ON THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN MIND FROM THE ELEVENTH CENTURY TO THE
PRESENT TIME.
I think I have satisfactorily vindicated the Catholic Church from the
reproaches cast upon her by her enemies, for her conduct during the
eleventh and twelfth centuries in reference to the development of the
human mind. Let us now take a rapid survey of the march of intellect up
to our own times, and see what titles Protestantism can produce to the
gratitude of the friends of progress in human knowledge.
If I mistake not, the following are the phases through which the human
mind has passed, since the revival of learning in the eleventh century.
First came the epoch of subtilties, with its heaps of crude erudition;
then the age of criticism, with appropriate attempts at grave
controversies on the meaning of records and monuments; and finally
came the reflecting age, and the inauguration of the philosophical
period. The eleventh and succeeding centuries, to the sixteenth,
were characterized by a fondness for dialectics and erudite trifles;
criticism and controversy formed the distinctive characteristics of the
sixteenth, and part of the seventeenth centuries; the philosophical
spirit began to prevail towards the middle of the seventeenth, and
continued to our own time. Now of what advantage was Protestantism to
learning? None; Protestantism found learning already accumulated--this
I can easily prove--Erasmus and Louis Vives shone in the time of Luther.
Did Protestantism promote the study of criticism? Yes; just as an
epidemic that decimates nations aids the progress of the medicinal
art. But we must not suppose that the taste for this kind of literary
labor would not have been disseminated without the aid of the
pseudo-Reformation. As monuments came to light, as a knowledge of
languages became more general, as the public acquired clearer and more
correct notions of history, people would naturally set themselves to
discriminate between the apocryphal and the authentic. The necessary
documents were at hand, and were studied unremittingly; for this was
the favorite taste of the epoch. Under such circumstances, how is it
possible there should have existed no desire to examine to what author,
and to what age, such documents severally belonged; to investigate
how far ignorance or dishonesty had falsified them, had taken from,
or added to them? On this subject, I need only relate what took place
relative to the famous decretals of Isidore Mercator. These decretals
had been received, without opposition, during the centuries anterior
to the fifteenth, owing to the want of antiquarian and critical
research; but the moment that knowledge and facts began to accumulate,
the edifice of imposture gave way. As early as the fifteenth century,
Cardinal Cusa challenged the authenticity of certain decretals that had
been supposed to be anterior to Pope Siricius; and the reflections of
the learned Cardinal led the way to other attacks of a similar kind. A
serious discussion arose, in which Protestants naturally took part; but
it would unquestionably have been engaged in all the same, if Catholic
writers had been left entirely to themselves. When the learned came to
read the codes of Theodosius and Justinian, the works of antiquity, and
collections of ecclesiastical records, they could not possibly fail to
observe that the spurious decretals contained sentences and fragments
belonging to an era posterior to the time to which they were referred;
and when once such doubts had arisen, error was sure to be promptly
exposed.
We may say of controversy, what we have just said of criticism. There
would have been no want of controversy, even if the unity of the faith
had never been violated. In support of this assertion, the recollection
of what occurred amongst the different schools of Catholics is
quite conclusive. These schools were engaged in controversy amongst
themselves, in the presence even of the common opponent: and we may
rest assured that, if their attention had not been partially diverted
by that enemy, their polemical discussions would have been maintained
only with the greater energy and warmth. Protestants have no more
the advantage over Catholics, as regards controversy than as regards
criticism. However true it be that some of our theologians did not see
the necessity of opposing the enemy with arms superior to those taken
from the arsenal of Aristotelian philosophy, it is quite certain that
a great number of them took up a sufficiently lofty position, and were
thoroughly impressed with the importance of the crisis, and urged the
introduction of very great modifications into the course of theological
studies. Bellarmin, Melchior Cano, Petau, and many others, were no way
inferior to the most skilful Protestants, whatever may have been the
boasted scientific merits of the defenders of error.
The knowledge of the learned languages must have contributed in an
extraordinary degree to the progress of critical and controversial
learning. Now I do not see that Catholics were behind others in the
knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Anthony de Nebrija, Erasmus,
Louis Vives, Lawrence Villa, Leonardus Aretinus, Cardinal Bembo,
Sadolet, Poggio, Melchior Cano, and many others, too numerous to
mention; were they, I ask, trained in Protestantism? Did not the Popes,
moreover, take the lead in this literary movement? Who patronized the
learned with greater liberality? Who supplied them with more abundant
resources? Who incurred greater expenses in the purchase of the best
manuscripts? Nor let it be forgotten, that such was the taste for pure
Latinity, that some among the learned objected to read the Vulgate, for
fear of acquiring inelegant phrases.
