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306 CONSEQUENCES OF THE REFORMATIONat the Jubilee of the Reformation, on the second of Novemit wasber, 1817. At the desire of his friends, however,translated by himself and published in the " ReformationsAlmanac" of 1819. The place and occasion of its deliveryprevented a fuller development of the subjectit; is, therefore, given only as a supplement to the above treatise.]IF it should appear strange or incongruous to any present,that the Faculty of Philosophy should not only claim a solemn interest in the celebration of this day a clay consecrated to the recollection of that reformation of our faithwhich was begun three hundred years ago but should further demonstrate itby a public act ; they will cease fromtheir astonishment when they more fully consider the manyand greatbenefits which are owed to it, not only by theology, but by all those sciences which tend to develope thefaculties of mankind. For the principle which we are accustomed to admit as true, in all great revolutions, whetherof our own or of earlier times, viz." that their progress andoperations have proved much more extensive than the orino meansginators of them proposed, and that they could bybe confined within the limits which these prescribed to them,"this principle may with equal certainty be applied to theReformation. It is true, indeed, that, even with regard tosingle events, it is often difficult for the historian to ascertain the causes from which they proceed but :now, afterthe lapse of three centuries, our position has become such,that we may, with confidence, give judgment upon thosegeneral consequences which have resulted from so great achange. ^These, however, have been so well explained byseveral distinguished writers that it would be thought superfluous to trace them out anew we; shall, therefore, confine ourselves to a slight consideration of that part of its influence which was exercised upon philosophy.It cannot be supposed tl^atit would enter into the planof the Reformers men occupied more with things appertaining to God than to man to found new systems of philosophy. Still, however, they perceived that philosophystood in no less need than theology of being purified fromthe subtleties of the schoolmen ;and the man most impressedwith this, was one whose memory is immortal, and whom we