The reader will find an interesting view of the School of Alexandria, in M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire’s Rapport on the Mémoires sent to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences at Paris, in consequence of its having, in 1841, proposed this as the subject of a prize, which was awarded in 1844. M. Saint-Hilaire has prefixed to this Rapport a dissertation on the Mysticism of that school. He, however, uses the term Mysticism in a wider sense than my purpose, which regarded mainly the bearing of the doctrines of this school upon the progress of the Inductive Sciences, has led me to do. Although he finds much to 216 admire in the Alexandrian philosophy, he declares that they were incapable of treating scientific questions. The extent to which this is true is well illustrated by the extract which he gives from Plotinus, on the question, “Why objects appear smaller in proportion as they are more distant.” Plotinus denies that the reason of this is that the angles of vision become smaller. His reason for this denial is curious enough. If it were so, he says, how could the heaven appear smaller than it is, since it occupies the whole of the visual angle?
2. Mystical Arithmetic.—It is unnecessary further to exemplify, from Proclus, the general mystical character of the school and time to which he belonged; but we may notice more specially one of the forms of this mysticism, which very frequently offers itself to our notice, especially in him; and which we may call Mystical Arithmetic. Like all the kinds of Mysticism, this consists in the attempt to connect our conceptions of external objects by general and inappropriate notions of goodness, perfection, and relation to the divine essence and government; instead of referring such conceptions to those appropriate ideas, which, by due attention, become perfectly distinct, and capable of being positively applied and verified. The subject which is thus dealt with, in the doctrines of which we now speak, is Number; a notion which tempts men into these visionary speculations more naturally than any other. For number is really applicable to moral notions—to emotions and feelings, and to their objects—as well as to the things of the material world. Moreover, by the discovery of the principle of musical concords, it had been found, probably most unexpectedly, that numerical relations were closely connected with sounds which could hardly be distinguished from the expression of thought and feeling; and a suspicion might easily arise, that the universe, both of matter and of thought, might contain many general and abstract truths of some analogous kind. The relations of number have so wide a bearing, that the ramifications of such a suspicion could not easily be exhausted, supposing men willing to follow them into darkness and vagueness; which it is precisely the mystical tendency to do. Accordingly, this kind of speculation appeared very early, and showed itself first among the Pythagoreans, as we might have expected, from the attention which they gave to the theory of harmony: and this, as well as some other of the doctrines of the Pythagorean philosophy, was adopted by the later Platonists, and, indeed, by Plato himself, whose speculations concerning number have decidedly a mystical character. The mere mathematical relations of numbers,—as odd and even, perfect and imperfect, 217 abundant and defective,—were, by a willing submission to an enthusiastic bias, connected with the notions of good and beauty, which were suggested by the terms expressing their relations; and principles resulting from such a connection were woven into a wide and complex system. It is not necessary to dwell long on this subject; the mere titles of the works which treated of it show its nature. Archytas49 is said to have written a treatise on the number ten: Telaugé, the daughter of Pythagoras, wrote on the number four. This number, indeed, which was known by the name of the Tetractys, was very celebrated in the school of Pythagoras. It is mentioned in the “Golden Verses,” which are ascribed to him: the pupil is conjured to be virtuous,
In Plato’s works, we have evidence of a similar belief in religious relations of Number; and in the new Platonists, this doctrine was established as a system. Proclus, of whom we have been speaking, founds his philosophy, in a great measure, on the relation of Unity and Multiple; from this, he is led to represent the causality of the Divine Mind by three Triads of abstractions; and in the development of one part of this system, the number seven is introduced.50 “The intelligible and intellectual gods produce all things triadically; for the monads in these latter are divided according to number; and what the monad was in the former, the number is in these latter. And the intellectual gods produce all things hebdomically; for they evolve the intelligible, and at the same time intellectual triads, into intellectual hebdomads, and expand their contracted powers into intellectual variety.” Seven is what is called by arithmeticians a prime number, that is, it cannot be produced by the multiplication of other numbers. In the language of the New Platonists, the number seven is said to be a virgin, and without a mother, and it is therefore sacred to Minerva. The number six is a perfect number, and is consecrated to Venus.
