A BEGINNER’S HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
VOLUME II
MODERN PHILOSOPHY (1453 TO THE PRESENT TIME)
The Difficulty in the Study of Modern Philosophy. Beside the great spans of ancient and mediæval civilizations, the 450 years of the modern period seem brief. The road is indeed relatively short from mediæval times to the century in which we live, and yet it proves difficult to the student who travels it for the first time. Even for the modern mind the study of modern philosophy is inherently more difficult than that of the ancient and mediæval. The preceding periods present new points of view, but these, once attained, lead along comparatively easy ways. The chief difficulty of the preceding periods is overcome when their peculiar view of things is gained; but the student of modern philosophy is confronted with difficulties all along the way. In the first place, modern philosophy is very complex because it is a conflict of various aspirations. It has neither the objectivity of ancient thought nor the logical consistency of mediæval thought. It arises from subjective motives, whose shadings are difficult to trace. The task is rendered harder by the fact that intimations of the problems in the history of modern philosophy are on the whole present in the beginner’s mind; and yet at the same time his mind possesses, besides these, many mediæval notions as well. For the student to pass successfully through the entire length of modern thought from Cusanus to Spencer means, therefore, two things for him: (1) he must gain an insight into the depth and significance of his own half-formed ideas; (2) he must transcend or give up entirely his mediæval notions. If therefore philosophy represents the epoch that produces it,—either as the central principle or as the marginal and ulterior development of that epoch,—the modern can come to an understanding of the history of modern philosophy only by coming to an understanding of himself and his own inner reflections.
This will explain why the short period of modern thought is traditionally divided into comparatively many periods. These subordinate periods ring out the changes through which the modern man feels that he himself has blindly passed in his inner life. Modern philosophy is no more local and temporary than the ancient; it is no less a part of a social movement; but the modern man is more alive to the differentiations of modern thought than he is to those of antiquity.
The Periods of Modern Philosophy. The divisions of the history of modern philosophy are as follows:—
1. The Renaissance (1453–1690)—from the end of the Middle Ages to the publication of Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding.
2. The Enlightenment (1690–1781)—to the publication of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
3. German Philosophy (1781–1831)—to the death of Hegel.
4. The Nineteenth Century Philosophy (1820–the present time).
The Renaissance, the first period, covers more than half of the length of modern times. It is sometimes called the springtime of modern history, although it is longer than all the other seasons together. It is to be noted that two epoch-making books form the dividing lines between the first three periods. The transition from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment is signalized by Locke’s great Essay on the Human Understanding, which expressed for one hundred years the political and philosophical opinions of western Europe. The transition from the Enlightenment to German Philosophy was in its turn signalized by the appearance of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, and this book may be said to have been fundamental to human thinking ever since. There is one point further to be noticed in these divisions, and that is the overlapping of the last two periods. German philosophy ends practically with the death of Hegel in 1831, and the modern Evolution movement began at least ten years before, about 1820. No great philosophical treatise marks the division here, for the Evolution movement had its beginnings in German philosophy and in the discoveries and practical inventions of natural science. Evolution, however, became a reaction upon the last phases of German philosophy, and then formed a distinct movement. The book that formulated the Evolution movement most fully appeared several years after the theory was under way. This was Darwin’s Origin of Species, published in 1859. Locke’s Essay and Kant’s Critique are therefore the most influential philosophical interpretations of the history of modern times since its early beginnings in the Renaissance.
The Causes of the Decay of the Civilization of the Middle Ages. The social structure of the mediæval time weakened and broke apart, in the first place because of certain inherent defects in its organism; in the second place because of some remarkable discoveries, inventions, and historical changes. We may call these (1) the internal causes and (2) the external causes of the fall of the civilization of the Middle Ages.
(a) The Internal Causes were inherent weaknesses in mediæval intellectual life, and alone would have been sufficient to bring mediæval society to an end.
(1) The intellectual methods of the Middle Ages were self-destructive methods. We may take scholasticism as the best expression of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages, and scholasticism even in its ripest period used the method of deductive logic. Scholasticism did not employ induction from observation and experiment, but proceeded on the principle that the more universal logically a conception is, the more real it is. (See vol. i, p. 355.) On this principle scholasticism set as its only task to penetrate and clarify dogma. Its theism was a logical theism. Even Thomas Aquinas, the great classic schoolman, used formal logic (dialectics) as the method of obtaining the truth. After him in the latter part of the Middle Ages, logic instead of being a method became an end. It was studied for its own sake. This naturally degenerated into word-splitting and quibbling, into the commenting upon the texts of this master and that, into arid verbal discussions. The religious orders frittered away their time on verbal questions of trifling importance. The lifetime of such intellectual employment is always a limited one.
