RELIGION AND THE HUMAN MIND IN EUROPE.
As we are to examine what was, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the conduct of the Church in reference to innovators, we will avail
ourselves of the excellent opportunity afforded by this epoch for
noticing the progress of the human mind. It has been said that
in Europe intellectual development was exclusively theological.
This is true, and necessarily so; all the faculties of man receive
their development according to the circumstances that surround
him; and as his health, his temperament, his strength, his color
even, and his stature depend upon climate, food, mode of life, and
other circumstances affecting him, so in like manner his moral
and intellectual faculties bear the stamp of the principles which
predominate in the family and society of which he forms a constituent
part. Now, in Europe, religion was the predominating element; in
every thing religion made herself heard and felt; nowhere was there a
principle of life or action discoverable unconnected with religion. It
was quite natural, therefore, that in Europe all the faculties of man
should have their development in a religious sense. A little attention
will show us that this was the case not with the intellect only, but
likewise with the heart, with the passions even, and with the whole
moral man; just as, in whatever direction we go in Europe, we meet
at every step with some monument of religion; so whatever faculty we
examine in the individual European, we find upon it the impress of
religion.
And the case was the same with families and society as with
individuals; religion was equally predominant in both. Wherever man
has progressed towards a state of perfection, we observe a similar
phenomenon; and it is an invariable fact in the history of the human
race, that no society ever entered on the road to civilization, save
under the direction and impulse of religious principles. True or
false, rational or absurd, wherever man is on the road to improvement,
these principles are found. Some nations, indeed, may well excite our
pity at the monstrous superstitions into which they have fallen; but
we still must acknowledge, that, under these very superstitions, lay
concealed germs of good that did not fail to produce considerable
benefits. The Egyptians, Phœnicians, Greeks, and Romans were all
extremely superstitious; yet the progress they made in civilization
and intellectual culture was such, that their monuments and memorials
strike us even yet with admiration. It is easy to smile at an
extravagant observance or a senseless dogma; but we should remember
that the growth and preservation of certain moral principles cannot
be otherwise secured than under the protecting shade of religious
belief. Now, these principles are most indispensably necessary to
prevent individuals from being monstrously changed, and to maintain
the social and family ties unbroken. Much has been said against the
immorality tolerated, permitted, and sometimes even taught by certain
forms of religion; and certainly nothing is more lamentable than to
behold man thus led astray by that which ought to be his best guide.
Let us, however, look for a reality beneath these shadows, which appear
at first so gloomy, and we shall soon discover some rays of light that
may lead us to regard false religions, not indeed with indulgence,
but with less horror than those infamous systems which make matter
self-existent, and pleasure the only divinity.
To preserve the idea of moral good and evil, an idea without meaning
except in the supposition that there exists a divine power, is itself
an inestimable advantage. Now this advantage adheres inseparably to
every form of religion, even to those that make the most absurd and
most criminal applications of the idea of good and evil. Doubtless, the
people of antiquity, and those of our own time who have not received
the light of Christianity, have gone most deplorably astray; but, in
the midst of their very wanderings, there always remains a certain
degree of light; and this light, however dimly it shines, however faint
and feeble its rays, is incomparably better than the thick darkness of
atheism. Between the nations of antiquity and those of Europe there is
this very remarkable difference, that the former passed from a state of
infancy to a state of civilization; while the latter advanced to this,
in passing from that undefinable state which, in Europe, was the result
of the invasion of the barbarians, of the confused mixture of a young
with a decrepit society, of rude and ferocious nations with others that
were civilized, cultivated, or rather effeminate. Hence, amongst the
ancients the imagination was developed before the intellect, whilst
amongst Europeans the intellect came before the imagination. With the
former, poetry came first; with the latter, what is termed dialectics
and metaphysics.
What is the reason of so striking a difference? When a people are yet
in their infancy, either an infancy properly so called, or having lived
long in ignorance, in a state similar to that of an infant people, we
find them rich in sensations, but very poor in ideas. Nature, with
her majesty, her wonders, and her mysteries, affects such a people
the most; their language is grand, picturesque, and highly poetical;
their passions are not refined, but, on the other hand, they are
very energetic and violent. Now an intellect that ingenuously seeks
the light, loves truth in its purity and simplicity, confesses and
embraces it readily, lending itself neither to subtilties, artifices,
nor disputes. The least thing that makes a vivid impression upon the
senses or the imagination of such a people fills them with surprise and
wonder; you cannot inspire them with enthusiasm without setting before
them something heroic and sublime.
