Introduction
Richard Popkin, in his classic book The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle (Popkin 2003) and in many other works, established that scepticism played an important role in the development of early modern philosophy. He showed that ancient sceptical texts were widely known to many philosophers, including Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Gassendi, Pascal, Bayle, and Hume, all of whom were deeply involved with the sceptical challenge. In the wake of Popkin’s landmark study, it can no longer be doubted that early modern philosophers renewed ancient scepticism. In fact, from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, so many philosophers and theologians were engaged with scepticism that one wonders why the significance of modern scepticism took so long to be noticed.
Popkin also offered a nice account of the impact of scepticism on early modern philosophy. One of his main points was that in issues concerning religious truth, sceptical arguments were of central importance. Both Reformers and CounterReformers relied on sceptical arguments to criticize their opponents. Montaigne extended sceptical doubt to every area of intellectual pursuit, and there arose three basic reactions to the resulting crise pyrrhonienne. Some merely tried to reinforce Aristotelian dogmatism; others, like Descartes, sought a new philosophy that could withstand the sceptical challenge; a final group of philosophers tried to combine the new, emergent science with a sceptical outlook. In subsequent editions of his book (as well as in many other texts), Popkin refined his initial picture, gathering further information and incorporating into his own work the findings of the many scholars who followed in his footsteps (Laursen, Maia Neto, Paganini 2009a).
Historians of early modern scepticism improved on Popkin’s basic picture by reexamining the period with fresh eyes and producing an astounding richness of information. Analyses of a multitude of thinkers came to light (Popkin 1996; Moreau 2001; Paganini 2003; Maia Neto and Popkin 2004; Laursen, Maia Neto and Paganini Laursen 2009b). Moreover, the scope of Popkin’s initial research was broadened with scholars focusing on scepticism during both the Middle Ages (Bosley and Tweedale 1997) and the Enlightenment (Olaso, Popkin and Tonelli 1997; Charles and Smith 2013). Scepticism came to be perceived as crucial even to
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literature, especially for tragedy in Shakespeare’s time (Bradshaw 1987; Bell 2002; Hamlin 2005; Hillman 2007; Zerba 2012; Preedy 2013).
In pursuing the path opened up by Popkin, scholars progressively came to question his very views. The expanding literature led to an intense discussion of some of Popkin’s main contentions, such as the interplay between faith and scepticism (Paganini 2008) and the sceptical reaction to Cartesianism (Watson 1966). According to Benítez and Paganini (2002, p. 10), “certain conclusions of the research in the last two decades have deeply modified the historical picture in which it is possible to integrate the sceptical themes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.” One important criticism of Popkin’s interpretation concerns the existence of distinct forms of scepticism.
Any study of ancient scepticism must make mention of its two distinct forms, Pyrrhonian and Academic, and explain their similarities and dissimilarities. However, in the case of early modern philosophy, the importance of the distinction is less clear. Popkin speaks only of a crise pyrrhonienne and does not seem to pay much attention to Academic scepticism. Perhaps one could say in his defense that he does not neglect the role of Academic scepticism, for he did not distinguish very carefully between these two forms. But even if that were true, that would only point out the need to go deeper into that issue. Therefore, an important question for historians of early modern philosophy is: What is the exact form that scepticism took in modernity?
Following Popkin, most historians of early modern scepticism emphasize the role of Pyrrhonism. After all, during this period, the works of Sextus Empiricus were translated into Latin, English, and French and were extensively read and discussed. According to this account, early modern philosophers were basically reacting to Pyrrhonism. Some, like Montaigne, adopted it (Eva 2004, 2007), while others, like Descartes, rejected it, and still others, like Bacon (Manzo 2009) and Pascal (Pécharman 2000; Bouchilloux 2004), had a more balanced position in the face of the Pyrrhonian challenge. Pyrrhonism was an ally against the dogmatism of the Aristotelians and helped pave the way for early modern science. Even in the case of literature, it seems, Pyrrhonism attracted most of the attention. Through very well-informed historical research in the spirit of Popkin’s work, Hamlin (2005) traces the wide diffusion of a partial translation of Sextus into English: The Sceptick On this showing, Academic scepticism had a minor role to play, and its significance could perhaps be neglected. At best, a study of Academic scepticism would not alter the general picture, but merely complement some explanation here and there.
The reality, however, is more complex. The revival of Pyrrhonism is certainly an important part of the explanation of how and why ancient scepticism was at the heart of early modern philosophy, giving to it its special twist. What is not so clear is whether it is correct to downplay the role played by Academic scepticism. Recent studies suggest that a complete account of the role played by ancient scepticism must include both the Pyrrhonian and the Academic traditions (Schmitt 1983). José Raimundo Maia Neto (1997, 2005) is among those who first called attention to the impact of Academic scepticism and tried to assess many of its implications. Some have even gone so far as to claim that Academic scepticism was more important
than Pyrrhonism (Naya 2009). Very recent scholarship seems only to strengthen the idea that the revival of Pyrrhonism cannot be the whole story (Maia Neto 2014).
Evidence for this can be found, for instance, in the number of editions of Cicero’s Academica and Sextus’ Outlines of Pyrrhonism and Adversus Mathematicus: while the former was printed no less than ten times, the latter works were published only once (cf. Schmitt 1972; Hunt 1998). Moreover, there had been great interest in rhetoric since the Renaissance, and Cicero’s works conformed much more to the taste of those times (Inwood and Mansfeld 1997; Paganini and Maia Neto 2009). In fact, criticism of Aristotelian science and interest in rhetoric go hand in hand, in so far as the concepts of certitude and truth are replaced by the concepts of probability and verisimilitude (Spoerhase, Werle, Wild 2009). Instead of rigorous demonstrations or sheer authority, what one finds is an effort to convince by probable arguments. Whereas the Pyrrhonist tries to bring about suspension of judgment, the Academic tries to establish that one side of a given question has more probability than the other (Allen 1964; Sihvola 2000). Accordingly, we see that a number of major philosophers seem to have used Academic scepticism more than is usually recognized. Even before the early modern period, there is no doubt that Academic scepticism caught the attention of many philosophers, such as Nicholas of Autrecourt, Henry of Ghent, and Duns Scotus. What explains such attention is Augustine’s Contra Academicos (Bosley and Tweedale 1997).
The present book explores some of the complexities brought about by the emergence of this new picture of early modern scepticism. Its purpose is not to substitute the idea of a crise académicienne for the idea of a crise pyrrhonienne. It is true that it is sometimes difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish the impact of Academic scepticism and of Pyrrhonian scepticism. Many authors simply do not make such a distinction or do not care much about it. Even so, we, as historians of early modern scepticism, should try to detect how both forms of scepticism were perceived and used throughout early modern philosophy. The purpose of this book is to offer a more nuanced framework for understanding early modern scepticism, one in which the full importance of Academic scepticism is duly acknowledged. More than generating a crisis, Academic scepticism was a tool for finding solutions, both from a humanistic point of view and from a scientific point of view. Borrowing from Hume, one could perhaps say that Academic scepticism not only presents us with sceptical doubts but also with sceptical solutions. As might be expected, the notion of probability plays a crucial role in many areas of early modern philosophy. This book provides material for further investigation in these areas, and it will have fulfilled its goal if the reader perceives that, whatever its exact significance and extent may ultimately prove to have been, Academic scepticism deserves closer attention from the historians of early modern philosophy. We hope to open up new paths that will lead to a better understanding of early modern scepticism as a whole.
The conception of this book is the same one that guides current historical research on the history of early modern philosophy. Nowadays, historians of early modern philosophy are no longer content to focus solely on epistemological issues, such as the debate between empiricists and rationalists, or on great philosophers, such as Descartes and Hume, preferring instead to trace connections between many areas,
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such as theology and morals, and explore minor philosophers (Rutherford 2006). Many, if not most, of the key figures for understanding Academic scepticism in early modern philosophy are treated in this book. Each chapter aims to shed new light both on their philosophies and on their significance for Academic scepticism. The order of the chapters is mainly chronological, but also takes into account the philosophical relationship between the various thinkers.
The first four chapters are devoted to arguably the most notable sceptics of the Renaissance and early modernity: Sanches, Montaigne, Charron, and La Mothe Le Vayer. Without a clear understanding of how these thinkers understood and made use of Academic scepticism, it is unlikely that we will ever be able to grasp what modern scepticism became in the hands of later philosophers. Together, they set the stage for the subsequent role that would be played by Academic scepticism in early modern philosophy. Their reception, transformation, and use of Academic scepticism had not only a lasting effect but imprinted undeniable features on modern Academic scepticism.
Perhaps the most obvious example of the importance of Academic scepticism during the Renaissance period is Francisco Sanches’ work Quod nihil scitur (That Nothing is Known). This work is Claudio Buccolini’s topic in the first chapter. Many scholars have seen in Sanches’ works some indication that he was familiar with Sextus Empiricus’ works or that there is an established continuity with ancient Pyrrhonism, not with regard to theoretical subjects but in the practical side of his activity as a physician. Other interpreters, however, believe that Sanches’ thought conformed mainly to Academic scepticism. Buccolini sides with the latter interpretation, for, on the one hand, Sanches never considered his own philosophical ideas to be in line with Pyrrhonian scepticism and, on the other, he proclaimed himself an Academic and was tied to Academic scepticism. Buccolini emphasizes Sanches’ use of probabilism in his works as a physician, promoting a renewal of knowledge based on criticism of syllogistic and mathematical models of apodictic certainty and putting together Cicero’s criticism and Academic probabilism with a new idea of “experience,” with its roots in the senses, in repeated use (usum), in physicians’ practices, and in the possibility of gaining a conjectural knowledge which tends to be “closer to truth.”
Montaigne is arguably the pivotal figure for scepticism in early modern philosophy. Beginning with Pascal, he was perceived as a “pure Pyrrhonist.” Most studies insist on Montaigne’s debt to Sextus Empiricus, neglecting the Academica as one of the main sources for the scepticism presented in the Essais, except perhaps at the end of Montaigne’s life. Sébastien Prat, in the second chapter, stresses the importance of the Academica as a source for Montaigne throughout the successive editions of the Essais. Sextus Empiricus exploits a systematic doubt, whereas Montaigne’s sceptical doubt has more in common with that of Cicero. Moreover, Montaigne is closer to the intellectual freedom offered by the acataleptic doubt, using doubt as a way out of philosophy or philosophical constraint. Consequently, Montaigne’s scepticism makes greater use of an inconstant criterion, like probability, as defended in Cicero’s Academica. That instability of the probable in Montaigne and in Cicero is to be clearly opposed to “the stability of mind” of the Pyrrhonist
ataraxia. Thus, a reassessment of Montaigne’s scepticism is of capital importance to a more balanced view of the role of Academic scepticism in early modern philosophy.
