office consisted in purple and gold, in sceptre and diadem, and that,
excelling their predecessors in these things, they must excel them
likewise in prowess and glory. Although they were put upon the throne
for the single purpose of ruling (whence their title, _rex_, is
derived), they do not in reality govern the people over whom they are
placed, but, as their conduct shows, are themselves governed by their
passions. They are rulers of men, but, at the same time, slaves of
sloth and luxury. Still ignorance of the past, the ephemeral glory that
fortune bestows and the vanity that always attends undue prosperity,
may serve to excuse in some measure even these. But what can be
said in defence of men of education who ought not to be ignorant of
antiquity and yet are plunged in this same darkness and delusion?
You see that I cannot speak of these matters without the greatest
irritation and indignation. There has arisen of late a set of
dialecticians, who are not only ignorant but demented. Like a black
army of ants from some old rotten oak, they swarm forth from their
hiding-places and devastate the fields of sound learning. They condemn
Plato and Aristotle, and laugh at Socrates and Pythagoras. And, good
God! under what silly and incompetent leaders these opinions are put
forth! I should prefer not to give a name to this group of men. They
have done nothing to merit one, though their folly has made them
famous. I do not wish to place among the greatest of mankind those whom
I see consorting with the most abject. These fellows have deserted all
trustworthy leaders, and glory in the name of those who, whatever they
may learn after death, exhibited in this world no trace of power, or
knowledge, or reputation for knowledge. What shall we say of men who
scorn Marcus Tullius Cicero, the bright sun of eloquence? Of those who
scoff at Varro and Seneca, and are scandalised at what they choose to
call the crude, unfinished style of Livy and Sallust? And all this
in obedience to leaders of whom no one has ever heard, and for whom
their followers ought to blush! Once I happened to be present when
Virgil's style was the subject of their scornful criticism. Astonished
at their crazy outbreak, I turned to a person of some cultivation and
asked what he had detected in this famous man to rouse such a storm of
reproach. Listen to the reply he gave me, with a contemptuous shrug of
the shoulders: "He is too fond of conjunctions." Arise, O Virgil, and
polish the verses that, with the aid of the Muses, thou didst snatch
from heaven, in order that they may be fit to deliver into hands like
these!
How shall I deal with that other monstrous kind of pedant, who wears
a religious garb, but is most profane in heart and conduct; who would
have us believe that Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome were ignoramuses,
for all their elaborate treatises? I do not know the origin of these
new theologians, who do not spare the great teachers, and will not much
longer spare the Apostles and the Gospel itself. They will soon turn
their impudent tongues even against Christ, unless he, whose cause is
at stake, interferes and curbs the raging beasts. It has already become
a well-established habit with these fellows to express their scorn by
a mute gesture or by some impious observation, whenever revered and
sacred names are mentioned. "Augustine," they will say, "saw much, but
understood little." Nor do they speak less insultingly of other great
men.
Recently one of these philosophers of the modern stamp happened to be
in my library. He did not, like the others, wear a religious habit,
but, after all, Christianity is not a matter of clothes. He was one of
those who think they live in vain unless they are constantly snarling
at Christ or his divine teachings. When I cited some passage or
other from the Holy Scriptures, he exploded with wrath, and with his
face, naturally ugly, still further disfigured by anger and contempt,
he exclaimed: "You are welcome to your two-penny church fathers; as
for me, I know the man for me to follow, _for I know him whom I have
believed_." "You," I replied, "use the words of the Apostle. I would
that you would take them to heart!" "Your Apostle," he answered, "was a
sower of words and a lunatic." "You reply like a good philosopher," I
said. "The first of your accusations was brought against him by other
philosophers, and the second to his face by Festus, Governor of Syria.
He did indeed sow the word, and with such success that, cultivated by
the beneficent plough of his successors and watered by the holy blood
of the martyrs, it has borne such an abundant harvest of faith as we
all behold." At this he burst forth into a sickening roar of laughter.