As regards Greek, we need only bear in mind the causes that led to
its diffusion in Europe, to be convinced that the progress made
in the knowledge of this language owes nothing whatever to the
pseudo-Reformation. It is well known that, after the taking of
Constantinople by the Turks, the literary remains of that unfortunate
nation were brought to the coasts of Italy. In Italy the study of Greek
was first seriously commenced; from Italy it spread to France, and to
the other European states. Half a century before the appearance of
Protestantism, this language was taught in Paris by the Italian Gregory
de Tiferno. At the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth
centuries, Germany itself could boast of the celebrated John Reuchlin,
who taught Greek with great applause, first at Orleans and Poictiers,
and afterwards at Ingolstadt. Reuchlin, being on one occasion at Rome,
so felicitously explained, and read with so pure an accent, a passage
from Thucydides, in the presence of Argyropilus, that the latter,
filled with admiration, exclaimed: "_Gracia nostra exilio transvolavit
Alpes_; our exiled Greece has crossed the Alps."
Respecting Hebrew, I will transcribe a passage from the Abbé Goujet:
"Protestants," says he, "would fain have it thought that they
effected the revival of this language in Europe; but they are forced
to acknowledge, that whatever they know of Hebrew they owe to the
Catholics, who were their teachers, and the sources whence, even to
this day, is obtained all that is most valuable in Oriental literature.
John Reuchlin, who lived the greater part of his time in the fifteenth
century, was unquestionably a Catholic, and one of the most skilful
Hebrew scholars, and was also the first Christian who reduced the
teaching of that language to a system. John Weissel of Groningen had
taught him the elements of this language, and had himself pupils in
whom he had awakened a love for this study. In like manner, it was by
the exertions of Picus de Mirandula, who was a strict Catholic, that a
taste for the study of Hebrew was revived in the West. At the time of
the Council of Trent, most of the heretics who then knew that language
had learned it in the bosom of the Church they had forsaken; and their
vain subtilties respecting the meaning of the sacred text excited the
faithful to still greater assiduity in the study of a language so
well calculated to insure their own triumph and the defeat of their
opponents. In devoting themselves to this branch of study, moreover,
they were only following out the intentions of Pope Clement V., who,
as early as the beginning of the fourteenth century, had ordained that
Greek, and Hebrew, and even Arabic and Chaldean, should be publicly
taught, for the benefit of foreigners, at Rome, at Paris, at Oxford, at
Bologna, and at Salamanca. The design of this Pope, who so well knew
the advantages resulting from well-conducted studies, was, to augment
the learning of the Church by the study of languages, and to raise
up doctors capable of defending her against every form of error. By
means of these languages, and more especially of Hebrew, he intended
to renew the study of the sacred books, that the latter, when read in
the original, might appear more worthy of the Holy Spirit who inspired
them, and by their combined grandeur and simplicity, when better
known, awaken greater reverence for them; and that, without derogating
from the respect due to the Latin version, it might be felt that an
intimate acquaintance with the originals was peculiarly serviceable in
confirming the faith of believers, and confuting heretics." (L'Abbé
Goujet, _Discours sur le renouvellement des Etudes, et principalement
des Etudes ecclésiastiques depuis le quatorzième siècle_.)