Pierre Charron, an important figure associated with Montaigne, was widely read in the seventeenth century. Anyone who wishes to understand the impact of Academic scepticism on early modern philosophy must pay close attention to his works. Fernando Bahr, in the third chapter, tries to develop an overall interpretation of Pierre Charron’s huge, complex Treatise on Wisdom, emphasizing its pedagogical character and its aim of teaching the disciple a way of life that follows nature. In Bahr’s view, while Charron’s concept of nature is not sceptical, Academic scepticism gives him the main arguments for freeing the disciple from four cultural vices: passions, opinion, superstition, and science. These vices impede direct contact with the spontaneous and natural, whose model for Charron is the behavior of animals. In this sense, among the many philosophical lines that converge in the treatise, Academic scepticism seems to offer a key to understanding the Charronian system.
Though usually associated with Pyrrhonism, La Mothe Le Vayer’s scepticism can only be fully understood in light of the sceptical Academy. As Sylvia Giocanti argues in the fourth chapter, the notion of probability plays a key role in Le Vayer’s philosophy. The probable is not exclusively attached to a sceptical rule of action, as in the case of the Academic scepticism, but is mainly connected to the intellectual weight of arguments and their neutralization. More specifically, La Mothe Le Vayer seeks through the probable to distance himself intellectually from doctrines based on authority in order to moderate his adherence to them. This explains why he has no difficulty in avowing mistakes; on the contrary, he is happy to successively adhere to a variety of opinions. Thus, the probable, inherited from the New Academy, gives the sceptic his main characteristic: curiosity, for the sceptic willingly investigates all that appear probable rather than the true. One could say that the engine of his philosophy is this practice of uncertainty or that Academic probability is at the heart of La Mothe Le Vayer’s scepticism.
It is worth pausing for a moment to review what has been achieved in these four initial chapters. The most important point that is worth stressing is that Academic scepticism is not conceived merely as a means to reject what has come before, but, above all, it furnishes tools for developing positive doctrines. This is clearly the case with Sanches and his scientific views. But Academic probabilism was also important for pedagogical and moral issues, as is obviously the case with Montaigne, Charron, and La Mothe Le Vayer. Intellectual freedom, the ability to explore and entertain new and different opinions, and right moral conduct were essential ideas of Academic scepticism in the Renaissance. Far from being a merely critical, negative doctrine, Academic scepticism seems to be a rich, positive stance.
The focus of the next set of chapters is on the role of Academic scepticism in the philosophies of thinkers whose main concern was the emergence of the new science, especially in its empirical aspects, such as Francis Bacon, the members of the Royal Society, and Pierre Gassendi. For these figures, as was the case of previous
philosophers, Academic scepticism was offering solutions rather than merely raising difficulties. This double aspect of Academic scepticism, already present in Sanches, is further and more deeply explored by them. On the one hand, Academic philosophy helped them to dislodge Aristotelian science by showing that, if one employs the methods commonly used heretofore, no stable knowledge would or could be achieved. On the other, they went beyond this criticism, suggesting that, in order to build a firm science, the intellect needs to assume some probable hypothesis, in the expectation it will eventually be replaced by better ones.
This is certainly the case with Francis Bacon. Though not a sceptic himself, scepticism is more important to Bacon’s conception of science than might be thought at first sight. This can be seen not only from his careful discussion of the Academic formula that “nothing is known” or “nothing could be known” in conjunction with his rejection of tradition (Smith 2012) but also because in his conception of science, the notion of probability is crucial (Manzo 2009). In the fifth chapter, Silvia Manzo provides a reconstruction of Bacon’s reception of Academic scepticism. Although Bacon refers more frequently to Academic than to Pyrrhonian scepticism, like most of his contemporaries, he often misrepresented and confused the doctrinal components of both traditions. Manzo then considers the assessment of ancient scepticism throughout Bacon’s writings, arguing that, on the one hand, Bacon approved the state of doubt and suspension of judgment and, on the other hand, that he rejected the notion of acatalepsia. One important idea explored by Manzo is that Bacon’s evaluation of scepticism relied on a Protestant and Augustinian view of human nature, a view that informed his overall interpretation of the philosophical schools across history, including the sceptical schools. In her view, Bacon’s worries about scepticism must also be set in the context of religious ideas.
The Royal Society followed Bacon’s paths in his conception of science and the crucial role attributed to experiments and probable hypotheses (Leeuwen 1970). Benjamin Hill, in the sixth chapter, argues that the form of Academic scepticism most amenable to the Baconians and experimentalists of the early Royal Society was Carneades’ doctrine of probabilism. Carneades’ doctrine of probabilism was understood in seventeenth-century Britain as a fallibilist account of practical knowledge. Accordingly, they gave to Carneades’ hierarchical structures governing action and motivation a new use, since they fit the early Fellows’ conceptions of experience and hypotheses. More specifically, Academic probabilism provided the early Fellows with resolutions to some conceptual problems that bedevil attempts to develop a workable eliminative induction and could even have provided them with a proto-version of confirmation theory. A crucial point made by Hill is that Academic scepticism furnished some basic concepts crucial to the development of modern science.
Returning to France, we find other philosophers who were also deeply concerned with Academic scepticism in connection to modern science. Of particular interest in this regard is Pierre Gassendi. In Chap. 7, Delphine Bellis challenges Popkin’s twofold reading of Gassendi. On Popkin’s account, Gassendi was first a Pyrrhonian and later in his career became a mitigated sceptic who tried to develop a specific epistemology in order to overcome the sceptical crisis of his time. Bellis shows that,
beyond the role played by Pyrrhonian arguments in rejecting Aristotelian theses, Academic philosophy (in particular as conveyed by Cicero) played a much more constructive role in the formation of Gassendi’s own philosophy from the very beginning. Academic philosophy offered Gassendi a probabilistic model of knowledge which, contrary to Pyrrhonism, opened up the possibility of a natural philosophy conceived as a science of appearances, i.e., as based on experimentation on appearances, in line with the Academic notion of “inspected” or “scrutinized” appearances. By demonstrating the enduring importance of Academic philosophy as a source of inspiration for Gassendi’s own philosophy, Bellis demonstrates how probabilism became central to his epistemology and natural philosophy. In addition to Gassendi’s erudite interest in Cicero and Charron, Academic probabilism suited Gassendi’s own practice as a natural philosopher in the areas of meteorology and astronomy. However, early in his philosophical career, Gassendi’s preference for Academic philosophy over Pyrrhonism was motivated, first and foremost, by ethical concerns: the importance of preserving his libertas philosophandi, combined with his personal inability to refrain from inclining toward one opinion or another, led him to formulate his epistemological probabilism and to claim the freedom to revise his opinions from day to day as necessary.
The chapters on Bacon, the Royal Society, and Gassendi seem to confirm what the first four chapters had already shown. It is important to underline some ideas, for they tend to build a coherent picture of the role played by Academic scepticism. Academic scepticism was very important in the development of the ideas of autonomous thinking and intellectual freedom. In this respect, more than rejection of a traditional way of thinking, seriousness in the pursuit of truth was the hallmark of Academic scepticism. Specifically, the notion of probabilism was extended to new territories: instead of a practical guide to action, it became a model for understanding the new, emerging science. Thus, probability was transformed from a practical notion into a theoretical one.
Other philosophers equally concerned with the foundations and methodology of the new science, but perhaps less committed to its empirical aspect, were also deeply involved with scepticism. Of these, Descartes is, of course, the most important. His way of dealing with scepticism is a turning point in the history of scepticism in early modern philosophy. It is a turning point both because of his method of doubt and his solution to these doubts.
First, Descartes developed a new line of sceptical arguments, exploring an unprecedented way of raising doubts. As a result, early modern sceptics had even more weapons at their disposal. While older sceptics had used arguments based on the illusions of the sense and on dreams, Descartes put forward a new argument based on the idea that God may deceive us: if we don’t know the origin of our being, we cannot trust our cognitive capacities. This new argument had a strong impact on many philosophers, such as Pascal. If, on the one hand, Cartesian methodological scepticism introduced a new argument, apparently making scepticism stronger and wider in scope (though this is questionable), on the other, it treated scepticism as something merely negative. The method of doubt is a way of ridding oneself of prejudiced opinions, not of building certain knowledge. The idea that scepticism
was mainly a destructive philosophy was to have a long career and (unfortunately) enjoys wide support even today.
Second, Descartes’ positive doctrines were by no means sceptical, and thus, Cartesian metaphysics posed new difficulties for early modern sceptics. Modern sceptics were now forced to take aim not at Aristotelian metaphysics but at Cartesian metaphysics, which was a completely different target. In the face of this new kind of metaphysics, sceptics had to develop new arguments, adapting scepticism to new times. Rather surprisingly, however, Cartesian metaphysics also helped to shape a new form of scepticism. By making the distinction between primary and secondary qualities essential to the new philosophy, Descartes and other modern philosophers, such as Galileo, Hobbes, Locke, and Malebranche, gave a strong impulse to scepticism: if secondary qualities are only in the mind and if we cannot separate primary qualities from secondary qualities, then, as Berkeley and Hume insisted, matter is annihilated.
Popkin maintained that Descartes was responding to a crise pyrrhonienne However, we can now see that in fact he was responding to a wider sceptical crisis and indeed that he was perhaps more concerned with Academic scepticism than with Pyrrhonism. It has been suggested that, when Descartes heaps scorn on sceptical doubt, he is referring in particular to the Pyrrhonists, not only of antiquity but also those of his own day, like La Mothe Le Vayer (Paganini 2008, 2011). Moreover, Descartes seems to show more respect for Academic scepticism. In the preface to the Principles, the history of philosophy is divided between those philosophers who, like Aristotle, search for truth and certainty and those, like Socrates and Plato, who think there is nothing certain and for whom it is enough to describe things as they appear probable or similar to the truth. Thus, for Descartes, there are two main kinds of philosophies throughout history: one calls everything into doubt, and the other holds that some things are certain. However, for Descartes, both held only probable opinions, and for this reason he launched an attack on both these “probable” opinions.