"Well, be a 'good Christian'![6] As for me, I put no faith in all that
stuff. Your Paul and your Augustine and all the rest of the crowd you
preach about were a set of babblers. If you could but stomach Averroes
you would quickly see how much superior he was to these empty-headed
fellows of yours." I was very angry, I must confess, and could scarcely
keep from striking his filthy, blasphemous mouth. "It is the old feud
between me and other heretics of your class. You can go," I cried, "you
and your heresy, and never return." With this I plucked him by the
gown, and, with a want of ceremony less consonant with my habits than
his own, hustled him out of the house.
There are thousands of instances of this kind, where nothing will
prevail,--not even the majesty of the Christian name nor reverence for
Christ himself (whom the angels fall down and worship, though weak and
depraved mortals may insult him), nor yet the fear of punishment or the
armed inquisitors of heresy. The prison and stake are alike impotent to
restrain the impudence of ignorance or the audacity of heresy.
Such are the times, my friend, upon which we have fallen; such is the
period in which we live and are growing old. Such are the critics
of to-day, as I so often have occasion to lament and complain,--men
who are innocent of knowledge or virtue, and yet harbour the most
exalted opinion of themselves. Not content with losing the words of
the ancients, they must attack their genius and their ashes. They
rejoice in their ignorance, as if what they did not know were not worth
knowing. They give full rein to their licence and conceit, and freely
introduce among us new authors and outlandish teachings.
If you, having no other means of defence, have resorted to the fire to
save your works from the criticism of such despotic judges, I cannot
disapprove the act and must commend your motives. I have done the same
with many of my own productions, and almost repent me that I did not
include all, while it was yet in my power; for we have no prospect of
fairer judges, while the number and audacity of the existing ones
grow from day to day. They are no longer confined to the schools, but
fill the largest towns, choking up the streets and public squares.
We are come to such a pass that I am sometimes angry at myself for
having been so vexed by the recent warlike and destructive years,
and having bemoaned the depopulation of the earth. It is perhaps
depopulated of true men, but was never more densely crowded with vices
and the creatures of vice. In short, had I been among the Ædiles,
and felt as I do now, I should have acquitted the daughter of Appius
Claudius.[7]--But now farewell, as I have nothing more to write to you
at present.
VENICE, August 28.
The belief that the Middle Age was an age of faith has so long found
universal acceptance that Petrarch's _rencontre_ with a group of men
who freely made sport of Christianity may seem anomalous to some.
There was, however, a wide-spread and persistent tendency toward
rationalism and materialism in the universities during the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries. Christianity was evidently repudiated by no
inconsiderable number, for the church found it necessary to promulgate
a sweeping condemnation of rationalistic theses at Paris in 1277. Early
in the thirteenth century Arabic learning had begun to influence
Western Europe, and the writings of Arabic philosophers, especially
of Averroes,[8] became widely known. The orthodox schoolmen, like
Thomas Aquinas, gladly made use of his commentary upon Aristotle, but
rejected his philosophic teachings with horror. Others, however, became
enamoured of the Arabic philosophy and deserted their former religious
beliefs, even venturing somewhat publicly to denounce Christianity,
as fit only for those who were incapable of following Averroes. Among
the simple and devout, the Arabian became an object of mysterious
abhorrence, so that Orcagna in his frescoes gives him a distinguished
place among the damned, with Mohammed and Antichrist.[9]
During his residence in Venice and Padua Petrarch came into close
contact with the Averroists, and was led more than once, in his
irritation at their unbelief, to attack them violently.[10] Of their
philosophical tenets nothing need be said here, as Petrarch probably
troubled himself but little about their doctrines. It was enough for
him that they called Paul a madman and looked upon Augustine and
Ambrose as prating fools. The real interest of Petrarch's assault upon
the Averroists lies not so much in his rejection of their heresies
as in his attitude toward the intellectual hero of the Middle Ages,
Aristotle, who was the accepted authority of those who rejected, as
well as of those who implicitly trusted, the Gospel. The importance of
this has, however, already been noted.[11]
We have seen how little Petrarch was in sympathy with the intellectual
interests of his time. The vast theological literature of the
thirteenth century was neither represented in his library nor noticed
in his works. Pure logic, which was then looked upon not only as the
necessary foundation of all sound learning and the key to all science
but as a legitimate and worthy occupation of a lifetime, seemed to him
an essentially elementary subject, fit only for boys. As he refused
to recognise the supremacy of Aristotle himself, so he rejected the
absurd claims made for Aristotle's dialectic. The following letter,
written apparently while he was still a young man, shows how correctly
he estimated the real educational value of a study with which his
predecessors and contemporaries were so notoriously infatuated.
