L’IMMAGINAZIONE NELLE SUE RELAZIONI NORMALI E MORBOSE COLLA
SENSIBILITA. By _L. Ambrosi_.
L’ORIGINE INDIANA DEL PITAGORISMO SECONDO L. VON SCHRÖDER. By
_P. D’Ercole_.
LUIGI VIVES, PEDAGOGISTA DEL RINASCIMENTO. By _A. Piazzi_.
LA FILOSOFIA DI EMPEDOCLE. By _S. Ferrari_.
_Imagination in its normal and diseased relations to sensibility._ The
writer calls our attention to the endless variety of different and
apparently contradictory things that are usually attributed to the
faculty of imagination. To some this faculty of the human mind is the
main cause of human errors, and with Montaigne they call it “la folle
du logis”; but to others, imagination plays a rather important part in
the discovery of great scientific theories. All unanimously admit, that
imagination lends fuel to the flames of all kinds of evil passions; but
on the other hand it cannot be denied, that imagination sustains the
will in every work of great stress, or great sacrifice, by the vivid
representation of an expected final success. All human votaries and
possessors of this fleeting, inconstant mental faculty are by turns
“happy, unhappy, sane, sick, wealthy or poor; it makes us believe, doubt,
or deny reason; it makes fools and sages.” (Pascal, _Pensées_, Art. 3, §
3). Yet how can the psychologist reconcile all this; how can he find the
different circumstances, through which one and the same cause produces
such an endless variety and discrepancy of facts? Several psychologists,
who have tried to follow the flights of imagination throughout all its
different manifestations by the sole aid of style and language, have
been poets rather than true philosophers. Such was Delille in his poem
_l’Imagination_; and such was even Professor Mantegazza himself, in that
chapter of his _Physiology of Pleasure_, which he has dedicated to the
“Gioie della fantasia,” where he describes this faculty with far more
enthusiasm than scientific precision. Bonstetten, in his _Recherches sur
la nature et lois de l’imagination_, Genève, 1807, is supposed to have
been the first to give a minute and exclusively psychological analysis
of imagination; but his investigations seem to prove, that a delicate
subject of this kind, like certain volatile essences, evaporates at
the moment we wish to analyse it, and cannot be defined by any strict
scientific formulas and classifications. And yet, if we really wish
to study the psychology of imagination, we must not be frightened by
these difficulties, or regard them as insurmountable. We may not be
able to reduce all these varied phenomena to very definite and limited
categories, but it does not follow from this, that we have only to make
a simple, empirical registration of these phenomena. As Michaut observes
(_L’Imagination_, Introduction): “Wherever we find a general element,
there also we shall find room for science.” Despite the inconstancy of
the phenomena, it remains true, that also in the facts of imagination
there is something constant and regular; that they are subject to laws,
which might be probably severed from the phenomena, and be reduced to a
certain unity and uniformity, without forgetting, at the same time, that
this fleeting and delicate subject is not always reducible to absolutely
strict classification.
How are we, accordingly, to obtain that harmony and unity of view, that
will unite and group all those diversified manifestations? Mind cannot
be conceived as a collection of different states, but we have to assume,
that within the Psyche there is something substantial; there is unity,
constancy in its energy; and that this side of its being is also the
principle of its transitory actions. We recognise therefore the existence
of two distinct sources of spiritual energy, that will better make us
understand the diversity of its products: on the one side, the soul
itself, with the formal laws of its simple being, and, on the other side,
the power or force of its sensible representations,—of its reactions.
This distinction, applied to the present problem, will on the one hand
cause us to consider images as the products of an activity of an inferior
order, called psyche soul, but we shall behold on the other, that same
soul, when it has freed itself from the tyranny of the senses, itself
becoming properly what is called mind, its emancipation rising to the
higher function of arranging and organising the images produced by the
aid of the senses. Hence follows, that the relations of either conflict
or harmony which these products of the soul have among each other, and
to mind proper, will serve as a criterion of a classification, in which
we have to take note: (1) of the reciprocal action between sensations
and images; (2) of that between images and images; (in both of which
instances the power of the products possesses an advantage over the power
of mind;) and (3) of the action of mind upon images. By this road it
will be possible to follow all the phases of the evolution of mind from
the moment when overcome by obstinate images it is reduced to a life of
disorder, incoherency, or, as it were, to death of mind, until the moment
when in its own turn mind takes hold of the numerous images by which it
is besieged, and by subjecting them to its own laws—to laws of unity and
harmony—it creates out of that disorderly chaos of images the wonderful
synthesis of science and works of art. From that instant we behold mind
rise through a series of intermediate stages, from abject servitude to
the loftiest heights of freedom, from a state of humiliating impotency to
an unhampered display of its true, inward activity,—from folly to genius.
In other words, it is chiefly this psychic activity, in all its different
stages of development and power, that must be our guiding criterion in
the study of the phases and phenomena of imagination.
