human authority, even that of his master, whenever any doctrine appeared to him repugnant to reason: "I do not support this opinion," says he, "because he lays it down, but because I think it true, and therefore, if he has elsewhere maintained the opposite, I care not." This language, it has been justly observed, "now so trivial that no slave can disclaim it, and every schoolboy would think it too commonplace to be repeated, was, in the fourteenth century, far more important than the most brilliant discoveries, and contained the germ of all reformation in philosophy and religion. Luther and Bacon were actuated by no other principle in the deliverance of the human understanding. The principal question upon which Occam opposed his master Scotus was that concerning universals as they were called. He held that the words which are called universal, are to be considered as signs which equally indicate any one out of many particular objects. “This opinion," says one of the most accomplished metaphysicians of the present age in his review of Stewart's Introduction to the Encyclopædia, was revived by Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, Hartley, and Condillac; abused with great ingenuity by Horne Tooke; and followed by Mr Stewart, who has on this occasion made common cause with philosophers in whose ranks he is not usually found. Few metaphysical speculations have been represented as more important by its supporters and opponents. Perhaps, however, when the terms are explained, and when the darkness is dissipated with which controversy never fails to cloud a long contested question, it may appear that this subject has not yet been examined on true principles. But whatever may be the future fate of the controversy, it cannot be denied, that the reasonings in de fence of Nominalism are stated with singular ingenuity, and even perspicuity, in the passages of Occam which now lie before us. Among many other observations, perfectly unlike his age, we find him limiting the philosophy of the human mind to what can be known by experience of its operations, and utterly excluding all questions relating to the nature of the thinking principle. We are conscious that we understand and will; but whether these acts be performed by an immaterial and incorruptible principle, is a matter of which we are not conscious, and which is no farther the subject of demonstration than it can be known by experience. All attempts to prove it must be founded on the assumption of something doubtful.' But the most remarkable of all the reasonings of this original thinker, are those which he employs against the then received doctrine of sensible and intelligible species' (or appearances) of things which are the immediate objects of the mind when we perceive or think. These images or likenesses of objects alone, were supposed to be contemplated by the senses and the understanding, and to be necessary to perception and mental apprehension. Biel, a follower of Occam, in expounding the doctrine of his master, tells us, that a species was the similitude or image of a thing known, naturally remaining in the mind after it ceases to be the object of actual knowledge; or otherwise, that likeness of a thing, which is a previous condition of knowledge, which excites knowledge in the understanding, and which may remain in the mind in the absence of the thing repre sented. The supposed necessity of such species, moving from the

Gabriel Biel, ii. Sent in Tenn.

object to the organ of sense, is, according to Occam, founded on the assumed principle, that what moves must be in contact with what is moved. But this principle he asserts to be false; and he thinks it sufficiently disproved by the fact, that the loadstone attracts iron to without touching it. He thought nothing necessary to sensation but the power of sensation, and the thing which is its object. All intermediate beings he regarded as arbitrary figments. We cannot pursue these quotations farther. It is easy to conceive his application of a similar mode of reasoning to the intelligible species,' which, indeed, he who denied abstract ideas, had already virtually rejected. It is plain, indeed, that Occam denied both parts of this opinion; not only that which is called Aristotelian, concerning the species supposed to move from outward objects to the organs of sense: but also that which, under the name of the Ideal theory, has been imputed by Dr Reid and Mr Stewart to Descartes, and all succeeding philosophers, who are consi dered as teaching the actual resemblance of our thoughts to external things, and thereby laying their philosophy open to the inferences afterwards made from it by Berkeley about the origin of our perceptions, and by Hume against the possibility of knowledge. The philosophical reader will be struck with the connexion between this rejection of 'images or likenesses of things' as necessary to perception; and the principle, that we know nothing of mind but its actions; and cannot fail, in a system of reasoning of which these are specimens, illustrated by an observation of the less observed appearances of outward nature, and animated by a disregard of authority in the search for truth, to perceive tendencies towards an independent philosophy, to be one day built by reason upon a wide foundation of experience."