The relations of space were dealt with in like manner, the Geometrical properties being associated with such physical and metaphysical notions as vague thought and lively feeling could anyhow connect with them. We may consider, as an example of this,51 Plato’s opinion 218 concerning the particles of the four elements. He gave to each kind of particle one of the five regular solids, about which the geometrical speculations of himself and his pupils had been employed. The particles of fire were pyramids, because they are sharp, and tend upwards; those of earth are cubes, because they are stable, and fill space; the particles of air are octahedral, as most nearly resembling those of fire; those of water are the icositetrahedron, as most nearly spherical. The dodecahedron is the figure of the element of the heavens, and shows its influence in other things, as in the twelve signs of the zodiac. In such examples we see how loosely space and number are combined or confounded by these mystical visionaries.
These numerical dreams of ancient philosophers have been imitated by modern writers; for instance, by Peter Bungo and Kircher, who have written De Mysteriis Numerorum. Bungo treats of the mystical properties of each of the numbers in order, at great length. And such speculations have influenced astronomical theories. In the first edition of the Alphonsine Tables,52 the precession was represented by making the first point of Aries move, in a period of 7000 years, through a circle of which the radius was 18 degrees, while the circle moved round the ecliptic in 49,000 years; and these numbers, 7000 and 49,000, were chosen probably by Jewish calculators, or with reference to Jewish Sabbatarian notions.
3. Astrology.—Of all the forms which mysticism assumed, none was cultivated more assiduously than astrology. Although this art prevailed most universally and powerfully during the stationary period, its existence, even as a detailed technical system, goes back to a very early age. It probably had its origin in the East; it is universally ascribed to the Babylonians and Chaldeans; the name Chaldean was, at Rome, synonymous with mathematicus, or astrologer; and we read repeatedly that this class of persons were expelled from Italy by a decree of the senate, both during the times of the republic and of the empire.53 The recurrence of this act of legislation shows that it was not effectual: “It is a class of men,” says Tacitus, “which, in our city, will always be prohibited, and will always exist.” In Greece, it does not appear that the state showed any hostility to the professors of this art. They undertook, it would seem, then, as at a later period, to determine the course of a man’s character and life from the configuration of the stars at the moment of his birth. We do not possess any of the 219 speculations of the early astrologers; and we cannot therefore be certain that the notions which operated in men’s minds when the art had its birth, agreed with the views on which it was afterwards defended, when it became a matter of controversy. But it appears probable, that, though it was at later periods supported by physical analogies, it was originally suggested by mythological belief. The Greeks spoke of the influences or effluxes (ἀπόῤῥοιας) which proceeded from the stars; but the Chaldeans had probably thought rather of the powers which they exercised as deities. In whatever manner the sun, moon, and planets came to be identified with gods and goddesses, it is clear that the characters ascribed to these gods and goddesses regulate the virtues and powers of the stars which bear their names. This association, so manifestly visionary, was retained, amplified, and pursued, in an enthusiastic spirit, instead of being rejected for more distinct and substantial connections; and a pretended science was thus formed, which bears the obvious stamp of mysticism.
That common sense of mankind which teaches them that theoretical opinions are to be calmly tried by their consequences and their accordance with facts, appears to have counteracted the prevalence of astrology in the better times of the human mind. Eudoxus, as we are informed by Cicero,54 rejected the pretensions of the Chaldeans; and Cicero himself reasons against them with arguments as sensible and intelligent as could be adduced by a writer of the present day; such as the different fortunes and characters of persons born at the same time; and the failure of the predictions, in the case of Pompey, Crassus, Cæsar, to whom the astrologers had foretold glorious old age and peaceful death. He also employs an argument which the reader would perhaps not expect from him,—the very great remoteness of the planets as compared with the distance of the moon. “What contagion can reach us,” he asks, “from a distance almost infinite?”
