stantinople; and the learned men of that city, abhorring the Turks and their government, took refuge in Italy. The Greek language was introduced among the western nations of Europe; and the study of Greek and Roman claffics became fashionable. Men, having acquired new ideas, began to think for themselves: they exerted their native faculty of reafon : the futility of Aristotle's logics became apparent to the penetrating; and is now apparent to all. Yet fo late as the year 1621, several persons were banished from Paris for contradicting that philofopher, about matter and form, and about the number of the elements. And fhortly after, the parliament of Paris prohibited, under pain of death, any thing to be taught contrary to the doctrines of Ariftotle. Julius II. and Leo X. Roman Pontiffs, contributed zealously to the reformation of letters; but they did not foresee that they were alfo contributing to the reformation of religion, and of every fcience that depends on reafoning. Tho' the fetters of fyllogifm have many years ago been shaken off, yet, like a limb long kept from motion, the reafoning faculty has scarcely to this day attained its free and natural exercife. Mathematics is the only fcience that never has been cramped by fyllogifm, and we find reasoning there in great perfection at an early period. The very flow progress of reafoning in other matters, will appear from the following induc

tion.

To exemplify erroneous and abfurd reafonings of every fort, would be endless. The reader, I prefume, will be fatisfied with a few inftances; and I fhall endeavour to felect what are amufing. For the fake of order, I divide them into three heads.. First, Inflances fhowing the imbecility of human reafon during its nonage. Second, Erroneous reafoning occafioned by natural biaffes. Third, Erroneous reafoning occafioned by acquired biaffes. With refpect to the firft, inftances are endless of reafonings founded on erroneous premiffes. It was an Epicurean doctrine, That the gods

have

have all of them a human figure; moved by the following argument, that no being of any other figure has the use of reafon. Plato, taking for granted the following erroneous proposition, That every being which moves itself, must have a foul, concludes that the world must have a foul, because it moves itself (a). Ariftotle taking it for granted, without the least evidence, and contrary to truth, that all heavy bodies tend to the centre of the univerfe, proves the earth to be the centre of the universe by the following argument. "Heavy bodies Heavy bodies naturally tend to the centre "of the univerfe: we know by experience that heavy bodies "tend to the centre of the earth: therefore the centre of the earth "is the centre of the universe." Appion ridicules the Jews for adhering fo literally to the precept of resting on their fabbath, as to fuffer Jerufalem to be taken that day by Ptolomy fon of Lagus. Mark the answer of Jofephus : "Whoever paffes a fober judge

ment on this matter, will find our practice agreeable to honour "and virtue; for what can be more honourable and virtuous, "than to poftpone our country, and even life itself, to the fer"vice of God, and of his holy religion?" A ftrange idea of religion, to put it in direct oppofition to every moral principle! A fuperftitious and abfurd doctrine, That God will interpofe by a miracle, to declare what is right in every matter of controversy, has occafioned much erroneous reafoning and abfurd practice. The practice of determining controverfies by fingle combat, commenced about the feventh century, when religion had degenerated into superstition, and courage was efteemed the only moral virtue. The parliament of Paris, in the reign of Charles VI. appointed a single combat between two gentlemen, in order to have the judgement of God, whether the one had committed a rape on

the other's wife. In the 1454, John Picard being accufed by his fon-in-law for too great familiarity with his wife, a duel between them was appointed by the fame parliament. Voltaire justly observes, that the parliament decreed a parricide to be committed, in order to try an accufation of inceft, which poffibly was not committed. The trials by water and by fire, reft on the fame erroneous foundation. In the former, if the perfon accufed funk to the bottom, it was a judgement pronounced by God, that he was innocent: if he kept above, it was a judgement that he was guilty. Fleury (a) remarks, that if ever the perfon. accufed was found guilty, it was his own fault. In Sicily, a woman accused of adultery, was compelled to fwear to her innocence: the oath, taken down in writing, was laid on water; and if it did not fink, the woman was innocent. We find the fame practice in Japan, and in Malabar. One of the articles infifted on by the reformers in Scotland, was, That public prayers be made and the facraments administered in the vulgar tongue. The anfwer of a provincial council was in the following words: "That to conceive public prayers, or adminifter the facraments, in any language but La"tin, is contrary to the traditions and practice of the Catholic έσ church for many ages paft; and that the demand cannot be "granted, without impiety to God, and difobedience to the "church." Here it is taken for granted, that the practice of the church is always right; which is building an argument on a very rotten foundation. The Caribbeans abstain from fwines flesh; taking it erroneously for granted, that fuch food would make then have small eyes, held by them a great deformity. They al fo abstain from eating turtle; which they think would infect them with the laziness and ftupidity of that animal. Upon the fame er