(2) The standard of the truth of things in the Middle Ages became a double standard, and was therefore self-destructive. Ostensibly there was only one standard,—infallible dogma. Really there were two standards,—reason and dogma. The employment of logical methods implied the human reason as a valid standard. Logic is the method of human reasoning. To use logic to clarify dogma, to employ the philosophy of Aristotle to supplement the Bible, to defend faith by argument, amounted in effect to supporting revelation by reason. It was the same as defending the infallible and revealed by the fallible and secular. It was the erecting of a double standard. It called the infallible into question. It was the offering of excuses for what is supposedly beyond suspicion. The scholastic made faith the object of thought, and thereby encouraged the spirit of free inquiry.
(3) The development of Mysticism in the Middle Ages was a powerful factor that led to its dissolution. There is, of course, an element of mysticism in the doctrine of the church from St. Augustine onwards, and in the Early Period of the Middle Ages mysticism had no independence. But mysticism is essentially the direct communion with God on the part of the individual. The intermediary offices of the church are contradictory to the spirit of mysticism. It is not surprising, therefore, to find in the last period of scholasticism numerous independent mystics as representatives of the tendency of individualistic religion, which was to result in the Protestantism of the Renaissance.
(4) The doctrine of Nominalism was the fourth important element to be mentioned that led to the dissolution of the civilization of the Middle Ages. This was easily suppressed by the church authorities in the early mediæval centuries, when it was a purely logical doctrine and had no empirical scientific basis. In the later years, however, nominalism gained great strength with the acquisition of knowledge of the nature world. Nominalism turned man’s attention away from the affairs of the spirit. It incited him to modify the realism of dogma. It pointed out the importance of practical experience. It emphasized individual opinion, neglected tradition, and placed its hope in the possibilities of science rather than in the spiritual actualities of religion.
(b) The External Causes consisted of certain important events that brought the Middle Ages to a close and introduced the Renaissance. These events caused great social changes by demolishing the geographical and astronomical conceptions of mediæval time which had become a part of church tradition.
First to be mentioned are the inventions which belong to the Middle Ages, but which came into common use not before the beginning of the Renaissance. These played an important part in the total change of the society which followed. They were the magnetic needle, gunpowder, which was influential in destroying the feudal system, and printing, which would have failed in its effect had not at the same time the manufacture of paper been improved. Moreover at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century occurred the following events:—
1453. Constantinople fell and its Greek scholars migrated to Italy.
1492. Columbus discovered America, an achievement which was made possible by the use of the magnetic needle.
1498. Vasco da Gama discovered the all-sea route to India and thereby changed the course of the world’s commerce.
1518. The Protestant Reformation was begun by Luther.
1530. Copernicus wrote his De revolutionibus orbium, in which he maintained that the earth moved around the sun.
The General Character of the Renaissance. The causes that led to the decline of the society of the Middle Ages were of course the same that ushered in the period of the Renaissance,—the first, the longest, and the most hopeful period of modern times. The general characterization of this period may be expressed in a single phrase,—a New Man in a New Universe. This, however, needs explanation.
(a) The New Man of the Renaissance was distinctly a man with a country. The fusion of the German and Roman peoples in the Dark Ages before Charlemagne (800) was now completed. The fusion did not result in a homogeneous whole, but in groups which formed the nations of Europe. The time when this grouping was practically finished is a difficult problem, into which we will not inquire. In a real sense it never was nor will be ended. We know that the nations began to form about the year 1000, and when we examine the history of the Renaissance we find Italians, Germans, French, Dutch, and English with distinctive national characteristics. We find the Renaissance first centralized among the Italians and Germans, and then later among the English, the people of the Low Countries, and the French. The Italian is a new Roman and the German a new Teuton. The undefined nationalities of the Middle Ages now become clear-cut. Philosophy also becomes now more or less of a national concern.
(b) A New Universe is now opened to the “New Man” of the Renaissance. Not only in mental equipment, but in scope for his activity, does the European of the Renaissance differ from the mediæval man. The world is actually a new world—new in its geographical outlines and its astronomical relations; new in its intellectual stores from the past. The physical world that supported his body and the intellectual world that refreshed his mind were newly discovered by the man of the Renaissance. We must examine these two new worlds more in detail.