On the first glance at the state of the people of Europe in the middle
ages, we perceive in them a certain resemblance to an infant people,
but, at the same time, a very striking difference on several points.
Their passions are very strong, they are pleased beyond every thing
with the wonderful and the extraordinary, and, for want of realities,
their imagination conjures up gigantic phantoms. The profession of arms
is their favorite occupation; they rush eagerly into the most perilous
adventures, and meet them with incredible courage. All this indicates a
development of the feelings of sensibility and imagination, inasmuch as
they produce intrepidity and valor; but, strange to say, together with
these dispositions, we find a singular taste for things the most purely
intellectual; with the most lively, ardent, and picturesque reality,
we find associated a taste for the coldest and barest abstractions.
A knight, with the cross on his shoulder, gorgeously clad, covered
with trophies, beaming with glory won in a hundred combats; a
subtile dialectician, disputing on the system of the Nominalists,
and urging his subtilely devised abstractions till he becomes
unintelligible;--these are certainly two characters very dissimilar,
and yet they exist together in the same society; both have their
prestige, receive the greatest homage, and are followed by enthusiastic
admirers. Even when we have taken into account the singular position
of the European nations at that period, it is not easy to assign a
cause for this anomaly. We can easily understand how the people of
Europe, emerging, for the most part, from the forests of the North, and
engaged for a long time either in intestine wars or in conflicts with
vanquished tribes, should have preserved, together with their warlike
habits, a strong and lively imagination and violent passions; but it
is not so easy to account for their taste for an order of ideas purely
metaphysical and dialectical. When, however, we come to look deeply
into the matter, we discover that this apparent anomaly had its origin
in the very nature of things. How is it that a people in their infancy
have so much imagination and sensibility? Because the objects by which
these faculties are naturally excited abound around them; because
individuals, being continually exposed to the influence of external
things, these objects operate upon them more forcibly. Man first feels
and imagines; later he understands and reflects: this is the natural
order in which his faculties begin to operate. Hence, with every people
the development of the imagination and of the passions precedes that of
the intellect; the passions and the imagination finding their object
and aliment before the intellect. This accounts, also, for the fact
that the poetical always precedes the philosophical era. From this
it follows, that nations in their infancy think little, as they want
ideas; and this is the chief distinctive mark between them and the
people of Europe at the period we are speaking of. In fact, _ideas_ at
that time _abounded in Europe_; and hence the purely intellectual was
held in such repute even amidst the most profound ignorance. Hence,
also, the intellect strove to shine even before its time appeared to
have arrived. Sound ideas respecting God, respecting man and society,
were already everywhere disseminated, thanks to the incessant teaching
of Christianity; and as there still remained numerous traces of the
wisdom of antiquity, both Christian and Pagan, the consequence was,
that every man possessed of a little learning had, in fact, a great
fund of ideas.
It is clear, however, that notwithstanding these advantages, the
minds of men could not, amidst the chaos of erudition and philosophy
that then presented itself, escape the confusion naturally resulting
from the wide-spread ignorance, occasioned by a long succession of
revolutions. They could not possess sufficient discrimination and
judgment to pursue all at once, and with success, the study of the
Bible, of the writings of the holy Fathers, of the civil and canon
law, of the works of Aristotle, and of the Arabian commentaries. Yet
these were all studied at the same time; on all these, disputes were
zealously maintained; and the errors and extravagances which in such
a state of things were inevitable were accompanied by the presumption
that is invariably inherent in ignorance. To succeed in explaining
certain passages of the Bible, of the Fathers, of the codes, and of
the works of philosophers, great preparatory labors were necessary,
as the experience of subsequent ages has proved. It was necessary
to study languages, to examine archives and monuments, to collect
together from all parts an immense mass of materials; then, to reduce
these to order, to compare them together, and to discriminate between
them; in a word, it was necessary to possess a rich fund of learning,
enlightened by the torch of criticism. Now all this was then wanting,
and could only be attained in the course of ages. The consequence was
inevitable, considering the mania that existed for explaining every
thing. If a difficulty arose, and the facts and knowledge requisite
for its solution were wanting, they adopted a roundabout way; instead
of seeking the support derivable from facts, the disputants took their
stand upon an idea; substituting some subtle abstraction for solid
reasoning; where they found it impossible to form a body of sound
doctrine, they threw together a confused mass of ideas and words. Who
could repress a smile, or not feel pity for Abelard, for instance,
promising his disciples to explain to them the prophet Ezechiel, with
very little time for preparation, and actually fulfilling his promise?
