HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY.
Frivolity of Renaissance Literature--The Contrast presented by
Machiavelli--His Sober Style--Positive Spirit--The Connection of his
Works--Two Men in Machiavelli--His Political Philosophy--The
_Patria_--Place of Religion and Ethics in his System--Practical Object of
his Writings--Machiavellism--His Conception of Nationality--His
Relation to the Renaissance--Contrast between Machiavelli and
Guicciardini--Guicciardini's Doctrine of Self-interest--The Code of Italian
Corruption--The Connection between these Historians and the
Philosophers--General Character of Italian Philosophy--The Middle Ages in
Dissolution--Transition to Modern Thought and Science--Humanism
counterposed to Scholasticism--Petrarch--Pico--Dialogues on
Ethics--Importance of Greek and Latin Studies--Classical substituted for
Ecclesiastical Authority--Platonism at Florence--Ficino--Translations--New
Interest in the Problem of Life--Valla's Hedonism--The Dialogue _De
Voluptate_--Aristotle at Padua and Bologna--Arabian and Greek
Commentators--Life of Pietro Pomponazzi--His Book on Immortality--His
Controversies--Pomponazzi's Standpoint--Unlimited Belief in
Aristotle--Retrospect over the Aristotelian Doctrine of God, the World, the
Human Soul--Three Problems in the Aristotelian System--Universals--The
First Period of Scholastic Speculation--Individuality--The Second Period of
Scholasticism--Thomas Aquinas--The Nature of the Soul--New Impulse given to
Speculation by the Renaissance--Averroism--The Lateran Council--Is the Soul
Immortal?--Pomponazzi reconstructs Aristotle's Doctrine by help of
Alexander of Aphrodisias--The Soul is Material and Mortal--Man's Place in
Nature--Virtue is the End of Man--Pomponazzi on Miracles and Spirits--His
Distinction between the Philosopher and the Christian--The Book on
Fate--Pomponazzi the Precursor--Coarse Materialism--The School of
Cosenza--Aristotle's Authority Rejected--Telesio--Campanella--Bruno--The
Church stifles Philosophy in Italy--Italian Positivism 429