1. The physical universe had undergone a wonderful transformation for man. Our nineteenth century has often been looked upon as a period of extraordinary discoveries; but no discoveries have ever so revolutionized the human mind as those enumerated above as “the external causes of the fall of the society of the Middle Ages.” Think how new that old world must have seemed to the common people who had supposed it to be flat, as well as to the scientists who had hypothetically supposed it to be solid—how new it must have seemed when they found that it had been actually circumnavigated! How the horizon of men’s minds must have widened when new continents were discovered by sailors and new celestial worlds were found by the telescope of the astronomers! Discovery led to experiment, and the whole new physical world was transformed by the new physical science of Galileo into a mechanical order. It was a wonderful new material world that was discovered and scientifically reorganized at the beginning of the Renaissance. Whereas the common man in mediæval time had found little joy in living, the common man now looked upon the world as a magnificent opportunity. Whereas the mediæval man had turned from the disorders of this wicked world to contemplation of the blessedness of heaven, the man of the Renaissance came forth from the cloister and engaged in trade and adventure. The earth and the things therein had suddenly become objects of emotional interest.
2. Not only was a new geographical and physical world discovered at this time, but also the intellectual world of antiquity was restored. For more than a thousand years in western Europe the literature of the Greeks and Romans had been a thing of shreds and patches, and even then read only in Latin translations. Now the European had come into possession of a large part of it and was reading it in the original. He was aroused to the wonderful intellectual life of the Age of Pericles. The interest in ancient literature, which had been started by Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, became an absorbing and controlling force at this time. The real interest began with the stimulus received by the coming of the Greek scholars to Italy from the East: first the ecclesiastical embassy in 1438, and afterward in 1453 the large number of refugees from Constantinople at the time of its capture by the Turks. Upon these refugees the patronage of the great Italian nobles—chiefly perhaps in Florence—was lavishly bestowed. The Platonic Academy was founded. Learned expounders of the new learning arose,—Pletho, the two Picos, Fincinus, Reuchlin. Of all the philosophies of antiquity Platonism was favored, and it was interpreted in a mystical manner. Aristotle and Christianity were looked upon as mere interpretations of Plato. Nevertheless the Renaissance scholars were interested in all the new literary material from the East. They studied the Jewish Cabala and its mystic numbers. They revived Skepticism, Eclecticism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism. Aristotle was represented by two antagonistic schools; and Taurellus opposed both and appealed to the scholarly world to return to Christianity.
The Significance of the Renaissance in History. We have above characterized the Renaissance as a time in which a “new man” found himself living in a “new universe.” But the old world of mediæval science, culture, and conventional manners had by no means been entirely outgrown and discarded. Periods of history do not “leave their low-vaulted past” as easily as a man may throw away his coat. Mediæval science and theology still remained, not only as a background but also as an aggressive social factor everywhere. Mediæval scholasticism was something with which the Renaissance had always to reckon. Scholasticism modified, frequently restricted, and even directed the thought of the Renaissance. Consequently when we form our final estimate of the place of the Renaissance in the modern movement, we must not overlook the conservative force of the mediæval institutions existing during the period. The “new man” lived in a “new universe”; and his problem was how to explain the relation of that “new universe” to himself so that his explanation would not antagonize the time-honored traditions of the church. This was the constructive problem that gave the Renaissance its place in history.
The first impression, however, of the Renaissance upon the reader is that it stands for no constructive problem whatever. The changes that usher in the Renaissance seem to speak of an epoch that is entirely negative, destructive, and revolutionary. The period seems from one side to be a declaration against time-honored traditions. The “new man” had risen superior to dogma and to Aristotle. Intellectual fermentation had set in, and never had so many attempts at innovation been so strenuously sought. The love for novelty filled the human mind, and the imagination ran riot. The movement toward modern individualism appeared in the decentralization that at this time was everywhere taking place. Latin, for example, ceased to be the one language for educated men, and the modern languages came into use. Rome ceased to be the only religious centre, and Wittenberg, London, and Geneva became centres. There was no longer one church, but many sects. Scientific centres became numerous. Many of the universities had arisen independently, and now Oxford, Vienna, Heidelberg, Prague, and numerous universities in Italy and Germany afforded opportunities for study equal to those of Paris. To the man who looks upon the Classic Period of Scholasticism in the Middle Ages as the golden age of united faith,—to that man the Renaissance will appear only as the beginning of the disintegration and revolution that he sees in modern times.
