Note 20 — Chapter XIII · THE RISE OF MODERN FREETHOUGHT

He and Aconzio in effect cancel each other. Each had glimpsed a truth, one seeing the need for a right method in inference, the other protesting against the idea that abstract reasoning could lead to knowledge; but neither made good his argument by any treasure trove of fact. Another writer of the same decade, Gomez Pereira, joined in the revolt against Aristotelianism, publishing in 1554 his Margarita Antoniana, wherein, in advance of Descartes, he maintained the absence of sensation in brutes.20 For the rest, he championed freedom in speculation, denying that authority should avail save in matters of faith. But he too failed to bring forth fruits meet for freedom. Neither by abstract exposition of right methods of reasoning, nor by abstract attacks on wrong methods, could any vital impulse yet be given to thought. What was lacking was the use of reason upon actual problems, whether of human or of natural science. All the while Europe was anchored to ancient delusion, historical and scientific. Even as the horrors of age-long religious war could alone drive men to something like toleration in the religious life, there was needed the impact of actual discovery to win them to science as against scholasticism. And rational thinking on the religion which resisted all new science was to be still later of attainment, save for the nameless men who throughout the ages of faith rejected the creeds without publishing their unbelief. Of these Italy had always a large sprinkling.