PART I. death, and appears to have been one of the most popular of CHAP. V. the two or three manuals that, up to the time of Seton, superseded for a time the purely scholastic logic1. clusions from outline. It is not necessary that we should here follow any further the progress of the new learning either in Germany or in Italy; our sole aim in the preceding pages having been to illustrate a few important points in that progress, respecting which a certain amount of misapprehension has often prevailed. It will be seen that, so far from Aristotle being displaced and set aside by the earlier Humanists, his works engaged a large amount of their attention, and that we may date from the labours of Bruni and Argyropulos the commencement of that more intelligent Aristotelianism which, after a long and arduous struggle, succeeded in banishing both the fanciful interpretations of the Averroists and the mechanical versions of the schoolmen. It will also be seen that, at General conthe very outset, indications were not wanting of the uses to preceding which the Teutonic and the Latin races would respectively convert the revived literature of antiquity. With the German, it became the means of widening his whole range of thought, of modifying his conception of education, and of opening up a new field of doctrinal and speculative theology. With the Italian, it served to refine his style, to quicken his fancy, and to convert him into a meditative but generally urbane and genial man of letters or philosopher. The former betook himself to the study of the early fathers, especially those of the Greek Church, and was thus gradually led to reconsider and purify his religious faith; the latter, lost amid the speculations of the Academicians, became in many instances the victim of a shallow scepticism which he scarcely cared to veil. It was exactly in harmony with these tenden- Italian and cies, that the German scholar, content with acquiring a fairly scholarship correct and vigorous Latin style, remained indifferent to those minuter elegances and nuances of expression which lend a charm to the productions of Ovid, Catullus, and Martial; while the excessive attention devoted by the Italian scholar 1 Von Raumer (Gesch. d. Pädagogik, 1 83) observes, Agricola selbst erklärte sich auf's Schärfste gegen die German compared. PART I. Their re CHAP. V. to these same niceties, led him to regard with servile admiration the genius of those authors by whom they had been most successfully cultivated. Hence, in his enthusiasm, he imitated not only the elegance of the Latinity, but the impurity of the thought. We are here under no necessity of illustrating, as Voigt and other writers have done, the prevalence of this element in the writings of the Transalpine scholars of this period; but the most adverse critic of that now somewhat neglected literature will find no difficulty in admitting, that in the above respect the imitators fully reached the standard of their originals. From this taint the learning of Germany was for a long time comparatively free; and to the last, men like Reuchlin, Mutian, and Erasmus, could recall with honourable pride, that the party they represented had never sullied a noble cause by productions like the Facetic of Poggio or the Hermaphroditus of Beccadelli1. spective affi- If we pursue our comparison into the days of the ReReformation. formation we shall find the above contrast still holding good. The Humanists of Italy were for the most part hostile to the Reformers, and the denunciations of Savonarola were in turn not unfrequently directed against both the learning and the licentiousness of the writers who adorned the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent. In Germany, on the other hand, though Protestantism was still far from implying free thought, the two parties drew much more closely together: and had Savonarola lived to witness the rise of Luther, he could scarcely have denied, that the victory won by those whom he denounced in Italy, largely contributed to the victory won by those who represented his spirit among the Teutonic race. It was undoubtedly the success in Italy that made success in Germany and England possible, or at least much less arduous. To the example of a Nicolas v, a Pius II, and a Leo x, the Humanists chiefly owed it that the nities to the 1 Von Raumer (Gesch. d. Pädagogik, 1 109 n. 1) has, as it appears to me somewhat unjustly, compared the Colloquies of Erasmus to the Facetia of Poggio, and severely censures the former writer for his occa sional grossness. But in the mere question of degree there can be no comparison between the two, and the coarseness of the Colloquies is but their accident, while that of the Facetic is their essence. PART I. odium theologicum was not more powerfully and actively in- CHAP. V. voked against them, especially after the spread of Greek learning had lent new force to the old arguments, from the supposed connexion of its literature with a formidable and widespread heresy. bodings of Alcuin par tially veri result. In reviewing these different features it is easy to perceive The forethat the moot question of the advantages and disadvantages Gregory and of classical learning was again already challenging the atten- fied by the tion of the world: and it is impossible not therewith to be reminded of those warning voices which, some seven centuries before, had been so emphatically lifted up against the allurements of pagan genius. The evils which conservatism foretells are certainly not always mere chimæras. We may feel assured that could Gregory the Great have revisited Italy at this crisis, and have seen the licentious muse of the Italian scholars sheltering itself from censure by pleading the example of classic models, or could Alcuin again have trod the soil that once acknowledged the rule of Charlemagne, and have witnessed the changes