UTILITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE POET AND OF THE ORATOR.
The foregoing considerations have borne us up to those luminous heights where philosophy, poetry, and eloquence, separated in their lower regions, mingle and become one. Would to God that the poets frequented more assiduously these sublime regions! How their inspirations would gain in nobleness as well as in purity; how much ignominy would they spare themselves; how many scandals to society! We should not then see them separate beauty from truth, as they too often do, place all the perfection of art in an empty form, and make their independence consist in placing themselves under the hateful yoke of error and of vice.
Such is the ignoble theory which one is compelled to sustain if he deny that the study of philosophy is of the greatest utility for the poet. Unfortunately, this theory has found in our days only too many defenders. How much more numerous still are those who put it in practice!
It is in vain, I know, for me to endeavor to bring back to a sounder and nobler conception of the most beautiful of all arts those poets who debase it by their very idolatry. But, though they may despise the voice of a Christian, let them listen at least to a pagan—a poet like themselves. It is a disciple of Epicurus, it is Horace who tells them to what a shameful barrenness they condemn themselves in refusing to draw from those sources which philosophy opens up to them.
This great master of the poetic art declares to them plainly enough that “unless they first learn to think well, it is vain for them to hope to write well; that it is from philosophy they must borrow the subjects which it is for poetry to adorn with her rich ornaments; that beauty of style can only be the result of beauty of things; and that a work which contains solid truths under an inelegant form, has far more legitimate titles to real success than verses bare of thought and resonant with trifles.”
“Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
Rem tibi Socraticæ poterunt ostendere chartæ;
Verbaque provisam rem non invita sequentur....
Interdum speciosa locis morataque recte
Fabula, nullius veneris, sine pondere et arte,
Valdius oblectat populum meliusque moratur,
Quam versus inopes rerum nugæque canoræ.”
If Horace returned among us, he would have no cause to congratulate us on our fidelity in following those precepts, which good sense dictated to him, and which all of us have learned by heart from our childhood. Modern poetry has something far different to do than demand of wisdom the theme of its song. It drinks, generally at least, at founts of beauty of quite another character; the ideal is nothing to it; the living expression of reality in its every imperfection, of the revolting, of the hideous, such is the task which it imposes on itself; emotion, such its aim—a surprising strangeness of imagery, novelty of expression, peculiarity of character, harshness of pictures, harmony of rhyme replacing harmony of thought—behold its means of success. Behold the merits which an effete society looks for in those whose mission is to amuse it, and to which these easy-going poets sacrifice the most magnificent gifts of the Creator.
Dante places in one of the circles of his hell a lost one whose crime consisted in having, by vileness of heart, made a great abdication (Che fece per viltade il gran rifiuto). It is difficult to recognize this criminal, on whose brow inexorable justice or the political rancor of the Florentine poet branded this burning stigma. But to whom can it be applied more justly than to these kings of poetry whom we see in our own days making themselves slaves of a vile popularity; to these prophets of the natural order, who prostitute to error the power which was given them to embellish truth, and who employ the creative force which makes them participators of the most noble attribute of Almighty God, in order to form the idols which draw away the crowd from the altars of Jehovah? O traitor poets! veritable apostates of genius, what gain is yours in debasing thus the most beautiful of arts! In place of profaning your lyre by songs which awake in hearts nothing but the lowest desires and most guilty passions, would it not be worthier of you to avail yourselves of this irresistible power of seduction which you exercise over your brothers, in drawing them in your train to the pursuit of true beauty? Do you alone fail to perceive the forfeiture which threatens your genius from the moment that it denies to truth the glorious testimony which truth demands of it? Do you not see that the beauty of forms fails you from the time that you seek it outside of the beauty of thoughts? Can you be astonished that your influence over souls is null, when you are pleased to destroy it with your own hands? Is it not you who, in denying the philosophy which would elevate your art to the height of a priesthood, reduce it to nothing more than a frivolous pastime for the idle, unless, indeed, you place it as an incendiary torch in the hands of the factious?
