mainder of the tract is taken up. Parmenides, he observes, among the ancients, and Telesius in modern times, had made fire and earth, or heaven and earth, the two first principles.

In connecting together Telesius and Parmenides. Bacon overlooked an essential point of difference. For the system of Telesius is merely physical, it deals only with phenomena, and seeks for no higher grounds of truth than the evidence of the senses. Parmenides, on the other hand, recognised the antithesis of Tò ov and rò pawóμevov, of that which exists and that which is apparent. His doctrine is ontological rather than physical, and he does not admit that phenomena have any connexion with real or essential truth. He seeks for a deeper insight into things than any which a mere “Welt-anschauung," a mere contemplation of the universe, could be made to furnish. The hypothesis which he framed to explain the phenomena by which we are surrounded, is with him a hypothesis merely, and though, like Telesius's, this hypothesis refers every phenomenon to the antagonism of heat and cold, yet it has a character of its own, inasmuch as in a way not distinctly conceivable it also serves to represent the metaphysical antithesis of τὸ ὄν and τὸ μὴ ὄν.

It is however to be remembered that with the ontological aspect of the philosophy of Parmenides Bacon has here no concern.

The fundamental notion of Telesius's system was doubtless suggested both to him and to Parmenides,1 by certain obvious phenomena, and especially by the

1 The same notion is ascribed also to Hippo of Rhegium, and to others of the Greek philosophers. See Pseudo-Orig. Philos. (16.), for the fullest statement as to Hippo.

growth, decay, and reproduction of plants and animals. But it is essentially derived from the delight which the mind takes in every form of antithetic dualism, and especially in the idea of the reciprocal action of opposing forces. It comes from the same source as the love and strife of Empedocles, and as the good and evil principles of the Persian theology.

By the help of this notion, namely that heat and cold are the constituent principles of the universe, Telesius attempts to give general explanations of all phenomena, leaving it to others to study them in detail. The largeness of his plan and the grave eloquence with which it is set forth won for him some celebrity, notwithstanding the extreme obscurity of his style and the vagueness of his whole doctrine.

The academy of Cosenza (it was at Cosenza that Telesius was born) adopted his views, and both there and elsewhere men were for some time to be found who called themselves Telesiani. Spiriti, in his Scrittori Cosentini, gives a list of the disciples of Telesius ; it contains however no name of much note, except that of Campanella, and the fame of Campanella rests much more on his moral and political speculations than on his defence of Telesius. Giordano Bruno and Patricius cannot be called disciples of Telesius, though the writings of both bear traces of his influence.1 Among real students of nature it was not to be expected that

1 The influence of Telesius on Bruno is not, I think, mentioned by historians of philosophy, yet there is no doubt of its existence. In the following passage the fundamental principle of Telesius is plainly assumed, mingled with ideas derived from Copernicus. "Così vien distinto l' universo in fuoco et acqua, che sono soggetti di doi primi principii formali et attivi, freddo et caldo. Que' corpi che spirano il caldo, son le sole, che per se stesso son lucenti et caldi; que' corpi che spirano il freddo son le terre." Cena di Cenere, p. 174. of Wagner's edition.

so indefinite a system as that of Telesius could find much acceptance, and accordingly it is but seldom mentioned by scientific writers. Grassi, in the Libra Astronomica, seems to reproach Galileo with having taken some notion about comets from Cardan and Telesius; remarking that their philosophy was sterile and unfruitful, and that they had left to posterity "libros non liberos." To this Galileo answers that as for what Cardan and Telesius might have said on the matter in hand he had never read it, and it would seem as if he means to disclaim all knowledge of their writings. Though he protests against the argumentum ex consensu which Grassi brings against them, yet it is plain that he does so only to confute his opponent, and not because he thought them worthy of a greater fame than they had received. Even among the large class of men who are content to acquiesce in general views and are not careful to inquire whether these views are accurate or ill defined, Telesius's popularity could not last long. For he had left nothing for his followers to do. All that could be said in favour of his fundamental idea he had said himself, and any attempt to develop it further could only show how insecure a foundation it was built on. His works are however not undeserving of attention, even apart from the influence which they had on the opinions of Bacon. They show much of the peculiar character of mind which distinguishes southern from northern Italy, and which is yet more conspicuous in the writings of Campanella and of Vico: grave and melancholy earnestness, a fondness for symbol and metaphor, and for wide-reaching but dreamy theories.

1 Published in 1618, with the pseudonym of Lotario Sarsi. It is incorporated in the new edition of Galileo's works, iv. p. 61.

The first two books of his principal work, the De Rerum Naturâ, were published at Rome in 1565. The complete work was not published until 1586, only two years before his death. In 1590 a number of tracts, some of which had appeared in his lifetime, were published by Antonius Persius, one of his chief disciples, with a dedication to Patricius, which seems to claim him as at least half an adherent to the Telesian philosophy. For some account of Telesius's minor works I may refer to Spiriti's Scrittori Cosentini, or to what Salsi has said of them in Ginguené's Histoire Littéraire de l'Italie.3

Of Lotter's work, De Vita et Scriptis B. Telesii, Leipsic, 1733, I much regret that I only know what is said of it in the Acta Eruditorum for that year. It appears to contain much information not easily to be found elsewhere.

The view which Bacon gives of the doctrines of Telesius seems to have been much used and trusted by the historians of philosophy, a natural result of the involved and obscure style in which they were originally propounded. Whether it is altogether an accurate representation of these doctrines may at least be doubted it seems as if Bacon, in some matters of detail, mingles with what he finds in Telesius some further developments of his own. Perhaps he is in some

:

1 It was reprinted in 1588, along with the Contemplationes of Mocenicus and the Quæstiones Peripatetica of Cæsalpinus. The volume containing these three works is entitled "Tractationum Philosophicarum tomus unus," and is apparently not easily met with. It is this edition that I have been in the habit of using.

2 This dedication is prefixed to the tract "De Mari."

8 The account of Telesius in Ginguené was written by Salsi. See Ginguené, vii. p. 500.

4 See what Brucker says of Morhof and Sosellus, Hist. Crit. Phil. iv. 453.

measure influenced by his jural habits of thought, and tries in all fairness and equity to put a favourable construction on that on which he sits in judgment.1 However this may be, I have certainly found it difficult to support all his statements by quotations from his author, and in some cases have noticed at least apparent discrepancies.

The tract ends abruptly with the discussion of the system of Telesius. A similar discussion of the atomic theory would have been of far greater interest, for Bacon's own opinions are much more closely connected with those of Democritus than with Telesius's, from whom he derived only isolated doctrines. The most important of these doctrines is that of the duality of the soul, of which and of its relation to the orthodox opinion I have elsewhere had occasion to speak.2

1 Bacon's own language suggests this impression. "Nos enim," he declares," in omnium inventis summâ cum fide et tanquam faventes versamur." And that he does not conceive himself bound to minute accuracy in reproducing the opinions of the philosophers of whom he speaks, appears from several expressions: "Hujusmodi quædam de diversitate calorum a Telesio dicuntur;" "Hæc, aut iis meliora, cogitabant illi," &c.

2 See General Preface, Vol. I. p. 102. —J. S.