One of the causes which contributed the most to the development of
the human mind was the creation of great centres of instruction,
collecting the most illustrious talents and learning, and diffusing
rays of light in all directions. I know not how men could forget that
this idea was not due to the pretended Reformation, seeing that most of
the universities of Europe were established long before the birth of
Luther. That of Oxford was established in 895; Cambridge in 1280; that
of Prague, in Bohemia, in 1358; that of Louvain, in Belgium, in 1425;
that of Vienna, in Austria, in 1365; that of Ingolstadt, in Germany,
in 1372; that of Leipsic in 1408; that of Basle, in Switzerland, in
1469; that of Salamanca in 1200; that of Alcala in 1517. It would be
superfluous to notice the antiquity of the universities of Paris,
of Bologna, of Ferrara, and of a great many others, which attained
the highest renown long before the advent of Protestantism. The
Popes, it is well known, took an active part in the establishment
of universities, granting them privileges, and bestowing upon them
the highest honors and distinctions. How can any one, then, venture
to assert, that Rome has opposed the progress of learning and the
sciences, in order to keep the people in darkness and ignorance? As if
Divine Providence had intended to confound these future calumniators
of His Church, Protestantism made its appearance precisely at the
time when, under the auspices of a renowned Pope, the progress in
the science, in literature and the arts was most active. Posterity,
judging of our disputes with impartiality, will undoubtedly pass a
severe sentence upon those pretended philosophers, who are constantly
endeavoring to prove from history, that Catholicity has impeded the
progress of the human mind, and that scientific progress has been all
owing to the cry of liberty raised in central Germany. Yes; sensible
men in future ages, like those of our own times, will form a correct
judgment upon this subject, when they reflect that Luther began to
propagate his errors _in the age of Leo X_.
Certainly, the court of Rome could not at that time be reproached
with obscurantism. Rome was at the head of all progress, which she
urged onwards with the most active zeal, the most ardent enthusiasm;
so much so, indeed, that if she were censurable at all--if there were
in her conduct any thing of which history should disapprove--it was
rather that her march was too quick than too slow. Had another St.
Bernard addressed Leo X., he would assuredly not have blamed him for
abusing his authority to impede the march of the human intellect and
the progress of learning. "The Reformation," says M. de Chateaubriand,
"deeply imbued with the spirit of its founder--a coarse and jealous
monk--declared itself the enemy of the arts. By prohibiting the
exercise of the imaginative faculties, it clipped the wings of genius,
and made her plod on foot. It raised an outcry against certain alms
destined for the erection of the basilica of St. Peter for the use
of the Christian world. Would the Greeks have refused the assistance
solicited from their piety for the building of a temple to Minerva? Had
the Reformation been completely successful from the beginning, it would
have established, for a time at least, another species of barbarism:
viewing as superstition the pomp of divine worship; as idolatry the
_chefs-d'œuvre_ of sculpture, of architecture, and of painting, its
tendency was to annihilate lofty eloquence and sublime poetry--to
degrade taste, by repudiating its models--to introduce a dry, cold,
and captious formality into the operations of the mind--to substitute
in society affectation and materialism in lieu of ingenuousness and
intellectuality, and to make machinery take the place of manual and
mental operations. These are truths confirmed by everyday experience.
"Amongst the various branches of the reformed religion, their
approximation to the beautiful and sublime is always found to be
proportioned to the amount of Catholic truth they have retained. In
England, where an ecclesiastical hierarchy has been upheld, literature
has had its classic era. Lutheranism preserves some sparks of
imagination, which Calvinism aims at utterly extinguishing; and so on,
till we come to Quakerism, which would reduce social life to unpolished
manners and the practice of trades. Shakspeare, in all probability,
was a Catholic; Milton has evidently imitated some parts of the poems
of St. Avitus and Masenius; Klopstock has borrowed very largely from
the faith of Rome. In our own days, in Germany, the high imaginative
powers have been put forth only when the spirit of Protestantism
had begun to decline. It was in treating Catholic subjects that the
genius of Goethe and Schiller was manifested; Rousseau and Madame
de Staël are, indeed, illustrious exceptions to this rule; but were
they Protestants after the model of the first disciples of Calvin?
At this very day, painters, architects, and sculptors, of all the
conflicting creeds, go to seek inspiration at Rome, where they find
universal toleration. Europe, nay, the whole world, is covered with
monuments of the Catholic religion. To it we are indebted for that
Gothic architecture, which rivals in its details, and eclipses in
its magnificence, the monuments of Greece. It is now three centuries
since Protestantism arose,--it is powerful in England, in Germany,
in America,--it is professed by millions of men,--and what has it
erected? It can show only the ruins it has made; on which perhaps, it
has planted gardens or built factories. Rebelling against the authority
of tradition, the experience of centuries, and the venerable wisdom of
ages, Protestantism let go its hold on the past, and planted a society
without roots. Acknowledging for their founder a German monk of the
sixteenth century, the reformers renounced the wonderful genealogy
that unites Catholics, through a succession of great and holy men,
with Jesus Christ Himself, and, through Him, with the patriarchs and
the earliest of mankind. The Protestant era, from the first hours of
its existence, refused all relationship with the era of that Leo who
protected the civilized world against Attila, and also with the era of
that other Leo, at whose coming barbarism vanished, and society, now
no longer in need of defence, put on the ornaments of civilization."