Occam took a conspicuous part in those violent disputes which agitated the church during the pontificate of John XXII. from 1316 to 1334. He opposed the ambitious pretensions of the pope, and defended generally the rights of the civil magistrate against the usurped prerogatives of the church, with great spirit and success. In 1322, he was chosen provincial of the Franciscans in England, and afterwards definitor of the whole order of St Francis, in which latter capacity he was present at the general chapter held at Perusium in Tuscany, where he boldly defended the principles of the 'spiritual brethren,' as they were called, which the pope had condemned as heretical by two solemn decrees.❜ He also impugned with much vehemence a favourite opinion of John XXII. that the souls of good men are not admitted to the beatific vision and full happiness of heaven until after the resurrection. such contumacious conduct, the holy father cited him to Rome, but instead of obeying the summons, Occam took shelter at the court of Lewis of Bavaria, who had himself been deposed and excommunicated by the pope, and who received his fellow in misfortune in a very gracious manner. In this retirement Occam composed several of his works, particularly his compendium of the heresies of Pope John, of which he enumerated no fewer than seventy-seven. He also published several treatises in defence of his patron, and against that maxim of the papal court, first promulgated by Boniface VIII. in 1301, that "all emperors, kings, and princes, are subject to the supreme authority of the pope,

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and that in temporals as well as spirituals." His works against the papal authority are represented by Selden as "the best that had been written in former ages on the ecclesiastical power."

During the life of the emperor, Occam defied the rage of three successive pontiffs; but on the death of Lewis in 1347, he no longer found himself in a capacity to brave the papal thunders, and was constrained to make his peace with the church by many humiliating concessions By the interest of the Franciscans, he obtained absolution for all past offences from Clement VI.; but he did not long survive his abjuration of those opinions which it had been the great object of his life to establish and promulgate. He died at Capua in Italy, on the 20th of September 1350. His writings are voluminous but scarce. An account of them is given in Tenneman's History of Philosophy,' vol. viii. part 2. published at Leipsic in 1811.

Walter Burleigh,

FLOR. CIRC. A. D. 1320.

AMONG the men of extraordinary ability who flourished in the age when the passion for scholastic learning was at its height, Burleigh holds a conspicuous station. Little is known of his early life, or of the methods he pursued in attaining that high rank to which he rose in the learned world. It appears to have been one of the peculiarities of the period, that only men of a certain turn or habit of mind had a chance of making their way to eminence. The rigid forms of study and reasoning to which intellects of every degree of strength, and every character, were subjected, tended to destroy all those tenderer germs of original thought, which though not essential perhaps to the existence of truth, give so much grace and beauty to the whole intellectual world. Few things are better adapted to prove the power of individual peculiarities over external force than the variety of styles which may be seen in the writings of the most devoted disciples of Aristotle: but it was only men of the hardiest minds that could endure the discipline they had to undergo; the rest shrunk, withered into useless weeds, and even those who lived through the process, appeared possessed rather of a strong rigidity, than a genial, living strength. Burleigh was one of the few who succeeded in retaining somewhat of his natural character, and njoyed among his cotemporaries the singular honour of being named 'the perspicuous doctor'. He studied first at Oxford, and then at Paris, where he was a fellow-pupil with Occam in the school of Duns Scotus. On his return to England, he became a most determined opponent of the system of his master, and acquired a reputation for acuteness and learning, which recommended him to the notice of Edward the Third, of whom he was for some time the preceptor. There were few branches of literature or science on which his fruitful mind had not been employed. Logic and metaphysics, in which he chiefly excelled, did not prevent his becoming noted for his skill in natural philosophy, on the one hand, and his profound acquaintance with theology on the other. His works consequently embrace a vast variety of subjects; but his princi.

pal productions are in the form of commentaries on the metaphysical and ethical works of Aristotle. The list of these treatises affords a remarkable evidence of the laborious attention with which the scholars of this age pursued their painful and abstruse labours; but it shows at the same time how far removed the literature of the schools was from the path of practical utility, and how impossible it would have been for its greatest admirer to have said of its most accomplished professor, that he brought philosophy from its higher sphere to converse with mortals. Only one of Burleigh's works has escaped almost utter oblivion: this is a tract entitled, 'De Vita et Moribus Philosophorum,' and it is not unworthy of preservation, as giving a curious specimen of the manner in which the masters of ancient wisdom were viewed by the learned of the 14th century.

John of Gaddesden.

FLOR. CIRC. A. D. 1320.

