Page:The Great Didactic of John Amos Comenius (1896).pdf/110

 for us to say more than that its contents embody a curious admixture of fantastic metaphysic and weak analogies drawn from the processes of nature. The general drift of the argument is that of the Via Lucis, written during his stay in England, and published by Cunrad at Amsterdam in 1668. Of this work Comenius sent a copy to the Royal Society in London, with a letter in which he implored its members not to deal too exclusively with the physical aspect of the universe to the neglect of the more important metaphysical and supernatural side.

He was now seventy-seven years old, but his desire to write and to publish remained as great as ever. His Unum Necessarium, a religious work, appeared in 1668, and in the following year he again plunged into controversy with a tract directed against Samuel Des Marets, who still persisted in his sceptical attitude towards the prophecies and the chiliastic doctrine. The result of this brochure was startling. Des Marets lost his temper completely, and in his reply Antirrheticus he quits the ground of argument and assails Comenius’ personal character in a manner quite unjustifiable, if the age and failing strength of his antagonist be considered. After terming Comenius “a fanatic, a visionary, and an enthusiast in folio,” he proceeds, “I would venture to say that by feeding one family, that of de Geer, on pansophic hope, and by nourishing it or rather bewitching it with chiliastic smoke and Drabik’s prophecies, he has been able to make a yearly income three or four times as great as the salary that I receive from the government.”

The sharp tone of this attack cut Comenius to the quick. Forlorn, and on the verge of the grave, he had neither the force nor the inclination to rebut the insinuations of dishonesty that it contained. Some consolation in his distress he may have derived from the society of the aged