This scholastic philosophy, so famous for several ages, has since passed away and been forgotten. The history of literature, like that of empire, is full of revolutions. Our public libraries are cemeteries of departed reputation, and the dust accumulating upon their untouched volumes speaks as forcibly as the grass that waves over the ruins of Babylon. Few, very few, for a hundred years past, have broken the repose of the immense works of the schoolmen. None perhaps in our own country have acquainted themselves particularly with their contents. Leibnitz, however, expressed a wish that some one conversant with modern philosophy would undertake to extract the scattered particles of gold which may be hidden in their abandoned mines. This wish has been at length partially fulfilled by three or four of those industrious students and keen metaphysicians, who do honour to modern Germany. But most of their works are unknown to me except by repute, and as they all appear to be formed on a very extensive plan, I doubt whether even those laborious men could afford adequate time for this ungrateful research. Yet we cannot pretend to deny that Roscelin, Anselm, Abelard, Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Ockham, were men of acute and even profound understandings, the giants of their own generation. Even with the slight knowledge we possess of their tenets, there appear through the cloud of repulsive technical barbarisms rays of metaphysical genius which this age ought not to despise. Thus in the works of Anselm is found the celebrated argument of Des Cartes for the existence of a Deity, deduced from the idea of an infinitely perfect being. One great object that most of the schoolmen had in view was, to establish the principles of natural theology by abstract reasoning. This reasoning was doubtless liable to great difficulties. But a modern writer, who seems tolerably acquainted with the subject, assures us that it would be difficult to mention any theoretical argument to prove the divine attributes, or any objection capable of being raised against the proof, which we do not find in some of the scholastic philosophers.[h] The most celebrated subjects of discussion, and those on which this class of reasoners were most divided, were the reality of universal ideas, considered as extrinsic to the human mind and the freedom of will. These have not ceased to occupy the thoughts of metaphysicians.[]
But all discovery of truth by means of these controversies was rendered hopeless by two insurmountable obstacles, the authority of Aristotle and that of the church. Wherever obsequious reverence is substituted for bold inquiry, truth, if she is not already at hand, will never be attained. The scholastics did not understand Aristotle, whose original writings they could not read;[k] but his name was received with implicit faith. They learned his peculiar nomenclature, and fancied that he had given them realities. The authority of the church did them still more harm. It has been said, and probably with much truth, that their metaphysics were injurious to their theology. But I must observe in return that their theology was equally injurious to their metaphysics. Their disputes continually turned upon questions either involving absurdity and contradiction, or at best inscrutable by human comprehension. Those who assert the greatest antiquity of the Roman Catholic doctrine as to the real presence, allow that both the word and the definition of transubstantiation are owing to the scholastic writers. Their subtleties were not always so well received. They reasoned at imminent peril of being charged with heresy, which Roscelin, Abelard, Lombard, and Ockham did not escape. In the virulent factions that arose out of their metaphysical quarrels, either party was eager to expose its adversary to detraction and persecution. The Nominalists were accused, one hardly sees why, with reducing, like Sabellius, the persons of the Trinity to modal distinctions. The Realists, with more pretence, incurred the imputation of holding a language that savoured of atheism.[m] In the controversy which the Dominicans and Franciscans, disciples respectively of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, maintained about grace and freewill, it was of course still more easy to deal in mutual reproaches of heterodoxy. But the schoolmen were in general prudent enough not to defy the censures of the church; and the popes, in return for the support they gave to all exorbitant pretensions of the Holy See, connived at this factious wrangling, which threatened no serious mischief, as it did not proceed from any independent spirit of research. Yet with all their apparent conformity to the received creed, there was, as might be expected from the circumstances, a great deal of real deviation from orthodoxy, and even of infidelity. The scholastic mode of dispute, admitting of no termination and producing no conviction, was the sure cause of scepticism; and the system of Aristotle, especially with the commentaries of Averroes, bore an aspect very unfavourable to natural religion.