1: _Sen_., v., 3. Written, Fracassetti believes, about 1366.
2: Juvenal, vii., 87.
3: A trifling poem once universally attributed to Virgil.
4: It is not known who is meant here. _Cf._ Fracassetti, _Lettere
Senile_, vol. i., p. 283.
5: Machiavelli's _Prince_, chap, xii., contains a similar description
of war in his day.
6: Luther reports that in his time, in Rome, they called an earnest
believer "bon Christian."
7: Who was fined for speaking against the Roman people.
8: A corruption of the Arabic name of Ibn Roschd, who died in 1198.
9: For this whole matter see Renan's charming book, _Averroes._ Also,
Reuter's _Religiöse Aufklärung des Mittelalters._
10: Especially remarkable in this connection is the curious work _De
Suiipsius et Aliorum Ignorantia_, the origin of which may be briefly
described. A group of Petrarch's young Averroist friends happened one
day in a post-prandial conversation to discuss among themselves his
real claim to distinction. They decided that his fame rested largely
upon the mistaken and ill-judged attentions of popes and princes, and
that, although a good man, he could not be regarded as a person of
great knowledge or literary power. This frank estimate of his ability
reached the ears of Petrarch and naturally irritated the now failing
old man, accustomed for many years to the world's adulation. The reply,
written a year later, shows unmistakable signs of wounded pride and
vanity. The criticism of the young men was, he assumes, dictated purely
by envy of his reputation. He is indeed ignorant, but others are still
more hopelessly benighted--hence the title, Of His Own Ignorance and
That of Others. _Opera_ (1581), pp., 1035-1059.
11: See above, pp. 37 _sqq_. (In no respect, indeed is his
greatness...)
* * * * *
_His Aversion to Logicians_
_To Tomasso da Messina_[1]
It is hazardous to engage an enemy who longs rather for battle than
for victory. You write to me of a certain old logician who has been
greatly excited by my letter, as if I condemned his art. With a growl
of rage, he loudly threatened to make war in turn upon our studies, in
a letter for which, you say, you have waited many months in vain. Do
not wait longer; believe me, it will never come. He retains some traces
of decency, and this is a confession that he is ashamed of his style
or an acknowledgment of his ignorance. The most implacable in contests
with the tongue will not resort to the pen. They are reluctant to show
how ill-armed they are, and so follow the Parthian system of warfare,
carried on during a rapid retreat, by letting fly a shower of winged
words and committing their shafts to the wind.
It is foolhardy, as I have said, to accept an engagement with these
fellows upon their own terms. It is indeed from the fighting itself
that they derive their chief pleasure; their object is not to discover
the truth, but to prolong the argument. But you know Varro's proverb:
"Through over-long contention the truth is lost." You need not fear,
then, that these warriors will come out into the open fields of honest
discussion, whether with tongue or pen. They belong to the class of
whom Quintilian speaks in his _Institutes of Oratory_, whom one finds
wonderfully warm in disputation, but once get them away from their
cavilling, they are as helpless, in a serious juncture, as certain
small animals which are active enough in a narrow space, but are easily
captured in a field. Hence their reluctance to engage in an open
contest. As Quintilian goes on to say, their tergiversations indicate
their weakness; they seek, like an indifferent runner, to escape by
dodging.