Pliny argues on the same side, and with some of the same arguments.55 “Homer,” he says, “tells us that Hector and Polydamus were born the same night;—men of such different fortune. And every hour, in every part of the world, are born lords and slaves, kings and beggars.”
The impression made by these arguments is marked in an anecdote told concerning Publius Nigidius Figulus, a Roman of the time of Julius Cæsar, whom Lucan mentions as a celebrated astrologer. It is 220 said, that when an opponent of the art urged as an objection the different fates of persons born in two successive instants, Nigidius bade him make two contiguous marks on a potter’s wheel, which was revolving rapidly near them. On stopping the wheel, the two marks were found to be really far removed from each other; and Nigidius is said to have received the name of Figulus (the potter), in remembrance of this story, His argument, says St. Augustine, who gives us the narrative, was as fragile as the ware which the wheel manufactured.
As the darkening times of the Roman empire advanced, even the stronger minds seem to have lost the clear energy which was requisite to throw off this delusion. Seneca appears to take the influence of the planets for granted; and even Tacitus56 seems to hesitate. “For my own part,” says he, “I doubt; but certainly the majority of mankind cannot be weaned from the opinion, that, at the birth of each man, his future destiny is fixed; though some things may fall out differently from the predictions, by the ignorance of those who profess the art; and that thus the art is unjustly blamed, confirmed as it is by noted examples in all ages.” The occasion which gives rise to these reflections of the historian is the mention of Thrasyllus, the favorite astrologer of the Emperor Tiberius, whose skill is exemplified in the following narrative. Those who were brought to Tiberius on any important matter, were admitted to an interview in an apartment situated on a lofty cliff in the island of Capreæ. They reached this place by a narrow path, accompanied by a single freedman of great bodily strength; and on their return, if the emperor had conceived any doubts of their trustworthiness, a single blow buried the secret and its victim in the ocean below. After Thrasyllus had, in this retreat, stated the results of his art as they concerned the emperor, Tiberius asked him whether he had calculated how long he himself had to live. The astrologer examined the aspect of the stars, and while he did this, as the narrative states, showed hesitation, alarm, increasing terror, and at last declared that, “the present hour was for him critical, perhaps fatal.” Tiberius embraced him, and told him “he was right in supposing he had been in danger, but that he should escape it;” and made him thenceforth his confidential counsellor.
The belief in the power of astrological prediction which thus obtained dominion over the minds of men of literary cultivation and practical energy, naturally had a more complete sway among the speculative 221 but unstable minds of the later philosophical schools of Alexandria, Athens, and Rome. We have a treatise on astrology by Proclus, which will serve to exemplify the mystical principle in this form. It appears as a commentary on a work on the same subject called “Tetrabiblos,” ascribed to Ptolemy; though we may reasonably doubt whether the author of the “Megale Syntaxis” was also the writer of the astrological work. A few notices of the commentary of Proclus will suffice.57 The science is defended by urging how powerful we know the physical effects of the heavenly bodies to be. “The sun regulates all things on earth;—the birth of animals, the growth of fruits, the flowing of waters, the change of health, according to the seasons: he produces heat, moisture, dryness, cold, according to his approach to our zenith. The moon, which is the nearest of all bodies to the earth, gives out much influence; and all things, animate and inanimate, sympathize with her: rivers increase and diminish according to her light; the advance of the sea, and its recess, are regulated by her rising and setting; and along with her, fruits and animals wax and wane, either wholly or in part.” It is easy to see that by pursuing this train of associations (some real and some imaginary) very vaguely and very enthusiastically, the connections which astrology supposes would receive a kind of countenance. Proclus then proceeds to state58 the doctrines of the science. “The sun,” he says, “is productive of heat and dryness; this power is moderate in its nature, but is more perceived than that of the other luminaries, from his magnitude, and from the change of seasons. The nature of the moon is for the most part moist; for being the nearest to the earth, she receives the vapors which rise from moist bodies, and thus she causes bodies to soften and rot. But by the illumination she receives from the sun, she partakes in a moderate degree of heat. Saturn is cold and dry, being most distant both from the heating power of the sun, and the moist vapors of the earth. His cold, however, is most prevalent, his dryness is more moderate. Both he and the rest receive additional powers from the configurations which they make with respect to the sun and moon.” In the same manner it is remarked that Mars is dry and caustic, from his fiery nature, which, indeed, his color shows. Jupiter is well compounded of warm and moist, as is Venus. Mercury is variable in his character. From these notions were derived others concerning the beneficial or hurtful effect of these stars. Heat and 222 moisture are generative and creative elements; hence the ancients, says Proclus, deemed Jupiter, and Venus, and the Moon to have a good power; Saturn and Mercury, on the other hand, had an evil nature.