MAP SHOWING THE DECENTRALIZATION OF EUROPE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
(Note that Rome, Wittenberg, London, and Geneva are the religious centres; that Paris, Oxford, Heidelberg, and Prague are the educational centres; and that Europe is divided into many nations)
But a deeper insight into the Renaissance shows that its revolutionary, negative, and spectacular aspect is not its whole significance. No doubt a strong, universal, and well-centralized government and a unity of faith are social ideals. The reverence in which the name of Rome was held long after the empire had been destroyed, and the reluctance with which the first Protestants separated themselves from the Catholic church, show that the loss of such a unity is a real loss. But the church of the Middle Ages was not the carrier of all the treasure of the past, nor could the church with its own inherent limitations stand as representative of modern times. The new problem which the Renaissance faced might be destructive of much of the traditional past, but it contained many new elements. The “new man” found himself in a “new universe.” He was obliged to undertake the solution of a far deeper problem than antiquity had ever attempted. He must orient himself in a larger world than the past had ever imagined. He must do this in the very presence of mediæval institutions, which had not lost their spiritual nor their temporal power. The constructive problem before the man of the Renaissance was therefore an exceedingly complex one. How should he explain his relation to the “new universe” in a way that would not antagonize tradition? It was a new problem, a real problem in which the traditional factor was always persistently present.
There were two motifs which give to the problem of the Renaissance its constructive character. These were naturalism and subjectivism. In the first place, the Renaissance is the period when the naturalism of the Greeks was recovered. By naturalism is meant the love for earthly life. Of this the mediæval church and the mediæval time had little or nothing. The church had been born out of the revulsion from the earthly, and it rose on the aspiration for the supernatural. The Renaissance was, on the contrary, born out of a passionate joy in nature, which joy was intensified by the unexpected possession of the literature of the past and by the discovery of new lands beyond the seas. Man felt now the happiness and dignity of earthly living and the worth of the body as well as the soul. In the next place, the Renaissance is marked by the rise of subjectivism. At the beginning of our book we have already given the meaning of subjectivism (see vol. i, p. 2), and we have characterized modern civilization as subjective in distinction from the ancient as objective and the Middle Ages as traditional. We have also found, as we have gone on, the beginnings of subjectivism in the Sophists, Stoics, and Christians. But in the Renaissance for the first time does the individual as a rational self gain the central position. This is subjectivism: the individual is not only the interpreter of the universe, but also its mental creator. Of the subjective motif in modern times the Renaissance marks the inauguration, and German Idealism the culmination. While the world of the ancients was cosmo-centric and the mediæval world was theo-centric, the world of the modern man is ego-centric. The love of life, and the love of life because the individual feels his own capacity for life—this is the situation presented to the man of the Renaissance. Thus in the restoration of naturalism and in the construction of subjectivism did the Renaissance stand for positive upbuilding, in spite of the fact that in all this the period was constrained by the powerful tradition of the church.
The Two Periods of the Renaissance: The Humanistic (1453–1600); The Natural Science (1600–1690). The Renaissance is divided into two periods at the year 1600. The reason for taking this date as a division line will soon appear. The period before 1600 we call the Humanistic, or the period of the Humanities; the period after this date the Natural Science Period.
(a) The Similarities of the Two Periods. These two periods are alike in having the same motives. Both feel the same urgent need (1) for new knowledge, (2) for a new standard by which to measure their new knowledge, (3) for a new method of gaining knowledge. From the beginning to the end of the Renaissance the “new man” was feeling his way about, was trying to orient and readjust himself in his “new universe.” He was seeking new acquisitions to his rich stores of knowledge, to systematize his knowledge by some correct method, and to set up some standard by which his knowledge might be tested.
(b) The Differences of the Two Periods. There are, however, some marked differences in the carrying out of these motives by each period, and to these we must give our attention.
(1) The Countries which participate in the Renaissance differ in the Two Periods. In the Humanistic Period Italy and Germany were chiefly concerned. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, these countries had been engaged in commerce with the Orient, had become prosperous and more or less acquainted with the culture of the Orient. In the second place, Italy had been the refuge of the Greek scholars; when the colony of Greek refugees in Florence had died out in 1520, northerners like Erasmus, Agricola, Reuchlin, the Stephani, and Budæus had luckily already made themselves masters of the Greek language and literature, and had carried their learning into Germany.