Still less than poetry may eloquence consent to lower its dignity to the botching up of incoherent images and the nice balancing of periods as empty as they are sonorous. More serious in its aim, more positive in the immediate results which it has in view, it can still less dispense with the assistance of philosophy. Listen to one of its princes, who is at the same time the chief of its lawgivers, while he proclaims loudly this dependence. “Let us lay down in the beginning,” says Cicero, in the book De Oratore, “that the aid of philosophy is indispensable for the formation of the perfect orator whom we seek. It alone can open up to him an inexhaustible source of great thoughts and developments as large as they are varied. It is to it that Pericles owed, according to the testimony of Plato, his superiority over all his rivals. The lessons of Anaxagoras developed the fecundity of his genius; they taught him, among other things, the great secret of eloquence, the art of discerning the proper incentives for moving the passions and the different faculties of the soul. Plato rendered the same service to Demosthenes. And how,” continues Cicero, “how can we without philosophy know the properties of things, whether generic or specific, how can we define them, divide them, discern the true from the false, deduce consequences, refute that which is repugnant, distinguish that which is ambiguous? How can we penetrate into the nature of things, a knowledge of which imparts its chief richness to the discourse? How can we speak pertinently of the moral life, of duties, of virtues, if we have not searched deeply into these truths, aided by the light of philosophy?”
In these words, Cicero displays admirably the superiority of the philosophic orator over the one who depends for the guarantee of success on the facility of his memory, the wealth of his imagination, or the vehemence of his feeling. Such a one without doubt can carry off triumphs; he may reap the applause of the crowd, and drag the masses in his train. The masses, who live much more by imagination than by intelligence, scarcely perceive the want of depth, and allow themselves to be captivated by the splendor of imagery and the rush of movements. But he who would seek a success more real than passing applause, he who would understand that the aim of eloquence is to render men better, and that imagery and feelings are for it but the instruments destined to make truth triumph—such a man will strive above all to place himself in possession of that truth which he is called upon to communicate to his fellows, to know the nature and extent of the duties whose observance he must inculcate, to acquire, in order to communicate it to them, the true science of good and evil. Besides this, he will study the nature of the souls over whom God destines him to hold sway, by the all-powerful sceptre of speech; he will inquire into the conditions and the requirements of each one of those faculties and passions, which he ought alternately to move like an obedient army, and push forward to the conquest of good and the banishment of evil. When philosophy shall have given him this knowledge, when it shall have arranged it in his mind in luminous order, then the orator will be a priest. He will have nothing more to do than, following the circumstances, to give to each of his teeming thoughts the form which befits it: on whatever subject he has to speak, the great principles will offer themselves, his plan will be all arranged beforehand, the framework of his discourse all laid out; his march will be firm, his divisions clear, his advance irresistible; and, while the orator of imagination will go on groping, without order and without light, contenting himself with flowering the surface of the soul, the philosophic orator will penetrate into the depths of the intellect, and will establish therein, on convictions which cannot be broken down, the motives of which he will avail himself victoriously to persuade the will.
VI.
NECESSITY OF PHILOSOPHY FOR THE FORMATION OF THE THEOLOGIAN.
That we may comprehend in all its extent the utility of philosophy, there remains still to be examined its relation with the divine science—theology. A single glance will suffice to convince us that there is no science with which it should be more intimately bound up than with this queen of sciences, which occupies uncontested the first place in the hierarchy of knowledge. This first rank would have belonged of right to philosophy, had not God thought it good to make us acquainted by his Word with the treasures of his own science. But far from revelation having lowered our reason by adding to its light a higher light; far from philosophy being abased in receiving from the sovereign truth illuminations which of itself it could never have attained, it has on the contrary acquired thereby a wealth and an elevation incomparable; for, in allying itself with the word of God, in uniting its gifts with the gifts of faith, in applying its principles and processes to the dogmas revealed, it has produced a science greater than itself, though born in its bosom—a science divine in its object, like the Word who is its father, although it remains human in form, like the philosophy of which it has this form—the scholastic theology.
There is, then, between theology and philosophy a connection of dependence, which renders the study of the first of these sciences impossible without the preliminary study of the second. It is not with theology as it is with faith: faith is entirely supernatural, and consequently it cannot depend directly on any natural cause. Thus we have established above that the utility of philosophy for the acquirement and keeping of faith can only be a negative utility.
Theology, on the contrary, supernatural in its object, is natural in its essence, since it consists in the rational analysis of the data of faith. There is, then, nothing repugnant in admitting the very direct and very positive influence which the study of philosophy exercises over its acquisition.
This influence extends itself to every branch of theology—to dogmatic theology first; for this branch of sacred science, as we have shown in a preceding article, borrows from philosophy the processes which it uses, the method which it follows, and the greatest part of the definitions and axioms on which it depends.
