om the centre of the
earth. It turns round every day with ineffable rapidity, only moderated
by the resistance of the seven planets, three above the sun--Saturn,
Jupiter, Mars--then the sun; three below--Venus, Mercury, the moon. The
stars go round in their fixed courses, the northern perform the shortest
circle. The highest heaven has its proper limit; it contains the angelic
virtues who descend upon earth, assume ethereal bodies, perform human
functions, and return. The heaven is tempered with glacial waters, lest
it should be set on fire. The inferior heaven is called the firmament,
because it separates the superincumbent waters from the waters below.
The firmamental waters are lower than the spiritual heaven, higher than
all corporeal beings, reserved, some say, for a second deluge; others,
more truly, to temper the fire of the fixed stars."

Was it for this preposterous scheme--this product of ignorance and
audacity--that the works of the Greek philosophers were to be given
up? It was none too soon that the great critics who appeared at the
Reformation, by comparing the works of these writers with one another,
brought them to their proper level, and taught us to look upon them all
with contempt.

Of this presumptuous system, the strangest part was its logic, the
nature of its proofs. It relied upon miracle-evidence. A fact was
supposed to be demonstrated by an astounding illustration of something
else! An Arabian writer, referring to this, says: "If a conjurer should
say to me, 'Three are more than ten, and in proof of it I will change
this stick into a serpent,' I might be surprised at his legerdemain,
but I certainly should not admit his assertion." Yet, for more than
a thousand years, such was the accepted logic, and all over Europe
propositions equally absurd were accepted on equally ridiculous proof.

Since the party that had become dominant in the empire could not furnish
works capable of intellectual competition with those of the great pagan
authors, and since it was impossible for it to accept a position of
inferiority, there arose a political necessity for the discouragement,
and even persecution, of profane learning. The persecution of the
Platonists under Valentinian was due to that necessity. They were
accused of magic, and many of them were put to death. The profession
of philosophy had become dangerous--it was a state crime. In its stead
there arose a passion for the marvelous, a spirit of superstit