DISCOVERY OF THE LAWS OF MOTION. 339 



gle was begun by Descartes, and they proclaim him the legislator of 

 modern philosophers. But when we examine the philosophical writ- 

 ings of Fracastoro, of Benedetti, of Cardan, and above all, those of 

 Galileo ; when we see on all sides energetic protests raised against the 

 peripatetic doctrines ; we ask, what there remained for the inventor 

 of vortices to do, in overturning the natural philosophy of Aristotle ? 

 In addition to this, the memorable labors of the School of Cosenza, of 

 Telesius, of Giordano Bruno, of Campanella ; the writings of Patricius 

 who was, besides, a good geometer ; of Nizolius, whom Leibnitz es 

 teemed so highly, and of the other metaphysicians of the same epoch, 

 prove that the ancient philosophy had already lost its empire on 

 that side the Alps, when Descartes threw himself upon the enemy now 

 put to the rout. The yoke was cast off in Italy, and all Europe had 

 only to follow the example, without its being necessary to give a new 

 impulse to real science." 



In England, we are accustomed to hear Francis Bacon, rather than 

 Descartes, spoken of as the first great antagonist of the Aristotelian 

 schools, and the legislator of modern philosophy. But it is true, both 

 of one and the other, that the overthrow of the ancient system had 

 been effectively begun before their time by the practical discoverers 

 here mentioned, and others who, by experiment and reasoning, estab- 

 lished truths inconsistent with the received Aristotelian doctrines. Gil- 

 bert in England, Kepler in Germany, as well as Benedetti and Galileo 

 in Italy, gave a powerful impulse to the cause of real knowledge, be- 

 fore the influence of Bacon and Descartes had produced any general 

 effect. What Bacon really did was this ; that by the august image 

 which he presented of a future Philosophy, the rival of the Aristotelian, 

 and far more powerful and extensive, he drew to it the affections and 

 hopes of all men of comprehensive and vigorous minds, as well as of 

 those who attended to special trains of discovery. He announced a 

 New Method, not merely a correction of special current errors ; he 

 thus converted the Insurrection into a Revolution, and established a 

 new philosophical Dynasty. Descartes had, in some degree, the same 

 purpose ; and, in addition to this, he not only proclaimed himself the 

 author of a New Method, but professed to give a complete system of 

 the results of the Method. His physical philosophy was put forth as 

 complete and demonstrative, and thus involved the vices of the ancient 

 dogmatism. Telesius and Campanella had also grand notions of an 

 entire reform in the method of philosophizing, as I have noticed in 

 the Philoso2)hy of the Inductive Sciences, Book xii.] 