I would ask the reader whether, in the middle of the thirteenth
century, an explanation of Ezechiel, given with only a slight
preparation, could have been successful or interesting?
The study of dialectics and metaphysics was embraced with so much
ardor, that in a short time these branches of knowledge superseded all
others. The consequences were prejudicial to the minds of men; their
attention being wholly engrossed by this object of their choice, the
pursuit of more solid learning was regarded with indifference--history
was neglected, literature unnoticed, in a word, the mind was only half
developed. Every thing appertaining to the imagination and the feelings
was sacrificed to the cultivation of the intellect; not, indeed, in
its most useful operations,--the formation of a clear and perfect
perception, of a mature judgment, of a habit of sound and accurate
reasoning,--but in those which are astute, subtle, and extravagant.
Those who would reproach the Church for her conduct at that period
in reference to innovators have a very imperfect understanding of
the actual condition of Europe as regards science and religion. We
have already seen that the intellectual development was religious;
consequently, even when it deviated from the right path, it still
retained this character, and the oddest subtilties were applied to
mysteries the most sublime. Almost all the heretics of the time were
renowned dialecticians, and their errors arose from an excess of
subtilty. Roscelin, one of the leading dialecticians of his time,
was the founder, or at least one of the leaders of the sect of the
Nominalists. Abelard was celebrated for the readiness of his talents,
his skill in disputation, and his address in explaining every thing to
suit his thesis. The abuse of his intellect led him into the errors
which we have already spoken of--errors which he would have avoided,
had he not proudly yielded himself up to his own vain thoughts. The
mania for subtilising every thing drew Gilbert de la Poirée into
the most lamentable errors on the subject of the Divinity; Amaury,
another celebrated philosopher, after the fashion of the time, took
up so warmly the question of Aristotle's primordial matter, that he
ended by declaring matter to be God. The Church strenuously opposed
these errors, which arose in great numbers in minds led astray by vain
arguments, and puffed up with foolish pride. It would argue a strange
misconception of the true interests of science, to suppose that the
Church's resistance to these raving innovators was not most favorable
to intellectual progress.
These headstrong men, eager in the pursuit of knowledge, and captivated
by the first chimera presented to their imagination, stood greatly in
need of some discreet authority to restrain them within the bounds
of reason and moderation. The intellect had scarcely taken the first
steps in the career of knowledge, and yet fancied it already knew every
thing, "pretending to know all things except the _nescio_, I know not,"
as St. Bernard reproaches the vain Abelard. Why should we not, for the
good of humanity, and the credit of the human intellect, approve the
condemnation pronounced by the Church against the errors of Gilbert,
which aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of the ideas that we
have of God? If Amaury and his disciple David de Dinant are smitten by
the sentence of the Church, it is because they destroy the idea of the
Divinity by confounding the Creator with _primordial matter_. Was it
for the advantage of Europe that its intellectual movement should be
commenced by precipitating itself at the very outset into the abyss of
pantheism?
Had the human intellect followed in its development the way marked out
for it by the Church, European civilization would have gained at least
two centuries; the fourteenth century would have been as far advanced
as the sixteenth was. To convince ourselves of the truth of this
assertion, we have only to compare writings with writings, and men with
men; the men most firmly attached to the faith of the Church attained
to such eminence that they left the age in which they lived far behind
them. Roscelin's antagonist was St. Anselm; the latter always remained
faithful to the authority of the Church; the former rebelled against
her: and who, let met ask, would have the hardihood to compare the
dialectician of Compiègne with the learned Archbishop of Canterbury?