In the Natural Science Period the Renaissance had practically become dead both in Germany and in Italy. The reason for this is not far to seek. In Italy, in 1563, the Council of Trent had fixed the dogma of the church and had made it impossible for the church to assimilate anything more from antiquity. The so-called Counter-Reformation set in, and Italy became dumb under the persecutions of the Inquisition. Furthermore, the discovery of the sea-route to the East had turned commerce away from Italy. When we look to Germany, we find a similar situation. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) had devastated the land and had made intellectual life wholly impossible.
On the other hand, England, France, and the Low Countries represent the Natural Science Period in the Renaissance. By the War of Liberation (1568–1648) Holland became the European country where the greatest freedom of thought was granted, and it proved itself an asylum for thinkers and scholars. France, through the influence of the University of Paris, was the centre of mathematical research. In England the brilliant Elizabethan era had already begun.
(2) The Intellectual Standards differ in the Two Periods. The Humanistic Period has been well characterized as the time of “the struggle of traditions.” Naturally enough, with the revival of Greek learning the thinkers of the first period of the Renaissance would try to solve the new problems by the standards which they found in antiquity. What did Aristotle, Plato, the Epicureans say in matters of science? What standards did they yield for solving the new problems of the “new universe”? The traditions of antiquity were therefore revived; and the contention was, Which should be taken as a standard? Among all the ancient systems neo-Platonism became the most prominent. It dominated the Humanistic Period because its æsthetic character and its mystical explanations appealed to the susceptible mind of that time. Nevertheless, the sway of neo-Platonism was not absolute. The “struggle of traditions” continued throughout the period, as appears in the schisms of the church and in the literary and philosophical contentions.
The Natural Science Period, in its hope of finding a standard to explain the problems of the “new universe,” discovered a new standard within the “new universe” itself. No tradition of antiquity had proved itself adequate to the situation. Nothing could be found in Plato and Aristotle to give a theoretic standard for the new discoveries and inventions. Nature disclosed its own standard within itself. The Natural Science Period said nature facts must be explained by nature facts. But the question will naturally be asked, Why did the thinkers of this period, when the theories of antiquity were found to be inadequate, turn to nature rather than elsewhere for an explanation of nature? The answer to this is found in the great successes of the physical astronomers, who had started their investigations at the beginning of the Humanistic Period, and had reached the zenith of their glory at the beginning of the Natural Science Period. The discoveries of Galileo were especially important.
(3) The Scientific Methods in the Two Periods were Different. The method usually employed in the Humanistic Period was magic. This first period tried to explain nature facts of the “new universe” by referring them to agencies in the spiritual world. In their neo-Platonic nature-worship the scholars of this period imagined that the control of nature was to be obtained by a fanciful linking of the parts of nature to the spirits supposed to be in nature. The Bible is the product of the spiritual world, so why is not the “new nature-world” inspired from the same source? God is the first cause of all things; He is in all things and each finite thing mirrors Him. All things have souls. To gain control over nature, some all-controlling formula must be found which will reveal the secret of the control of spirits over nature; and to master the spirits that control nature is to control nature herself. Hence arose, as the methods of this first period, magic, trance-mediumship, necromancy, alchemy, conjurations, and astrology. Antiquity could offer (and especially is this true of Platonism) only spiritual causes for nature facts,—hence the search in this time for the philosopher’s stone. There was never a blinder groping after a method.
The scientific method used in the Natural Science Period was the mathematical. The world of experience was found to coincide with the number system, and therefore mathematics was used as the symbol to determine the form of nature events. Induction and deduction were used in different combinations. The period has been characterized as the time of “the strife of methods.” Induction and deduction became in fact the new methods of finding the truth about the “new world.” Whatever is clear and distinct, like the axioms, must be taken as true. All other knowledge must be deduced from these axiomatic certainties. In contrast with the magical methods of the Humanistic Period, which point beyond nature for an explanation of nature, here in the Natural Science Period mathematics need not lead the explanation farther than nature herself.
(4) The Attitude of the Church toward Science differs in the Two Periods. In the Humanistic Period the attitude of the church toward the new learning was not yet defined. This was because the bearing of the new learning upon dogma was not yet understood. On the one hand, on matters upon which the church had clearly declared itself, it was easily seen what could and what could not be believed. But, on the other hand, the significance of much of the wealth of the newly acquired learning could not at first be fully determined. The enthusiasm for science was so widespread, and the new discoveries were so many, that the church was unable to know what was consistent with dogma and what was not. At the outset the church was inclined to treat the new science with contemptuous toleration. Nevertheless, in spite of the new intellectual intoxication there was no real freedom of thought. The position of science was merely precarious, uncertain, and undefined.
