabalistic mysteries in Latin, and the 
former,in his Apology, has employed much 
Jabour and learning in defending them as 
»well as the science of natural magic, from 
‘the vulgar idea that necromancy was at 
the bottom of them. is writings how- 
ever upon that subject were few, and I 
‘do not know whether they still exist; 
but it may be collected from the follow- 
ing proposition in his Conclusiones, and 
some others of a similar nature, that he, 
like all the scholars of his time, had 
_ bestowed much attention upun this useless 
* Reuchlinus de Arte Cabalistica. 
+ Conjicimus sane,alterum ess¢ Adam celes- 
‘tem anyelis in celo demonstratum, unum ex 
©, guem yerbo fecerat, et alterum esse 
Adam terrenum, repulsam a Deo,quem ex luto 
manibys suis fipxerat, Reveblinus, p. 740, 
Memoirs of John Pica, Prince of ALfrandola. 
239 
learning: “ Qui scierit quid sit dena- 
riusim Arithmetica formali, et coguove- 
ritnaturam prin numeri spheerici,, sciet 
secretum quinquaginta portarum intelli- 
gentiz et magni jobelwi, et millesi- 
me generationis, et regnum omnium 
seculorum.” Those who are better ac- 
quainted with the tenets of the modern 
millenarians than I am,will be able to tell 
whether there is any connection between 
them and the allusions in the concluding 
part of this proposition. 
Magic also entered deeply into the 
learning of this zra, This comprises two 
distinct sciences, that of natural magic, 
and that of demonology: the first was 
concerned only in the properties of num- 
bers and figures, and some of the more 
hidden properties of nature, This know- 
ledge enabled its possessors to produce 
many effects from natural causes, which, 
whea science was less diffused than at 
present, appeared to be the effect of 
something superior to the common limits 
of human power, Albertus commonly 
called Magnus, the friend and tutor of 
Roger Bacon, was the most celebrated of 
those who excelled in this sort of know- 
ledge. ‘This science bas been productive 
of many admirable discoveries in mathe- 
matics and chemistry, Magic, in its com- 
mon signification or necromancy, was also 
eagerly studied at this time as appears 
from Cornelius Agrippa’s strange work 
upon that subject; and we may judge of 
the estimation in which it was held, by 
the confession that writer makes in his, 
book de venitate omnium Scientorium, that 
while be professed that science he derived 
more credit and profit from it, than from 
any other use he ever could make of his 
learning. The first naster in this way was 
said to be *Solomon, whose magic ring and 
glass are still famous in Eastern demono- 
logy. 
But the most dangerous, the most po- 
pular, and the most pernicious delusion 
which the darkness of the preceding ages, 
had entailed upon mankind, was astrology, 
which will perhaps never be utterly ex- 
terminated from the minds of the vulgar, 
but which then possessed all ranks, 
When these considerations are taken into 
the account, it must be looked upon as 
no despicable application of learning and 
talents, to have exposed the fallacy and 
absurdity of this delusion ; and when we 
recollect the great learning and credit of 
eae EU A i) 
* Petrus Crinitus de honesta Disciplind, Lib, 
ix, ¢, 5. 5 
! 
some 
3 
*j 
