LITERATURE 
810 
ftigmatizing as abfurd and damnable whatever militated 
again!!: that fet of opinions which happened to be favoured 
by the writer. The hiliory of learning has been much 
studied in Germany fince the fixteenth century; Morkof, 
towards the end of the feventeenth, pointed out the right 
path, and has been followed by Conring, Pafch, and others. 
Gefner, fo early as 154.5, publifhed a general literary lex¬ 
icon; among others, Konigmencke, Jocher, and Adelung, 
have purfued the fame path, and far furpaffed their pre¬ 
deceffors ; but ftill without exhaufting the fubject. Bio¬ 
graphy, which had been fo much cultivated by the an¬ 
cients, and which in the middle ages was fo fadly ne- 
gleited, revived with the revival of literature. Among 
the writers in this line, fome of the moft prominent have 
been Camerarius, GafTendi, Leclerc, Middleton, Mo- 
flieim, Gefner, Schroeckh, Fabroni, Schirach, Eberhard, 
Vogel, Meiners, Eichhorn, and Schlichtegrol). Some, too, 
have diftinguilhed their names by the memoirs of them- 
felves, as Cardan, Buchanan, de Thou, Huet, Rouffeau, 
Hume, See. Chronology in this period derived much 
light from mathematics and hiftory, and in return it re- 
fle&ed much light on them. Great labour was employed 
in collating ancient dates, and in reconciling the chrono¬ 
logy of the claffcal writers with that of the holy ferip- 
tures. By means of compendious treatifes and tables, 
this once obfeure and intricate fubjeft is now rendered fa¬ 
miliar to every ftudent. After all, as the objeft of chro¬ 
nology is to point out epochs and aeras of received noto¬ 
riety, and as the date from which in this country we be¬ 
gin the Chriltian gera is of univerfal ufage in the weftern 
parts of the Chriftian world ; the chronologift perhaps 
will belt confult the convenience of his Englilli reader, if 
he commences the Chriltian aera from the vulgar date; and 
for the hiltorian it will be molt fafe, becaufe it will lefs 
tend to perplex, if he follows the common courfe of 
chronology, and takes his date of our Lord’s nativity 
from the year which ordinary cultom has long functioned. 
See the article Chronology, vol. iv. p. 539, 40. Upon 
the fubject of Geography alfo during this period, fee 
that article, vol. viii. p. 347. 
The fubjeCt of ftatiltics was never fcientifically treated 
before the eighteenth century; for, though the ancients 
have handed^down to us fome (tatiltical accounts, (as Xe¬ 
nophon, for inltance, of Athens and Lacedaemon,) yet 
thefe all want that regular and fyftematic form which is 
effential to a fcience. During the fifteenth century, when 
Venice became, as it were, the focus of all European po¬ 
litics, the Venetian government enjoined its amballadors 
to draw up accounts of the internal ftate of thofe coun¬ 
tries and courts to which they were delegated. Thefe, 
as they came to hand, were carefully depolited in the ar¬ 
chives; and, in the fixteenth century, they were par¬ 
tially publilhed. Other powers adopted the practice; 
and thus, by degrees, the ftrength and weaknefs of ftates, 
which till then had been little regarded, or had been 
cautioully involved in myftery, became topics of ge¬ 
neral difeufiion ; and this gave rife to the works of 
Sanforino (1567), of Botero (1592), and of others; 
hence alfo theThefaurus Politicos of Gafpar Ens (1609). 
The Germans very early took the lead in this inveltiga- 
tion 5 Conring, profeflbr at Helmftadt (1660), firll ren¬ 
dered it an univerfity-ftudy ; and he gave lectures on it, 
treating it as an appendage to political fcience. ilis ex¬ 
ample was followed in the eighteenth century by various 
univ'erfities of Germany. Eberhard Otto (1726), fepa- 
rated the fcience of ftatiltics altogether from that of poli¬ 
tics ; he called it Notitiam pracipuarum Europa Rerumpubli- 
torum ; and by liis lectures on it, he excited a great zeal 
for the ftudy. M. Meufel, however, ftyles Achenwall of 
Gottingen (1749) the father of ftatiltics; he was the firlt, 
indeed, who called the fcience by that name; and he ex¬ 
hibited it under a form incomparably more correct, com¬ 
plete, and regular, than any of his predeceffors. The Ger¬ 
mans, it fhould feem, alfume the honours of this fcience 
ahnoft exclufively; and Bufching’s Magazine may be 
confidered as beginning comparatively a new epoch in fta¬ 
tiltics. 
