THE BEL FAST ADDR E88. 45 ? 



for the expression of opinion, the doctrine of " twofold 

 truth" was invented, according to which an opinion might 

 be held ^theologically," and the oppoRite opinion " philo- 

 grrrjiip.fllly." * Thus, in the thirteenth century, the creation 

 of the world in six days, and the unchangeableness of the 

 individual soul, which had been so distinctly affirmed by 

 St. Thomas Aquinas, were both denied philosophically, but 

 admitted to be true as articles of the Catholic faith. When 

 Protagoras uttered the maxim which brought upon him so 

 much vituperation, that "opposite assertions are equally 

 true," he simply meant to affirm men's differences to be so 

 great, that what was subjectively true to the one might be 

 subjectively untrue to the other. The great Sophist never 

 meant to play fast and loose with the truth by saying that 

 one of two opposite assertions, made by the same individual, 

 could possibly escape being a lie. It was not "sophistry," 

 but the dread of theologic vengeance, that generated this 

 double dealing with conviction; and it is astonishing to 

 notice what lengths were allowed to men who were adroit 

 in the use of artifices of this kind. 



Toward the close of the stationary period a word-weari- 

 ness, if I may so express it, took more and more possession 

 of men's minds. Christendom had become sick of the 

 School Philosophy and its verbal wastes, which led to no 

 issue, but left the intellect in everlasting haze. Here and 

 there was heard the voice of one impatiently crying in the 

 wilderness, "Not unto Aristotle, not unto subtle hypoth- 

 esis, not unto church, Bible, or blind tradition, must we 

 turn for a knowledge of the universe, but to the direct 

 investigation of nature by observation and experiment." 

 In 1543 the epoch-marking work of Copernicus on the 

 paths of the heavenly bodies appeared. The total crash of 

 Aristotle's closed universe, with the earth at its center, 

 followed as a consequence, and "The earth moves!" be- 

 came a kind of watchword among intellectual freemen. 

 Copernicus was canon of the church of Frauenburg in the 

 diocese of Ermeland. For three-and-thirty years he had 

 withdrawn himself from the world, and devoted himself to 

 the consolidation of his great scheme of the solar system, 

 lie made its blocks eternal; and even to those who feared 

 it, and desired its overthrow, it was so obviously strong, 



* " Lange," 2nd ed. pp. 181, 182. 



