salvation; propositions, I mean, which affect the foundation of all our
other knowledge and accordingly determine for ever, and, if they are
false, distort for ever, the point of view from which our knowledge
starts; and as, further, the corollaries of these propositions touch the
entire system of our intellectual attainments at every point, the whole
of human knowledge is thoroughly adulterated by them. Evidence of this
is afforded by every literature; the most striking by that of the Middle
Age, but in a too considerable degree by that of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Look at even the first minds of all those epochs;
how paralyzed they are by false fundamental positions like these; how,
more especially, all insight into the true constitution and working of
nature is, as it were, blocked up. During the whole of the Christian
period Theism lies like a mountain on all intellectual, and chiefly on
all philosophical efforts, and arrests or stunts all progress. For the
scientific men of these ages God, devil, angels, demons hid the whole of
nature; no inquiry was followed to the end, nothing ever thoroughly
examined; everything which went beyond the most obvious casual nexus was
immediately set down to those personalities. "_It was at once explained
by a reference to God, angels or demons_," as Pomponatius expressed
himself when the matter was being discussed, "_and philosophers at any
rate have nothing analogous_." There is, to be sure, a suspicion of
irony in this statement of Pomponatius, as his perfidy in other matters
is known; still, he is only giving expression to the general way of
thinking of his age. And if, on the other hand, any one possessed the
rare quality of an elastic mind, which alone could burst the bonds, his
writings and he himself with them were burnt; as happened to Bruno and
Vanini. How completely an ordinary mind is paralyzed by that early
preparation in metaphysics is seen in the most vivid way and on its most
ridiculous side, where such a one undertakes to criticise the doctrines
of an alien creed. The efforts of the ordinary man are generally found