In the Natural Science Period this uncertainty was dispelled because dogma came into violent conflict with science. It was soon found that questions in physics involved metaphysics, and that the new science touched the church doctrines at every point. In 1563 the church authorities at the Council of Trent settled dogma for all time. Great conflicts arose between the church and the secularizing spirit. The scientist became wary. He tried to avoid any intrusion upon the field of theology, and he insisted that his own field existed quite independent of theological dogma. But practically it was impossible for science not to take heretical positions, and this was especially true of the Rationalistic School, which tried to construct a new scholasticism. Safe independence of thought was not gained until the next period (the Enlightenment), and this was brought to pass by political changes.
A Brief Contrast of the Two Periods—A Summary of the Discussion above.
The Humanistic Period.
(1) The Time—1453–1600.
(2) The Countries Concerned—Italy and Germany.
(3) The Intellectual Standards—Neo-Platonism and other theories of antiquity.
(4) The Method—magic.
(5) The Relation of Science to the Church—precarious and uncertain.
The Natural Science Period.
(1) The Time—1600–1690.
(2) The Countries Concerned—England, France, and the Low Countries.
(3) The Intellectual Standard—the mechanism of nature facts.
(4) The Method—induction and mathematical deduction in various combinations.
(5) The Relation of Science to the Church—so definitely stated as to be placed in conflict with dogma.
The Long List of Representatives of the Humanistic Period. There was a revival of scholasticism,—Paulus Barbus Socinas (d. 1494), Cajetan (d. 1534), Ferrariensis (d. 1528), Melchior Cano (d. 1560), Dominicus de Soto (d. 1560), Dominicus Banez (d. 1604), John of St. Thomas (d. 1644), Vasquez (d. 1604), Toletus (d. 1596), Fonseca (d. 1599), Suarez (d. 1617), John the Englishman (d. 1483), Johannes Magistri (d. 1482), Antonius Trombetta (d. 1518), Maurice the Irishman (d. 1513). Among the Humanists were Pletho, Bessarion (d. 1472), Lorenzo Valla (d. 1457), Marsilio Ficino (d. 1499), Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (d. 1494), Francesco Pico della Mirandola (d. 1533), Theodore of Gaza (d. 1478), Agricola (d. 1485), George of Trebizond (d. 1484), Justus Lipsius (d. 1606), Schoppe (b. 1562), Paracelsus (d. 1541), Reuchlin (d. 1522), Fludd (d. 1637), Montaigne (d. 1592), Charron (d. 1603), Sanchez (d. 1632), Pomponatius (d. 1530), Achillini (d. 1518), Nifo (d. 1546), Petrus Ramus (d. 1572), Scaliger (d. 1558). The Italian nature philosophers were Cardano (d. 1576), Telesio (d. 1588), Patrizzi (d. 1597), Bruno (d. 1600), Campanella (d. 1639). The notable scientists were Cusanus (d. 1464), Copernicus (d. 1543), Tycho Brahe (d. 1601), Kepler (d. 1631). The Protestant Mystics were Luther (d. 1546), Zwingli (d. 1531), Franck (d. 1545), Weigel (d. 1588), Boehme (d. 1624). The political philosophers were Macchiavelli (d. 1527), Thomas More (d. 1535), Jean Bodin (d. 1597), Gentilis (d. 1611), Althusius (d. 1638), Hugo Grotius (d. 1645).
As examples of the first epoch of the Renaissance2 we have selected Cusanus (1401–1464), Paracelsus (1493–1541), and Bruno (1548–1600). These three men will represent fairly well the wide interests of this epoch, and more especially its neo-Platonic spirit and its methods. The reader will see from their dates that the lives of these three philosophers nearly cover the Humanistic Period. Cusanus lived during the last half century of the Middle Ages and the first decade of the Humanistic Period; Paracelsus’s life covers the middle of the Humanistic Period; Bruno lived during the last part of the period, and his death (1600) coincides with the last year of the period. All three were neo-Platonists. They had been so impressed with the nature-world that had opened before them that they were mystic nature-worshipers—pantheists, to whom neo-Platonism became the truest philosophical standard. All three were scientists in different degrees. Yet Cusanus, the cardinal of the church, and Bruno, the speculative philosopher, contributed more to science than Paracelsus, who aspired to medical science. This seeming inconsistency in their lives is not difficult to explain. Paracelsus merely reflects the science of the time; while Cusanus and Bruno anticipate the Natural Science Period—the one by his empirical discoveries, the other by his mystic speculations which were almost prophecies.