[n] The Aristotelian philosophy, even in the hands of the Master, was like a barren tree that conceals its want of fruit by profusion of leaves. But the scholastic ontology was much worse. What could be more trifling than disquisitions about the nature of angels, their modes of operation, their means of conversing, or (for these were distinguished) the morning and evening state of their understandings?[o] Into such follies the schoolmen appear to have launched, partly because there was less danger of running against a heresy in a matter where the church had defined so little—partly from their presumption, which disdained all inquiries into the human mind, as merely a part of physics—and in no small degree through a spirit of mystical fanaticism, derived from the oriental philosophy and the later Platonists, which blended itself with the cold-blooded technicalities of the Aristotelian school.[p] But this unproductive waste of the faculties could not last for ever. Men discovered that they had given their time for the promise of wisdom, and been cheated in the bargain. What John of Salisbury observes of the Parisian dialecticians in his own time, that, after several years' absence, he found them not a step advanced and still employed in urging and parrying the same arguments, was equally applicable to the period of centuries. After three or four hundred years, the scholastics had not untied a single knot, nor added one unequivocal truth to the domain of philosophy. As this became more evident, the enthusiasm for that kind of learning declined; after the middle of the fourteenth century few distinguished teachers arose among the schoolmen, and at the revival of letters their pretended science had no advocates left, but among the prejudiced or ignorant adherents of established systems. How different is the state of genuine philosophy, the zeal for which will never wear out by length of time or change of fashion, because the inquirer, unrestrained by authority, is perpetually cheered by the discovery of truth in researches, which the boundless riches of nature seem to render indefinitely progressive![q]
Yet, upon a general consideration, the attention paid in the universities to scholastic philosophy, may be deemed a source of improvement in the intellectual character, when we compare it with the perfect ignorance of some preceding ages. Whether the same industry would not have been more profitably directed if the love of metaphysics had not intervened, is another question. Philology, or the principles of good taste, degenerated through the prevalence of school-logic. The Latin compositions of the twelfth century are better than those of the three that followed—at least on the northern side of the Alps. I do not, however, conceive that any real correctness of taste or general elegance of style was likely to subsist in so imperfect a condition of society. These qualities seem to require a certain harmonious correspondence in the tone of manners before they can establish a prevalent influence over literature. A more real evil was the diverting of studious men from mathematical science. Early in the twelfth century several persons, chiefly English, had brought into Europe some of the Arabian writings on geometry and physics. In the thirteenth the works of Euclid were commented upon by Campano,[r] and Roger Bacon was fully acquainted with them.[] Algebra, as far as the Arabians knew it, extending to quadratic equations, was actually in the hands of some Italians at the commencement of the same age, and preserved for almost three hundred years as a secret, though without any conception of its importance. As abstract mathematics require no collateral aid, they may reach the highest perfection in ages of general barbarism; and there seems to be no reason why, if the course of study had been directed that way, there should not have arisen a Newton or a La Place, instead of an Aquinas or an Ockham. The knowledge displayed by Roger Bacon and by Albertus Magnus, even in the mixed mathematics, under every disadvantage from the imperfection of instruments and the want of recorded experience, is sufficient to inspire us with regret that their contemporaries were more inclined to astonishment than to emulation. These inquiries indeed were subject to the ordeal of fire, the great purifier of books and men; for if the metaphysician stood a chance of being burned as a heretic, the natural philosopher was in not less jeopardy as a magician.[t]
Cultivation of the new languages.
Division of the Romance tongue into two dialects.
Troubadours of Provence.