God, having made use of human language in order to reveal to us his mysteries, has laid us thereby under an obligation of applying, in a just measure, to the supernatural order the ideas of the natural order expressed by this language. We must therefore analyze with the greatest care those ideas, under pain of comprehending nothing of revelation, and of falling into the most fatal errors; and this analysis ought to be proportionately more delicate when it applies itself to ideas involved in the dogmas of faith, since it ought to discern in those ideas that which is proper to the supernatural order from that which belongs to the universal essence of things.
The study of dogmatic theology is then impossible if it does not depend upon an exact and profound study of metaphysics. There is not a single one of those general notions which the science of metaphysics tries in its crucible that does not show itself again in the different treatises of theology, and present itself before us under all its forms. He who has not beforehand penetrated into the depths of these notions will walk in darkness; he will hesitate and be in constant doubt, and will have no means of protecting himself from the grossest blunders save by imposing on himself the rigorous task of studying philosophy in proportion as he advances in the study of theology.
The same connection which exists between speculative philosophy and dogmatic theology exists between practical philosophy, moral theology, and canon law. Perhaps this latter connection is still more intimate than the former; for in moral questions there is much less of revealed truth than in dogmatic. The moral theologian, then, will apply most often to reason for the principles which ought to guide him. It is therefore by the aid of this torch that he will solve the difficulties which present themselves in the application of those principles. The greatest part of the duties which man has to fulfil, whether towards God, towards his fellows, or himself, pertain to the essential order, and are therefore under the domain of philosophy. To it, in fine, belong those fundamental theories on human actions and conscience which form as it were the pivot of moral theology.
As for canon law, its study presupposes general notions on law and on the conditions of social authority no less than the study of civil jurisprudence. Natural right is the necessary preamble of both; it establishes the base whereon is founded the legislation of the church as well as of the state; it lays down the general formulas which the positive laws apply to particular cases; it is then to positive right, whether canonical or civil, what algebra is to geometry. He who is possessed of it will have no difficulty in generalizing particular data, and enlarging by simplifying them, as he who ignores it will only acquire a far more imperfect knowledge at the cost of a far greater amount of labor.
These considerations will aid us in comprehending the importance which the church has attached from all time to the teachings of philosophy in her universities, and the efforts she has made to lift it up when she has seen it threatened by a disastrous decline. If we have caught the straight line which connects this teaching with that of sacred science, we shall no longer be astonished at seeing a great Pope publish a bull in order to give to philosophy the favor which the emoluments attached to the study of jurisprudence tended to snatch from it. The church knew that philosophy could not fall without theology falling with it. Would that we could understand it thus, and apply to the restoration of philosophy all the zeal which we ought to have for the resurrection of the high ecclesiastical studies!
It is here—let us understand it well—that we must commence. If you take St. Augustine or St. Thomas as the type of a great theologian, you cannot fail to set upon his brow the aureola of philosophy. A theology which, to the exposition of dogma, did not unite its philosophic analysis, would be nothing more than a catechism; it would have nothing in common with that magnificent science, the materials of which the holy fathers have furnished, and whose majestic edifice the scholastic doctors have built up. Never will the priest be able to fulfil, in all its extent, the function of doctor, unaided by a profound study of philosophy; never, above all, will he be able to defend revealed truth against the attacks of its enemies; for I ask, against what points are these attacks directed to-day above all? Is it not against those truths which belong at once to the natural and supernatural order—to philosophy and theology? And of what arms do our enemies avail themselves to effect a breach in these fundamental dogmas? Are they not almost exclusively those with which a false philosophy supplies them? What shall we do then, we, the defenders of truth? What is our sacred, indispensable duty in the face of these attacks, which day by day tear away one or other of the sheep from the flock of the church? Are we to content ourselves with groaning over the abuse of reason? Shall we give pretext to the ignorant to conclude from our invectives that there is a contradiction between our faith and true philosophy? No; we will mount the breach boldly; we will capture the weapon which our enemy uses in his attack. Our fathers in the faith have taught us how to wield it. Let us demonstrate that true philosophy is on our side, and that our adversaries can only attack our faith by denying their own reason. Thus the ignorant will be enlightened; the wavering minds strengthened; come what may, we shall have done our duty in rendering to the Word of God the testimony which the necessities of the time in which we live demand of us.