Other distinctions of the character of the stars are enumerated, equally visionary, and suggested by the most fanciful connections. Some are masculine, and some feminine: the Moon and Venus are of the latter kind. This appears to be merely a mythological or etymological association. Some are diurnal, some nocturnal: the Moon and Venus are of the latter kind, the Sun and Jupiter of the former; Saturn and Mars are both.
The fixed stars, also, and especially those of the zodiac, had especial influences and subjects assigned to them. In particular, each sign was supposed to preside over a particular part of the body; thus Aries had the head assigned to it, Taurus the neck, and so on.
The most important part of the sky in the astrologer’s consideration, was that sign of the zodiac which rose at the moment of the child’s birth; this was, properly speaking, the horoscope, the ascendant, or the first house; the whole circuit of the heavens being divided into twelve houses, in which life and death, marriage and children, riches and honors, friends and enemies, were distributed.
We need not attempt to trace the progress of this science. It prevailed extensively among the Arabians, as we might expect from the character of that nation. Albumasar, of Balkh in Khorasan, who flourished in the ninth century, who was one of their greatest astronomers, was also a great astrologer; and his work on the latter subject, “De Magnis Conjunctionibus, Annorum Revolutionibus ac eorum Perfectionibus,” was long celebrated in Europe. Aboazen Haly (the writer of a treatise “De Judiciis Astrorum”), who lived in Spain in the thirteenth century, was one of the classical authors on this subject.
It will easily be supposed that when this apotelesmatic or judicial astrology obtained firm possession of men’s minds, it would be pursued into innumerable subtle distinctions and extravagant conceits; and the more so, as experience could offer little or no check to such exercises of fancy and subtlety. For the correction of rules of astrological divination by comparison with known events, though pretended to by many professors of the art, was far too vague and fallible a guidance to be of any real advantage. Even in what has been called Natural Astrology, the dependence of the weather on the heavenly bodies, it is easy to see what a vast accumulation of well-observed facts is requisite to establish 223 any true rule; and it is well known how long, in spite of facts, false and groundless rules (as the dependence of the weather on the moon) may keep their hold on men’s minds. When the facts are such loose and many-sided things as human characters, passions, and happiness, it was hardly to be expected that even the most powerful minds should be able to find a footing sufficiently firm, to enable them to resist the impression of a theory constructed of sweeping and bold assertions, and filled out into a complete system of details. Accordingly, the connection of the stars with human persons and actions was, for a long period, undisputed. The vague, obscure, and heterogeneous character of such a connection, and its unfitness for any really scientific reasoning, could, of course, never be got rid of; and the bewildering feeling of earnestness and solemnity, with which the connection of the heavens with man was contemplated, never died away. In other respects, however, the astrologers fell into a servile commentatorial spirit; and employed themselves in annotating and illustrating the works of their predecessors to a considerable extent, before the revival of true science.
