Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/22

 6 BIOGRAPHICAL STUDIES Rabelais in the " French Humourists," well remarks : " The controversies of the time, the endless disputes of the schools, the differences of churches — what were they to men who could feed on Plato, and roam over the flowery fields of ancient philosophy ? What was it to them whether the bigot of Geneva, or the bigot of Rome, conquered ? . . . The spirit of priest- hood — that had been the enemy of philosophy in old times, and was its enemy in the new times ; its fanaticism, its blind fear of knowledge, were their natural foes; the long chain of custom, the fetter which bound men's souls to decaying forms, was what they would fain, but could not, remove. Life might be cheered by the intercourse of scholars; but life with the common herd, with the so-called religious or so-called learned, was intolerable, ludi- crous, stupid. As for the doctrines of the Church — well, they are good for the common people. Mean- while, the great God reigns : He is like a sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference no- where. The ministers of religion are its worst enemies : he who is wise will be tied by as few dogmas as may be, but he will possess his soul in patience." And again: "Some men there are who seem too great for creeds. If they remain in the Church wherein they were born, it is because in no other would they find relief from the fetters of doc- trine, and because the main things which underlie Articles are common to all Churches, in which the dogmas are the accidents of time and circumstance." After six free and happy years, divided between his native town of Chinon, where he had his home and the excellent vineyard of La Devini^re, and the