This is what I would impress upon you, my friend; if you are seeking
virtue or truth, avoid persons of that stripe altogether. But how shall
we escape from these maniacs, if even the isles of the sea are not free
from them? So neither Scylla nor Charybdis has prevented this pest from
finding its way into Sicily?[2] Nay, this ill is now rather peculiar
to islands, as we shall find if we add the logicians of Britain to the
new Cyclopes about Ætna. Is this the ground of the striking similarity
between Sicily and Britain, which I have seen mentioned in Pomponius
Mela's _Cosmographia?_ I had thought that the resemblance lay in
the situation of the countries, the almost triangular appearance of
both, and perhaps in the perpetual contact which each enjoys with the
surrounding sea. I never thought of logicians; I had heard of the
Cyclopes, and then of the tyrants, both savage inhabitants; but of the
coming of this third race of monsters, armed with two-edged arguments,
and fiercer than the burning shores of Taormina itself, I was unaware.
There is one thing which I myself long ago observed, and of which
you now warn me anew. These logicians seek to cover their teachings
with the splendour of Aristotle's name; they claim that Aristotle was
wont to argue in the same way. They would have some excuse, I readily
confess, if they followed in the steps of illustrious leaders, for
even Cicero says that it would give him pleasure to err with Plato,
if err he must. But they all deceive themselves. Aristotle was a man
of the most exalted genius, who not only discussed but wrote upon
themes of the very highest importance. How can we otherwise explain so
vast an array of works, involving such prolonged labour, and prepared
with supreme care amid such serious preoccupations--especially those
connected with the guardianship of his fortunate pupil--and within
the compass, too, of a life by no means long?--for he died at about
sixty-three, the age which all writers deem so unlucky. Now why should
these fellows diverge so widely from the path of their leader? Why is
not the name of Aristotelians a source of shame to them rather than
of satisfaction, for no one could be more utterly different from that
great philosopher than a man who writes nothing, knows but little,
and constantly indulges in much vain declamation? Who does not laugh
at their trivial conclusions, with which, although educated men,[3]
they weary both themselves and others? They waste their whole lives in
such contentions. Not only are they good for nothing else, but their
perverted activity renders them actually harmful. Disputations such as
they delight in are made a subject of mirth by Cicero and Seneca, in
several passages. We find an example in the case of Diogenes, whom a
contentious logician addressed as follows: "What I am, you are not."
Upon Diogenes conceding this, the logician added, "But I am a man."
As this was not denied, the poor quibbler propounded the conclusion,
"Therefore you are not a man." "The last statement is not true,"
Diogenes remarked, "but if you wish it to be true, begin with me in
your major premise." Similar absurdities are common enough with them.
What they hope to gain from their efforts, whether fame or amusement,
or some light upon the way to live righteously and happily, they may
know; to me, I confess, it is the greatest of mysteries. Money,
certainly, does not appeal at least to noble minds as a worthy reward
of study. It is for the mechanical trades to strive for lucre; the
higher arts have a more generous end in view.
On hearing such things as these, those of whom we are speaking grow
furious;--indeed the chatter of the disputatious man usually verges
closely on anger. "So you set yourself up to condemn logic," they
cry. Far from it; I know-well in what esteem it was held by that
sturdy and virile sect of philosophers, the Stoics, whom our Cicero
frequently mentions, especially in his work _De Finibus_. I know that
it is one of the liberal studies, a ladder for those who are striving
upwards, and by no means a useless protection to those who are forcing
their way through the thorny thickets of philosophy. It stimulates
the intellect, points out the way of truth, shows us how to avoid
fallacies, and finally, if it accomplishes nothing else, makes us ready
and quick-witted.
All this I readily admit, but because a road is proper for us to
traverse, it does not immediately follow that we should linger on it
forever. No traveller, unless he be mad, will forget his destination
on account of the pleasures of the way; his characteristic virtue
lies, on the contrary, in reaching his goal as soon as possible, never
halting on the road. And who of us is not a traveller? We all have
our long and arduous journey to accomplish in a brief and untoward
time,--on a short, tempestuous, wintry day as it were. Dialectics may
form a portion of our road, but certainly not its end: it belongs
to the morning of life, not to its evening. We may have done once
with perfect propriety what it would be shameful to continue. If as
mature men we cannot leave the schools of logic because we have found
pleasure in them as boys, why should we blush to play odd and even,
or prance upon a shaky reed, or be rocked again in the cradle of our
childhood? Nature, with cunning artifice, escapes from dull monotony by
her wondrous change of seasons, with their varying aspects. Shall we
look for these alternations in the circuit of the year, and not in the
course of a long life? The spring brings flowers and the new leaves of
the trees, the summer is rich in its harvest, autumn in fruit, and then
comes winter with its snows. In this order the changes are not only
tolerable but agreeable; but if the order were to be altered, against
the laws of nature, they would become distasteful. No one would suffer
with equanimity the cold of winter in summer time, or a raging sun
during the months where it does not belong.