66.

(a) Hiftoire Ecclefiaftique.

roneous

roneous notion, the Brafilians abstain from the flesh of ducks, and of every creature that moves flowly.

A talent for writing feems in Germany to be estimated by weight, as beauty is faid to be in Holland. Cocceius, for writing three weighty folio volumes on law, has obtained among his countrymen the epithet of Great. This author, handling the rules of fucceffion in land-eftates, has with most profound erudition founded all of them upon a very fimple propofition, viz. That in a competition, that defcendent is entitled to be preferred who has the greatest quantity of the predeceffor's blood in his veins. Quæritur, has a man any of his predeceffor's blood in his veins, otherwife than metaphorically? Strange! to build an argument in law upon a pure metaphor.

Next of reasonings where the conclufion follows not from the premiffes, or fundamental propofition. Plato endeavours to prove, that the world is endowed with wifdom, by the following argument. "The world is greater than any of its parts: therefore it "is endowed with wifdom; for otherwise a man who is endowed "with wisdom would be greater than the world (a)." The conclufion here does not follow; for tho' man is endowed with wifdom, it follows not, that he is greater than the world in point of fize. Zeno endeavours to prove, that the world has the ufe of reafon, by an argument of the fame kind. Pope Gregory, writing in favour of the four councils, viz. Nice, Conftantinople, Ephefus, and Calcedon, reasons thus: "That as there are four e

vangelists, there ought alfo to be four councils." What would he have faid, if he had lived 100 years later, when there were many more than four? In adminiftering the facrament of the Lord's fupper, it was ordered, that the hoft fhould be covered with a clean linen cloth; because, fays the Canon law, the body

(a) Cicero, De natura Deorum, lib. 2. § 12.

of

of our Lord Jefus Chrift was buried in a clean linen cloth. Josephus, in his answer to Appion, urges the following argument for, the temple of Jerufalem: "As there is but one God, and one "world, it holds in analogy, that there fhould be but one tem-, "ple." At that rate, there fhould be but one worshipper. And why should that one temple be at Jerufalem rather than at Rome or at Pekin? The Syrians and Greeks did not for a long time eat fish. Two reafons are affigned: one is, That fish is not facrificed to the gods; the other, That being immersed in the fea, they look not up to heaven (a). The first would afford a more plausible argument for eating fish. And if the other have any weight, it would be an argument for facrificing men, and neither fish nor cattle. In juftification of the Salic law, which prohibits female fucceffion, it was long held a conclufive argument, That in the fcripture the lilies are faid neither to work nor to fpin. Vieira, termed by his countrymen the Lufitanian Cicero, publifhed fermons, one of which begins thus, "Were the Supreme Being to fhow himself vifibly, he would chufe the circle rather than the triangle, the fquare, the pentagon, the duodecagon, or any other figure." But why appear in any of these figures? And if he were obliged to appear in fo mean a fhape, a globe is undoubtedly more beautiful than a circle. Peter Hantz of Horn, who lived in the last century, imagined that Noah's ark is the true conftruction of a ship; "which," faid he, " is the workmanship of God, and "therefore perfect;" as if a veffel made merely for floating on the water, were the best alfo for failing. Sixty or seventy years ago, the fashion prevailed, in imitation of birds, to fwallow fmall ftones for the fake of digeftion; as if what is proper for birds, were equally proper for men. The Spaniards, who laid waste a great part of the West Indies, endeavoured to excufe their cruel

66

(a) Sir John Marsham, p. 221.

ties,