I trust I have said enough to disabuse those of their dangerous error who believe that they glorify theology by vilifying with all their power philosophy. Undoubtedly the philosophy which they pursue with their invective is the philosophy which is separate from faith, the philosophy of doubt, of revolt, that is to say, the very opposite of true philosophy. But to hear them speak, one would say, sometimes, that they recognized no other philosophy than that, and conceded to their adversaries the absurd and insolent pretension which they assume of being the representatives of reason. Thank God, this pretension was never less defensible than in our days; never has revolted reason done better the work of faith by its monstrous excesses, and made more advantageous the ground of the champions of the cause of God. Never was it more manifest that there are no true defenders of human dignity except the defenders of divine authority. Let us know how to profit by our advantages. All of us who love the church and the doctrine of heaven, whose depository is the church—we who groan under the darkness which gathers round intelligence, and seems to thicken day by day, let us unite our efforts, and employ every influence we possess toward that restoration of true philosophy which is so desirable. Thereby we render a service equally signal to society and to the church: to society, which is being lost, because the love of truth is extinguished in the hearts of men; to the church, the mistress of truth, which has no longer a hold upon souls to whom truth is nothing. Nay, more; to the divine Word himself we render the greatest service he can expect from his creatures, by re-establishing in their integrity the two channels whereby he pours his light into our intelligence—the science of natural and supernatural truths.
We must, in fact, lift ourselves up to the divine Word in order to form an idea of the destination of philosophy, and to appreciate exactly its dignity and importance. Is not he indeed the common source of natural and supernatural truth? Different in their mode of manifesting themselves to us, are they not identical in their beginning? Whence comes it that, in perceiving the essential properties of my soul, the laws of numbers and of figures, I am absolutely certain that all minds which judge rightly must perceive them in the same manner, and that never, at any moment of time or eternity, can they perceive them otherwise? This necessity, this immensity, this eternity, which our intelligence embraces, proves to us manifestly that these essential laws which we perceive in contingent beings are but the reproduction of a necessary and infinite type. It is then the splendor of God, it is his Word, who reveals himself to our reason, by the medium of his creatures, before revealing himself to us by himself. Philosophy is, then, truly a way which God has opened up for us of journeying to him, and should we disdain to enter thereon? Should not we traverse it with the same reverence with which Moses approached the burning bush? And when, guided by Augustine and Thomas, we behold appear before our eyes the great light of the idea of the infinite; when that name Jehovah, He who is, graven in our soul by the hand of God himself, and involved in the idea of being in all our intellectual acts, shall unfold itself little by little and grow in splendor, like the flame of the aurora, and reveal to us at last in their infinite simplicity the multiplicity of the divine attributes and the laws of all creation, shall we not bow ourselves down before him with the prophet and intone a canticle of acts of praise? And should we permit one to speak with contempt of a science whereby God is manifested to us? Let one say all the evil he wishes of that proud philosophy which seeks in the natural light of reason a means of obscuring the supernatural light of faith. Nothing, I acknowledge, is so revolting, nothing so satanic, as this transformation of light into darkness which a systematic incredulity effects in a rebellious intelligence. But, in like manner, nothing is so beautiful, nothing so divine, as the fusion of natural with supernatural light, of philosophy with faith, which is effected in the intellect of a Christian. Read the Summa of St. Thomas, the Confessions and the other works of St. Augustine, the Itinerarium of the Soul to God of St. Bonaventure, and try, if you can, to separate one from another the thoughts and the sentiments which these great doctors have borrowed from faith, from those which they have borrowed from philosophy. This separation you will find impossible—the rays of these two torches are so intersected, united, and mingled in these splendid intellects. Starting from the same focus, after traversing diverse routes, they find themselves reunited in acting together on souls as eager for science as they are docile to the teachings of faith; and together they have worked in the soul to fulfil their common mission, in producing in them the created image of the uncreated Word. This union with the light of faith in the intellect of the Christian is the end to which philosophy aspires, in the same way as faith, penetrating into this intellect, seeks to unite itself therein with science. “Faith seeking understanding.” Oh! how ill do those understand the interests of philosophy who are ever prating of its independence, and who by independence understand an absolute separation between its teachings and those of revelation! How can light tend to separate itself from light? No, not in this separation does the dignity of philosophy consist; it consists, on the contrary, in producing here below in the soul of its true disciples a reflection and an outline of that splendor which the clear vision of the divine essence produces in the intelligence of the blessed, to make them comprehend what they believe in order to make them love it the more.