How vast the difference between the profound and skilful metaphysician
who composed the Monologue and the Prosologue, and the frivolous leader
of the disputes of the Nominalists! Have the subtilties and cavillings
of Roscelin any weight whatever against the lofty thoughts of the man
who, in the eleventh century, to prove the existence of God, could
reject all vain and captious reasonings, concentrate himself within
himself, consult his own ideas, compare them with their object, and
demonstrate the existence of God from the very idea of God, thus
anticipating Descartes by five hundred years? Who best understood the
true interests of science? Show me how the intellect of St. Anselm was
degraded or shackled by the influence of the formidable authority of
the Church, by any usurpation on the part of Popes of the rights of
the human mind. And can Abelard himself be compared, either as a man,
or as a writer, with his Catholic adversary, St. Bernard? Abelard was
a perfect master of all the subtilties of the schools; noisy disputes
were his amusement; he was intoxicated with the applause of his
disciples, who were dazzled by their master's talents and courage, and
still more by the learned follies of the age; yet what has become of
his works? Who reads them? Who ever thinks of finding in them a single
page of sound reasoning, the description of a single great event, or a
picture of the manners of the time, in other words, the least matter of
interest to science or history? On the contrary, what man of learning
has not often sought this in the immortal works of St. Bernard?
It is impossible to find a more sublime personification of the Church
combating against the heretics of his time than the illustrious Abbot
of Clairvaux, contending against all innovators, and speaking, if we
may use the term, in the name of the Catholic faith. No one could more
worthily represent the ideas and sentiments which the Church endeavored
to diffuse amongst mankind, nor more faithfully delineate the course
through which Catholicity would have led the human mind. Let us pause
for a moment in the presence of this gigantic mind, which attained to
an eminence far beyond any of its contemporaries. This extraordinary
man fills the world with his name--upheaves it by his words--sways it
by his influence; in the midst of darkness he is its light; he forms,
as it were, a mysterious link, connecting the two epochs of St. Jerome
and St. Augustine, of Bossuet and Bourdaloue. In the midst of a general
relaxation and corruption of morals, by the strictest observances and
the most perfect purity he is proof against every assault. Ignorance
prevails throughout all classes; he studies night and day to enlighten
his mind. A false and counterfeit erudition usurps the place of true
knowledge; he knows its unsoundness, disdains and despises it; and his
eagle eye discovers at a glance that the star of truth moves at an
immense distance from this false reflection, from this crude mass of
subtilties and follies, which the men of his time termed philosophy. If
at that period there existed any useful learning, it was to be sought
in the Bible, and in the writings of the holy Fathers; to the study
of these, therefore, St. Bernard devotes himself unremittingly. Far
from consulting the vain babblers who are arguing and declaiming in
the schools, St. Bernard seeks his inspirations in the silence of the
cloister, or in the august sanctuary of the temple; if he goes out, it
is to contemplate the great book of nature, to study eternal truths in
the solitude of the desert, and, as he himself has expressed it, "in
forests of beech-trees."
Thus did this great man, rising superior to the prejudices of his
time, avoid the evil produced in his contemporaries by the method
then prevailing. By this method the imagination and the feelings were
stifled; the judgment warped; the intellect sharpened to excess; and
learning converted into a labyrinth of confusion. Read the works
of the sainted Abbot of Clairvaux, and you will find that all his
faculties go, as it were, hand in hand. If you look for imagination,
you will find the finest coloring, faithful portraits, and splendid
descriptions. If you want feeling, you will learn how skilfully he
finds his way into the heart, captivates, subdues, and fashions it to
his will. Now he strikes a salutary fear into the hardened sinner,
tracing with great force the formidable picture of the divine justice
and the eternal vengeance; then he consoles and sustains the man who
is sinking under worldly adversity, the assaults of his passions, the
recollection of his transgressions, or an exaggerated fear of the
divine justice. Do you want pathos? Listen to his colloquies with
Jesus and Mary; hear him speaking of the blessed Virgin with such
enrapturing sweetness, that he seems to exhaust all the epithets that
the liveliest hope and the most pure and tender love can suggest. Would
you have vigor and vehemence of style, and that irresistible torrent
of eloquence which nothing can resist, which carries the mind beyond
itself, fires it with enthusiasm, compels it to enter upon the most
arduous paths, and to undertake the most heroic enterprises? See him
with his burning words inflaming the zeal of the people, nobles, and
kings; moving them to quit their homes, to take up arms, and to unite
in numerous armies that pour into Asia to rescue the Holy Sepulchre.