Richard Davies, in the eighth chapter, offers a commentary on Descartes’ first meditation, paying special attention to its modes. Davies distinguishes between the material modes of the Pyrrhonists and the formal modes of the Academics. This distinction holds the key to his original reconstruction of the sceptical method of doubt. By calling attention to the formal aspect of the arguments, rather than to their material aspect, Davies shows what is due mainly to Academic scepticism. According to him, one can read Meditation I as a series of reflections on whole sets of beliefs, either in terms of their origins or in terms of the considerations that put all or some of their members in jeopardy. These operations can be regarded as formal insofar as Descartes’ meditator recognizes that he cannot enumerate one by one the members of these sets. The meditator proceeds to identify the source of these errors in their coming to him either by direct perception or on the authority of others. Illusions are enough only to cast doubt on unfavorable perceptions. He then notices that, even in favorable conditions, it is possible to form false beliefs, for even sane people have dreams that resemble the delusions of the insane. Davies makes the suggestion that, on one reading of what a dream is, the set of beliefs that
are threatened by the dreaming hypothesis can be identified with the set of beliefs about the past. Even the deceiving God hypothesis, which appears to be indifferent to the distinction between Academic doubt and Pyrrhonian doubt (for it is a new argument), resembles a formal mode to the extent that it supplies a reason for doubting about entire sets of beliefs.
Not all major Cartesians thought that the method of doubt was especially important to philosophy. Though Leibniz and Spinoza did not pay much attention to it, the case is not obviously the same with Malebranche. For one thing, the first five books of The Search after Truth are nothing but an inquiry into all sorts of errors and prejudices of the mind. It is as if Malebranche had expanded one single, short meditation into a complex, exhaustive method of ridding oneself of false opinions. In Chap. 9, Julie Walsh examines Malebranche’s views on sceptical thinkers. Malebranche engaged in a detailed discussion with the Academic sceptic Simon Foucher. Foucher presented the most serious sceptical challenge to Malebranche’s system, by calling into question whether Malebranche can defend the claim that our ideas represent objects in the external world. She also looks to a much less often-discussed element of Malebranche’s indirect engagement with scepticism: his comments on Montaigne. According to Walsh, scepticism is a position, like atheism, that is only possible if one has a disordered imagination. One of the merits of Walsh’s contribution is to set Malebranche’s debate with the Academic sceptic Foucher in a wider discussion of his criticism of scepticism as a whole.
While Malebranche engaged only occasionally with sceptical arguments, Pascal is among those early modern philosophers who were deeply involved with sceptical issues. It has often been noted that Pascal, in his Entretien avec M. de Sacy, sets up as contradictories the two rational anthropologies of men, illustrated by Epictetus’ dogmatism and Montaigne’s scepticism. This latter receives more extensive and sophisticated treatment than the former, indicating its significance in Pascal’s thought. What has not so often been noticed is the nature of Montaigne’s scepticism according to Pascal. That is Martine Pécharman’s topic in the tenth chapter. One of her theses is that the Entretien presents an eclectic model of scepticism that denies that the distinction between Pyrrhonism scepticism and Academic scepticism is essential, even if Pascal qualifies that model only as Pyrrhonian. Pécharman shows first that the “pure Pyrrhonism” attributed to Montaigne is due to the subordination of all discourses in Montaigne’s Essais to the principle of equipollence. By means of a subtle use of different passages from the “Apology” and from the Essais in general, Pascal is able to construe a universal doubt in Montaigne’s scepticism. However, instead of deepening the distance between these two forms of scepticism, that reconstruction of equipollence, in which the principle of doubt doubts itself, allows Pascal to supersede the distinction between them. The main point of Pécharman’s interpretation is that the Entretien substitutes the Academic principle that “everything is uncertain” for the Pyrrhonian principle of equipollence. In the Entretien, the Academic argument against Stoicism of the indiscernibility of the true and false in sense perception becomes the hyperbolic argument of the indiscernibility of the true and false in the very principles of rational knowledge. The sceptical
Montaigne of the Entretien transforms Academic doubt into an extreme form of scepticism.
Thus, in the hands of Descartes, Malebranche, and Pascal, Academic scepticism received an unexpected improvement. Descartes invented a new, more powerful kind of sceptical argument; Malebranche devoted five of six chapters to understanding the sources of all kinds of errors; Pascal constructed an extreme form of scepticism that was at least as strong as Cartesian dogmatism. In this way, scepticism was transformed within the deep, creative thought of these dogmatists, despite their opposition to it. In light of Cartesian metaphysics and some important reactions to it, modern scepticism was also developed along new lines of thought. Early modern sceptics, therefore, had to adapt their scepticism to the new state of philosophy that emerged in the wake of Cartesianism.
It didn’t take long for some thinkers to align themselves with the sceptics in this new context by inventing a new form of scepticism that was developed from inside Cartesian philosophy. In fact, some of these sceptics even considered themselves as Cartesians, though not in the traditional sense of adopting a Cartesian metaphysics or a Cartesian method of truth. Rather, they insisted on the Cartesian method of doubt as a kind of heritage from Academic scepticism (Watson 1966; Maia Neto 2003, 2008a, b; Lennon 2008). This connection between Cartesianism scepticism and Academic scepticism is made explicitly by Simon Foucher, a French philosopher studied by Boudreault and Charles in Chap. 11, who regard him as the best representative of seventeenth-century Academism. It is important to note that Foucher is more or less the only philosopher at that time to claim to be a true disciple of Academism. He was attracted to this form of scepticism, not only because of its perceived usefulness in science but also because it can be reduced to an undogmatic “system of truth,” valid not only in epistemology but also in theology or morality. From this perspective, it is possible to understand that Foucher assigns a specific place to Carneades’ probabilism, in particular in the sphere of moral philosophy in a century where the foundations of moral philosophy constituted one of the questions du jour. In this sense, the teachings of Academic sceptics set Foucher on the road leading to the universality of Kantian duty, far from Pyrrhonian relativism.
Pierre-Daniel Huet, evoked by Charles in Chap. 12, never goes so far, and it is for this reason that Richard Popkin, in his celebrated The History of Scepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle, treats him as above all an heir to ancient Pyrrhonism. However, this interpretation could be counterbalanced by contemporary readings of the influence of Academic scepticism on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophy, some of which go so far as to treat Pierre-Daniel Huet as a central figure in the revival of Academic scepticism. In his paper, Charles argues that it is difficult to treat Huet as a disciple of either Pyrrhonism or Academic scepticism, given that he made use of both kinds of scepticism in a purely strategic manner. To demonstrate this point, Charles shows that it is essential to approach Huet’s scepticism by inquiring into the sources available to him and the use he made of them, in particular within his apologetic reflections focused on the relationship between faith and
reason. Only in this way is it possible to arrive at a clear view of Huet’s relationship to ancient scepticism, whether Pyrrhonian or Academic.
As time went by, post-Cartesian scepticism grew stronger and stronger, culminating in the philosophies of Bayle and Hume. Bayle notoriously said that if ancient sceptics could return to life, they would find that the new context had made scepticism an even more formidable opponent. First, Christianity offered powerful arguments for scepticism, for its dogmas seem incompatible with reason, both in metaphysical and moral issues. Moreover, Bayle endorsed Foucher’s idea that the new philosophy with its primary/secondary distinction strengthened scepticism and also appealed to Malebranche’s argument that it is impossible to prove the existence of the external world. Finally, Bayle made an important contribution to scepticism by supplementing Zeno’s argument against one mode of matter, namely, movement, with an argument against the very essence of matter, namely, extension. Hume, in turn, also relied much more on modern sceptical arguments than on ancient ones. For him, the ancient arguments are merely popular or trivial, whereas modern sceptical arguments, such as Berkeley’s arguments against matter or his own arguments against causality, seem irrefutable. The fact is that early modern philosophy developed a number of new, powerful arguments that were strengthened and redeployed by Bayle and Hume.
From the beginning, both philosophers were perceived as sceptics. Hume seems to have thought that, next to Berkeley, Bayle was the greatest sceptic ever, and Kant and Reid thought that Hume was the most acute sceptic of all time. Traditionally, both Bayle and Hume were characterized as Pyrrhonists. However, recent scholarship has called this into question. As a result, it remains an open question as to what kind of sceptics each philosopher was.
Each paper on Bayle’s scepticism addresses an important issue, and both attribute a qualified Academic scepticism to Bayle. In that sense, they complement one another. In Chap. 13, Michael Hickson modifies the interpretation of Bayle’s Academic scepticism provided by Maia Neto (1996) and Lennon (1999). For them, Bayle was mainly interested in reporting the views of other authors in producing, both in himself and in his readers, Ciceronian Academic integrity. Hickson challenges this interpretation by arguing that Bayle was not a mere reporter but a very critical and original philosopher. Moreover, neither Maia Neto nor Lennon was able to demonstrate a strong connection between Bayle’s and Cicero’s works. Hickson reconstructs the Academic interpretation with respect to one of Bayle’s most controversial philosophical works, the Continuation des pensées diverses sur la comète Bayle’s frequent citations of Cicero in that work and his careful application of Cicero’s Academic style of presenting disagreements invite us to read it in the spirit of Academic scepticism.
Kristen Irwin, in Chap. 14, pays close attention to the implications of various readings of Bayle’s scepticism for the possibility of moral knowledge within such conceptions. Her goal is to draw out such implications from a reading of Bayle’s scepticism that she calls qualified Academic scepticism. There are two major implications of reading Bayle as a qualified Academic sceptic. First, insofar as moral beliefs are justified on the basis of bon sens (“good sense”), their justification is
merely pithanós (plausible), not certain; merely plausible moral beliefs will never be sufficient to justify any kind of persecution – including persecution on the basis of religion. Second, the well-foundedness of moral beliefs can only be derived from la droite raison, the aspect of reason that Bayle describes as “the natural light.” Since Bayle claims on the basis of the natural light that any interpretation of Scripture requiring the commission of crimes is false, religious persecution is forbidden on the basis of the natural light. Reading Bayle as a qualified Academic sceptic provides two different lines of support for the position for which Bayle is perhaps best known: his defense of religious toleration.
