The Southern Literary Messenger, Vol. II., No. 4, March, 1836

by Various

Philosophy is the most frivolous and shallow of employments in a country where it dares not penetrate into the institutions which surround it. When reflection durst not attempt to amend or soften the lot of mankind, it becomes unmanly and puerile. Look to the literature of those deluded beings, who immured within the walls of their monasteries, separated themselves from the great society of their country, and vainly imagined that they were doing service to their God, by running counter to those great laws which he has impressed upon his creatures, and by violating those principles which he has breathed into us all. What a melancholy picture is presented to our view—what waste of time, of intellect, and of labor, on subjects which true philosophy is almost ashamed to name! What endless discussions, what pointless wit, what inconsequential conclusions—in fine, what empty, useless nonsense, do we find in that absurd philosophy reared up in seclusion, and entirely unconnected with man and the institutions by which he is governed!¹²

¹² As a specimen, let us take the work of the celebrated St. Thomas Aquinas, with the lofty title of Summa Totius Theologiæ, 1250 pages folio. In this work there are 168 articles on Love, 358 on Angels, 200 on the Soul, 85 on Demons, 151 on Intellect, 134 on Law, 3 on the Catamenia, 237 on Sins, and 17 on Virginity. He treats of Angels, says D'Israeli, their substances, orders, offices, natures, habits, &c. as if he himself had been an old experienced Angel. When men are thus cut off from the active pursuits of life, it is curious to contemplate the very trifling character of their discussions and labors. D'Israeli tells us that the following question was a favorite topic for discussion, and thousands of the acutest logicians through more than one century, never resolved it. "When a hog is carried to market with a rope tied about its neck, which is held at the other end by a man, whether is the hog carried to market by the rope or the man?" The same writer too, tells us of a monk who was sedulously employed through a long life, in discovering more than 30,000 new questions concerning the Virgin Mary, with appropriate answers. And it was the same useless industry which induced the monks often to employ their time in writing very minutely, until they brought this worthless art to such perfection, as to write down the whole Iliad on parchment that might be enclosed in a nutshell. In the Imperial Library of Vienna, there is still preserved an extraordinary specimen of chirography by a Jew, who had no doubt imbibed the in-utilitarian spirit of the monks. On a single page, eight inches long by six and a half broad, are written without abbreviations and very legible to the naked eye, the Pentateuch and book of Ruth in German; Ecclesiasticus in Hebrew; the Canticles in Latin; Esther in Syriac; and Deuteronomy in French.

Nothing so much animates and cheers the literary man in his intellectual labors, as the hope of being able to promote the happiness of the human race. Hence the custom among the ancients of blending together military, legislative, and philosophic pursuits, contributed greatly to the progress of mental activity and improvement. When thought may be the forerunner of action—when a happy reflection may be instantaneously transformed into a beneficent institution, then do the contemplations and reflections of a man of genius ennoble and exalt philosophy. He no longer fears that the torch of his reason will be extinguished without shedding a light along the path of active life. He no longer experiences that embarrassing timidity, that crushing shame, which genius, condemned to mere speculation, must ever feel in the presence of even an inferior being, when that being is invested with a power which may influence the destiny of those around him—which may enable him to render the smallest service to his country, or even to wipe away one tear from affliction's cheek.

I am not now dealing in vague conjecture; the history of the past will bear me out in the assertions which I have made. In casting a glance over the nations of antiquity, our attention is arrested by none so forcibly as by the little Democracies of Greece. I will not occupy the attention of this society by the details of that history which is graven upon the memory of us all. I will not stop here to relate the warlike achievements of that extraordinary system of governments which, covering an extent of territory not greater than that of our own state, even with division among themselves, was yet enabled to meet, with their small but devoted bands, the countless hosts of Persia, led on by their proud and vain-glorious monarch, and to roll back in disgrace and defeat, the mighty tide upon the East. Nor will I recount the trophies which they won in philosophy, or describe their beautiful and sublime productions in the arts, which they at once created and perfected. Nor will I detain you with an account of that matchless eloquence displayed in their popular assemblies, which the historian tells us drew together eager, gazing, listening crowds from all Greece, as if about to behold the most splendid spectacle which the imagination of man could conceive, or even the universe could present. The history of Greece is too well known to us all to require these details. A people with such historians as Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, acquires a strange pre-eminence—a wonderful notoriety among the nations of the earth. The extraordinary power of this cluster of little states, the superiority of their literature, the resistless energy of the minds and bodies of their citizens, whether for weal or woe—in short, their real greatness, are acknowledged by all.