Who would not scorn and deride an old man who sported with children,
or marvel at a grizzled and gouty stripling? What is more necessary
to our training than our first acquaintance with the alphabet itself,
which serves as the foundation of all later studies; but, on the other
hand, what could be more absurd than a grandfather still busy over his
letters?
Use my arguments with the disciples of your ancient logician. Do not
deter them from the study of logic; urge them rather to hasten through
it to better things. Tell the old fellow himself that it is not the
liberal arts which I condemn, but only hoary-headed children. Even
as nothing is more disgraceful, as Seneca says, than an old man just
beginning his alphabet, so there is no spectacle more unseemly than
a person of mature years devoting himself to dialectics. But if your
friend begins to vomit forth syllogisms, I advise you to take flight,
bidding him argue with Enceladus.[4] Farewell.
AVIGNON, March 11.
1: _Fam_., i., 6.
2: His friend's home.
3: _Homines litterati_, probably simply those versed in the Latin
tongue.
4: It is interesting to compare these views with those of John
of Salisbury who, writing almost two centuries before the time of
Petrarch's letter says: "It seemed to me pleasant to revisit my old
companions on the Mount [of St. Geneviève at Paris], whom I had left
and whom dialectic still detained, and to confer with them touching
the old subjects of debate, that we might by mutual comparison measure
our respective progress. I found them as before, and where they were
before; they did not appear to have advanced an inch in settling the
old questions, nor had they added a single proposition. The aims that
once inspired them inspired them still; they had progressed in one
point only, they had unlearned moderation, they knew not modesty; and
that to such an extent that one might despair of their recovery. So
experience taught me a manifest conclusion, that, while logic furthers
other studies, it is by itself lifeless and barren, nor can it cause
the mind to yield the fruit of philosophy except the same conceive from
some other source." Migne, _Pat. Lat._, vol. cxcix., p. 869.
III
THE FATHER OF HUMANISM
Quæ cum scholar atque ævi comitibus quædam quasi somnia
viderentur, mihi jam tunc, omnia videntem testor Deum, et
vera et pæne præsentia videbantur.
_Fam_., xxiv., 1.
Every age has a philosophy of life, which reaches and affects, in
greater or less degree, the thought and action of all of its members.
To the centuries before Petrarch the world was a place in which to
prepare for a life beyond; the noblest subject of thought was theology;
the saving of the soul was the one important task. The centuries since
have realised in some measure that the present life is precious in
itself and is not to be thus subordinated. This shifting of the view is
of immense significance; and it is owing to Petrarch, more than to any
other one man.
The process was, after all, not so much a shifting as a blending, a
powerful modification of the mediæval notions by those of the ancient
world. The ancients frankly delighted in sensuous beauty, and felt an
unrestrained joy in mere living, and trusted nature and the natural
impulses. They were thoroughly human, and the return to them humanised
the narrow conceptions of the Middle Ages. And this return was largely
Petrarch's work.
Men had conversed with the classics before his day. They were by no
means unstudied in mediæval times. John of Salisbury, for example,
in the twelfth century, had known almost as many of the Roman poets
and moralists and historians as Petrarch himself. He had known them,
however, and used them, in a very different fashion. He had read them
with no surrender to their charm, and no response to their views
concerning life and its uses. We wonder at his knowledge of the text
of his classical authors, and at the aptness with which he cites them
in illustration of his thought; but we wonder still more at his utter
inability to understand their attitude, to find their point of view.
Lifelong intercourse with them failed to widen his range of vision.
Despite their influence he remained mediæval in all his thought.