Thus, one can see that scepticism, for Bayle, was not only a matter of merely reporting other people’s opinions with intellectual integrity. Bayle’s criticism was coupled with a positive agenda, both in metaphysical issues and in moral and religious issues. His Academic scepticism, therefore, involved more than merely destroying all forms of dogmatism, since it provided original philosophical doctrines, as well as a defense of definite views on morality and of controversial values such as toleration.
Is Hume a sceptic in the same sense as Bayle? Popkin (1993) supposed so, but that assumption has been challenged by Todd Ryan (2009, 2012). Ryan thinks that Bayle is a sort of “Cartesian sceptic,” but that Hume is a sceptic of a different stripe. Clearly, Bayle’s scepticism is not tied to the project of an empirical science of human nature, though he is a historian, who undertakes to present a vast critical digest of human achievements in general. Whereas Bayle used sceptical arguments to show that dogmatists could not know what they want to know, Hume thought he could provide solutions to many of those sceptical puzzles. Bayle’s scepticism would show that no dogmatic theory is free of riddles; Hume’s scepticism allows for the possibility of empirical science and mathematical knowledge. In Hume’s terminology, Bayle is a Pyrrhonian sceptic, while Hume aligns himself with Academic scepticism.
The two papers on Hume focus on different parts of Humean philosophy. In his contribution, Todd Ryan examines the role of Pyrrhonian and Academic scepticism in the opening sections of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. At issue is whether the entire project of natural theology can be dismissed on general sceptical grounds without further ado. Drawing on Hume’s discussion of Pyrrhonian and Academic scepticism, Ryan seeks to characterize the kind of scepticism employed by Philo and to assess its implications for natural theology. Ryan identifies two general sceptical arguments advanced by Philo. The first involves the “reasonable” sceptic’s unwillingness to engage in “abstruse” and “remote” inquiries, such as those of natural theology. While acknowledging the similarity of this position to Hume’s own characterization of Academic scepticism, Ryan maintains that Cleanthes offers a cogent and even compelling response to this sceptical consideration. Moreover, Ryan argues that the apparent success of Cleanthes’ response at this stage of the Dialogues is in keeping with Hume’s own assessment of the implications of Academic scepticism for experimental theology. The second involves a kind of scepticism with regard to reason that has no clear antecedent in Section 12 of the first Enquiry. This new argument attempts to show that unlike the beliefs of
ordinary life, belief in the conclusions of natural theology does not survive confrontation with Pyrrhonian arguments. Ryan argues that once again Cleanthes is able to meet this general sceptical challenge. Contrary to a number of recent commentators, Ryan concludes that Cleanthes offers a fully coherent response to the general sceptical objections of Part I of the Dialogues.
The second chapter on Hume, also the last chapter of the volume, serves as a kind of conclusion for the whole book. While Ryan focuses on a very precise text, Plínio J. Smith offers an overview of Hume’s concerns about scepticism. His main goal is to show how Hume’s mitigated scepticism fits into the modern French context. Smith argues that Hume didn’t know ancient sources on scepticism very well, not even Cicero’s Academica. Instead, Hume relied on early modern sources, mostly French ones, like Montaigne, La Mothe Le Vayer, Descartes, Pascal, Foucher, Huet, and Bayle. Faced with religious, scientific, and philosophical innovations, scepticism had to adapt itself to a new context and evolved in unpredictable ways. Though many early modern sceptics (like Montaigne, Huet, and Bayle) and philosophers (like Bacon, Malebranche, and Pascal) didn’t think there was an important difference between Academics and Pyrrhonists, Hume (like Foucher) took the distinction very seriously, drawing sharp boundaries between them. Despite Hume’s assertion that there were no real sceptics in life, Smith makes several suggestions as to who Hume had in mind when discussing these two kinds of scepticism. Next, Smith explains why Hume preferred to associate his own scepticism with Academic scepticism, despite his initial leaning toward Pyrrhonism. In this connection, Foucher’s Academic scepticism appears to be more important than is usually recognized. Finally, Smith goes on to show how Hume’s arguments against Pyrrhonism and in favor of a mitigated, Academic scepticism were based on his readings of Montaigne, Descartes, and Pascal.
The upshot of the whole is that early modern philosophers were deeply engaged with Academic scepticism, developing a rich, complex form of Academic scepticism applied to a variety of topics, ranging from metaphysics and science to morals and religion. Not only were ancient arguments adapted to a new context, but also many new sceptical arguments were invented precisely in response to this new context. Rather than merely presenting strong objections to early modern dogmatisms, Academic scepticism offered a solution to many of the challenges of the period. This does not mean, of course, that there is only one conception of Academic scepticism. Despite this lack of unity, there are some similarities that may begin to furnish us with a clearer idea of the many forms assumed by modern Academic scepticism.
The origin of this book was a conference held in May 2013, in Victoria, Canada, sponsored by the Université de Sherbrooke. We would like to thank the Department of Philosophy and Applied Ethics of this institution for its generous support. Many of the papers included in this volume come directly from that conference. Other authors were especially invited to contribute in order to broaden the picture in the spirit of the new way of doing history of early modern philosophy mentioned above. We would like to thank the Brazilian and Canadian institutions that supported the conference that led to this book, especially the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada, the Centre interuniversitaire d’étude sur la République des Lettres at the Université Laval (Québec), and the Department of Philosophy and Applied Ethics (Université de Sherbrooke), as well as the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil (CNPq, Brazil). Planning and organization of the conference and preparation of the volume would not have been possible without the indispensable contribution of our colleague Todd Ryan, as well as the help of Richard Davies, Michael Hickson, Kristen Irwin, and Julie Walsh, and the work made by Thibault Tranchant, research assistant from the Université de Sherbrooke.
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières
Sébastien Charles Trois-Rivières, Canada
Universidade Federal de São Paulo Plínio Junqueira Smith Guarulhos, Brazil plinio.smith@gmail.com sebastien.charles@uqtr.ca
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Chapter 1 The Philosophy of Francisco Sanches: Academic Scepticism and Conjectural Empiricism
Claudio Buccolini
Abstract This paper proposes an interpretation of Sanches’ scepticism based on a study of the full range of his writings, both philosophical and medical. Sanches’ criticisms of traditional idea of scientia indicate a closeness to the themes of Academic scepticism, with particular interest in the Renaissance Academic tradition, but Academic scepticism and Ciceronian criticism do not represent the aim of his philosophical project. Rather, they complement proposals for a new idea of empirical and conjectural knowledge, a new way of deploying reason and experience to attain a provisional rather than an absolute knowledge, a kind of “conjectural empiricism”. Even if his initial project to publish other philosophical texts after the Quod Nihil Scitur was abandoned and his philosophic-epistemological reflections on the status of this new empiricism remained at the stage of initial drafts. Sanches’ proposal of an empirical and conjectural knowing is based not on scepticism as negative dogmatism but on a denial of the practicability of certain and absolute knowledge (perfecta cognitio) in both philosophy and medicine. This denial complements the need to recalibrate and rethink ways of knowing in order to establish some points of support by which a new kind of knowledge – a conjectural empiricism – can profitably be achieved.
In memory of Ettore Lojacono.
In this paper I quote the Latin text of Quod nihil scitur (That Nothing is Known), Tractatus Philosophici (Philosophical Treaties) and Excerpta quaedam ex Opera medica (Abstracts from Medical Works) from F. Sanches, Tutte le opere filosofiche. Testo latino a fronte, eds. by C. Buccolini and E. Lojacono, Milan, Bompiani, and f. Francisco Sanches, Opera philosophica, edition and introduction by J. De Carvalho, Coimbra, 1955 (C); for an English translation I quote from F. Sanches, That Nothing is Known, with introduction, notes, and bibliography by E. Limbrick, Latin text established, annotated and translated by D. F. S. Thomson, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1988 (LT). For the Opera medica, (OM) I quote from original edition (Sanches, 1636). List of abbreviations: QNS = Quod nihil scitur; LBV = De longitudine et brevitate vitae, liber; PhC = In libro Aristotelis Physiognomicon commentarius; DS = De divinatione per somnum, ad Aristotelem; CE = Ad C. Clavium epistola; EOM = Excerpta quaedam ex “Opera medica”; OM = Opera medica.
C. Buccolini (*)
CNR-ILIESI, Rome, Italy
e-mail: claudio.buccolini@uniroma1.it
1 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017
P.J. Smith, S. Charles (eds.), Academic Scepticism in the Development of Early Modern Philosophy, International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d’histoire des idées 221, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-45424-5_1
Keywords Conjecture • Dumb philosophy • Empiricism • Experience • Experimentum • Judgement • Knowledge • Probable • Temperament • Verisimilar
1.1 The Academic Scepticism of Francisco Sanches
Scholars of Early Modern Scepticism have considered Francisco Sanches (1551–1623) as both a Pyrrhonian and an Academic sceptic. Scholars such as J. de Carvalho, who edited his philosophical works (1955), E. Naya (2003), and most recently D. Caluori (2007),1 have found in his works some indications that he was acquainted with the works of Sextus Empiricus – available in Latin at the time when Sanches was writing (Carvalho and Naya) – or that a continuity can be established with ancient Pyrrhonism, not in a theoretical context or from textual evidence but in his practical activities as a physician (Caluori).2 Other interpreters of modern scepticism and of Sanches’ work, from R. Popkin to G. Paganini and including E. Limbrick (1988) and E. Lojacono (2011), believed that his thought was in accord mainly with Academic scepticism – which, during the Renaissance, was not distinguished from Pyrrhonism, as C. Schmitt has shown in his classic work3 – and that Sanches’ philosophical proposal was conceived independently of any direct knowledge of the writings of Sextus Empiricus. In my own opinion, the problem is not only whether Sanches knew the works by Sextus Empiricus when writing his Quod Nihil Scitur (there is no precise textual evidence of this) but whether he read them subsequently. The latter is perhaps more probable, given the increasing diffusion of Latin versions edited by Estienne and Hervet, even if there is no evidence of this in either his philosophical or medical works. This may indicate either that he continued to ignore these works or, although aware of them, that he preferred not to refer to Sextus in his own works, perhaps because he never saw any direct link between his ideas and those of the Pyrrhonists. Sanches knew the doxography on Pyrrho; he quotes Diogenes Laertius and Plutarch (Adversus Colotem) more than once. Furthermore, for the account of the connections between ancient Pyrrhonism and medicine, Galen’s writings have a capital importance among his sources; principally the De sectis and the Subfiguratio empirica (available in the anonymous Giuntine Latin translation after 1550). Explicit references to the sect of “Empirici” are extremely rare in his writings. I have found only two explicit references to the Subfiguratio in his Opera: in Quod Nihil Scitur he cites the example of an adder used to heal elephantiasis (QNS, 281 (LT); see Subfiguratio, Giuntine edition 1576, 33 h; Deichgräber, 75, 20–77, 26); in De symptomatis febrium (OM, 278) he cites the
1 For interpretations of Sanches’ scepticism see: Sanches, 1988 (Limbrick), pp. 67–84, Caluori 2007, Sanches,2007 (Howald), Paganini 2003; Paganini 2008, pp. 15–60, 2009, Lojacono 2011, pp. 91–108 Sanches, 2011 (Lojacono).