A more extenfive ftudy of ancient authors had enabled 
the learned, about the beginning of the fixteenth cen¬ 
tury, to publifh, with a tranllation and commentary, fome 
of the belt mathematical works of antiquity. Their next 
ftep was to venture into the path of original invention. 
The earlieft attempts of this kind were made in Italy, 
and referred, as might naturally be expefted, to the ea- 
fier parts of pure mathematics. Tartaglia, teacher of 
mathematics, in Venice (1557), was the firlt who in any 
degree diftinguilhed himfelf. Commandine and Mauro- 
lycus followed the fame courfe (1575); and Lucas Va¬ 
lerius of Rome (1618), went beyond the boundaries of 
ancient dilcovery ; he particularly determined, what had 
been neglected by Archimedes, the centre of gravity in 
all folid conoids, fphaeroids, and their fegments ; and he 
invented a new quadrature of the parabola. In France, 
little was done till the feventeenth centnry. “ No na¬ 
tion,” fays M. Meufel, “could at that time boaft of more 
geometricians than Germany;” he efpecially mentions 
Byrge, as having contrived the proportional compafs, 
which others have aferibed to Galileo, and as having 
paved the way for the fubfequent invention of logarithms. 
This fplendid difeovery was referved for baron Napier 
(1614) ; it was at firlt, indeed, imperfeft, but was after¬ 
ward improved by Kepler, Briggs, and others. Algebra 
is almolt entirely the production of this period ; for the 
little which had been exhibited by the Greeks fince the 
fourth century, and after them by the Arabs, could 
fcarcely be called a beginning. In the early part of the 
fifteenth century, Leonardo da Pifa feems to have been 
the firft writer who made known to the world the difeo- 
veries of the Arabs; but it was Lucas Pacioli who, nearly 
at the end of the century, brought the fcience, for the 
firft time, into any -general efteem; and even he did not 
advance beyond equations of the lecond order. Ferrei 
was the firft perfon who found out a method of folving 
cubical equations ; he confided the treafure to his fcholar 
Fiore; but Tartaglia, getting poffeffion of the fecret, 
communicated it to Cardan ; who then, under the pre¬ 
tence that the rule itfelf only had been imparted to him, 
and that he had invented the demonftration of it, pub- 
lifhed it as his own (1545), in his work intitled, Ars 
Magna ; and hence it has unjuftly been called, ever fince. 
Cardan’s Rule. Ferrari, a lcholar of Cardan, invented 
a lblution of biquadratic equations. Bombelli (1579) 
united, improved, and confiderably extended, the dilco- 
veries of his predeceffors. The fubfequent hiftory of this 
fcience is pretty generally known. See tlie article Al¬ 
gebra, vol. i. p. 281, 2. 
Unfitted as were the Peripatetic doctrines to combine 
with the Chriftian religion, fince they completely ex¬ 
cluded the Deity from the government of the world, and 
contained no proofs of the immortality of the foul, yet 
they had fo thoroughly infected the fcholaltic philofophy, 
that it was long ere the world could refolve to fliake them 
off, and think for itfelf. They were ftudied, admired, 
and propagated, in the early part of this period, by per- 
fons the moft celebrated for their learning, as jvell pro- 
teftants as Roman catholics. The Ionian, the Stoic, the 
Pythagorean, and Eleatic, fyftems, had alfo each of them 
its votaries. In the fixteenth and feventeenth centuries, 
flouriflied the feft of Theofophi; who ftyled themfelves 
Philofophi per ignem, being much given to cbemiftry, 
and diftinguilhed their philofophy by the title of Cabbala. 
At length, on the revival of the doitrines of Rofenkreutz 
by Andrese (1586), they united themfelves with the Ro- 
ficrucians, and affumed their name. In fuch a confulion 
of ancient and modern fyftems of philofophy, it is not 
furprifing that fcepticifm alio fhould find its place; and 
accordingly, the feft of Modern Sceptics, as they were 
called, has been dignified by the names of many illuftrious 
members, from Sanchez, Charron, Huet, &c. of the feven¬ 
teenth century, down to David Hume. In the fixteenth 
century, 
