Westward empire

by Elias Lyman Magoon

CHAPTER IV.

PHILOSOPHY.

The era of the subversion of the western empire, A.D. 476, presents a point from which a step forward, and a change for the better in human affairs, was distinctly marked. It was one from which we may most advantageously survey the field of political and moral philosophy.

The exterminating swords of barbarian conquerors left scarcely a vestige of former systems behind them. A deluge of new influences prevailed, and the moral aspect of earth was transformed. Men came upon a broader stage, amid more expanding scenes, and were soon acting a new character under impulses and in situations before unknown. Standing on this elevation, we see that old things have passed away, and all things have become new; mental pursuits in general have assumed an augmented interest, and especially is philosophy improved in its influence, accelerated in its progress, and enlarged in its extent. As the gorgeous but unsatisfactory pictures of oriental mysticism gave place to the fervor and fluctuations of more intellectual destinies in Greece—gleams of grandeur and wide tracks of gloom—and as this in turn fell before the gradual rise, broad dominion, and fatal decline of mighty Rome, so the latter sank in darkness, but the night of its tomb was soon seen to rest on a horizon of immortal day, which eventually rose to the zenith with augmented splendor. The Hyrcinian forest teemed with nascent states, and islands which the empress of the seven hills had known only to despise, assumed an imposing attitude to produce a language and dictate laws over realms wider than Rome ever knew.

Greek and Roman philosophy comprised the free efforts of reason to acquire a knowledge of first principles and the laws of nature, without a clear consciousness of the method most conducive to such attainments. The philosophy of the middle ages endeavored to attain the same end, but under the influence of a principle superior to itself, derived from revelation. In the course of transitional progress, it fell into a spirit exclusively dialectic, whence it emerged through fresh and independent exertions toward the discovery of fundamental principles. Thenceforth a combination of all human knowledge, in a more complete and systematic form, has tended with unfaltering success to explore, found, and define the principles of philosophy as a science. This, like every other element of cotemporaneous civilization, had its successive periods of origin, foundation, and development, stretching over a wide space, of which the twelfth century formed the middle line. Previous to that epoch, the various elements were disengaging themselves, and entering into a higher, as well as more practical amalgamation, which was destined rapidly to achieve the widest possible good.

The early fathers of the Greek church went deeply into the current of oriental speculation, and they are worthy of special research, since so many golden grains of philosophy may be picked up in that sacred stream. It has already been shown, that by a range of imaginative reasoning, which soared far above the world of sense and outward experience, Plato sought a return to the supreme Godhead, infinitely exalted above all nature, deriving his chief proofs from immediate intuition and primeval revelation, or profound internal reminiscence. This fundamental tenet of the prior existence of the human soul was closely allied to the Indian doctrine of the metempsychosis, and, regarded in a literal sense, must be equally rejected by true Christian philosophy. But if we are to consider this Platonic notion of reminiscence under a more spiritual view, as the resuscitation of the consciousness of the divine image implanted in our souls, or the soul's perception of that image, this theory would then coincide with evangelical doctrine, and we ought not to wonder that this Platonic mode of thinking became the first great philosophy of revelation which was fashioned and promulgated in a mediæval form. It was most adapted to captivate the profoundest Christian thinkers, and pour a sweet solace into their aspiring hearts; hence, the prevalency of this system in the schools, until the end of the twelfth, and the beginning of the thirteenth century. Many leading minds even believed that they discovered in it the types of their own religious views. The symbolical fancies of Timæus respecting physical phenomena, were taken up with spirit, and erroneous ideas respecting the laws of creation long prevailed, although the mathematicians of Alexandria had demonstrated their fallacies. Nevertheless, under various forms, the echo of Platonism was propagated from Augustin to Alcuin, far into the middle ages.