2 Caluori 2007, p. 45: “Sanchez was not an Academic sceptic. […] Sanchez followed Pyrrhonian scepticism (whether he was familiar with the writings of its most prominent exponent or not).”
3 Schmitt 1972, pp. 7–8
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1 The Philosophy of Francisco Sanches: Academic Scepticism and Conjectural…
example of red clothes, which empiricists consider as dangerous for sick person who spit blood (Subfiguratio, 32 c; Deichgräber, 54, 30–34). Sanches criticizes this latter Empiricist statement: “Sed quam adstrictionem habeant rubri panni non video”; he has very little confidence in such things: “parum his fidendum”. When he quotes the Subfiguratio he only takes some examples; he don’t entirely agrees with empiricist therapy, although when the therapy is in accordance with the empirical transitus ad contraria (“id enim difficillimum est, et ut ego expertus sum, impossibile, quidquid chirurgi nonnulli, et empirici promittant” OM, 295; “remedia quae quamvis probabilitatem aliquam habeant, tamen non mihi videntur satis tuta. […] quamvis empiricorum sit transitus ad contraria”, OM, 129; for the transitus ad contraria, see Subfiguratio, 33 e; Deichgräber, 71, 5–12). Sanches finds in Galen’s writings not only the presentation of empiricist medicine but also the important presence and role of pithanon and of academic scepticism. He agrees with both the empiricist refusal of metaphysical knowledge of causes, and the refusal of logical, non-empirical, determination of contraries; but he tries to establish in an empirical and conjectural, non-metaphysical, way a knowledge that combines empirical reasoning, induction and conjecture so as to tend “closer to the truth”: “ratiocinatione, inductione et coniectura veritati proxima” (DS, BL, 352–354; C. 121–122). He tries to establish the “causes” of diseases, for instance, in his important dissertation on kidney stones: “Denique cum duae sint calculi causae, calor et materia”, (OM, 172). He also establishes by means of conjecture the opposition of contraries likewise the principles and the qualities of things (see above). All things considered, Sanches seems to me to bring together some aspects of ancient medical empiricism with his own conjectural empiricism and with the argumentative and intellectual tools of academic scepticism. He adopts Galen’s idea of medicine as ars coniecturalis likewise the idea of artificiosa coniectura (technical conjecture; technikòs stochamòs) to deconstruct the Galenic idea of medicine as scientia 4 Conjecture, which in Galen plays a marginal role, becomes for Sanchez the only possible way to attain medical – but also philosophical – knowledge. His knowledge and his use of medical empiricism as described by Galen don’t make him a Pyrrhonian sceptic. For his explicit reference to the method of “Empirici” – physicians who treated diseases without knowing their essence (“etiam nihil intelligentes de essentia morbi: quod fieri potest, et faciunt Empirici” OM, 687) – he quotes Galen’s works (Ars Medica, De Differentiis Symptomatum, De Methodo Medendi), in a paragraph introduced by a critical reflection on the problem of definition, in which Sanches quotes from Cicero’s Academica (I, 6) and De Finibus (3, 1). The work in question is a commentary on Galen’s De Differentiis Morborum that Sanches had written around 1620 (on the previous page Sanches writes that he has been teaching for over 40 years).
4 On the role of pithanon and of technical conjecture in Galen see: Chiaradonna 2014 and 2008. On artificiosa coniectura see, Chiaradonna cit., Fortuna 2001; Maclean 2001, Siraisi quoted above. On Galen and medical scepticism see the classic article of Viano 1981; for Galen and Early Modern Scepticism, Maclean 2006.
However, in my view, the fundamental question is whether Sanches himself ever considered that there was any continuity between his own philosophical ideas and Pyrrhonian scepticism. To me, this seems unlikely; in fact, on examining his Quod Nihil Scitur (one of Sanches’ earlier works), and more particularly his complete Corpus Philosophicum and Opera Medica, several elements indicate a closeness to the themes of Academic scepticism, many years after the Quod Nihil Scitur (whether or not he had read Sextus in the meantime), with particular interest in the Renaissance Academic tradition, rooted in Cicero’s texts (Academica, De Divinatione, De Natura Deorum).5 A number of things show how Sanches aligned himself with Academic scepticism: the intense use of Cicero’s critical instruments, contained in the important comment on Aristotle’s De Divinatione per Somnum (a text written in about 1585)6; his signature “Alter Carneade” in the letter he wrote to Cristopher Clavius about mathematical certainty, after 15897; his use of probabilism in his works as a professor of medicine, after 1612 (as in this note on De Differentiis Morborum: “Nos tamen quod probabilius videtur sectantes” OM, 606). And then there is the constant use, throughout his works, of a terminology closer to Academic vocabulary, concerning the likely, the verisimilar, the probable, the reasonable. Sanches uses a constellation of terms as an alternative to the Aristotelian or Galenic scientific language of certainty and of truth: in the first place, “probabilis” (“probabilius”, “probabilior”, “probabiles rationes”), “probabilitatis”, “verisimilis” (“verisimilius”,“verisimile”), and “verisimilitudinis”, but also in the choice of such expressions as “rationi consentaneum” and“consonum rationi” as alternatives to “verum” or “certum”. Sanches’ emphasis on the legitimacy of each one’s free judgment – “liberumque unicuique iudicium permittemus”8; “cuique liberam eligendi potestatem concedimus” (OM, 606) – is an “Academic” statement that he may have found expressed in the final lines of one of Cicero’s texts with which he was more familiar, De Divinatione, II, 72, 150:
Moreover, it is characteristic of the Academy to put forward no conclusions of its own, but to approve those which seem to approach nearest to the truth; to compare arguments; to draw forth all that may be said in behalf of any opinion; and, without asserting any authority of its own, to leave the judgement of the inquirer wholly free. That same method, which by the way we inherited from Socrates.9
5 For Cicero’s academic scepticism see Lévy 1992
6 See my commentary and notes in BL, pp. 224–357; 681–704.
7 Sanches in the letter mentions problems included in the second edition of the commentary on Euclid’s Elements (1589); see Buccolini 2011, LXXXIV.
8 OM, 686: “Nos vero contra, tritum quidem et vulgare praemittentes, authorisque sensum breviter exponentes, eum, et quae post eum ab aliis dicta sunt omnia deinceps examinabimus, sententiamque nostram libere in medium proferemus, liberumque unicuique iudicium permittemus.”
9 “Cum autem proprium sit Academiae iudicium suum nullum interponere, ea probare quae veri simillima videantur, conferre causas et quid in quamque sententiam dici possit expromere, nulla adhibita auctoritate iudicium audentium relinquere integrum ac liberum, tenebimus hanc consuetudinem a Socrate traditam eaque inter nos utemur.” Cicero 1923.
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1 The Philosophy of Francisco Sanches: Academic Scepticism and Conjectural…
And in his commentary on De Divinatione per Somnum, Sanches refers to Socrates his own method, based on refusal of arguments from authority, and on free examination and judgment:
Nevertheless I will teach you things that seem true to me, without accepting any reasons, his (= of Aristotle) or of anyone else. Eventually, choosing only what seems to me more appropriate in my disquisitions (as Socrates preferred to do), I will indicate what we should believe and what we should reject concerning the proposed question.10
In the final lines of his commentary, in a way that is very close to Cicero’s De Divinatione, he emphasizes that a reader may choose the sentence he prefers, without any necessary obligation to follow one sentence rather than another:
You, dear reader, you choose what you will be liked more. We do not in fact impose the need to follow this rather than that sentence. We have just said that we could get this far with reason and with experience: but if you have something more certain, follow it.11
This attitude becomes still more significant when we consider that the first recipients of these writings were not learned persons or esprits forts but university students. Sanches adopts these Academic attitudes and vocabulary precisely in those scientific fields in which the closeness to Sextus might have been deeper: medicine, mathematics, criticism of superstitions and of divination practices In his commentary on Aristotle’s De Divinatione per Somnum, he never quotes Sextus Empiricus, but he quotes Cicero many times. He criticises practices linked to divination and limits the usefulness of dreams for medical diagnosis. Specifically, in the field of diagnostics, he proposes sober and limited use of the writings of Hippocrates and Galen on that subject. He considers his own arguments against Cardano, against the Epicureans, and against Aristotle as fully consistent with Cicero’s statements. His commentary is, in large measure, a renewal and updating of arguments used in the De Divinatione: “As Cicero had demonstrated”, “as Cicero says”. Sanches has no need to prove what had already been well proved by Cicero: “ipse detegit, oppugnatque tum luculentissime, tum etiam elegantissime”12; “nobis opus non sit quae ab eo optime dicta sunt, huc transferre”; “ab eo mutuabimus libenter”13; “quia satis abunde […] a Cicerone explosa sunt […] nunc praetermittentur”14; “ipse Cicero elegantissime expressit”15; “disertissime Cicero oppugnat”.16
10 DS, BL, 228; C, 92. “Nos autem quae vera videbuntur, nulla aut illius (= Aristotelis), aut alterius cuiusque habita ratione, docebimus. Et […] commodumque e disquisitionibus nostris captantes (quod Socrati placebat) quid credendum, quidque fugiendum circa propositam quaestionem, tandem ostendemus.”
11 DS, BL, 356; C. 122: “Tu, amice lector, quod magis placuerit, elige. Nec enim nos tibi necessitatem imponimus, ut magis hanc, quam illam sequaris sententiam. Diximus solum quod tum ratione, cum experimento hactenus assequi potuimus: tu vero si quid certius habes, id sequere.”