THE earliest English physician whose works have been printed, was Gilbert English, who flourished in the 13th century, and whose skill in medicine is highly extolled by Leland and Bale. Like his predecessor, Albricius, he appears to have mastered the science of the Arabians, and Dr Freind is of opinion, that "he took the bulk of what he compiled from the writings of the Arabians," which were, in fact, at this time, the only depositaries of science known to Europeans. John de Gaddesden is the next medical writer of this country whose works are before the public. He flourished in the early part of the 14th century, and studied at Merton college, Oxford. "Having acquired," says Leland, "a thorough knowledge of philosophy, he applied with great ardour to the study of medicine, in which he made so great proficiency, that he was justly esteemed the great luminary of his age. He wrote a large and erudite work on medicine, to which, on account of its excellence, the illustrious title of The Medical Rose,' was given." The title of the book is somewhat different from Leland's account of it. It runs thus in the original: Rosa Anglica quatuor libris distincta, de morbis particularibus, de febribus, de chirurgia, de pharmocopeia.' It is a singular work, and may be referred to as exhibiting the whole system of surgery and physic practised in England in the 14th century. In treating of each disease, Gaddesden gives, first, the etymology of its name, and a general description of it; 2dly, the symptoms; 3dly, the treatment. On the latter head, Gaddesden is always extremely full; in fact, as Dr Freind observes, he seems to have sedulously collected all the receipts and nostrums which he had ever met with or heard of, and, with little attention to the rationale of medicine, to have incorporated the whole in one vast system of therapeutics. He was a great dealer in secrets, and possessed some with which, if we are to trust his own account, he performed absolute miracles; he affirms that he possessed great skill in physiognomy, and informs us, that it was his intention to write a treatise of chiromancy. In fact, Gaddesden was the universal philosopher of his day: physic, meta

physics, surgery, poetry, philology,—nothing came amiss to him; and when one art failed, he was always sure to have another at hand with which he could at least impose on the credulity of mankind. Dr Freind has exposed, with much humour and effect, the extreme empiricism of Gaddesden's practice. What can be more whimsical, for exam ple, than the following treatment of a patient in the small-pox?" After this" that is, immediately after the eruption appears" cause the whole body of your patient be wrapped in red scarlet cloth, or in any other red cloth, and cause every thing about his bed be made red. This is an admirable mode of cure. It was in this manner I treated the son of the noble king of England when he had the small pox; and I cured him without leaving any marks." Nothing less ridiculous is his treatment of epilepsy, though in this instance, at least, he was not singular in his practice: "Because," says he, "there are many children and others affected with the epilepsy, who cannot take medicines, let the following method be observed, which is recommended by Constantine, Walter, Bernard, Gilbert, and others, which I too have found to be effectual, whether the patient was a demoniac, a lunatic, or an epileptic. When the patient and his parents have fasted three days, let him be conducted to a church. There, if he be of proper age, and in his right senses, let him confess. Then let him hear mass on Friday, during the fast of Quatuor temporum, and also on Saturday. On Sunday, let a good and pious priest read over his head, in the church, the gospel which is appointed to be read in September in the time of vintage, and let the patient wear the same about his neck, and he will be cured. The gospel is: This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.'" Such were the methods of cure practised by a man who stood at the head of the medical school of England in the 14th century, whom princes consulted and honoured, whom poets celebrated, and whom Leland and Ovaringius extol as the profoundest philosopher, the most skilful physician, and the most illustrious man of his age! In forming an estimate, however, of Gaddesden, or any of his contemporaries, we must take into account the general ignorance and universal superstition of the age in which they lived. Besides the practice of his profession, Gaddesden held a prebendary in St Paul's,-a sinecure place doubtless, for so convenient a mode of rewarding personal services was not unknown to the dispensers of patronage even in these incorrupt times. Of his Rosa Anglica,' there are two editions: one printed in folio at Venice, in 1502,—the other in quarto, Aug. Vind. 1595.

Sir John Mandeville.

BORN CIRC. A. D. 1300.-died a. d. 1372.

THE fervour of religious enthusiasm which had carried crowds of humble pilgrims and steel-clad warriors to the Holy Land, was not yet exhausted when this remarkable man began his career. But the motives which influenced him seem to have been altogether distinct from those which had hitherto operated on the minds of travellers to the