(_Etud. Histor._, François I.)
It is much to be regretted that the author of such noble sentiments,
who so accurately describes the effects of Protestantism on literature
and the arts, should have said, that "the Reformation was, properly
speaking, philosophic truth, under the guise of Christianity, attacking
religious truth." (_Etud. Histor._, Preface.) What is the meaning
of these words? We shall best understand them from the illustrious
author's own explanation. "Religious truth," says he, "is the knowledge
of one God manifested in a form of worship. Philosophic truth is the
threefold knowledge of things intellectual, moral, and natural."
(_Etud. Histor._, Exposition.) It is difficult to imagine how any one
who admits the truth of the Catholic religion, and, as a necessary
consequence, the falsehood of Protestantism, can define the latter to
be, philosophic truth at war with religious truth. In the natural,
as well as in the supernatural, order of things, in philosophy as in
religion, all truths come from God, all end in Him. There cannot,
therefore, be any antagonism between truths of one order and truths of
another order; between religious and true philosophy, between nature
and grace, no antagonism is possible. Truth is that which is; for
truth resides in beings themselves; we should rather say, it consists
of beings themselves such as they exist, such as they are in their
substance; and hence it is quite incorrect to say that philosophic
truth has ever stood in antagonism to religious truth.
According to the same author "Philosophic truth is neither more nor
less than the independence of the human mind; its tendency being to
make discoveries, and lead to perfection in the three sciences that
come within its sphere, viz. the intellectual, the moral, and the
natural. But philosophic truth," he continues, "looking forwards to
the future, has stood in opposition to religious truth, which adheres
to the past, owing to the immovable nature of the eternal principle
upon which it is founded." (_Etud. Histor._, Exposition.) With all the
respect due to the immortal author of the _Génie du Christianisme_ and
of the _Martyrs_, I must take the liberty to observe, that we find here
a lamentable confusion of ideas. The philosophic truth of which M. de
Chateaubriand here treats, must be either science itself, considered
as an aggregate of truths, or a general knowledge, in which truth and
error are commingled; or, in fine, the whole body of men of learning,
considered as constituting a very influential class in society. In the
first case, it is impossible for philosophic truth to be in antagonism
to religious truth,--that is, to Catholicity; in the second case, the
alleged opposition is nothing extraordinary, for error being in this
case mixed up with truth, will on some points be found to be opposed
to Catholic faith; and, finally, as regards the third hypothesis,
it is unfortunately too true, that many men, distinguished by their
talents and erudition, have been opposed to Catholicity; but, on the
other hand, as great a number of men equally eminent have triumphantly
maintained the truth of Catholicity; hence it would be extremely
illogical to affirm that philosophic truth, even in this sense, is
opposed to religious truth.
It is not my wish to give an unfavorable interpretation to the words of
the illustrious writer; I rather incline to think, that, in his mind,
philosophic truth is nothing but a spirit of independence considered
in a general, vague, and undefined sense, and not as applied to any
object in particular. This is the only way to reconcile assertions
so different; for it is quite clear, that, after he had so severely
condemned the Protestant Reformation, the writer could not proceed
to admit that this same Reformation carried with it philosophic
truth, properly so called, wherein it became opposed to Catholic
doctrines. But, in this case, the language of the illustrious author
is unquestionably wanting in precision; this, however, need not
surprise us, as, upon reflection, we shall find that, in treating
historico-philosophical subjects, precision is not to be expected from
writers whose genius has been wont to soar into the highest regions on
the wings of a sublime poetry.
It was not either in Germany or in England, but in Catholic France,
that the philosophical movement advanced with the greatest freedom
and daring. Descartes, the founder of a new era in philosophy, that
superseded the Aristotelian, and gave a fresh impulse to the study of
logic, of physics, and metaphysics, was a Frenchman and a Catholic.
