Transition from Medieval to Modern Philosophy

This Chapter discusses the progress, and the retrogressions, of philosophy during the last six centuries. The 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries are often called the period of transition from the age of Scholasticism to the philosophy of modern times. The student may be astonished to know that the modern period begins with the 17th century; this fact must come as a shock to a generation that has been taught, by every agency from radio to university, that even so recent a time as the last decade of the 19th century is fogged in a remote and ridiculous antiquity. The modern period of philosophy, extending through three and one-half centuries to our own day, is conveniently divided into two parts, the first of which discusses the period of transition, and the second, the philosophers and systems of note since the 16th century. The Chapter is accordingly divided into two Articles:

Article 1. Transition from Medieval to Modern Philosophy
Article 2. The Philosophy of the Last Three Centuries

a) The Fading of Scholasticism

It is usual to speak of the decline of Scholasticism during the 14 and following centuries. The word is unfortunate. For to decline is to suffer from an inner weakness, to undergo an essen- tial disintegration, in a word, to decay. Now, Scholastic philosophy is a body of truths; it is the best system of philosophical principles that the human mind has been able to discover and integrate in more than twenty-five hundred years. Such a thing does not decline; it does not decay. It may lose favor with men; it may lose popularity; it may fade into the background. But there is no inner weakening or essential disintegration. It remains as true as always, no matter how it may be treated or regarded. Thus we speak of the jading of Scholasticism rather than of its decline.

Beyond all question, Scholasticism faded, and that with astonishing rapidity. There was a time when it had the field of philosophy practically to itself. This does not mean that all Scholastics were in full agreement on the solution of every problem, or that all followed the same course in solving problems. Scholasticism is one philosophy, but it admits of a variety of incidental treatments within its essential boundaries. It is a roomy household with ample space for a large family wherein tastes and temperaments may give rise to various and even conflicting opinions and modes of expression. As long as a member of this great family remains loyal to the home, supports the family honor, and holds to its essential ideals, he retains his place and rank in it. Scholasticism has unity in essentials, variety in modes and stresses. It has claim not alone to the title of true philosophy, but to the name of a human and even beautiful institution, for beauty is sometimes,—albeit imperfectly,—described as “unity amid variety.”

Scholasticism once had its field to itself. No rival system of importance stood opposed to it in the 13 or three following centuries. Yet it faded from favor, and that suddenly, in the 14 century. The age of the giants was abruptly over when the giants died. As the Golden Age of Greek philosophy came to a sudden end with the death of Aristotle, the Golden Age of Scholasticism closed definitely with the death of the great masters of the 13 century. Neither Greek philosophy at its best, nor Scholasticism in its perfection, gave place to a stronger opposed system. There was no stronger opposed system. There was hardly an opposed system at alL Scholasticism faded; it was not driven from the scene. It faded for no want of perfection in itself, but for want of ability and of interest on the part of men. And inability and lack of interest came in turn from many causes which may be loosely summed up as distraction, ineptitude, mental weariness, the misdirection born of the Scotist-Thomist debates, and laxity in the methods and programmes of educational institutions, especially the great universities.

People with pretensions to scholarship sometimes write with deliberate pen that Scholasticism faded because the Scholastics of the later time were so deeply engaged in finicky quibbles, in thin eristic reasonings, in the endless fretting out of distinctions and subdistinctions, that they lost the respect of all learned and studious men. This is a half-truth and its unqualified allegation is more damaging and libellous than a whole falsehood. It is partially true, and entirely misleading. It paints a picture of silly Scholastics splitting hairs and of solidly learned men looking upon the process with disdain. Now, a great number of the later Scholastics did unquestionably split hairs and waste their time. But if they lost the respect of solid men, it was not Scholasticism itself which lost, or deserved to lose, that respect; yet the picture we speak of suggests precisely this. Again, the picture presents a splendid body of scholars scorning the Scholastic quibbles. One wonders just who those splendid fellows were. And, if they were of such solidity in scholarship, how comes it that they lacked penetration to recognize the fact that a system of philosophy is not to be judged by unworthy and inadequate representatives ?

