Note 279 — Chapter XIII · THE RISE OF MODERN FREETHOUGHT—(Continued)

Naturally, the less sacrosanct dogmatism was the more freely assailed; and in the sixteenth century the attacks became numerous and vehement. Luther was a furious anti-Aristotelian,279 as were also some Calvinists; but in 1570 we find Beza declaring to Ramus280 that “the Genevese have decreed, once and for ever, that they will never, neither in logic nor in any other branch of learning, turn away from the teaching of Aristotle.” At Oxford the same code held.281 In Italy, Telesio, who notably anticipates the tone of Bacon as to natural science, and is largely followed by him, influenced Bruno in the anti-Aristotelian direction,282 though it was in a long line from Aristotle that he got his principle of the eternity of the universe. The Spaniard Ludovicus Vives, too (1492–1540), pronounced by Lange one of the clearest heads of his age, had insisted on progress beyond Aristotle in the spirit of naturalist science.283 But the typical anti-Aristotelian of the century was Ramus (Pierre de la Ramée, 1515–1572), whose long and strenuous battle against the ruling school at Paris brought him to his death in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew.284 Ramus hardily laid it down that “there is no authority over reason, but reason ought to be queen and ruler over authority.”285 Such a message was of more value than his imperfect attempt to supersede the Aristotelian logic. Bacon, who carried on in England the warfare against the Aristotelian tradition, never ventured so to express himself as against the theological tyranny in particular, though, as we have seen, the general energy and vividness of his argumentation gave him an influence which undermined the orthodoxies to which he professed to conform. On the other hand, he did no such service to exact science as was rendered in his day by Kepler and Galileo and their English emulators; and his full didactic influence came much later into play.