THE RENAISSANCE[1] (1453–1690)
=The General Character of the Renaissance.= The causes that led to the
decline of the society of the Middle Ages were of course the same that
ushered in the period of the Renaissance,――the first, the longest, and
the most hopeful period of modern times. The general characterization
of this period may be expressed in a single phrase,――_a New Man in a
New Universe_. This, however, needs explanation.
(a) The _New Man_ of the Renaissance was distinctly a man with a
country. The fusion of the German and Roman peoples in the Dark Ages
before Charlemagne (800) was now completed. The fusion did not result
in a ♦homogeneous whole, but in groups which formed the nations of
Europe. The time when this grouping was practically finished is a
difficult problem, into which we will not inquire. In a real sense it
never was nor will be ended. We know that the nations began to form
about the year 1000, and when we examine the history of the Renaissance
we find Italians, Germans, French, Dutch, and English with distinctive
national characteristics. We find the Renaissance first centralized
among the Italians and Germans, and then later among the English, the
people of the Low Countries, and the French. The Italian is a new Roman
and the German a new Teuton. The undefined nationalities of the Middle
Ages now become clear-cut. Philosophy also becomes now more or less of
a national concern.
(b) A _New Universe_ is now opened to the “New Man” of the Renaissance.
Not only in mental equipment, but in scope for his activity, does
the European of the Renaissance differ from the mediæval man. The
world is actually a new world――new in its geographical outlines and
its astronomical relations; new in its intellectual stores from the
past. The physical world that supported his body and the intellectual
world that refreshed his mind were newly discovered by the man of the
Renaissance. We must examine these two new worlds more in detail.
1. The physical universe had undergone a wonderful transformation
for man. Our nineteenth century has often been looked upon as a
period of extraordinary discoveries; but no discoveries have ever
so revolutionized the human mind as those enumerated above as “the
external causes of the fall of the society of the Middle Ages.” Think
how new that old world must have seemed to the common people who
had supposed it to be flat, as well as to the scientists who had
hypothetically supposed it to be solid――how new it must have seemed
when they found that it had been actually circumnavigated! How the
horizon of men’s minds must have widened when new continents were
discovered by sailors and new celestial worlds were found by the
telescope of the astronomers! Discovery led to experiment, and the
whole new physical world was transformed by the new physical science of
Galileo into a mechanical order. It was a wonderful new material world
that was discovered and scientifically reorganized at the beginning
of the Renaissance. Whereas the common man in mediæval time had found
little joy in living, the common man now looked upon the world as a
magnificent opportunity. Whereas the mediæval man had turned from the
disorders of this wicked world to contemplation of the blessedness of
heaven, the man of the Renaissance came forth from the cloister and
engaged in trade and adventure. The earth and the things therein had
suddenly become objects of emotional interest.
2. Not only was a new geographical and physical world discovered at
this time, but also the intellectual world of antiquity was restored.
For more than a thousand years in western Europe the literature of
the Greeks and Romans had been a thing of shreds and patches, and even
then read only in Latin translations. Now the European had come into
possession of a large part of it and was reading it in the original. He
was aroused to the wonderful intellectual life of the Age of Pericles.
The interest in ancient literature, which had been started by Dante,
Petrarch, and Boccaccio in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
became an absorbing and controlling force at this time. The real
interest began with the stimulus received by the coming of the Greek
scholars to Italy from the East: first the ecclesiastical embassy
in 1438, and afterward in 1453 the large number of refugees from
Constantinople at the time of its capture by the Turks. Upon these
refugees the patronage of the great Italian nobles――chiefly perhaps
in Florence――was lavishly bestowed. The Platonic Academy was founded.
Learned expounders of the new learning arose,――Pletho, the two Picos,
Fincinus, Reuchlin. Of all the philosophies of antiquity Platonism
was favored, and it was interpreted in a mystical manner. Aristotle
and Christianity were looked upon as mere interpretations of Plato.
Nevertheless the Renaissance scholars were interested in all the new
literary material from the East. They studied the Jewish Cabala and
its mystic numbers. They revived Skepticism, Eclecticism, Stoicism, and
Epicureanism. Aristotle was represented by two antagonistic schools;
and Taurellus opposed both and appealed to the scholarly world to
return to Christianity.