It may be mentioned, that astrology has long been, and probably is, an art held in great esteem and admiration among other eastern nations besides the Mohammedans; for instance, the Jews, the Indians, the Siamese, and the Chinese. The prevalence of vague, visionary, and barren notions among these nations, cannot surprise us; for with regard to them we have no evidence, as with regard to Europeans we have, that they are capable, on subjects of physical speculation, of originating sound and rational general principles. The Arts may have had their birth in all parts of the globe; but it is only Europe, at particular favored periods of its history, which has ever produced Sciences.
We are, however, now speaking of a long period, during which this productive energy was interrupted and suspended. During this period Europe descended, in intellectual character, to the level at which the other parts of the world have always stood. Her Science was then a mixture of Art and Mysticism; we have considered several forms of this Mysticism, but there are two others which must not pass unnoticed, Alchemy and Magic.
We may observe, before we proceed, that the deep and settled influence which Astrology had obtained among them, appears perhaps most strongly in the circumstance, that the most vigorous and clear-sighted minds which were concerned in the revival of science, did not, for a long period, shake off the persuasion that there was, in this art, some element of truth. Roger Bacon, Cardan, Kepler, Tycho Brahe, 224 Francis Bacon, are examples of this. These, or most of them, rejected all the more obvious and extravagant absurdities with which the subject had been loaded; but still conceived that some real and valuable truth remained when all these were removed. Thus Campanella,59 whom we shall have to speak of as one of the first opponents of Aristotle, wrote an “Astrology purified from all the Superstitions of the Jews and Arabians, and treated physiologically.”
4. Alchemy.—Like other kinds of Mysticism, Alchemy seems to have grown out of the notions of moral, personal, and mythological qualities, which men associated with terms, of which the primary application was to physical properties. This is the form in which the subject is presented to us in the earliest writings which we possess on the subject of chemistry;—those of Geber60 of Seville, who is supposed to have lived in the eighth or ninth century. The very titles of Geber’s works show the notions on which this pretended science proceeds. They are, “Of the Search of Perfection;” “Of the Sum of Perfection, or of the Perfect Magistery;” “Of the Invention of Verity, or Perfection.” The basis of this phraseology is the distinction of metals into more or less perfect; gold being the most perfect, as being the most valuable, most beautiful, most pure, most durable; silver the next; and so on. The “Search of Perfection” was, therefore, the attempt to convert other metals into gold; and doctrines were adopted which represented the metals as all compounded of the same elements, so that this was theoretically possible. But the mystical trains of association were pursued much further than this; gold and silver were held to be the most noble of metals; gold was their King, and silver their Queen. Mythological associations were called in aid of these fancies, as had been done in astrology. Gold was Sol, silver was Luna, the moon; copper, iron, tin, lead, were assigned to Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. The processes of mixture and heat were spoken of as personal actions and relations, struggles and victories. Some elements were conquerors, some conquered; there existed preparations which possessed the power of changing the whole of a body into a substance of another kind: these were called magisteries.61 When gold and quicksilver are combined, the king and the queen are married, to produce children of their own kind. It will easily be conceived, that when chemical operations were described in phraseology of this sort, the enthusiasm of the 225 fancy would be added to that of the hopes, and observation would not be permitted to correct the delusion, or to suggest sounder and more rational views.
The exaggeration of the vague notion of perfection and power in the object of the alchemist’s search, was carried further still. The same preparation which possessed the faculty of turning baser metals into gold, was imagined to be also a universal medicine, to have the gift of curing or preventing diseases, prolonging life, producing bodily strength and beauty: the philosophers’ stone was finally invested with every desirable efficacy which the fancy of the “philosophers” could devise.