A far more substantial cause of intellectual improvement was the development of those new languages that sprang out of the corruption of Latin. For three or four centuries after what was called the Romance tongue was spoken in France, there remain but few vestiges of its employment in writing; though we cannot draw an absolute inference from our want of proof, and a critic of much authority supposes translations to have been made into it for religious purposes from the time of Charlemagne.[] During this period the language was split into two very separate dialects, the regions of which may be considered, though by no means strictly, as divided by the Loire. These were called the Langue d'Oil and the Langue d'Oc; or in more modern terms, the French and Provençal dialects. In the latter of these I know of nothing which can even by name be traced beyond the year 1100. About that time Gregory de Bechada, a gentleman of Limousin, recorded the memorable events of the first crusade, then recent, in a metrical history of great length.[x] This poem has altogether perished; which, considering the popularity of its subject, as M. Sismondi justly remarks, would probably not have been the case if it had possessed any merit. But very soon afterwards a multitude of poets, like a swarm of summer insects, appeared in the southern provinces of France. These were the celebrated Troubadours, whose fame depends far less on their positive excellence than on the darkness of preceding ages, on the temporary sensation they excited, and their permanent influence on the state of European poetry. From William count of Poitou, the earliest troubadour on record, who died in 1126, to their extinction, about the end of the next century, there were probably several hundred of these versifiers in the language of Provence, though not always natives of France. Millot has published the lives of one hundred and forty-two, besides the names of many more whose history is unknown; and a still greater number, it cannot be doubted, are unknown by name. Among those poets are reckoned a king of England (Richard I.), two of Aragon, one of Sicily, a dauphin of Auvergne, a count of Foix, a prince of Orange, many noblemen and several ladies. One can hardly pretend to account for this sudden and transitory love of verse; but it is manifestly one symptom of the rapid impulse which the human mind received in the twelfth century, and contemporaneous with the severer studies that began to flourish in the universities. It was encouraged by the prosperity of Languedoc and Provence, undisturbed, comparatively with other countries, by internal warfare, and disposed by the temper of their inhabitants to feel with voluptuous sensibility the charm of music and amorous poetry. But the tremendous storm that fell upon Languedoc in the crusade against the Albigeois shook off the flowers of Provençal verse; and the final extinction of the fief of Toulouse, with the removal of the counts of Provence to Naples, deprived the troubadours of their most eminent patrons. An attempt was made in the next century to revive them, by distributing prizes for the best composition in the Floral Games of Toulouse, which have sometimes been erroneously referred to a higher antiquity.[y] This institution perhaps still remains; but even in its earliest period it did not establish the name of any Provençal poet. Nor can we deem these fantastical solemnities, styled Courts of Love, where ridiculous questions of metaphysical gallantry were debated by poetical advocates, under the presidency and arbitration of certain ladies, much calculated to bring forward any genuine excellence. They illustrate, however, what is more immediately my own object, the general ardour for poetry and the manners of those chivalrous ages.[z]
Their poetical character.
The great reputation acquired by the troubadours, and panegyrics lavished on some of them by Dante and Petrarch, excited a curiosity among literary men, which has been a good deal disappointed by further acquaintance. An excellent French antiquary of the last age, La Curne de St. Palaye, spent great part of his life in accumulating manuscripts of Provençal poetry, very little of which had ever been printed. Translations from part of this collection, with memorials of the writers, were published by Millot; and we certainly do not often meet with passages in his three volumes which give us any poetical pleasure.[a] Some of the original poems have since been published, and the extracts made from them by the recent historians of southern literature are rather superior. The troubadours chiefly confined themselves to subjects of love, or rather gallantry, and to satires (sirventes), which are sometimes keen and spirited. No romances of chivalry, and hardly any tales, are found among their works. There seems a general deficiency of imagination, and especially of that vivid description which distinguishes works of genius in the rudest period of society. In the poetry of sentiment, their favourite province, they seldom attain any natural expression, and consequently produce no interest. I speak, of course, on the presumption that the best specimens have been exhibited by those who have undertaken the task. It must be allowed, however, that we cannot judge of the troubadours at a greater disadvantage than through the prose translations of Millot. Their poetry was entirely of that class which is allied to music, and excites the fancy or feelings rather by the power of sound than any stimulancy of imagery and passion. Possessing a flexible and harmonious language, they invented a variety of metrical arrangements, perfectly new to the nations of Europe. The Latin hymns were striking, but monotonous, the metre of the northern French unvaried; but in Provençal poetry, almost every length of verse, from two syllables to twelve, and the most intricate disposition of rhymes, were at the choice of the troubadour. The canzoni, the sestine, all the lyric metres of Italy and Spain were borrowed from his treasury. With such a command of poetical sounds, it was natural that he should inspire delight into ears not yet rendered familiar to the artifices of verse; and even now the fragments of these ancient lays, quoted by M. Sismondi and M. Ginguené, seem to possess a sort of charm that has evaporated in translation. Upon this harmony, and upon the facility with which mankind are apt to be deluded into an admiration of exaggerated sentiment in poetry, they depended for their influence. And however vapid the songs of Provence may seem to our apprehensions, they were undoubtedly the source from which poetry for many centuries derived a great portion of its habitual language.[]
Northern French poetry and prose.