like Bodin, who did not scruple freely to criticise
ancient authors. And so, in his thoughtful attempt to find a clew to
universal history, he was hampered by theological and cosmic theories,
the legacy of the past. It is significant of the trend of his mind that
when he is discussing the periodic decline of science and letters, he
suggests that it may be due to the direct action of God, punishing those
who misapplied useful sciences to the destruction of men.

But his speculations were particularly compromised by his belief
in astrology, which, notwithstanding the efforts of humanists like
Petrarch, Aeneas Sylvius, and Pico to discredit it, retained its
hold over the minds of many eminent, otherwise emancipated, thinkers
throughout the period of the Renaissance. [Footnote: Bodin was also a
firm believer in sorcery. His La Demonomanie (1578) is a monument of
superstition.] Here Bodin is in the company of Machiavelli and Lord
Bacon. But not content with the doctrine of astral influence on human
events, he sought another key to historical changes in the influence of
numbers, reviving the ideas of Pythagoras and Plato, but working them
out in a way of his own. He enumerates the durations of the lives of
many famous men, to show that they can be expressed by powers of 7 and
9, or the product of these numbers. Other numbers which have special
virtues are the powers of 12, the perfect number [Footnote: I.e. a
number equal to the sum of all its factors.] 496, and various others.
He gives many examples to prove that these mystic numbers determine the
durations of empires and underlie historical chronology. For instance,
the duration of the oriental monarchies from Ninus to the Conquest of
Persia by Alexander the Great was 1728 (= 12 cubed) years. He gives the
Roman republic from the foundation of Rome to the battle of Actium 729
(=9 cubed) years. [Footnote: Methodus, cap. v. pp. 265 sqq.]

4.

From a believer in such a theory, which illustrates the limitations of
men's outlook on the world in the Renaissance period, we could perhaps
hardly expect a vision of Progress. The best that can be said for it
is that, both here and in his astrological creed, Bodin is crudely
attempting to bring human history into close connection with the rest of
the universe, and to establish the view that the whole world is built
on a divine plan by which all the parts are intimately interrelated.
[Footnote: Cp. Baudrillart, J. Bodin et son temps,