The Philosophy of History, Vol. 2 of 2

by Friedrich von Schlegel

But even in the art and poetry, as well as the

science of the middle age, this leaning towards the absolute is equally apparent, and the more so, as both reached their full maturity at that period only when this had become the ruling spirit of the age. As, on one hand, the chivalrous poetry, especially in its origin, was excessively fantastical, until later it was fashioned into a form of milder symmetry, and made to pour forth the touching, heart-felt tones of romantic art; so on the other hand the scholastic philosophy was bewildered in a maze of subtleties not so much metaphysical as merely logical, and often quite destitute of sense. The singular manner, indeed, in which the Italian poet Dante, has in his mighty poem of visions, wherein he displays the most masterly and classical condensation of language, and the profoundest poetical art, contrived to sustain in his progress through the three regions of the invisible world that fantastic spirit, (which was not confined to the chivalrous poetry, but was common to every department of imagination in that age,) next the stern maxims of the Ghibelline state-policy, and a congenial worship of Roman antiquity, and has managed to unite all these qualities with the subtle distinctions of the scholastic philosophy; this singular manner, indeed, has never been an object of general imitation, nor has it opened a path to the subsequent labours of art. But this work will ever remain an extraordinary, wonderful, and characteristic monument, wherein the peculiar spirit

of this first scholastico-romantic epoch of European art and science is displayed in a most remarkable manner. In this spirit there were many heterogeneous elements, not confined to their separate and distinct spheres, but often in the strangest juxta-position, or rather confusion. And thus a regular scholastic science of love, with all the borrowed forms of the philosophy of the day, formed often the purport of the most tender romantic lays or devices; and logical antitheses, syllogisms, and subtleties were solved in rhyme and verse, with a most charming play of fancy. It is these vagaries (and so they are in many respects) which so captivate our feelings in the poetry of Petrarch—one of the restorers of ancient literature and of modern learning.

More strongly still than in its poetry, the richness of an inventive imagination displayed itself in the wonderful architecture of the middle age, as so many splendid monuments in Germany, England, a part of France, and in the North of Italy and Venice can attest. The style of the Byzantine churches was the first and principal model of this Gothic architecture; though a fantastic monument of Arabic architecture may here and there perhaps have had some influence in its formation. The elaborate and ornate style, and the fantastic singularity of this architecture, breathe the true spirit of the German middle age. At this time, painting, too, began to make some progress in Italy and Germany;

though its progress was incomparably slower than that of architecture, and the art reached its perfection only in the fifteenth century; but devoted entirely to religious subjects, and consecrated to the use of churches or private devotion, painting remained, down to the time of Raphael, an art peculiarly Christian, and displayed the profoundest import, and the most masterly power. From this period, renouncing, for the most part, the religious character of the elder Christian painting, art began to be affected by that enthusiasm for the Pagan antique, which indeed was not limited to the fine arts, but was the prevailing character of literature and science in this second period of European culture. And I have made these few remarks, not so much for the sake of art itself, which would require a separate investigation, but as tending to elucidate the various epochs and stages in the progress of modern civilization.

It was an ill-boding gift that the Ghibelline Emperor made to Europe when he brought from the East the works of Aristotle, translated, or rather burlesqued, into Arabic, and thence turned again into Latin, till at last they became often perfectly unintelligible. The elder Christian philosophers belonging to the first period of the middle age, such as in England (which still retained a high pre-eminence in Latin literature and Christian science,) a Scotus Erigena, the contemporary of Alfred,—a St. Anselm, so highly revered in theology,—and afterwards in France,

an Abelard, and also a St. Bernard, in whose eloquence there runs so pure a vein of piety—and so charming a mysticism of feeling—all these elder Christian philosophers, both in thought and language were incomparably clearer and more precise than the schoolmen of succeeding times, and were for the most part entirely free from that interminable play of an idle logic, and those empty metaphysical subtleties. The natural sciences were then in too low and feeble a state to form any distinct branch of human inquiry; and this very circumstance contributed, as was then indeed perfectly natural, to knit closer the ties which connected philosophy with theology. But independently of the peculiar circumstances of those times, it is evident that Christian philosophy can be founded on religion only, and not on any theory, wherein nature occupies the first and highest place—not on any doctrine, which contains the germ of a Pagan worship of nature, renewed under a scientific form. As little can a Christian philosophy rest on the principle of Individualism—a reason which submits not humbly to God and his revelation, but which, all concentrated in itself, aspires to be all-sufficing and all-creative. In either respect, the Stagyrite, when studied even in the original, and thoroughly understood, would have been a guide very unsafe, very likely to mislead, as well in natural philosophy as in the higher problems of Metaphysics. The best and most instructive

of his writings, his ethical or political works, could not even be understood by those scholastic admirers of the Grecian sage; for the profound allusions they contained to the customs and political history of Greece made the knowledge of these, and a complete investigation of the original sources of information, absolutely necessary to their comprehension. Even his logical and rhetorical books derive their chief and liveliest interest from the fact that they were intended to remedy the dialectic malady of Grecian intellect, and to oppose the all-usurping influence of a false rhetoric among the Greeks. Lastly, to comprehend fully, rightly appreciate, and turn to advantage, as our times are enabled to do, the most solid works of the profound ancient—those on mixed physics and natural history, the schoolmen were entirely destitute of the necessary aids and preparatory information.

If the Christian philosophers of the middle age, instead of adopting the Aristotelian system, had built and improved on the philosophy of those first great original thinkers of Christian Europe already mentioned, or on the philosophy of the primitive fathers, even those of the Latin church, for by them also the Platonic doctrines (the only doctrines of antiquity at all reconcileable with a philosophy of revelation,) had long been planted and naturalized on the Christian soil;—if this had been the case, the edifice of Christian philosophy would have been raised with far greater ease and rapidity, and been

wrought into a much more beautiful structure. Or if even the Greek originals had been deemed absolutely indispensable towards such an object, it had been better that, instead of waiting till the destruction of Constantinople, the powerful Emperors and Potentates, who patronized art and science, had, during the short duration of the Latin Empire at Constantinople, brought away with them those philological treasures, instead of the works of Aristotle so absurdly disfigured in the Arabic, and in the still more unintelligible Latin version. It was, on one hand, the inclination of the age to absolute modes of thinking, to the art of logical tournaments, and on the other, a hope, secretly entertained, that by the pretended magical power of these logical devices, one might learn and obtain the mastery of many profound secrets of nature (which by the way should have been sought anywhere but in the real Aristotle); finally, the unquenchable thirst after a fruit of knowledge, deemed forbidden—it was all these circumstances, which created now that universal and irresistible rage for Aristotle, reputed as he was to contain the very essence of all liberal science and philosophy.