What then, we may well be permitted to ask, could have generated so much greatness of mind, so much energy and loftiness of character in this apparently secluded corner of Europe, scarcely visible on the world's map? It was not the superiority of her climate and soil. Spain—worn out and degenerate Spain, enjoys the genial climate of the Athenian, and possesses a soil more fertile. It was not the superior protection which her governments afforded to persons and property, which generated this wonderful character. Property was almost as unsafe amid the turbulent factions of Greece, as under the despotisms of the East; and the stroke of tyranny was as often inflicted upon patriots and statesmen, by the ungrateful hand of a capricious and unbalanced democracy, as by the great monarchs of Persia, or by the barbarian kings of Scythia. No!—it was the system of independent state governments, which, badly organized as they were, without a proper system of representation and responsibility, and often shaken by faction and torn to pieces by discord, nevertheless extended their inspiring, animating influence over all, and drew forth from the shade of retirement or solitude the talent and energy of the people, wherever they existed. It was this system of state government which so completely identified each citizen of Greece with that little body politic with which his destiny was connected—which breathed into his soul that ardent patriotism which can sacrifice self upon the altar of our country's happiness, and which could make even an Alcibiades, or a Themistocles, whilst laboring under the bitter curse of their country, stop short in their vindictive career, amid their meditations of mischief and vengeance, and cast many a longing, lingering, pitying look back upon the distresses of that ungrateful city that had driven them forth from its walls.

The great moral which may be drawn from the history of Greece, is one which the patriot in no age or clime should ever forget. In looking over this little system of states, we find uniformly that each displayed genius, energy, and patriotism, while really free and independent; but the moment one was overawed and conquered by its neighbor, it lost its greatness, its patriotism—even its virtue. And when, at last, a great state arose in the north of Greece, and placed a monarch upon its throne, who substituted the obedient spirit of the mercenary soldier and crouching courtier, for the independent genius of liberty and patriotism—who overawed Greece by his armies, and silenced the Council of Amphictyon by his presence—then was it found that the days of Grecian greatness had been numbered, and that the glory of these republics was destroyed forever; then was it seen that the Spartan lost his patriotism, and the Athenian that energy of mind almost creative, which could lead armies and navies to battle and to victory, adorn and enrich the stores of philosophy and literature, agitate the public assemblies from the Bema, or make the marble and the canvass breathe. The battle of Cheronea overthrew at the same time the state governments, the liberties, the prosperity, and, worst of all, the virtue and the towering intellect of Greece.

With the destruction of the governments of her independent states, Greece lost the great animating principle of her system. Forming but an insignificant subject province of the great Macedonian kingdom, and afterwards of the still greater empire of Rome, her sons preserved for a time the books and the mere learning of their renowned ancestors; but the spirit, the energy, the principle of thought and reflection,—the mind,—were all gone. "For more than ten centuries, (says an eloquent historian) the Greeks of Byzantium possessed models of every kind, yet they did not suggest to them one original idea; they did not give birth to a copy worthy of coming after these masterpieces. Thirty millions of Greeks, the surviving depositaries of ancient wisdom, made not a single step, during twelve centuries, in any one of the social sciences. There was not a citizen of free Athens who was not better skilled in the science of politics than the most erudite scholar of Byzantium; their morality was far inferior to that of Socrates—their philosophy to that of Plato and Aristotle, upon whom they were continually commenting. They made not a single discovery in any one of the physical sciences, unless we except the lucky accident which produced the Greek fire. They loaded the ancient poets with annotations, but they were incapable of treading in their footsteps; not a comedy or a tragedy was written at the foot of the ruins of the theatres of Greece; no epic poem was produced by the worshippers of Homer; not an ode by those of Pindar. Their highest literary efforts do not go beyond a few epigrams collected in the Greek Anthology, and a few romances. Such is the unworthy use which the depositaries of every treasure of human wit and genius make of their wealth, during an uninterrupted course of transmission for more than a thousand years." And such will always be the destiny of states as soon as they are moulded into one consolidated empire, with a controlling despotism at the centre.