12 DS, BL, 256, C. 98
13 DS, BL, 258; C. 99.
14 DS, BL, 260; C. 99.
15 DS, BL, 280; C. 104.
16 DS, BL, 282; C. 104.
However, in Sanches’ thought, Academic scepticism and Ciceronian criticism do not represent the goal of a philosophical project. Rather, they complement proposals for a new kind of empirical and conjectural knowledge,17 a new way of deploying reason and experience (“tum ratione, cum experimento”) to attain a provisional (“hactenus assequi potuimus”) rather than an absolute knowledge. This marks a departure from the traditional idea of scientia. As a whole, Sanches’ works – both the philosophical ones, which must be read beyond merely the Quod Nihil Scitur (on which the attention of the interpreters has most often focused) and the medical ones – testify to a practical side of the more mature stage of Sanches’ thought and to his ongoing process of structuring ideas about a kind of “conjectural empiricism”, despite his initial project to publish other philosophical texts after the Quod Nihil Scitur.
1.2 Academic Scepticism, Philosophy and Medicine
After the publication of the Quod Nihil Scitur Sanches accepted some occasional assignments as a lecturer in surgery (from 1582) and taught philosophy at Toulouse University for about 27 years (from 1585 to 1612). Subsequently, he taught medicine until his death (from 1612 to 1623).18 In teaching philosophy, Sanches used Aristotle’s institutional texts and related commentaries. In medicine, he used mainly traditional Greek texts – Galen and Hippocrates in the first place, in extending his teaching to the use of both Renaissance commentaries and the texts of “neoterici” such as Cardano, Fernel, Fracastoro, Argenterio, Rondelet, da Veiga, Da Monte, and many others, including the followers of Paracelsus and chemical medicine.19 In his teaching of both disciplines, Sanches developed and exposed the practical and operational aspects of his ideas, using a constellation of terms that play a key role in the kind of knowledge that he adopts, without establishing their scientific status: “experientia/experimentum”, “exercitium”, “ars”, “praxis”, “usus”, “induction”, “coniectura”, “coniicere”, “regula”. In his medical writings, he refers to medicine as “ars sensualis”, an art that depends on the data of the senses, as “ars coniecturalis”, an art founded on “artificialis coniectura”; themes widely debated in Renaissance Medicine. He also articulates and presents his original and peculiar therapeutic, surgical, clinical, and pharmaceutical practices, assembling his Observationes in Praxi (one of his medical works), but again without defining or precisely develop-
17 For the relations between scepticism and empiricism in Early Modern thought see the classic study by T. Gregory 1961.
18 Francisco Sanches had some occasional assignments as a Lecturer in surgery at the Hotel Dieu hospital in Toulouse from 1582; then he taught philosophy at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Toulouse for about 25 years; in 1612 he obtained the second chair of Hygiene and Therapy in the Faculty of Medicine. Of all these years of teaching as a philosopher there remain only a few treatises published in the posthumous edition by his disciple R. Delasse, Opera Medica. His iuncti sunt tractatus quidam philosophici not insubtiles; Toulouse, 1636 (OM).
19 OM, 169.
C. Buccolini
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As the time decided upon between Robert and the professor for their departure drew closer, Robert decided to have a heart-to-heart talk with Hakon. Accordingly he sought an interview with him at the first opportunity.
He found him in excellent spirits. In fact, so carefree did the new monarch appear, that Robert hesitated to broach the subject; but concluding that it was a case of now or never he put his temerity aside.
Hakon heard him out calmly It was apparent that he had been expecting this.
“My son,” be said, finally, “this is no surprize to me. The days of my youth are not so distant that I do not recognize the symptoms of love.” He sighed. “I can’t blame you for loving her. She is her mother over again.”
His fine eyes softened as he spoke of his deceased wife. Robert did not presume to interrupt his thoughts. He waited patiently while the emperor sat in silent reminiscence.
Presently Hakon resumed, putting memories from him with a visible effort.
“You are brave, my boy, and deserving of her great love—you see, she has already told me. Duty calls you back to your world, many, many leagues distant. But it is a younger, more luxuriant world. I will not selfishly deny her happiness, though she is my greatest treasure. I would that you could remain with us, but, if you must go, she may go with you if she wishes. Let her decide. I make but one condition; if she can not be happy in your world, bring her back to me if you can.”
“I promise, sire,” said Robert, touched too deeply at the emperor’s sacrifice to say more for the moment.
A soft step caused them both to look up abruptly Zola stood before them. She had stolen in while they were talking. Her eyes were brimming with misty happiness.
“I heard what you were saying, you dears,” she murmured.
“And your decision, Zola?” Robert faltered.
She pressed a white hand to her breast, swaying like a frail blade of grass.
“I must think—I must think,” she said, faintly
And she fled from the room.
That night brought no sleep to Robert. Torn between compassion for Zola’s father, and fear that he himself would lose her, he tossed about incessantly When finally dawn came he fell into a sleep of utter mental exhaustion.
When he opened his eyes it was with no recognition in them of anyone or anything. The delirium of fever had laid hold upon him. The severe strain and exertions of the past several days had reduced his vitality, and the mental anguish of the night following his interview with Hakon regarding Zola had proved the last straw.
For three days he remained delirious. During this time Zola nursed him almost constantly. It was with greatest difficulty that she was induced to snatch rest occasionally. And only to Professor Palmer would she relinquish her post.
Hakon came to see Robert twice daily. His own physicians were in continual attendance upon Robert. No effort was spared to bring about his recovery if possible. On the fourth day, with the crisis safely passed, Robert recovered his senses.
His first recognition was of Zola, to her unbounded delight. She was seated at his bedside. During his delirium he had spoken her name many times. At first he feared she might be another vision. He reached out to touch her and reassure himself of her reality, only to sink back weakly. She caught his hand.
“Do you know me now, Robert, darling?” she whispered, with eager tenderness.
Robert pressed her hand happily, nodded, and promptly fell off into peaceful slumber—his first normal rest in many hours.
When he again opened his eyes he was stronger and able to take some nourishment, which Zola fed him. She had not left his bedside since his first return to consciousness early that same morning. By the doctors’ orders she would not permit him to talk. But for lovers
there are other means of communication than mere words. Both were infinitely happy.
The effects of Zola’s continued vigil of the past three days and nights were visible in her face. Only at Robert’s insistence, and for fear that he would excite himself into a relapse, did she finally consent to take to her bed for sleep. She slept the entire afternoon and night without waking, and rose feeling greatly refreshed but with bitter reproachment on her lips for those who had permitted her to sleep so long.
By this time Robert, much improved, was allowed to talk. Zola perched herself on the edge of his bed.
“We are to be married as soon as you are up,” she announced, bending and kissing him as he started to splutter some inane reply. The emperor, coming in at the moment, laughed outright and made his exit quickly.
“And I shall see and know that wonderful world of yours,” she continued.
Her calm assertion swept Robert’s last scruples away. In his heart was a song of joy, and his boyish enthusiasm and anticipation ran riot. The thought of transplanting this desert flower from an unlovely, withered planet to his own luxuriant world was a prospect of boundless, delightful possibilities! It would seem a wonderland to her. She would be the happiest and most appreciative girl alive—and his!
“You bet you shall, sweetheart,” he agreed. “You shall see our wonderful, rugged mountains, and beautiful green valleys; the winding rivers, the vast oceans, and the great lakes of water, the very drops of which are so precious here. Our clouds, the mysterious storms that will frighten you with their magnificence, and the silver rain; all these wonders and many more shall be yours.”
“Do you really have big bodies and rivers of water, open and unprotected from the sun’s rays? Why doesn’t it evaporate, or sink into the soil and become lost?”
“You shall see, sweetheart. You shall ride upon oceans more vast than your deserts, where nothing but rolling water can be seen.”
Zola shook her head in perplexity and with a certain measure of doubt. All this seemed virtually impossible to her. Only her implicit confidence in Robert enabled her to believe, and even in that belief she was unconsciously prone to reserve. Well, she would see what she would see. No doubt it was a wonderful world; but ——. However, she was a diplomat.
“Truly these are wonderful things you tell me of, my love. I am wild to see them.”
At this point they were interrupted by the doctor
“You children must be quiet awhile now. I forbid my patient to excite himself by talking any more till this afternoon.”
And as this doctor was an autocratic soul, accustomed to having his way, they were forced to forego their conversation till later. In the heart of each, however, there was a bewildering flutter of joy and happiness.
During the next few days Robert grew rapidly stronger, and soon was permitted to be up and around.
Taggert’s body had been recovered, and now rested in state within one of the royal vaults, where it had been placed with great reverence by the Martians at the command of the emperor. Elaborate and touching were the ceremonies which attended the procedure. Robert had not been able to attend the ceremonies, but Professor Palmer, accompanied by the emperor and Princess Zola, witnessed them together.
Resigned to their determination to return to their own planet, taking his beloved daughter with them, the emperor bent his efforts toward loading the Sphere with both tynir and rahmobis in large quantities.
Of the tynir it was simply a question of how much the Sphere would be able to lift safely. More than two and a half tons of the precious metal, in small ingots and in heavy sacks, were stacked on the floor of the main chamber—virgin gold, every ounce of it.
The supply of rahmobis, or diamonds, though not so plentiful, was a far greater treasure even than the precious yellow metal, although most of these were in the rough. They averaged in size from half a carat to several carats, with here and there a specimen running ten or fifteen carats. Of these assorted, uncut stones there were nine sacks, each about the size of a five-pound sack of sugar. In addition there were several packets of finely cut and polished gems, the product of skilled Martian cutters. These varied approximately from a quarter of a carat to two carats, but a dozen or more fine stones weighed more than ten carats each! Some excellent emeralds and rubies were included among the cut stones, but only a few, because, while the white diamonds were quite plentiful on Mars, the green and the pigeon-red varieties were very rare. Truly the Sphere was to carry back a ransom of kings!
But of all this treasure none was so precious to Robert as his princess.
With Robert’s complete recovery, a great pageant was arranged in which the emperor, princess and all the nobles were to participate. Robert and Professor Palmer were invited to ride with Zola and her father in the procession.
Elaborate preparations were made for this event which was to typify the recent victory and the reunion of all factions, and the gratitude of the Martians for the timely aid by their visitors from Earth. Great ornamental arches were hurriedly built, and large quantities of the various kinds of Martian flowers were accumulated in readiness for the event. The gathering of these flowers was no small task, since the restricted growing areas of the waning planet permitted of but little deviation from the grim task of producing enough food to sustain its populace.