It has been usual to say that Alchemy was the mother of Chemistry; and that men would never have made the experiments on which the real science is founded, if they had not been animated by the hopes and the energy which the delusive art inspired. To judge whether this is truly said, we must be able to estimate the degree of interest which men feel in purely speculative truth, and in the real and substantial improvement of art to which it leads. Since the fall of Alchemy, and the progress of real Chemistry, these motives have been powerful enough to engage in the study of the science, a body far larger than the Alchemists ever were, and no less zealous. There is no apparent reason why the result should not have been the same, if the progress of true science had begun sooner. Astronomy was long cultivated without the bribe of Astrology. But, perhaps, we may justly say this;—that, in the stationary period, men’s minds were so far enfeebled and degraded, that pure speculative truth had not its full effect upon them; and the mystical pursuits in which some dim and disfigured images of truth were sought with avidity, were among the provisions by which the human soul, even when sunk below its best condition, is perpetually directed to something above the mere objects of sense and appetite;—a contrivance of compensation, as it were, in the intellectual and spiritual constitution of man.
5. Magic.—Magical Arts, so far as they were believed in by those who professed to practise them, and so far as they have a bearing in science, stand on the same footing as astrology; and, indeed, a close alliance has generally been maintained between the two pursuits. Incapacity and indisposition to perceive natural and philosophical causation, an enthusiastic imagination, and such a faith as can devise and maintain supernatural and spiritual connexions, are the elements of this, as of other forms of Mysticism. And thus, that temper which led men to aim at the magician’s supposed authority over the elements, 226 is an additional exemplification of those habits of thought which prevented the progress of real science, and the acquisition of that command over nature which is founded on science, during the interval now before us.
But there is another aspect under which the opinions connected with this pursuit may serve to illustrate the mental character of the Stationary Period.
The tendency, during the middle ages, to attribute the character of Magician to almost all persons eminent for great speculative or practical knowledge, is a feature of those times, which shows how extensive and complete was the inability to apprehend the nature of real science. In cultivated and enlightened periods, such as those of ancient Greece, or modern Europe, knowledge is wished for and admired, even by those who least possess it: but in dark and degraded periods, superior knowledge is a butt for hatred and fear. In the one case, men’s eyes are open; their thoughts are clear; and, however high the philosopher may be raised above the multitude, they can catch glimpses of the intervening path, and see that it is free to all, and that elevation is the reward of energy and labor. In the other case, the crowd are not only ignorant, but spiritless; they have lost the pleasure in knowledge, the appetite for it, and the feeling of dignity which it gives: there is no sympathy which connects them with the learned man: they see him above them, but know not how he is raised or supported: he becomes an object of aversion and envy, of vague suspicion and terror; and these emotions are embodied and confirmed by association with the fancies and dogmas of superstition. To consider superior knowledge as Magic, and Magic as a detestable and criminal employment, was the form which these feelings of dislike assumed; and at one period in the history of Europe, almost every one who had gained any eminent literary fame, was spoken of as a magician. Naudæus, a learned Frenchman, in the seventeenth century, wrote “An Apology for all the Wise Men who have been unjustly reported Magicians, from the Creation to the present Age.” The list of persons whom he thus thinks it necessary to protect, are of various classes and ages. Alkindi, Geber, Artephius, Thebit, Raymund Lully, Arnold de Villâ Novâ, Peter of Apono, and Paracelsus, had incurred the black suspicion as physicians or alchemists. Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Michael Scott, Picus of Mirandula, and Trithemius, had not escaped it, though ministers of religion. Even dignitaries, such as Robert Grosteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, 227 Popes Sylvester the Second, and Gregory the Seventh, had been involved in the wide calumny. In the same way in which the vulgar confounded the eminent learning and knowledge which had appeared in recent times, with skill in dark and supernatural arts, they converted into wizards all the best-known names in the rolls of fame; as Aristotle, Solomon, Joseph, Pythagoras; and, finally, the poet Virgil was a powerful and skilful necromancer, and this fancy was exemplified by many strange stories of his achievements and practices.