=The Significance of the Renaissance in History.= We have above
characterized the Renaissance as a time in which a “new man” found
himself living in a “new universe.” But the old world of mediæval
science, culture, and conventional manners had by no means been
entirely outgrown and discarded. Periods of history do not “leave their
low-vaulted past” as easily as a man may throw away his coat. Mediæval
science and theology still remained, not only as a background but
also as an aggressive social factor everywhere. Mediæval scholasticism
was something with which the Renaissance had always to reckon.
Scholasticism modified, frequently restricted, and even directed
the thought of the Renaissance. Consequently when we form our final
estimate of the place of the Renaissance in the modern movement, we
must not overlook the conservative force of the mediæval institutions
existing during the period. The “new man” lived in a “new universe”;
and _his problem was how to explain the relation of that “new
universe” to himself so that his explanation would not antagonize
the time-honored traditions of the church_. This was the constructive
problem that gave the Renaissance its place in history.
The first impression, however, of the Renaissance upon the reader is
that it stands for no constructive problem whatever. The changes that
usher in the Renaissance seem to speak of an epoch that is entirely
negative, destructive, and revolutionary. The period seems from one
side to be a declaration against time-honored traditions. The “new man”
had risen superior to dogma and to Aristotle. Intellectual fermentation
had set in, and never had so many attempts at innovation been so
strenuously sought. The love for novelty filled the human mind, and the
imagination ran riot. The movement toward modern individualism appeared
in the decentralization that at this time was everywhere taking place.
Latin, for example, ceased to be the one language for educated men,
and the modern languages came into use. Rome ceased to be the only
religious centre, and Wittenberg, London, and Geneva became centres.
There was no longer one church, but many sects. Scientific centres
became numerous. Many of the universities had arisen independently,
and now Oxford, Vienna, Heidelberg, Prague, and numerous universities
in Italy and Germany afforded opportunities for study equal to those
of Paris. To the man who looks upon the Classic Period of Scholasticism
in the Middle Ages as the golden age of united faith,――to that man the
Renaissance will appear only as the beginning of the disintegration and
revolution that he sees in modern times.
Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE DECENTRALIZATION OF EUROPE
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY
(Note that Rome, Wittenberg, London, and Geneva are the
religious centres; that Paris, Oxford, Heidelberg, and Prague
are the educational centres; and that Europe is divided into
many nations)
But a deeper insight into the Renaissance shows that its revolutionary,
negative, and spectacular aspect is not its whole significance. No
doubt a strong, universal, and well-centralized government and a unity
of faith are social ideals. The reverence in which the name of Rome
was held long after the empire had been destroyed, and the reluctance
with which the first Protestants separated themselves from the Catholic
church, show that the loss of such a unity is a real loss. But the
church of the Middle Ages was not the carrier of all the treasure
of the past, nor could the church with its own inherent limitations
stand as representative of modern times. The new problem which the
Renaissance faced might be destructive of much of the traditional
past, but it contained many new elements. The “new man” found himself
in a “new universe.” He was obliged to undertake the solution of a
far deeper problem than antiquity had ever attempted. He must orient
himself in a larger world than the past had ever imagined. He must do
this in the very presence of mediæval institutions, which had not lost
their spiritual nor their temporal power. The constructive problem
before the man of the Renaissance was therefore an exceedingly complex
one. How should he explain his relation to the “new universe” in a
way that would not antagonize tradition? It was a new problem, a real
problem in which the traditional factor was always persistently present.
There were two _motifs_ which give to the problem of the Renaissance
its constructive character. These were _naturalism_ and _subjectivism_.
_In the first place, the Renaissance is the period when the naturalism
of the Greeks was recovered._ By naturalism is meant the love for
earthly life. Of this the mediæval church and the mediæval time had
little or nothing. The church had been born out of the revulsion from
the earthly, and it rose on the aspiration for the supernatural. The
Renaissance was, on the contrary, born out of a passionate joy in
nature, which joy was intensified by the unexpected possession of the
literature of the past and by the discovery of new lands beyond the
seas. Man felt now the happiness and dignity of earthly living and
the worth of the body as well as the soul. _In the next place, the
Renaissance is marked by the rise of subjectivism._ At the beginning of
our book we have already given the meaning of subjectivism (see vol. i,
p. 2), and we have characterized modern civilization as subjective
in distinction from the ancient as objective and the Middle Ages as
traditional. We have also found, as we have gone on, the beginnings
of subjectivism in the Sophists, Stoics, and Christians. But in the
Renaissance for the first time does the individual as a rational self
gain the central position. This is subjectivism: the individual is
not only the interpreter of the universe, but also its mental creator.
