Note 24 — Chapter XIII · THE RISE OF MODERN FREETHOUGHT

Only thus could the principle of natural causation be affirmed in the Spain of Philip II. Huarte is careful to affirm miracles while denying their recurrence; and throughout he writes as a good Scripturist and Catholic. But he sticks to his naturalist thesis that “Nature makes able,” and avows that “natural philosophers laugh at such as say, This is God’s doing, without assigning the order and discourse of the particular causes whence they may spring.”24 The fact that the book was dedicated to Philip tells of royal protection, without which the author could hardly have escaped the Inquisition. Years after, we shall find Lilly in England protesting on the stage against the conception of Natura naturans; and Bacon powerfully reaffirming Huarte’s doctrine, with the same reservations. The Spaniard must have counted for something as a pleader for elementary reason, if Bacon did.