The various results of the tendency of the human mind to mysticism, which we have here noticed, form prominent features in the intellectual character of the world, for a long course of centuries. The theosophy and theurgy of the Neoplatonists, the mystical arithmetic of the Pythagoreans and their successors, the predictions of the astrologers, the pretences of alchemy and magic, represent, not unfairly, the general character and disposition of men’s thoughts, with reference to philosophy and science. That there were stronger minds, which threw off in a greater or less degree this train of delusive and unsubstantial ideas, is true; as, on the other hand, Mysticism, among the vulgar or the foolish, often went to an extent of extravagance and superstition, of which I have not attempted to convey any conception. The lesson which the preceding survey teaches us is, that during the Stationary Period, Mysticism, in its various forms, was a leading character, both of the common mind, and of the speculations of the most intelligent and profound reasoners; and that this Mysticism was the opposite of that habit of thought which we have stated Science to require; namely, clear Ideas, distinctly employed to connect well-ascertained Facts; inasmuch as the Ideas in which it dealt were vague and unstable, and the temper in which they were contemplated was an urgent and aspiring enthusiasm, which could not submit to a calm conference with experience upon even terms. The fervor of thought in some degree supplied the place of reason in producing belief; but opinions so obtained had no enduring value; they did not exhibit a permanent record of old truths, nor a firm foundation for new. Experience collected her stores in vain, or ceased to collect them, when she had only to pour them into the flimsy folds of the lap of Mysticism; who was, in truth, so much absorbed in looking for the treasures which were to fall from the skies, that she heeded little how scantily she obtained, or how loosely she held, such riches as might be found near her. 228
IN speaking of the character of the age of commentators, we noticed principally the ingenious servility which it displays;—the acuteness with which it finds ground for speculation in the expression of other men’s thoughts;—the want of all vigor and fertility in acquiring any real and new truths. Such was the character of the reasoners of the stationary period from the first; but, at a later day, this character, from various causes, was modified by new features. The servility which had yielded itself to the yoke, insisted upon forcing it on the necks of others: the subtlety which found all the truth it needed in certain accredited writings, resolved that no one should find there, or in any other region, any other truths; speculative men became tyrants without ceasing to be slaves; to their character of Commentators they added that of Dogmatists.
1. Origin of the Scholastic Philosophy.—The causes of this change have been very happily analyzed and described by several modern writers.62 The general nature of the process may be briefly stated to have been the following.
The tendencies of the later times of the Roman empire to a commenting literature, and a second-hand philosophy, have already been noticed. The loss of the dignity of political freedom, the want of the cheerfulness of advancing prosperity, and the substitution of the less philosophical structure of the Latin language for the delicate intellectual mechanism of the Greek, fixed and augmented the prevalent feebleness and barrenness of intellect. Men forgot, or feared, to consult nature, to seek for new truths, to do what the great discoverers of other times had done; they were content to consult libraries, to study and defend old opinions, to talk of what great geniuses had said. They sought their philosophy in accredited treatises, and dared not question such doctrines as they there found.
The character of the philosophy to which they were thus led, was determined by this want of courage and originality. There are various 229 antagonist principles of opinion, which seem alike to have their root in the intellectual constitution of man, and which are maintained and developed by opposing sects, when the intellect is in vigorous action. Such principles are, for instance,—the claims of Authority and of Reason to our assent;—the source of our knowledge in Experience or in Ideas;—the superiority of a Mystical or of a Skeptical turn of thought. Such oppositions of doctrine were found in writers of the greatest fame; and two of those, who most occupied the attention of students, Plato and Aristotle, were, on several points of this nature, very diverse from each other in their tendency. The attempt to reconcile these philosophers by Boëthius and others, we have already noticed; and the attempt was so far successful, that it left on men’s minds the belief in the possibility of a great philosophical system which should be based on both these writers, and have a claim to the assent of all sober speculators.
But, in the mean time, the Christian Religion had become the leading subject of men’s thoughts; and divines had put forward its claims to be, not merely the guide of men’s lives, and the means of reconciling them to their heavenly Master, but also to be a Philosophy in the widest sense in which the term had been used;—a consistent speculative view of man’s condition and nature, and of the world in which he is placed.
