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PROCEEDINGS, OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
SS 
NATIONAL INSTITUTE, OF 
FRANCE.) ” 
CONTINUATION of the THIRD QUAR- 
_TERLY SITTING of the CLASS of Ma- 
THEMATICaL a@#d PHYSICAL SCI- 
ENCES, YEAR 9- 
ITIZEN KOCH has fent a Memoir 
on a Literary Society, which appears 
to bave been effablifoed at Sirafbyrg, to- 
swards the end of the fifteenth and at the be- 
sinning of the fixteenth centuries. ‘he 
author obferves, that letters from their 
earlieft revival were favourably received 
in Alface, and, efpecially at Strafburg. 
This city held the firt rank among the 
_ free cities of the Empire 5 and. theinhabi- 
tants, who lived in eafe and freedom, pof- 
feffed that urbanity and independent fpirit 
which are acceptable to the Mutes. 
Strafburg wasin a manner the cradle of 
the art of printing, and by this invention 
the improvement pf the human mind ad- 
vanced with a celerity which, it had not 
known before. By this means, facts, 
thoughts, opinions, the productions of 
genius, difcoveries of every kind, are 
tranfported, like articles of commerce, 
over ali parts of the globe where the art 
of reading is known, Guttemburg, the 
autbor of this new art, removed his efta- 
bifnmert to Mentz; but he left induf- 
trious pupils in Strafburg. A literary 
fociety was at the fame time formed there, 
ar. inititution which, it may be aflerted, 
was unknown to the ancients. As our 
learned focieties are favourable to the pro- 
grefs of the human mind, fo thofe efta- 
blifhments among the ancients which bore 
fome refemblance to them, fuch as the 
Axcademia of Plato, the Lyceum of Arif- 
totle, the Portico of Zeno, and the Gar- 
dens of Epicurus, were often contrary to 
it. Inour focieties each member has his 
ewn opinions, his own principles, his own 
views, and his own thoughts, all which 
may be confdered as his peculiar pro- 
perty. Every new difcovery is gracioufly 
received 5 every truth is admitted; every 
opinion may be prefented without incur- 
ring difpleafure, aithough what one of 
the members thinks is frequently that 
which his neighbour does not think ; 
thence difenfions take place, in which 
good faith predominates. But the ancient 
focieties were merely fchools, where the 
matter preferved an afcendancy, and: that 
even when he was no more; all fentiments 
were formed by his; his dettrine was the 
fubmit them to examination. 
' . © s . . i at ieee 
doétrine of all; his oninions were facred- 
dogmas, and it was a kind oflacrilege to: 
No new 
progrefs was therefore to be expefied 
while the {chool lafted ; it produced no- 
thing but commentaries on the dogtrine of 
the matter. The truth which one fchool 
profefied was only received into another, 
to undergo a fentence of reprobation.: 
And laftly, each {chool piqued itlelf lefs 
on having reafon, than on maintaining a 
ufurpation by its principles over the rights 
of reafon. In one they believed that there 
was no. vacuum in nature; in another, 
that there was; in one, that God was of 
a {pherical figure ; in another, that he was 
perfeétly flac*. Such however was not 
the fchool. of Strafburg. Its founder 
was James Wimpheling, who, was well 
feconded by fome zealovie partizans of re- 
viving letters, who juftly deferved to take - 
a place with him. Here they entered 
into a critical examinatign of ancient and 
modern works, as being thereby qualified: 
to decide which of them fhould firft ob- 
tain the honour of printing. A ftill more 
fortunate refult of thefe cotferences, was 
to collect and concentrate in one focus the 
different parts of human knowledge, 
which, till then, ifolated and without’ 
mutual correfpondence, had been the fub- — 
je&ts of feparate initruction. And, above 
ail, it is to the labours of the Society of 
Strafburg that we may attribute the 
aftonifhing fuccefs of the religious revo- 
jution in that city, in the beginning of the 
fixteenth century. It might be thought 
on a fuperficial view, that the human 
mind has little to congratulate itfelf on 
the fuperiority which the opinions of a 
Saxon monk obtained over thofe of the 
do&tors of Rome, or that certain theolo- ' 
gical tenets were fubfituted for other the- 
ological tenets ;—and that thefe novelties 
brought on frefh caules of perfecutien: 
but the truth is; that the reformation of 
Luther, followed by that of Calvin and 
many others, gave an acutenef$ to the 
reafoning faculty, and a happy audacity 
to explore that which men hitherto had 
been only accuftomed to revere; end, in 
fhort, to grant nothing to authority when 
it is not in ftri accordance with reafon. 
Laftly, the combat of metaphyfical quef- 
%* According to Zeno, God. was perfeétly., 
round ; according to Epicurus, the, Geds were 
of a flat figure, not to be crufhed by the va- 
rious worlds or fyftems. ‘ 
( tions 
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