Nicolas of Cusa (1401–1464). Modern German scholars place Nicolas of Cusa (Nicolas Cusanus) with Bacon and Descartes, as the leaders of the modern philosophical movement. Nicolas lived two hundred years before Descartes and one hundred years before Bacon. The German estimate of him shows at least that he was modern in his thought, although he belongs in time to the Middle Ages for the most part. He lived when the Middle Ages were passing over into the Renaissance. His principal work, the Idiota, was published in 1450, when the Renaissance was on the threshold. He was certainly a forerunner of modern times. He was a German, a cardinal, and is now reverenced by liberal Catholics as one of their deepest thinkers.
Cusanus was a scientist of no small merit. He died before the great discoveries were made; but he anticipated Copernicus in his belief that the earth rotated on its axis; he anticipated Bruno in conceiving space to be boundless and time unending; he proposed a reform in the calendar; he was the first to have a map of Germany engraved. He condemned the prevalent superstitions of the church and the use of magic in explaining nature events. Thus he anticipated the science of the time of Bacon, Hobbes, and Descartes, and transcended his own period.
In other respects Cusanus belongs in this period with Bruno and Paracelsus. He did not seek to discover a new method; but he turned back to the revived traditional Greek systems for an explanation of the “new world.” He found in the mystic numbers of Plato and the Pythagoreans the principle of all scientific investigation. The world of nature phenomena must be accounted for by the spiritual world. Cusanus uses almost the identical language of Bruno, when he says that the world is the mirror of God and that man is an epitome of the universe. In the neo-Platonic spirit of the Humanists, he regarded the world as a soul-possessing and articulate Oneness. Although a scientist, he conceived science to be only a conjecture, which in its unreality reveals the inner interconnections of the real world—the world of the spirit.
Paracelsus (1493–1541). Paracelsus did not transcend his time as did Cusanus. He merely expressed it. He was the exponent of its science as Bruno was the representative of its poetic speculation. Paracelsus was a much-traveled Swiss, who tried to reform the practice of medicine by a kind of magical chemistry. The poet Browning makes his adventures the basis of a poem. As a physician Paracelsus could employ the magic arts without much danger of the charge of heresy, for the practice of the magic art was theoretically justified by the neo-Platonism of the time. The Faust of Goethe is at first a Paracelsus. The universal spirit behind nature presents itself in an infinite number of spiritual individuals. Nature facts are to be understood and mastered by understanding the activities of these spiritual forces. In this way medicine became a brewing of tinctures, magical drinks, and secret remedies. It was an alchemy which grew to the proportions of a science. The alchemists of the time expected to discover a panacea against disease, which would give them the highest power. This is the meaning of the “philosopher’s stone,” which was to heal all diseases, transmute everything into gold, and bring all spirits into the power of its possessor. Paracelsus thus turned back to Greek hylozoism for the truth about physiology and the cure of disease; and he met with some degree of personal success, for his physics had many adherents both in theory and in practice.3
In the neo-Platonic manner Paracelsus conceived the world as fundamentally a developing vital principle (Vulcanus). Man is this cosmic force individualized (Archæus). The laws that operate in the world are the same as in man, except that in man they are hidden. The study of nature’s laws, as they lie open, will reveal how those same laws operate in a human being. Now the vital principle in nature manifests itself in three realms: the terrestrial, the astral or celestial, and the spiritual or divine. The Archæus or vital principle in man must have the same realms of activity. There is man’s body, which gets its strength from the terrestrial realm of nature; man’s mind, which is nourished by the stars; man’s soul, that feeds on faith in Christ. Perfect health, therefore, consists in the sympathetic interaction of these three realms in man. A complete medicine consists of physics, astronomy, and theology.