Of the subjective _motif_ in modern times the Renaissance marks the
inauguration, and German Idealism the culmination. While the world of
the ancients was cosmo-centric and the mediæval world was theo-centric,
the world of the modern man is ego-centric. The love of life, and
the love of life because the individual feels his own capacity for
life――this is the situation presented to the man of the Renaissance.
Thus in the restoration of naturalism and in the construction of
subjectivism did the Renaissance stand for positive upbuilding, in
spite of the fact that in all this the period was constrained by the
powerful tradition of the church.
=The Two Periods of the Renaissance: The Humanistic= (1453–1600);
=The Natural Science= (1600–1690). The Renaissance is divided into two
periods at the year 1600. The reason for taking this date as a division
line will soon appear. The period before 1600 we call the Humanistic,
or the period of the Humanities; the period after this date the Natural
Science Period.
(a) The Similarities of the Two Periods. These two periods are alike
in having the same motives. Both feel the same urgent need (1) for
new knowledge, (2) for a new standard by which to measure their
new knowledge, (3) for a new method of gaining knowledge. From the
beginning to the end of the Renaissance the “new man” was feeling
his way about, was trying to orient and readjust himself in his “new
universe.” He was seeking new acquisitions to his rich stores of
knowledge, to systematize his knowledge by some correct method, and
to set up some standard by which his knowledge might be tested.
(b) The Differences of the Two Periods. There are, however, some marked
differences in the carrying out of these motives by each period, and to
these we must give our attention.
(1) _The Countries which participate in the Renaissance differ in the
Two Periods_. In the Humanistic Period Italy and Germany were chiefly
concerned. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, these
countries had been engaged in commerce with the Orient, had become
prosperous and more or less acquainted with the culture of the Orient.
In the second place, Italy had been the refuge of the Greek scholars;
when the colony of Greek refugees in Florence had died out in 1520,
northerners like Erasmus, Agricola, Reuchlin, the Stephani, and Budæus
had luckily already made themselves masters of the Greek language and
literature, and had carried their learning into Germany.
In the Natural Science Period the Renaissance had practically become
dead both in Germany and in Italy. The reason for this is not far to
seek. In Italy, in 1563, the Council of Trent had fixed the dogma of
the church and had made it impossible for the church to assimilate
anything more from antiquity. The so-called Counter-Reformation set
in, and Italy became dumb under the persecutions of the Inquisition.
Furthermore, the discovery of the sea-route to the East had turned
commerce away from Italy. When we look to Germany, we find a similar
situation. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) had devastated the land
and had made intellectual life wholly impossible.
On the other hand, England, France, and the Low Countries represent
the Natural Science Period in the Renaissance. By the War of Liberation
(1568–1648) Holland became the European country where the greatest
freedom of thought was granted, and it proved itself an asylum for
thinkers and scholars. France, through the influence of the University
of Paris, was the centre of mathematical research. In England the
brilliant Elizabethan era had already begun.
(2) _The Intellectual Standards differ in the Two Periods._ The
Humanistic Period has been well characterized as the time of “the
struggle of traditions.” Naturally enough, with the revival of Greek
learning the thinkers of the first period of the Renaissance would
try to solve the new problems by the standards which they found in
antiquity. What did Aristotle, Plato, the Epicureans say in matters of
science? What standards did they yield for solving the new problems of
the “new universe”? The traditions of antiquity were therefore revived;
and the contention was, Which should be taken as a standard? Among
all the ancient systems neo-Platonism became the most prominent. It
dominated the Humanistic Period because its æsthetic character and its
mystical explanations appealed to the susceptible mind of that time.
Nevertheless, the sway of neo-Platonism was not absolute. The “struggle
of traditions” continued throughout the period, as appears in the
schisms of the church and in the literary and philosophical contentions.
