The intentions of a visionary are
difficult to define. If he were really an advocate for
despotism, what occasioned an imprisonment for the greater
part of his days? Did he lay his project much deeper than the
surface of things? Did Campanella imagine that, if men were
allowed to philosophise with the utmost freedom, the despotism
of religion and politics would dissolve away in the weakness
of its quiescent state?

The project is a chimera--but, according to the projector, the
political and religious freedom of _England_ formed its
greatest obstacle. Part of his plan, therefore, includes the
means of weakening the Insular heretics by intestine
divisions--a mode not seldom practised by the continental
powers of France and Spain.

The political project of this fervid genius was, that his
"Prince," the Spanish king, should be the mightiest sovereign
in Europe. For this, he was first to prohibit all theological
controversies from the Transalpine schools, those of Germany,
&c. "A controversy," he observes, "always shows a kind of
victory, and may serve as an authority to a bad cause." He
would therefore admit of no commentaries on the Bible, to
prevent all diversity of opinion. He would have revived the
ancient philosophical sects, instead of the modern religious
sects.

The _Greek_ and the _Hebrew_ languages were not to be taught!
for the republican freedom of the ancient Jews and Grecians
had often proved destructive of monarchy. Hobbes, in the bold
scheme of his _Leviathan_, seems to have been aware of this
fatality. Campanella would substitute for these ancient
languages the study of the _Arabic_ tongue! The troublesome
Transalpine wits might then employ themselves in confuting the
Turks, rather than in vexing the Catholics; so closely did
sagacity and extravagance associate in the mind of this wild
genius. But _Mathematical_ and _Astronomical_ schools, and
other institutions for the encouragement of the _mechanical
arts_, and particularly those to which the northern genius is
most apt, as navigation, &c., were to occupy the studies of
the people, divert them from exciting fresh troubles, and
withdraw them from theolog