The writer, thereupon, seeks to explain the nature of this psychic
activity in its application to images. He briefly investigates the
origin of images, their immediate derivation from the sensations, and
their intimate reciprocal connection, by virtue of which the one cannot
be produced without the other; and whence there arise many different
relations, that not only explain, but even enable us to classify a large
number of facts relating to this mental faculty. The writer concludes
with some general remarks on the diseases of imagination.
_The Hindu Origin of Pythagorism according to L. von Schroeder._ This
article was suggested by Dr. L. v. Schroeder’s monograph: _Pythagoras
und die Inder. Eine Untersuchung über die Herkunft und Abstammung
der Pythagorischen Lehren_. The discussion about the local origin of
Pythagorism began with the ancients themselves, is being continued in our
own time, and, from the nature of the subject itself, bids fair to be
protracted for an indefinite period still. In recent times this arduous
problem has invaded the domain of comparative ethnology, comparative
religion, philology, in brief, of all the historical sciences, receiving,
doubtless, striking and copious illustrations from all these, yet at the
risk of almost losing sight of itself. In Pythagorism, as in certain
other products of the human mind, it is difficult to discriminate with
absolute historical certainty between “mine” and “thine.” The real
solution of the problem may perhaps be found in the original unity of
the evolution of the Indo-European mind. The writer, however, views
the problem simply as one of comparative religion and the history of
philosophy. The ancients advocated the Italic, or Tyrrhenian origin of
the Pythagorean system, and among modern Italians, Vico and Gioberti have
done the same. The Chinese origin was defended by Gladisch. The third,
the Egyptian origin, also dates from antiquity, and in modern times has
been ardently defended by Roth. The fourth, the supposed Hellenic origin,
has had the greatest number of followers, and has been ably championed by
Dr. Edw. Zeller in his work, _Die Philosophie der Griechen_. As regards
the last, the alleged Hindu origin, this was suggested of course by the
numerous striking analogies found between Hindu and Pythagorean doctrine.
Still, all that has been said on the subject by Schroeder, Max Müller,
Weber, and others, has failed to thoroughly convince the writer. In his
next article he promises to show, that everything has induced him to
believe that the Hindus themselves rather borrowed their doctrine of
transmigration from the philosophical system of Pythagoras.
_Luigi Vives. A Pedagogist of the Renaissance._ The interesting subject
of this article is probably to this day but little understood or
appreciated by the pedagogists of northern Europe. To this day, many
among them seem ignorant of the fact, or, perhaps, are unwilling to
frankly admit, that along with the Catholic revival, and the intellectual
renaissance of the Latin nations, there was initiated the tradition of
really humane pedagogics, founded on the nature of man, and, in its aim
and workings, vastly superior to the educational systems of the nations
beyond the Alps. It was an earnest, liberal, refining educational
system, that professed an affectionate regard for youth. It banished
corporal punishment, and addressed itself directly to the heart and the
intelligence. The Jesuit maxim: “debetur pueris maxima reverentia,” still
recalls the original spirit of this humane system of education. It is
perhaps not an exaggeration to maintain, that, in the spirit of the time,
it also aimed at the _beautiful_ in education. It was a declared enemy
to any thought, speech or action in _bad form_. To the subject of this
article, the Spanish bishop of Valencia, Louis Vives, is due the honor
of having been one of the most ardent and successful promoters of this
new educational system, and to have been the Jean Jacques Rousseau of
his time. Vives was born in the year 1492, and died in the year 1540. He
had studied at the University of Paris, and was an intimate friend of
Erasmus of Rotterdam. He is moreover the author of a number of valuable
educational works. Bishop Vives, however, must also be regarded as a
clergyman, who in his practical career would at times find it difficult
to reconcile his broad-minded scholastic ideals with the duties of
his calling, and with the exaggerated ascetical tendencies by which
he was surrounded. As a matter of fact, in a short time the church is
seen practically to override all this liberal educational movement of
the renaissance. Within the college- and convent-walls, in the Latin
countries, the humane paternal pedagogics of the renaissance soon and
easily degenerated into oppressive, injurious, personal surveillance, and
an odious theocratic tyranny. With all our sincere admiration for the
work initiated by men like Louis Vives, we must nevertheless maintain,
that all, or nearly all, the ecclesiastic educational systems of the
Latin countries during the following centuries, can scarcely lay valid
claims to a place within the pale of true pedagogical science.
_The Philosophy of Empedocles._ In this concluding article the writer
exhaustively discusses the religious tenets and ethical precepts of
Empedocles, as both appear in the Proëmium, in the third book on Physics,
and in the poem of the “καθαρμοί”—or expiatory atonements.
_Bibliography._ In this department we notice a lengthy review of Prof. E.
Dal Pozzo di Mombello’s _Lectures on Monism_, delivered at the University
of Perugia. In this number are also contained the _Bollettino Pedagogico
Filosofico_, _Critical Notices_, and _Recent Publications_. (Rome.
Tipografia delle Terme Diocleziane. 1891.)
γνλν.
REVUE PHILOSOPHIQUE. November, 1891. No. II.