ture was
hemmed in on every side. During the whole of the Christian period Theism
lay like a kind of oppressive nightmare on all intellectual effort, and
on philosophical effort in particular, hindering and arresting all
progress. For the men of learning of those epochs, God, devil, angels,
demons, hid the whole of Nature; no investigation was carried out to the
end, no matter sifted to the bottom; everything that was beyond the most
obvious _causal nexus_ was immediately attributed to these; so that, as
Pomponatius expressed himself at the time, _Certe philosophi nihil
verisimile habent ad haec, quare necesse est, ad Deum, ad angelos et
daemones recurrere._ It is true that there is a suspicion of irony in
what this man says, as his malice in other ways is known, nevertheless
he has expressed the general way of thinking of his age. If any one, on
the other hand, possessed that rare elasticity of mind which alone
enabled him to free himself from the fetters, his writings, and he
himself with them, were burnt; as happened to Bruno and Vanini. But how
absolutely paralysed the ordinary mind is by that early metaphysical
preparation may be seen most strikingly, and from its most ridiculous
side, when it undertakes to criticise the doctrines of a foreign belief.
One finds the ordinary man, as a rule, merely trying to carefully prove
that the dogmas of the foreign belief do not agree with those of his
own; he labours to explain that not only do they not say the same, but
certainly do not mean the same thing as his. With that he fancies in his
simplicity that he has proved the falsity of the doctrines of the alien
belief. It really never occurs to him to ask the question which of the
two is right; but his own articles of belief are to him as _a priori_
certain principles. The Rev. Mr. Morrison has furnished an amusing
example of this kind in vol. xx. of the _Asiatic Journal_ wherein he
criticises the religion and philosophy of the Chinese.

_Demop._ So that's your higher point of view. But I assure you that
there is a higher still. _Primum vivere, deinde philosophari_ is of more
comprehensive significance than one supposes at first sight. Before
everything else, the raw and wicked tendencies of the masses ought to be
restrained, in order to protect them from doing anything that is
extremely unjust, or committing cruel, violent, and disgraceful deeds.
If one waited until they recognised and grasped the truth one would
assuredly