But while the states of Greece were thus sinking into insignificance, under the crushing weight of one great consolidated government,—in another part of Europe, almost as small and secluded as Greece, little confederacies or associations of independent states were rapidly developing a literature and a character equal to those of the ancient Greek, and affording perhaps a still more striking and beautiful illustration of the truth of the principles for which I have contended this night. It was Italy that first restored intellectual light to Europe, after the long and gloomy night of ignorance and barbarism, which the Goth, the Vandal and the Hun had shed over the western half of the Roman world. It was Italy which recalled youth to the study of laws and philosophy—created the taste for poetry and the fine arts—revived the science and literature of antiquity, and gave prosperity to commerce, manufactures and agriculture. And what was it, let me ask, which made this small peninsula the cradle of commerce, of the arts, sciences and literature—in one word, of the civilization of modern Europe? It was because the whole of this beautiful and interesting country was dotted over with little republics or democracies, which, like those of Greece, applied their stimulating power to every portion of the soil of Italy. These little states, it is true, were factious, turbulent and revolutionary, but they awakened the genius and stimulated the energies of the whole people.

The exertions of this people were truly wonderful. No nation in any age of the world has ever raised up in its cities, and even in its villages, so many magnificent temples,—which even now attract the stranger from every country and clime to the classic soil of Italy. We find throughout this land, whether on the extensive plains of Lombardy, or on the fertile hills of Tuscany and Romagna, or on the now deserted campania of the Patrimony of St. Peter, towns of the most splendid character, reared during the palmy days of modern Italy; and in those cities we find long lines of once stately palaces now tumbling into ruins. Their gates, their columns, their architraves, says the eloquent historian of Italy, remain, but the wood is worm-eaten and decayed, the crystal glasses have been broken, the lead has been taken from the roofs, and the stranger from one end to the other of this monumental land, asks in mournful sadness in each town through which he passes,—Where now is the population which could have required so many habitations? Where is the commerce which could have filled so many magazines? Where are those opulent citizens who could have lived in so many palaces? Where now are those numerous crowds that bowed in reverential awe and devotion before the altars of Christ, of the Virgin and the Saints? Where now are the grandeur and magnificence of the living, which should have replaced that grandeur and magnificence of the dead, of which their monuments so eloquently tell? All are gone. While other nations have been growing in importance and multiplying the materials of their history as they approach the age in which we live, how different has been the mournful destiny of Italy! The present has well been called the epoch of death in that lovely land. When we observe, says the historian, the whole of Italy, whether we examine the physiognomy of the soil, or the works of man, or man himself, we always regard ourselves as being in the land of the dead; every where we are struck by the feebleness and degeneracy of the race that now is, compared with that which has been. The sun of Italy now sheds as warm and vivifying rays over the land as before—the earth remains as fertile—the Appenines present to our view the same varient smiling aspect—the fields are as abundantly watered by the genial showers of heaven, and all the lower animals of nature preserve here their pristine beauty and habits. Man too, at birth, seems in this delightful climate, to be endowed still with the same quick creative imagination, with the same susceptibility of deep, passionate feeling—with the same wonderful aptitude of mind—and yet man alone has changed here! In contrast with his fathers—

"As the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam, That drives the sailor shipless to his home."