But Paracelsus was a chemist, and the terrestrial nature of man was his peculiar interest. The theologian may prescribe for the human soul, and it is the duty of the astronomer to care for the human intellect; but the practical physician must understand the human body. Here is the Archæus imprisoned in the gross terrestrial body! It is in continual warfare with that body. What is the nature of that body which is so hostile to the human vital principle? Here Paracelsus introduces his strange chemical analysis which characterizes him as a Renaissance physician. Nature has three essences of which all bodies are composed: (1) mercury, that makes bodies liquid; (2) sulphur, that makes them combustible; (3) salt, that makes them rigid. These essences are compounded in such a way that from them the four elements—earth, air, water, and fire—are derived. Each one of these elements is controlled by elemental spirits. The earth is controlled by gnomes, the water by undines, the air by sylphs, and the fire by salamanders. Thus the chemical analysis of Paracelsus discovers four sets of spirits with which the physician is obliged to deal. Gnomes, sylphs, undines, and salamanders are in warfare with the human vital principle for control. When the Archæus is in any way checked by these, there is disease; when the Archæus has them under control, the man has health. The medicines that the physician administers are determined by their effectiveness in helping the Archæus in its battle against the hostile spirits. This makes medicine a field for the magician in the control of spirits.
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600). The neo-Platonic spirit of the Humanistic Period reached its most complete development in the æsthetic philosophy of Giordano Bruno. He sang the world-joy of the æsthetic Renaissance. Italy ordained him priest, exiled him as heretic, and then burned him at the stake as recalcitrant. Italy has produced very few great speculators since his day. The Council of Trent met when he was fifteen years old; already the counter-Reformation had begun in Italy, and Italy was soon to become an intellectually arid waste. The influence of Bruno appears in Spinoza and perhaps in Leibnitz. His one contribution to modern science was in his inspired conception that because God is infinite, the world is infinite in space and time. The philosophers who influenced his thought were Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus, and Lucretius.
The fundamental thought of the Humanistic Period was expressed by Bruno in his imaginative conception of the divine beauty of the living All. Poet as well as philosopher, he was consumed by a love for nature as a beautiful religious object. He revolted from all asceticism and scholasticism. The “new world” in which he found himself was to him the emblem of God. The thought of that chief of neo-Platonists, Plotinus, of the beauty of the universe had never been so sympathetically regarded as by the Renaissance; in the hands of Bruno this beauty became the manifestation of the divine Idea. Philosophy, æsthetics, and religion were identical to him. To express his thought he employed the usual neo-Platonic symbol of the all-forming and all-animating light. Bruno was no patient student of natural phenomena as such, but a lover of the great illumination of nature facts by the great soul behind them. He was not interested in any single group of phenomena, as was Paracelsus; but he loved them all as a religion. Not only externally but internally is the universe an eternal harmony. When one gazes upon it with the enthusiasm of a poet, its apparent defects will vanish in the harmony of the whole. Man needs no special theology, for the world is perfect because it is the life of God. Bruno is a universalistic optimist and a mystic poet. Before this cosmic harmony man should never utter complaint, but should bow in reverence. True science is religion and morality.
Since Bruno conceived no theodicy (proof of the goodness and justice of God) to be necessary, he did not define in exact terms his conception of God. Nevertheless, to escape the charge of atheism, he distinguished between the universe and the world. For him God = the universe = nature = matter = the principle immanent in the world. The “world,” on the other hand, = the sum-total of nature phenomena. The “world” is the body of God, and God is the soul of the “world.” God is natura naturans; the world is natura naturata4. Just as the sum of the parts of man’s body does not equal the man himself, so to identify God with the totality of objects of nature is atheism in the true sense. It is to make God a finite being, although very big. In opposition to this, Bruno conceives God as the one substance manifesting himself through all things. This is to magnify God and to make him really omnipresent.
Nevertheless, Bruno is involved in all the inconsistencies of the Mystic. In a neo-Platonic fashion he frequently speaks of God as if he were a plural number of atoms. God is not only the world unity, but in every particle of the world is He writ small. The elements of the world are monads, and each is the mirror of the All. The Absolute is the primal unity; and yet in the paradoxical fashion in which the neo-Platonist is so successful, Bruno says that all creation is unfolded out of God and is included in him. The speculative poet is so in love with the world that he does not stop to make consistent the distinctions which he has drawn. The natura naturans and the natura naturata, the unity and plurality of the world, are the two aspects of the reality in his own life—and that reality is God.
MAP SHOWING THE BIRTHPLACES OF THE CHIEF PHILOSOPHERS OF THE RENAISSANCE
(The names of the philosophers are given in brackets beneath the towns in which they were born)