The philosophy of Aristotle was based upon ample and substantial logic, and from the beginning was a wonderful organum, admirably adapted to the uses of scientific truth. His perspicacious, piercing, and comprehensive intellect reduced all the historical and philosophic principles of preceding ages and of his own time, to the exactest system, and for twenty centuries he remained the master-guide. Considered merely as an effort of unassisted reason, the ethics of Aristotle have an extraordinary interest; but as a scientific introduction to divine revelation, and in all important moral questions, the Stagyrite is far from being so valuable a guide as Plato. It was an ominous gift to western Europe, when the works of Aristotle were brought from the East, translated into Arabic, and thence turned again into Latin almost as obscure. The Christian philosophers belonging to the first period of the middle ages, such as Bernard and Abelard of France, Anselm, and Scotus Erigena, the cotemporary of Alfred of England, were incomparably more luminous and forcible than the schoolmen of succeeding times, being much more free from idle logic and empty subtleties. Apparently, it would have been much better if the powerful emperors and potentates who patronized science had brought away with them, from the Latin empire at Constantinople, those philological treasures which there abounded, instead of fostering a universal and irresistible rage for the most metaphysical of authors, and whom it was quite impossible for them to comprehend. But the strange proceeding was overruled for the greatest benefit. The whole foundation of the scholastic philosophy was doubtless thoroughly false, and inflicted great injury, not only on theology, but on the whole range of mediæval thought. But when the evil became most formidable, a mighty service was rendered to mankind, when acute and sagacious men like Thomas Aquinas, endowed with exalted philosophical talents, adopted the old Aristotelian rationalism, and founded thereon a system in which they attempted to reconcile philosophy with faith, and thus avert from their age the dangerous consequences of false dialectics. This, however, was no true reconciliation, and the rationalism of the middle age afterward broke into a violent collision with the divine doctrines to which it had been unnaturally allied. But before this extreme was arrived at, the resuscitation of a nobler rationalism began, and gradually obtained the mastery over leading minds, producing a radical change in the whole spirit of literature and science. Philosophy passed through a very important renovation, and its profoundest votaries began to set themselves wholly free from the authority of Aristotle in his own department, and proceeded to the unfettered investigation of the deepest and most solemn problems. Their main purpose, indeed, was, as one of them declared, to compare the tenets of former teachers with the original handwriting of God, the world and nature.

The now almost forgotten contest between the Realists and Nominalists of the middle ages, exercised a decided influence upon the final establishment of the experimental sciences. These were the two philosophic schools which labored respectively to bridge the apparently impassable "gap between thought and actual existence, and the relations between the mind which discerns, and the objects which are discerned." According to Humboldt, "The Nominalists, who only admitted a subjective existence to belong to general ideas in the imagination of man, after many oscillations, ultimately in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries became the victorious party. From that great aversion to mere abstractions, they first arrived at the necessity of experience, and of increasing the physical basis of knowledge. This direction of their ideas had, at any rate, a secondary influence upon empirical natural science; but even while the views of the Realists still prevailed, the acquaintance with the Arabian literature had diffused a love for Nature's works, in happy contrast with the study of theology, which otherwise absorbed every thing. Thus we see, that in the different periods of the Middle Ages, to which we have been perhaps accustomed to attribute too great a unity of character, in very different courses, namely, in the ideal and the experimental way, the great work of distant discoveries, and the possibility of their being of avail in the extension of the general ideas of the earth, were gradually advanced."

The Arabians cultivated philosophy with characteristic ardor, and founded upon it the fame of many ingenious and erudite men. Al-Farabi, in Transoxiana, died in 950. It is affirmed that he spoke seventy languages, wrote upon all the sciences, and collected them into an encyclopædia. Al-Gazeli of Thous, who submitted religion to the test of philosophy, died in 1111. Avicenna, from the vicinity of Chyraz, who died in 1037, was a profound philosopher, as well as a celebrated physician. Averrhoes of Cordova, was the most erudite commentator on the works of Aristotle, and died in 1198. The system of the great Macedonian metaphysician was well fitted to the mathematical genius of the Arabians, and they worshiped him as a sort of divinity. According to their belief, all philosophy was to be found in his writings, and they explained every problem according to his arbitrary rules. In the preceding chapter, we have seen with what success the Arabians cultivated all the sciences; and let us here add that, while of all their studies, philosophy was the one in particular which penetrated most rapidly into the West, and had the greatest influence in the schools of Europe, it was the one, in fact, the progress of which was the least real. The ardent sons of Shem were more ingenious than profound, more abstract than practical, and attached themselves rather to the subtleties of fancy than to the substantial ideas of reason. They possessed many qualities which enabled them to dazzle, but few attributes of a character adapted to instruct. More enthusiastic than enterprising, they were willing to place themselves under the supreme dictation of another, rather than to feed their own minds at the original sources of knowledge. They gathered up much that had been produced by their superiors in the East, and brought it forward as the nourishment of still nobler races destined to succeed them; but they produced little that was native to themselves, especially in the realm of philosophy, and now exert absolutely no influence on western mind.

The human spirit was not less active and indomitable in the middle age than at earlier periods; and although it was placed under the severest religious restrictions, it still sought to render to itself an account of its speculative belief. The more methodical system of instruction which originated in the cloisters, and ascended thence to the universities, gave rise to diversified sects, whose impassioned conflicts occasioned increased liberty of disquisition. For a long time the scholastic philosophy was exercised in a circle it did not itself trace, and which it dared not pass; but meanwhile it was approaching emancipation, and grew finally into a bolder strength and traversed broader realms. Still it was not thought in that exact form and absolute freedom which should characterize philosophy, and the pedantic system therefore ended with the age it was created to serve.