Note 56 — Chapter X · FREETHOUGHT IN THE RENAISSANCE

Among the unachieved projects of his later life, which ended at the age of thirty-one, was that of a treatise Adversus Hostes Ecclesiæ, to be divided into seven sections, the first dealing with “The avowed and open enemies of Christianity,” and the second with “Atheists and those who reject every religious system upon their own reasoning”; and the others with Jews, Moslems, idolaters, heretics, and unrighteous believers.56 The vogue of unbelief thus signified was probably increased by the whole speculative habit of Pico’s own school,57 which tended only less than Averroïsm to a pantheism subversive of the Christian creed. It is noteworthy that, while Ficino believed devoutly in astrology,58 Pico rejected it, and left among his confused papers a treatise against it which his nephew contrived to transcribe and publish;59 but it does not appear that this served either the cause of religion or that of science. The educated Italian world, while political independence lasted, remained in various degrees freethinking, pantheistic, and given to astrology, no school or teacher combining rationalism in philosophy with sound scientific methods.