This extraordinary man is every where met with, every where heard.
Entirely free from ambition, he possesses, nevertheless, a leading
influence in the great affairs of Europe: though fond of solitude
and retirement, he is continually obliged to quit the obscurity of
the cloister to assist in the councils of kings and popes. He never
flatters, never betrays the truth, never dissembles the sacred ardor
which burns within his breast; and yet he is every where listened to
with profound respect; his stern voice is heard in the cottages of the
poor and in the palaces of kings; he admonishes with terrible severity
the most obscure monk and the Sovereign Pontiff.
In the midst of so much ardor and activity, his mind loses none of
its clearness or precision. His exposition of a point of doctrine is
remarkable for ease and lucidity; his demonstrations are vigorous and
conclusive; his reasoning is conducted with a force of logic that
presses close upon his adversary, and leaves him no means of escape: in
defence, his quickness and address are surprising. In his answers he
is clear and precise; in repartee, quick and penetrating; and without
dealing in the subtilties of the schools, he displays wonderful tact in
disentangling truth from error, sound reason from artifice and fraud.
Here is a man formed entirely and exclusively under the influence of
Catholicity; a man who never strayed from the pale of the Church, who
never dreamed of setting his intellect free from the yoke of authority;
and yet he rises like a mighty pyramid above all the men of his time.
To the eternal honor of the Catholic Church, and utterly to disprove
the accusation brought against her, of exerting an influence hostile
to the freedom of the human mind, I must observe that St. Bernard
was not the only man who rose superior to the age, and pointed out
the way to genuine progress. It is unquestionably certain, that the
most distinguished men of that period, those least influenced by the
evils that so long kept the human mind in pursuit of mere vanities and
shadows, were precisely the men most devotedly attached to Catholicity.
These men set an example of what was necessary to be done for the
advancement of learning; an example that for a long time had, it is
true, but few followers, but which found some in subsequent ages: now
it is to be observed that the progress of learning was due to the
credit obtained by this method--I speak of the study of antiquity.
The sacred sciences were the chief object of attention at this
period; as the intellect was theologically developed, dialectics and
metaphysics were studied with a view to their application to theology.
With Roscelin, Abelard, Gilbert de la Poirée, and Amaury, the phrase
was: "Let us reason, subtilise, and apply our systems to all sorts
of questions; let our reason be our rule and guide, without which
knowledge is impossible." With St. Bernard, St. Anselm, Hugh and
Richard de St. Victor, Peter Lombard, on the contrary, it was: "Let us
see what antiquity teaches; let us study the works of the holy Fathers;
let us analyse and compare their texts; we cannot place our dependence
exclusively on arguments, which are sometime dangerous and sometimes
futile." Which of these two judgments has been actually confirmed?
Which of these methods was adopted when real progress was to be made?
Was not recourse had to an unremitting study of ancient works? Was it
not found necessary to throw aside the cavils of the dialecticians?
Protestants themselves boast of having taken this way; their
theologians consider it an honor to be versed in antiquity; and would
be offended if treated as mere dialecticians. On which side, then, was
reason? With the heretics, or with the Church? Who best understood
the method most favorable to intellectual progress? The heretical
dialectician, or the orthodox doctor? To these questions there can only
be one reply. These are not mere opinions--they are facts; not an empty
theory, but the actual history of learning, as known by all the world,
and as represented to us in irrefragable documents. Unless prepossessed
by the authority of M. Guizot, the reader certainly cannot complain
that I have eschewed questions of history, or claimed his belief on my
own bare word.
Unhappily, mankind seemed doomed never to find the true road without
going a long way round; thus the intellect, taking the very worst
way of all, went in pursuit of subtilties and cavils, forsaking the
beaten track of reason and good sense. At the beginning of the twelfth
century the evil had reached to such a height, that to apply a remedy
was no slight undertaking; nor is it easy to say how far matters
might have gone, nor what evils would have ensued in various ways, had
not Providence, who never abandons the care of the moral, any more
than of the physical universe, raised up an extraordinary genius,
who, rising to an immense height above the men of his age, reduced
the chaos to order. Out of the undigested mass, by retrenching here,
adding there, classifying and explaining, this man collected a fund
of real learning. Persons acquainted with the history of learning at
that time will readily understand that I speak of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Rightly to appreciate the extraordinary merit of this great Doctor,
we must view him in connection with the times and circumstances of
which we are treating. Beholding in St. Thomas Aquinas one of the most
luminous, most comprehensive, and most penetrating intellects that have
ever adorned the human race, we are almost tempted to think that his
appearance in the thirteenth century was inopportune; we regret that
he did not live in a more recent age, to enter the lists with the most
illustrious men of whom modern Europe can boast. But, upon further
reflection, we find that the human mind owes so much to him, we see so
clearly the reason why his appearance at the time when Europe received
his lectures was most opportune, that we have no other feeling left
than one of profound admiration of the designs of Providence.