These claims had been acknowledged; and, unfortunately, from the intellectual condition of the times, with no due apprehension of the necessary ministry of Observation, and Reason dealing with observation, by which alone such a system can be embodied. It was held without any regulating principle, that the philosophy which had been bequeathed to the world by the great geniuses of heathen antiquity, and the Philosophy which was deduced from, and implied by, the Revelations made by God to man, must be identical; and, therefore, that Theology is the only true philosophy. Indeed, the Neoplatonists had already arrived, by other roads, at the same conviction. John Scot Erigena, in the reign of Alfred, and consequently before the existence of the Scholastic Philosophy, properly so called, had reasserted this doctrine.63 Anselm, in the eleventh century, again brought it forward;64 and Bernard de Chartres, in the thirteenth.65
This view was confirmed by the opinion which prevailed, concerning the nature of philosophical truth; a view supported by the theory 230 of Plato, the practice of Aristotle, and the general propensities of the human mind: I mean the opinion that all science may be obtained by the use of reasoning alone;—that by analysing and combining the notions which common language brings before us, we may learn all that we can know. Thus Logic came to include the whole of Science; and accordingly this Abelard expressly maintained.66 I have already explained, in some measure, the fallacy of this belief, which consists, as has been well said,67 “in mistaking the universality of the theory of language for the generalization of facts.” But on all accounts this opinion is readily accepted; and it led at once to the conclusion, that the Theological Philosophy which we have described, is complete as well as true.
Thus a Universal Science was established, with the authority of a Religious Creed. Its universality rested on erroneous views of the relation of words and truths; its pretensions as a science were admitted by the servile temper of men’s intellects; and its religious authority was assigned it, by making all truth part of religion. And as Religion claimed assent within her own jurisdiction under the most solemn and imperative sanctions, Philosophy shared in her imperial power, and dissent from their doctrines was no longer blameless or allowable. Error became wicked, dissent became heresy; to reject the received human doctrines, was nearly the same as to doubt the Divine declarations. The Scholastic Philosophy claimed the assent of all believers.
The external form, the details, and the text of this philosophy, were taken, in a great measure, from Aristotle; though, in the spirit, the general notions, and the style of interpretation, Plato and the Platonists had no inconsiderable share. Various causes contributed to the elevation of Aristotle to this distinction. His Logic had early been adopted as an instrument of theological disputation; and his spirit of systematization, of subtle distinction, and of analysis of words, as well as his disposition to argumentation, afforded the most natural and grateful employment to the commentating propensities. Those principles which we before noted as the leading points of his physical philosophy, were selected and adopted; and these, presented in a most technical form, and applied in a systematic manner, constitute a large portion of the philosophy of which we now speak, so far as it pretends to deal with physics.
2. Scholastic Dogmas.—But before the complete ascendancy of Aristotle was thus established, when something of an intellectual waking 231 took place after the darkness and sleep of the ninth and tenth centuries, the Platonic doctrines seem to have had, at first, a strong attraction for men’s minds, as better falling in with the mystical speculations and contemplative piety which belonged to the times. John Scot Erigena68 may be looked upon as the reviver of the New Platonism in the tenth century. Towards the end of the eleventh, Peter Damien,69 in Italy, reproduced, involved in a theological discussion, some Neoplatonic ideas. Godefroy70 also, censor of St. Victor, has left a treatise, entitled Microcosmus; this is founded on a mystical analogy, often afterwards again brought forward, between Man and the Universe. “Philosophers and theologians,” says the writer, “agree in considering man as a little world; and as the world is composed of four elements, man is endowed with four faculties, the senses, the imagination, reason, and understanding.” Bernard of Chartres,71 in his Megascosmus and Microcosmus, took up the same notions. Hugo, abbot of St. Victor, made a contemplative life the main point and crown of his philosophy; and is said to have been the first of the scholastic writers who made psychology his special study.72 He says the faculties of the mind are “the senses, the imagination, the reason, the memory, the understanding, and the intelligence.”