Third. Instinct is sometimes an original endowment.
Now, can we or any others tell how it is that mind depends, just like instinct, wholly upon brain structure, and is, at the same time, unlike instinct in that it is wholly dependent on individual, not ancestral experience? And if mind or intelligence does not depend on ancestral experience, how is its origin to be accounted for on the hypothesis of heredity through evolution of species, starting, without life, instinct or mind, by blind forces operating on dead matter, and the forces themselves simply the forces of dead matter? The capacity for intellectual improvement is a remarkable peculiarity of man's nature. The instinctive habits of the lower animals are limited, are peculiar to each species, and have immediate reference to their bodily wants. Where a particular adaptation of means to ends, of actions to circumstances, is made by an individual the rest do not seem to profit by that experience, so that, although the instincts of particular animals may be modified by the training of man, or by the education of circumstances, so as to show themselves after a few generations under new forms, no elevation of intelligence ever appears to take place spontaneously, no physical improvement is manifested in the species at large. On the other hand, we observe in man not merely the capability of profiting by experience, but the determination to do so, which he is enabled to put into action by the power which his will, when properly disciplined, comes to possess, of directing and controlling his current of thought by fixing his attention upon any subject which he desires to keep before his mental vision. This power, so far as we know, is peculiar to man, and the presence or absence of it constitutes the difference between a being possessed of powers to determine his own course of thought and action, and a mere thinking automaton.—Carpenter's Physiology.
REVIVAL OF LEARNING.
TO WHOM ARE WE INDEBTED?
Charlemagne, Emperor of Germany, who is known as a Christian prince, and Alfred the Great, of England, lived in the eight and ninth centuries. The darkest period in the dark ages was between the fifth and the eleventh, but they are known as the earliest luminaries of the modern world. They encouraged learning both by example and patronage, but they could not overcome the gross ignorance of their times; nevertheless they shed a strong and living lustre over the age in which they lived. (See Elements of General Knowledge, by Henry Kelt, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Oxford, p. 246.) Where, and under what circumstances, were their schools established? They were confined to churches and monasteries, and the monks presided over them, but they were inadequate to the task of diffusing knowledge in any extensive circle. The reign of heathenism and ignorance continued.
The Arabians had introduced the knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, chemistry, medicine, and the philosophy of Aristotle into Spain. (See Warton on Pope, vol. 1, p. 184.) At the beginning of the eleventh century several enlightened scholars undertook to educate the youth of the cities of Italy, and at a later period those of France, England and Germany. To the stability and prevalence of the education thus begun is the establishment of the universities of Europe attributable. Those of Paris and Oxford carry their claims to antiquity to the times of Alfred and Charlemagne, but it is said that the real claims of Paris stop with Phillip Augustus in the twelfth century. In the year 1264 Merton College was founded by Walter de Merton, Lord Chancellor of England and Bishop of Rochester, but the honorable title, "Mother of Universities of Europe" is due to Bologna. It was in her walls that learning, in the eleventh century, first attempted to raise her head.
It is said upon good authority that 10,000 students were assembled here in the next century, that is, somewhere about the beginning of the fourteenth century, and that each country in Europe had its resident regents and professors at Bologna. Here the studies of the civil and canon law constituted the almost exclusive objects of application, but Paris directed the attention of her scholars to theology. Oxford began at this time to acquire fame and to rival the foreign universities in the ability of its professors and the multitude of its members; in the year 1340 they amounted to 30,000. Many other universities were soon established upon the models of Bologna, Paris and Oxford. In these logic and scholastic divinity were for centuries the reigning subjects of pursuit. The works of Aristotle were studied with great eagerness. Upon the logic of Aristotle was founded the cultivation of scholastic theology and casuistry, which is a department of morals; its object is to lay down rules for directing us how to act where there is any room for doubt or hesitation. To this belongs the decision of what are called cases of conscience, that is, cases in which we are under obligation, but which, from certain surroundings, give rise to doubt, or how far the obligation may be dissolved; such as the obligation to keep a promise obtained by fraud or force.
To make nice distinctions between one word and another, to separate subjects by infinite divisions, not as the real nature of things, but as fancy directed, and to draw conclusions with no moral end in view, were the pursuits of the schoolmen. The decrees of the councils of the Church of Rome, its edicts and ceremonial and ritual observances, were scrupulously regarded instead of obedience to the pure and practical elements of Christianity. Classical learning was entirely neglected. Here is the feature of Roman church history which infidels have endeavored to use falsely against even Rome, to wit: the opposition of the churchmen of those times to classical learning. This was considered dangerous to true piety, and calculated to corrupt the pure theology of the gospel, because the orators of Greece and Rome were regarded as blind guides of erring reason and seducers to the paths of sin and destruction. Virgil and Horace were looked upon merely as the advocates of a profane and idolatrous mythology, and Cicero was regarded as a vain declaimer, impiously elated with the talent of Pagan eloquence, but the infidel charge that the church has always been in the way of scientific education, expressed in unqualified terms, is simply false in fact. That there was a time when she was opposed to classical learning is a well attested fact, but she, at the same time, taught and operated in universities and monasteries, as stated above. The first dawnings of modern literature are seen in connection with the cultivation of the language of Provence and the productions of the Troubadours. The first great teacher in this connection was William, Count of Poiton, a nobleman, distinguished by his powers in the crusades. Many of the men of note who were in the crusades, were of his character. Their writings upon the topics of war, gallantry, satire and history, first roused Europe from her ignorance and lethargy, first taught her to think and reflect and judge upon subjects of imagination. The Troubadours sustained the middle place between Gothic ignorance and Italian excellence, and literature is indebted to them for rearing the first fruits of European genius and inspiring the moderns with the love of poetry. Their influence and language spread over all the countries of Europe. Their bards were in the courts of kings and the castles of barons. The commencement of the crusades and the beginning of the fifteenth century, mark the limits of their fame. Their romance had its rise in the manners of chivalry, and fell into disrepute when chivalry declined. In the fourteenth century men of intellectual genius in Italy resolved to cultivate their own native language and to combine with its grandeur the charms of imagination and the acquirements of classical learning. The poetry of the Tuscan school, the works of Dante, Ariosto, Boccio and Petrarch, have never yet been excelled by four succeeding centuries of genius and literature. The way was open for the revival of classical learning in the fifteenth century, and for the cultivation of all the arts and sciences connected with its cultivation.
The downfall of the Roman Empire in the east and the discovery of the art of printing happened about the same time. Scholars had long trembled in view of the approach of Mahomet the second. Constantinople was captured by the Turks in 1458; then Chrysoloras, Gaza of Thessalonica, Demetrius Chalcondyles, Johannes Lascaris, Callistus, Constantius, Johannes Andronicus, and many other learned Greeks, fled into Italy for protection, where they found, at Florence, several Greek professors who had been persuaded by Cosmo de Medici to settle in that city. They settled in Florence and there interpreted the ancient writings which had been kept in the eastern metropolis. The best Italian scholars fell in with them and soon became enamored with the spirit of poetry, eloquence and history. Here a better philosophy was soon taken up, and the cunning of scholasticism, as known in the empty speculations of metaphysicians, gave place to the more profitable principles of moral philosophy. The study of the Greek language was introduced in England by William Grocyn, a fellow of New College, Oxford, who died about the year 1520.