The pageant was also to serve another purpose. At its termination the emperor was to announce the giving of his daughter’s hand in marriage to Robert and her subsequent departure for Earth with him. Some resistance was anticipated from various nobles, particularly those who were eligible for Zola’s hand. It was because of a possible demonstration against, the princess’ departure that the emperor, with excellent foresight and admirable sacrifice, had commanded that the wedding take place quietly at the palace immediately after the pageant, and that the Sphere start on its long journey with his most precious possession immediately afterward.
The day of the great pageant dawned with the same wonderful brilliance that heralded 680 of the 687 days of the Martian year.
All preparations of the royal party for the pageant were completed before noon. At midday Robert and the professor partook of a simple luncheon with Zola and her father. With the specter of separation so near, conversation languished, and it was with real effort that the professor maintained at least a semblance of cheerfulness within the little group through his persistent but tactful patter of small talk.
Early in the afternoon the nobles began to arrive. Within an hour the assembly of plumed and gayly dressed riders had formed in marching order, and with a great clattering of hoofs rode through the big archway leading from the palace terrace to the main road.
A company of guards led. The emperor and his daughter, accompanied by Robert and Professor Palmer, followed them. Behind them came the chief nobles of the great empire.
From the time of the earliest formation on the palace terrace, it became apparent that some peculiar unrest pervaded the assembly This grew more tense as the time passed, and was only temporarily relieved when the column had ridden out from the palace. Several times as his mount shied, Robert fancied he surprized secret communications between certain of the nobles. The ostensibly unconcerned looks upon their countenances, and their abrupt cessation of whispered confidences as he caught their eye, somehow forced an unpleasant conviction upon Robert that these communications not only concerned the emperor and his party, but presaged evil for them. He wondered if, in some manner, advance news of his impending marriage to the princess and of their intended departure had got abroad. Anticipation of such information likely would produce resentment among the young-bloods who had hoped to obtain the princess’ hand themselves, and they might endeavor to stir up trouble to prevent the match and the departure of the princess. He determined to keep a sharp outlook for any sign of treachery.
Into the main thoroughfare they swung. Here they halted briefly while the rest of the procession promptly formed behind. Then they moved on again toward the heart of the city.
Soon they passed beneath artificial arches over flower-strewn streets lined with dense crowds of eager-eyed, cheering Martians who were gathered to greet their new emperor and to see his mysterious aids from the planet Earth, who had put their powerful enemies to rout at the eleventh hour. Robert could not suppress a feeling of exhilaration as the deafening acclamations of the populace swelled about them. Fully half the demonstration was for the professor and himself. He glanced at the princess—his princess— riding close beside him, her lovely cheeks aglow with excitement. Her eyes were turned toward him in rapt admiration. Small wonder that Robert’s head swam a bit with pride and keen enjoyment in this, his moment of supreme triumph and popularity The professor, too, seemed not without his appreciation of the moment.
The procession finally reached the Galpraæ, a huge amphitheater situated in the eastern end of the city. Here, flanked by his guardsmen on one side and the nobles on the other, the emperor spoke briefly to the people. Robert, the professor, and Zola occupied positions of honor near him.
The people listened to his speech with marked respect and interest to its conclusion, when they burst into wild cheering lasting many minutes. The emperor held up his hand for quiet, till finally the demonstration ceased. Then, calmly, distinctly, he announced his daughter’s early nuptials and departure with Robert.
For some seconds after this statement a deep silence reigned. Then, suddenly, one of the nobles rose to his feet!
He pointed dramatically at Robert and Professor Palmer.
“Shall we permit these Earth-beings to carry off our own princess to another planet? Shall we permit her to wed one of these common beings while the best, the noblest, blood of all Mars is offered for her hand? No! A thousand times no! Our emperor’s better judgment has been swayed by some strange influence of these beings. Brethren, let us not stand by idly and permit this outrage!”
As if by prearranged signal, about half the nobles sprang to their feet. Drawing their sabers, they rushed upon the little group about Robert.
At the same moment, pandemonium seemed to have broken bounds. The fickle audience in the great enclosure leapt to their feet as one and surged forward, shouting madly! The guardsmen, who fortunately were all picked men and loyal to the core, dashed forward to protect their emperor and his guests, but were prevented from joining them by the resistance of the immediate group of traitorous nobles. A few of the noblemen who were loyal joined the guardsmen in the instant melee.
Though Robert was on the alert for something of this sort, the suddenness of it left him momentarily aghast. There seemed no escape. His saber and the emperor’s flashed from their scabbards together The next instant the professor and they with two guardsmen who had somehow managed to hew their way through to
them, had formed a ring of steel round Zola. Against this vicious circle the furious noblemen charged.
For minutes that seemed hours, the unequal combat raged about these five staunch men and the trembling princess. The guardsmen and loyal noblemen were more than holding their own with the larger part of the rebels. But the little group in the midst of it all was facing annihilation before aid could reach them. Already Hakon was wounded, while one of the guardsmen was down. Robert, too, was wounded, though fortunately not yet seriously.
Suddenly Robert felt the pavement give way beneath his feet. The next instant he was precipitated downward. A hard surface seemed to rush upward and strike him. He sprawled painfully Then darkness!
For a moment he believed oddly that he had just sustained a blow which had knocked him unconscious, mistaking the sudden quiet and darkness for oblivion in his bewilderment.
Abruptly the mantle of blackness surrounding him magically dropped away. As he scrambled stiffly to his feet he perceived that he stood with others within a tunnel of masonry dimly lit by a series of incandescent lights. An exclamation of relief burst from his lips as he saw Zola sitting on the floor a few feet away. She gave a glad little cry as she recognized him. He quickly helped her to her feet. At the same moment he saw Hakon and Professor Palmer, and, with them, the surviving guard who had fought so valiantly. On the pavement lay one of their late enemies, strangely still.
“This is a secret passage leading to the palace,” Hakon explained hurriedly. “Its existence and the automatic trap-door entrance above us with its rebound feature alone has preserved our lives thus far. Lead on, Dyarkon.”
The guard addressed, obediently led the way down the passage, the others following. Above, faint sounds of the conflict still raging seemed far away. Zola placed her hand in Robert’s trustfully. They had proceeded several rods when the emperor, who was second in lead, swayed uncertainly. He would have fallen but for Robert’s timely assistance. Zola also rushed to his side with a startled cry.
“Ah, my children, I fear I am too badly wounded to go on. Leave me and escape while you may.”
“We go on only with you, sire,” said Robert, firmly.
Gently he and Professor Palmer lifted the protesting monarch between them. In this manner they resumed their march down the
long passage, led by the faithful Dyarkon. Zola followed closely in the rear.
In silence they made their way through the long tunnel beneath the city’s streets. Except for the shuffle of their feet, an oppressive, deathlike stillness reigned. At intervals Hakon begged them futilely to put him down and hurry on to safety without him.
Though the passage led in almost direct line from the amphitheater to the palace, it was a considerable distance. The emperor was no slight burden and Robert’s muscles ached with the continued strain. In spite of his years, however, the professor seemed to be bearing his part of the monarch’s weight without great effort.
A touch on his shoulder caused Robert to look round sharply. Zola was directly behind him, her hand upon his arm.
“Wait!” she whispered, glancing apprehensively over her shoulder.
Robert and Professor Palmer halted. Dyarkon, proceeding a few paces farther, also stopped as he perceived they were not following.
“What is it?” Robert asked. His gaze followed hers down the dim passage stretching off behind them in ghostly emptiness. He failed to discern any cause for her uneasiness.
“Listen! Did you not hear footsteps?”
They all listened tensely. Only the beating of their own hearts disturbed the deadly underground quiet. An icy touch on his neck caused Robert to start. But he discovered that it was only a drop of water, fallen from the sweating roof. Here, possibly, was the origin of the sound which had startled Zola. Every little sound within the long tunnel was magnified a hundred times by the reverberation from the dead walls. The shuffling of a foot brought muffled shufflings from the farthest recesses of the passage, dying in soft, throbbing whispers that slipped from wall to wall faintly.
“I thought I heard footsteps following us,” Zola explained a trifle shamefacedly, but with a little pucker of perplexity on her forehead.
“Just the echoes, my dear,” said her father.
They resumed their march toward the palace. His ears keenly alert for sounds of pursuit, Robert, too, fancied several times that he heard cautious footsteps following in the distance; but he finally
concluded that what he heard was nothing more than the countless rustling echoes from their own footsteps.
At last they reached a winding stairway. Up this they followed Dyarkon till it brought them to another level stretch of paving.
At a command from the emperor the guard stopped and fumbled along the base of the right wall. A door in the masonry swung outward. Through this they all followed quickly, closing the door behind them.
They now stood within another passage exactly like the first, but running at right angles to it. Was it imagination that caused Robert to believe he heard a scurry of footsteps along the passage they had just quit?
“Did you hear?” murmured the princess, clutching Robert’s arm. He nodded. Then he was right. They had just quit the other passage in time!
The little procession moved on again. Another short flight of stairs brought them to a stop before a blank wall at the end of the passage. Here Dyarkon repeated his former performances and the wall opened.
A brilliant stream of sunlight burst upon them. The abrupt contrast with the dim glow of the passage all but blinded them for a few seconds.
An involuntary exclamation burst from Robert’s lips. The Sphere rested within fifty feet of them! They were standing inside the broad wall of the palace courtyard!
Instantly his mind formed a plan of action. They would make a dash for the Sphere. Once safely inside they could rise quickly and observe the actions of the crowds. Then they could lay their plans at leisure.
Rapidly he outlined his plan to the others, who acquiesced at once. If their pursuers had already reached the palace they had not a moment to lose. The courtyard was yet closer.
Hakon was able to stand, though his wounds had left him pitifully weak. Dyarkon and the professor now assisted him while Robert hurried ahead to open the trap-door entrance into the Sphere.
As they emerged from the wall a loud outcry greeted them. Without stopping to ascertain its source they hurried toward the Sphere with all possible speed. Fortunately the trap operated readily, and a few seconds later they were all safely shut within.
The outcry was now explained. Into the courtyard from the palace poured a score of nobles with drawn sabers, shouting for them to stop.