What was the philosophy of his time? Amidst the strange compound of
Greek and Arabian philosophy and of Christian ideas, what would have
become of dialectics, metaphysics, and morality? We have already seen
what sort of fruit began to grow out of such combinations, favored by
a degree of ignorance unable to distinguish the real nature of things,
and encouraged by pride that pretended to a knowledge of every thing.
And yet the evil was only beginning; its further development would
have been attended with symptoms still more alarming. Fortunately,
this great man appeared; the first touch of his powerful hand advanced
learning two or three centuries. He could not root out the evil, but at
least he applied a remedy; owing to his indisputable superiority, his
method and his learning soon won their way everywhere. He became, as it
were, the centre of a grand system, round which all other scholastic
writers were forced to revolve; he thus prevented a multitude of errors
that without his intervention would have been almost inevitable. He
found the schools in a state of complete anarchy; he reduced them
to order; and on account of his angelic intellect, and his eminent
sanctity, was looked up to as their sublime dictator. This is the view
I take of the mission of St. Thomas; it will be viewed in the same
light by all those who study his works, and do not content themselves
with a hasty perusal of a biographical article respecting him.
Now this man was a Catholic, and the Catholic Church venerates him upon
her altars, and I do not see that his mind was shackled by authority
in matters of faith; it goes abroad freely amongst all the branches
of knowledge; he unites in his person such extensive and profound
acquirements as to appear a prodigy for the age in which he lived. We
observe in St. Thomas, notwithstanding the purely scholastic method
which he adopted, the same characteristic that we discover in all the
eminent Catholic writers of the times. He reasons much; but it is easy
to see that he does not trust entirely to his reason, but proceeds with
that wise diffidence which is an unequivocal sign of real learning.
He avails himself of the doctrines of Aristotle; but evidently would
have made less use of them, and more of the Fathers, but for his
leading idea, which was, to make the philosophy of his time subservient
to the defence of religion. The reader must not suppose that his
metaphysics and moral philosophy are a congeries of inexplicable
enigmas, as a knowledge of the period at which he wrote might lead us
to apprehend. Nothing of the kind; and any one who entertains such an
idea has evidently not spent much time in the study of his writings.
His metaphysical works, it must be acknowledged, make us perfectly
acquainted with the dominant ideas of the time; but it is equally
undeniable, that in every page we meet with the most luminous passages
on the most complicated questions of ideology, ontology, cosmology,
and psychology; so much so, that we almost imagine we are reading the
works of a philosopher who wrote after the fullest development of the
sciences had been attained.
What his political ideas were, we have already seen; were it
necessary, and did the nature of the present work permit, I might here
produce many fragments from his _Treatise on Laws and on Justice_,
distinguished for such solid principles, such lofty views, so profound
a knowledge of the nature of society, that they would occupy an
honorable position amongst the best works on legislation written in
modern times. His treatises on virtues and vices, whether considered
generally, or in detail, exhaust the subject, and defy all subsequent
writers to produce a single idea of any importance that has not been
already either developed, or at least suggested in them. Above all, his
works are remarkable for moderation and extreme reserve in doctrinal
expositions, in which respect they are eminently conformable to the
spirit of Catholicity; and assuredly if all writers had followed in
his footsteps, the field of science would have presented us with
an assembly of sages, and would not have been converted into a
blood-stained arena for furious combatants. Such is his modesty, that
he does not relate a single incident in his life, private or public;
from him we hear nothing but the language of enlightened reason, calmly
dispensing its treasures: the man, with his fame, his misfortunes, his
labors, and all his vain pretensions, with which other writers are wont
to weary us, never appears for an instant.[41]