sonal charges to be found scattered through the remains of antiquity (see above, p. 28); the second section critically assailed with great learning the genuineness of the works of Aristotle, and proved them all to be spurious (!) The remaining sections undertook to refute the system of philosophy which they contained. The attack of Patricius was overdone in malignity, yet still it had a powerful effect in inducing men to think for themselves when they saw the claims of their oracle thus stringently called in question.
Another impulse to reaction against authority was given by science itself, in the shape of discoveries which were irreconcilable with the dicta of authority. In the year 1592, Galileo, wishing to test the truth of Aristotle’s principle that “the velocity of falling bodies is proportionate to their weight,” ascended the leaning tower of Pisa, and launching bodies of different weight, demonstrated that they reached the ground simultaneously, and thus that the principle which had been so long held with undoubting faith was erroneous. The Aristotelians of Pisa, however, were so much annoyed by this demonstration, that they compelled Galileo to leave the city.
Aristotle’s philosophy had, since the days of St Thomas Aquinas, been bound up with the Catholic Church. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that Luther, in the commencement of the Reformation, should have “inveighed against the Aristotelian logic and metaphysics, or rather against the sciences themselves; nor was Melanchthon at that time much behind him. But time ripened in this, as it did in theology,