Robert jerked the control over. The Sphere leapt from the ground with such sudden force that all except Robert and the staunch Dyarkon were thrown to the floor. A minute later they were soaring far above the heads of their late pursuers.
“Phew! Close shaves are getting to be our specialty,” exclaimed Robert, recovering his breath for the first time in many minutes. “Now for our observations and conference.”
He checked the Sphere’s ascent and turned to the others.
Zola was already busily binding her father’s wound. Professor Palmer had just brought her some water and a supply of bandages from the first-aid chest. Fortunately, though Hakon was weak from loss of blood, his wound was found not to be serious.
Hakon was staring intently groundward from his position by a window Following his gaze, Robert saw a dense mob round the palace. Even at this height he could hear the Martians’ cries faintly. Evidently the rebel noblemen had succeeded well in working the masses up in revolt.
Sadly Hakon viewed the disorder below It was now clear that it would not be safe for him to return.
“Let us all go to Earth, my dear father,” said Zola. “There we can be happy together.”
The fugitive ruler pondered for many minutes, while the others maintained a respectful silence. Finally he sighed resignedly. A faint smile played over his countenance as he turned to his daughter.
“Ah, my dear, I was a very foolish old man to think of letting you go alone. We shall, as you say, be far happier together. We shall have riches and contentment in this world of Robert’s—if, indeed, he and Professor Palmer will share a little of their fortune with us.” He
smiled as he nodded toward the bullion stacked on the chamber floor.
“You are the spokesman, Robert,” chuckled the professor.
“The treasure is yours and Zola’s, sire, now that you are with us,” said Robert.
“I have given it to you and Professor Palmer, my boy, and it remains yours, except for what small portion you might wish to assign me—and Dyarkon, if he decides to go with us. As for Zola, she will share with you as your bride. What say you, Dyarkon—do you wish to go with us?”
“Oh, sire, I shall go if you desire it; but I was to have been married shortly. My heart is there.” He pointed below.
“Then you shall be permitted to return, my man. Accept this, my present to your bride; and may you have great happiness.” He handed the guard a string of beautiful emeralds which he had been wearing.
The faithful Martian was speechless with gratitude.
“I suggest, then, that the treasure be divided into four equal parts,” said the professor, presently; “one quarter for each of us. There is sufficient wealth here to make every one of us overwhelmingly rich on Earth.”
So it was agreed.
The question of provisions was the next consideration. At Hakon’s orders, large quantities of evaporated fruits and vegetables had previously been placed within the cupboards of the Sphere. A goodly quantity of the Sphere’s original supply of food tablets, etc., remained. Fortunately, too, the oxygen tanks contained enough gas to purify the air in the Sphere for a long while. It only was necessary to replenish their water supply, when they could also leave Dyarkon.
The latter task was not so easy as it sounds. For there are no convenient, open streams on Mars. They must either chance landing at some power station or farm, or fly to one of the poles and there obtain water from one of the giant reservoirs. The elements at the nearest pole being very treacherous at this season, it was decided to chance a visit to some farmhouse.
A hurried trip was accordingly made to a small farm, a sufficient distance from the scene of the rebellion to be reasonably safe. Here the astonished farmer, who had not yet heard of the rebellion and who did not even recognize the emperor and the princess, eagerly helped these distinguished visitors to fill the water tanks of the mysterious Sphere. This the farmer had heard of, and both he and his wife gazed upon it with mingled wonder and dismay. Afterward they followed it with their eyes until it had passed beyond their vision. This farmer, and his wife and Dyarkon, had the distinction of being the persons on Mars who last saw their emperor; though the two first named did not know this till Dyarkon presently told them.
After the filling of the water tanks, Robert steered the Sphere straight toward the distant pale star which he and Professor Palmer knew was the Earth. Despite their anticipation and resignation, Zola and her father gazed back upon their erstwhile world in silent awe, and not without some sadness, long after it had ceased to be more than a mere ocher and rose disk.
Through the eternal night sped the infinitesimal world with its population of four. And through the long hours of Robert’s watches, Zola was at his side always. Their love was as an immortal thing, born of space and eternity. Hand in hand they fled across the universe to their future world of promise.
Profiting by their previous experience with gravitation, or rather, an absence of gravitation and stabilization, Robert and the professor properly manipulated the disk and gyrostats on this trip, avoiding the danger which had so nearly proved their undoing before. Robert prevented also the recurrence of another unpleasant experience, by cutting short pieces of stout cord, one for each of them, and particularly cautioned Zola and her father to tie them about their bodies at night and secure the other end to a rung or some other stationary object at a safe distance from the whirling gyrostats.
It was not long after that they had a taste of air-floating, and the cords proved their worth. This sensation, the continued sunshine out of a black sky and other phenomena, were all new to Zola and her father. The time passed rapidly.
A deck of playing cards was got out and Hakon and Zola were initiated into the mysteries of the Earthmen’s card games, which they
learned readily and seemed to enjoy keenly They then proceeded to show Robert and Professor Palmer some of their own games. These, being played with cards not greatly different from our own, were easily adapted to the cards they were using. In fact, one of their games, called Agahr, was virtually identical with our own simple game of casino.
So it did not seem long ere they were within a day’s journey of the Earth. Not a single mishap had delayed their progress so far. Barring the unexpected, they should be but a day longer in returning than the period covered by the trip to Mars, in spite of the considerably increased distance between the two planets by this time. Nearly three months had elapsed since the departure from the Earth.
As the Earth’s disk expanded before their eyes, Robert pointed out to Zola and Hakon the outlines of the continents and oceans, the mountain ranges and rivers. Their genuine wonder and delightful anticipation were a source of keen enjoyment to both the professor and Robert.
“It surpasses my wildest imagination to vision an expanse of water so vast that one can not see its boundaries!” exclaimed Hakon, excitedly. “I can scarcely contain myself till we shall actually see these wonders with our own eyes.”
“And think, Father, of the great forests of trees where one can really get lost; the mysterious clouds in the sky; the rushing rivers and waterfalls! Oh, how could I have thought of letting you stay away from all this! How happy we can be, can’t we, Robert?”
“Indeed we can, sweetheart,” he replied, with a feeling that his measure of delight was far more than he deserved.
Closer, closer drew the big world—his world and hers. Its great disk swelled and swelled, until it was no longer a disk but a vast expanse stretching away in all directions.
Robert had reduced the Sphere’s speed until they approached the surface, now less than fifty miles away, at about the speed of a fast passenger train. As they drew closer he reduced their speed still further. A big cloud bank obscured their view of the Earth’s surface now, but he knew that they were above the Atlantic. He had already given the Sphere the spin of the swiftly revolving Earth, before entering its envelope of atmosphere. They now drifted serenely, high above the clouds.
As they slowly drew near the cloud bank, Zola made a natural mistake of thinking it the ocean, till Robert told her different. Her astonishment and delight were great as they plunged through the fluffy mist and emerged above the water. A big sea was running, and
Robert permitted the Sphere to drop within a hundred yards of the tall crests.
The continual rolling of the water mystified Hakon and Zola. This was explained to them with some difficulty. Robert opened two of the Sphere’s ports, for the first time since leaving Mars. They all filled their lungs gratefully with the keen, salty air as it blew in upon them. The main force of the gale was not felt, however, because the Sphere was being driven before it. Once an eccentric gust sucked the Sphere down abruptly. A mountainous wave, rearing hungrily toward the big metal ball, slapped forcibly against it, causing it to rebound high into the air with a suddenness that upset everyone. After that Robert kept a safe distance above the seething waters.
For a while they scudded swiftly along under the hypnotic spell of the restless sea. Its hissing turbulence was a source of continual awe and wonder to their guests. Finally Robert closed the ports and sped the Sphere toward the Jersey coast.
It was in the early afternoon when they passed over the coast line. Here their appearance was first noted and news of the Sphere’s safe return flashed all over the world. Later, as they sailed over New York, a droning of many whistles heralded their arrival, while a blimp, a big seaplane, and several airplanes glided and cavorted over, under and round them.
“Sphere ahoy!” shouted one venturesome chap, a reporter on the Times, as he whizzed by, a dozen feet away, in a two-passenger airplane. “What news?”
But the drone of his engine drowned a possible answer as the distance between them widened rapidly.
Leaving Manhattan, Robert steered the Sphere toward L—- and Professor Palmer’s estate. This was at the latter’s request, and in response to his cordial invitation to Robert and both their guests to make their home with him for the present.
Their arrival at the Palmer estate found the place already overrun with reporters and photographers in anticipation of their return there. Even the resourceful Henry could not stem the tide. Motion pictures of them all were run off and rushed to headquarters for early projection upon the silver screen all over the world.
Hakon, and Zola, more charming than ever, both accepted the situation with jolly good nature. Praises of the beautiful maiden from Mars were many, and their sincerity was reflected in the headlines and articles which appeared as by magic in the afternoon papers throughout the country the very day of their arrival.
The party rested at the Palmer estate for several days. Many were the delightful strolls which Robert and Zola took in the lovely grounds. The soft, luxuriant grass under foot, the tall trees, the beautiful shrubbery and flowers were as a fairyland to the princess, with her fairy prince at her side. As for Robert, he was in a veritable seventh heaven.
The emperor and Professor Palmer, now great cronies, were constantly together. Halton never tired of the professor’s tales of the Earth’s resources, its history and people; and of our long observation of and conjectures regarding his own planet, Mars.
Negotiations were opened with a firm of expert diamond cutters in New York for the cutting and polishing of the stones brought from Mars. Their representatives, escorted by a heavy guard, arrived promptly and departed with the first valuable consignment of the rough gems.
The balance of the treasure, in bullion and stones, had been safely deposited in the vaults of three different banks for greater safety. The bullion, however, was rapidly converted into cash and deposited in equal shares to the individual credit of the four adventurers and one other person. This person was Taggert’s sweetheart, a Miss Sarah Daugherty, who had waited faithfully for the valiant reporter’s return. By mutual consent, a fifth and equal share of the treasure was allotted her. Taggert’s mother, poor woman, had not lived to see the return of the Sphere. She had contracted pneumonia and passed away a month before her son’s death. One of the first things Robert had done upon his return was to seek Mrs. Taggert and Miss Daugherty, after delivering Taggert’s notes to the Morning Chronicle with an additional report on the events following the lion-hearted reporter’s death. He obtained the publishers’ ready consent to turn over all salaries and bonus due Taggert, to Miss Daugherty.