The greater part of his most distinguished followers were also in
communion with the Roman Church. Philosophy, then, in the highest
sense of the word, owes nothing to Protestantism. Before Leibnitz,
Germany could scarcely reckon a single philosopher of any note; and
the English schools that attained to any thing like celebrity arose
after Descartes' time. We shall find, upon reflection, that France was
the centre of the philosophical movement from the end of the sixteenth
century; and at that period all the Protestant countries were so
backward in this kind of study, that the active progress of philosophy
amongst the Catholics was scarcely noticed by them. In like manner,
it was in the bosom of the Catholic Church that the taste arose for
profound meditations on the secrets of the heart, and on the relations
of the human mind to God and nature, and that sublime abstraction which
concentrates man's faculties, sets him free from the body, and elevates
him to those exalted regions that appear destined to be visited
exclusively by celestial spirits. Is not mysticism, in its purest, most
refined, and most elevated form, found in our Catholic writers of the
golden age? Since that time, what has been published that may not be
met with in the works of St. Teresa, in those of St. John of the Cross,
in the venerable Avila, in Louis de Grenada, and in Louis de Léon?
And Pascal, that man of thought, one of the most vigorous geniuses
of the seventeenth century, who was unhappily deceived for some time
by a hypocritical and canting sect, was he a Protestant? Was it not
he who laid the basis of that philosophico-religious school, whose
investigations, directed at one time to the deepest questions of
religion, at another to those of nature, or to the mysteries of the
human heart, have surrounded truth with a flood of light? Do not the
apologists of Christianity, whether Protestants or Catholics, when
engaged in combating indifference or incredulity, avail themselves by
preference of his _Pensées_? Authors who have written on the philosophy
of history have perhaps surpassed all others in their eagerness to
vilify the Church as the enemy of enlightenment, whilst they represent
Protestantism as the great bulwark of the rights of the mind. Now,
gratitude alone should have induced them to proceed more circumspectly;
they should not forget that the real founder of the philosophy of
history was a Catholic, and that the first and best work ever written
on this subject came from the pen of a Catholic Bishop. It was Bossuet,
in his immortal _Discours sur l'Histoire Universelle_, who first taught
our modern thinkers to take a lofty survey of the human race; to
embrace at one view all the events that have marked the course of ages,
contemplating them in all their vastness and intimate connection, with
all their phases, effects, and causes, and to draw from them salutary
lessons for the instruction both of princes and people. Now, Bossuet
was a Catholic, and, moreover, one of the most trenchant adversaries of
the Protestant Reformation. His fame is heightened too by another work,
in which he completely overthrows the doctrines of the innovators, by
proving their continual variations, and demonstrating that theirs must
be the way of error, seeing that variation is incompatible with truth.
We may ask the abettors of Protestantism, if the Eagle of Meaux feels
in his flight the fetters of the Catholic religion, when, glancing at
the origin and destiny of mankind, at the fall of our first parents and
its consequences, on the revolutions of the East and West, he traces
with such wonderful sublimity the designs of Divine Providence?
As regards the literary movement, I might almost consider myself
relieved from all necessity of combating the reproaches cast upon
Catholicity by its enemies. What, in fact, was the literature of all
the Protestant countries together, at the time when Italy produced
those orators and poets, who, in succeeding ages, have been universally
received as models? Various descriptions of literature were already
quite common in Catholic countries, that were not even known in England
or Germany; and when, at a later period, an attempt was made to fill
up the hiatus, no better means could be found for the purpose than to
take for models the Spanish writers, who had been subject _to Catholic
obscurantism and the fires of the Inquisition_.
Neither the mind, the heart, nor the imagination of man owes any thing
to Protestantism. Before the Reformation these were all in graceful and
vigorous progress; after the Reformation, this progress continued in
the bosom of the Catholic Church as successfully as before. Catholicity
displays a bright array of illustrious men crowned with the glories
they have won amidst the unanimous plaudits of all civilized nations.
Whatever has been said of the tendency of our religion to enslave and
hoodwink the mind, is but calumny. No; that which is born of light,
cannot produce darkness; that which is the work of truth itself, need
not fly from the sun's rays to conceal itself in the bowels of the
earth. The daughter of heaven may walk in the brightness of day, may
dare discussion, may gather around her all the brightest intellects;
well assured that the more closely and attentively they see and
contemplate her, the more pure, the more beauteous and enrapturing will
she appear.