82

OF THE DISCOVERIES OF

X.ET. I

strengthen and confirm it.

To the authority ofmen of acknowledged reputation for their learn-ing and talents, the example of ages was added jand thus was error transmitted from one genera-tion to another, with additional prevalence.Plato and Aristotle were appealed to us as thearbiters of every dispute, from whose authoritythere was no appeal; and when reason andargument failed, the aid of religion was calledin to their support.

To distent from the opinions of Aristotle, orthose which his ignorant interpreters had givenhim, was looked upon as a heresy that called forthe loudest anathemas of the church. And sovenerable and sacred were those doctrines held,that whoever presumed to controvert them, wasconsidered as an impious innovator, that at-tempted to remove the land-marks both of faithand reason. To his opinions, in all religiouscontroversies, both parties appealed ; from thesethe Papist supported all his absurdities, and the

Protestant drew arguments for their refutation. |

Error being thus established by time, super-stition and prejudice, the face of nature was co-vered with a veil of awful obscurity, and theprogress of useful knowledge effectually pre-vented. The highest ambition of some of themost eminent men of the age, was to prove thetruth of that by sophistical arguments, which;reason and science affirmed to be false. But!

such I

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