that resulted from the teaching of Erasmus and the Reformers, they would each have pointed to what they beheld as affording the amplest justification of their own oft-repeated warnings. And not merely this, they would also have seen that the ancient power of the Church, to eradicate evils like those which had come to pass, was no longer hers. With the discovery of printing the tares sown by the enemy had acquired a new and irrepressible capacity of reproduction. With the rise of the art of criticism a new weapon had been brought to bear upon the defenders of the Church; a weapon which, it has been aptly said, changed the whole character of the strife between mind and mind, as completely as did the invention of firearms that of the art of war. The student of pagan literature was no longer an isolated solitary monk, timidly and often furtively turning the page of Terence or Virgil, exposed to the sarcasms of his brethren or the rebuke of his superior, but one of an illustrious band whose talents and achievements were winning the admiration of Europe. The bigotry of the adherents to the old discipline found itself confronted by PART I. CHAP. V. weapons to which it could offer no effectual resistance; the ancient terrorism was in its turn besieged by the combined forces of reason, eloquence, and satire. The Humanists and the ists at the As might be easily conjectured, but few of the Humanists religious or were to be found among either the monastic or the mendicant fraternities. Traversari belonged to the order of the Camuldules; Antonio da Rho was a Franciscan, and Cardinal Bessarion was protector of the same fraternity; Maffeo Begio retired in his latter life to a Benedictine monastery'. But these were notable exceptions, and generally speaking it was among the religious orders that the most obstinate and The Human- bigoted opposition was to be encountered. As regards the universities. universities, it is of importance to observe the general character of their culture at this period. We have already incidentally noted the progress of nominalism in one or two of the most influential of these centres, and those who may be desirous of tracing its progress more in detail will find ample guidance in the fourth volume of Prantl's exhaustive treatise. Everywhere the Byzantine logic, with its Scotian developement and Occamistic illumination, was giving birth to a series of manuals, each designed to introduce some new refinement on the theory of the suppositio or the theory of the Terminists, or on the distinctions between scientia realis and sermocinalis, or on quidditas, hæcceitas, and formalitas. The realists and nominalists however, now known as the Progress of Antiqui and Moderni, constituted the two great parties, and at almost every university,-Leipsic, Greiswald, and Prague being the principal exceptions,-were still waging, or had but just concluded, the struggle for preeminence. At Paris, as we have already seen, the overwhelming strength of the theologians, notwithstanding the position assumed by Gerson, still kept the nominalistic doctrines under a ban. At Heidel nominalism at the universities. 1 Voigt, 468-74. 2 Occam appears to have been, in the opinion of many, the real cause of the interminable warfare. Leonardo Bruni in his treatise De Disputationum Usu, says,-Quid est, inquam, in dialectica, quod non Britannicis sophismatibus conturbatum sit?' It was in his eyes another proof of the degrading tendencies of the study of logic that it found acceptance among a race so barbarous as our own, 'etiam illa barbara quæ trans oceanum habitat in illam impetum facit.' p. 26. PART I. the univer respect to the berg, on the other hand, which was now becoming a noted CHAP. V. school of liberal thought, the nominalists had expelled their antagonists. It was much the same at Vienna and at Erfurt, a centre of considerable intellectual activity, which its enemies were wont to stigmatise as novorum omnium portus. At Basel, under the able leadership of Johannes a Lapide, the realists, though somewhat outnumbered, maintained their ground. Freiburg, Tübingen and Ingoldstadt appear to have arrived at a kind of compromise, each party having its own professor and representing a distinct 'nation.' At Maintz a manual of logic was published with the sanction of the authorities, which, with certain reservations, was essentially a nominalistic manifesto. A period of internal discord might naturally be supposed to have favoured Attitude of the introduction of a new culture, but the attitude of the sities with universities seems to have been almost invariably hostile new learning. to the new learning, and both nominalists and realists laid aside their differences to oppose the common foe. To the Humanists, Prantl observes, two courses were open they could either insist on a restoration of the true logic of Aristotle and a general rejection of the misconstructions and unjustifiable additions made by Petrus Hispanus and his countless commentators, or they could denounce the whole study of logic, as worthless and pernicious, and demand that it should be altogether set aside and its place be filled by rhetoric1. In Italy, the latter course was unfortunately the one almost universally adopted, and the tone of the Humanists was irritating in the extreme. Looking again at the position of the universities, when compared with that when the New Aristotle claimed admittance, we see that two centuries had materially modified its character. They had acquired distinct traditions in all the branches of learning; they possessed, in many instances, well-endowed chairs, whose occupants were tenacious of the received methods of interpretation, and strongly prejudiced in favour of the current system of instruction. The literature which it was sought to introduce was not only open, as formerly, to the 1 Prantl, Geschichte d. Logik, rv 151–2. : |