The Natural Science Period, in its hope of finding a standard to
explain the problems of the “new universe,” discovered a new standard
within the “new universe” itself. No tradition of antiquity had proved
itself adequate to the situation. Nothing could be found in Plato
and Aristotle to give a theoretic standard for the new discoveries
and inventions. Nature disclosed its own standard within itself. The
Natural Science Period said _nature facts must be explained by nature
facts_. But the question will naturally be asked, Why did the thinkers
of this period, when the theories of antiquity were found to be
inadequate, turn to nature rather than elsewhere for an explanation
of nature? The answer to this is found in the great successes of the
physical astronomers, who had started their investigations at the
beginning of the Humanistic Period, and had reached the zenith of their
glory at the beginning of the Natural Science Period. The discoveries
of Galileo were especially important.
(3) _The Scientific Methods in the Two Periods were Different._ The
method usually employed in the Humanistic Period was magic. This first
period tried to explain nature facts of the “new universe” by referring
them to agencies in the spiritual world. In their neo-Platonic
nature-worship the scholars of this period imagined that the control
of nature was to be obtained by a fanciful linking of the parts of
nature to the spirits supposed to be in nature. The Bible is the
product of the spiritual world, so why is not the “new nature-world”
inspired from the same source? God is the first cause of all things;
He is in all things and each finite thing mirrors Him. All things have
souls. To gain control over nature, some all-controlling formula must
be found which will reveal the secret of the control of spirits over
nature; and to master the spirits that control nature is to control
nature herself. Hence arose, as the methods of this first period, magic,
trance-mediumship, necromancy, alchemy, conjurations, and astrology.
Antiquity could offer (and especially is this true of Platonism) only
spiritual causes for nature facts,――hence the search in this time for
the philosopher’s stone. There was never a blinder groping after a
method.
The scientific method used in the Natural Science Period was the
mathematical. The world of experience was found to coincide with the
number system, and therefore mathematics was used as the symbol to
determine the form of nature events. Induction and deduction were used
in different combinations. The period has been characterized as the
time of “the strife of methods.” Induction and deduction became in fact
the new methods of finding the truth about the “new world.” Whatever is
clear and distinct, like the axioms, must be taken as true. All other
knowledge must be deduced from these axiomatic certainties. In contrast
with the magical methods of the Humanistic Period, which point beyond
nature for an explanation of nature, here in the Natural Science Period
mathematics need not lead the explanation farther than nature herself.
(4) _The Attitude of the Church toward Science differs in the Two
Periods._ In the Humanistic Period the attitude of the church toward
the new learning was not yet defined. This was because the bearing
of the new learning upon dogma was not yet understood. On the one
hand, on matters upon which the church had clearly declared itself,
it was easily seen what could and what could not be believed. But,
on the other hand, the significance of much of the wealth of the
newly acquired learning could not at first be fully determined. The
enthusiasm for science was so widespread, and the new discoveries were
so many, that the church was unable to know what was consistent with
dogma and what was not. At the outset the church was inclined to treat
the new science with contemptuous toleration. Nevertheless, in spite of
the new intellectual intoxication there was no real freedom of thought.
The position of science was merely precarious, uncertain, and undefined.
In the Natural Science Period this uncertainty was dispelled because
dogma came into violent conflict with science. It was soon found
that questions in physics involved metaphysics, and that the new
science touched the church doctrines at every point. In 1563 the
church authorities at the Council of Trent settled dogma for all time.
Great conflicts arose between the church and the secularizing spirit.
The scientist became wary. He tried to avoid any intrusion upon the
field of theology, and he insisted that his own field existed quite
independent of theological dogma. But practically it was impossible
for science not to take heretical positions, and this was especially
true of the Rationalistic School, which tried to construct a new
scholasticism. Safe independence of thought was not gained until the
next period (the Enlightenment), and this was brought to pass by
political changes.
=A Brief Contrast of the Two Periods――A Summary of the Discussion
above.=
_The Humanistic Period._
(1) The Time――1453–1600.
(2) The Countries Concerned――Italy and Germany.
(3) The Intellectual Standards――Neo-Platonism and other theories
of antiquity.
(4) The Method――magic.
(5) The Relation of Science to the Church――precarious and
uncertain.
_The Natural Science Period._
(1) The Time――1600–1690.
(2) The Countries Concerned――England, France, and the Low
Countries.
(3) The Intellectual Standard――the mechanism of nature facts.
(4) The Method――induction and mathematical deduction in various
combinations.
(5) The Relation of Science to the Church――so definitely stated
as to be placed in conflict with dogma.