We hear until we are weary the mildewed story about Scholastic philosophers arguing endlessly on the question of how many angels might dance on the point of a needle. This story is offered by countless critics and historians who propose it as typical of the later Scholastic debates. But the story rather illustrates a type of mind in critics and historians than a type of Scholastic argument. For if this story is typical of the philosophic effort, it seems to be the only story of its type. It is an illustration that illustrates only itself. Certainly, it is not typical of Scholasticism, early or late, nor is it typical of the veriest dolt who had the remotest claim to knowledge of Scholastic philosophy. To take the silly thing seriously for a moment, it is obvious that any Scholastic philosopher, even a poor Scholastic philosopher, even the poorest Scholastic philosopher among the Scholastics of that later day when the glory and the great popularity had passed, would have instantly pointed out to the inept inquirer that there could be no discussion of such a question at all, much less an endless discussion. Such a question could not possibly arise among Scholastics who were well aware that a needle-point is material and has quantity whereas an angel is a spirit that cannot be quantified or considered as taking up any material space at all.

The true explanation of the fading of Scholasticism is not to be found in the silly fable of the debate about angels and the point of a needle. As has been indicated, it goes to a greater depth than that probed by a needle, and spreads over an area wider than that of the points of all needles.

“Rem acu tetigisti!” cried the ancients when a person had made a clear point in argument: “You’ve touched the thing with a needle; you’ve hit the nail on the head!” We cannot salute the angels-and-needle-point fabulist with such a praiseful cry. For the fabulist has not touched the character of the later Scholasticism with his needle; he has not hit the nail on the head. He has lost the needle in a haystack of misinformation; he has failed to see the nail or to come within striking distance of it.

For the whole point of this story about dancing angels and a needle-point is that it is a joke. The fabulist has confused the point of a needle with the point of a joke; and he hasn’t seen the joke. That is why he is petulant, and why he petulantly calls the later Scholastics fools who made philosophy ridiculous. The man who can’t see a joke is usually half-conscious of his own ineptitude; he grows surly or petulant about it; he comforts himself with the thought that the joker is an ass.

There may come a day when fabulists, petulantly arrogant, may dismiss with contempt some sacredly esteemed institution of our times,—say, for instance, the American system of education. In that remote day, serious writers will declare that the Americans of the twentieth century had such a foolish opinion of the nature of education that they lost the respect of all learned men. For, they will say, an American schoolmaster of the age in question was once heard propounding to another American schoolmaster the absurd problem, “When is a door not a door ?” When (it will be tediously explained) leaders in education came to frittering away their time and their mental efforts on such nonsense, it is manifest that education was in a bad way. And so will arise a new myth about new Dark Ages and all the rest of the tiresome drivel that passes for information about a time half-known and half-forgotten and wholly misunderstood. And all because heavy critics and stolid historians lack wit to see a joke. The modern fabulist is stuck on the point of a medieval needle. The fabulist of the future will run headlong into a solid American door. No jar will suffice to make his inadequate faculties take hold of the fact that the door is ajar.

But, quite apart from all the fabulist’s serious nonsense, it must be admitted that the later Scholastics wasted their time on meticulous inconsequentialities. There were no intellectual giants among them, but that fact is irrelevant. A long succession of men of genius cannot be expected. The world’s work, intellectual as well as physical, must, in the main, be carried on by ordinary plodding folk of the kind snobbishly called mediocre. The dazzling achievements of genius must be recognized, esteemed, and preserved by the interest and effort of common men. This was the task of the later Scholastics. This task the later Scholastics failed to perform. There was among them a slackening of interest, a lack of well- directed effort, a let-down in consistent mental application of the type we now love to call “constructive.” And why did this lamentable falling off occur ? Well, as we have said before, a great many intellectual leaders of the time were distracted and wearied, especially by the Thomist-Scotist arguments. And why did they succumb to such weakness ? Because men are children of a fallen sire; men always tend to grow lazy and slipshod. And when they have once given way to intellectual laziness and have begun to suffer from the ill equipment that comes of it, men resent guidance, they fret at the exactions of study, they begin to wonder whether, after all, the laborious ancients and the lauded masters were not making much ado about nothing, or at least about a very little. Now, the very soul of such resentful fretting is pride. When pride takes hold of the mind, real scholarship dies. For humility is not alone the basic and essential moral virtue; it is the basic and essential intellectual virtue as well.

Pride,—born of laziness, incompetence, injured self-respect,— is the real root reason for the fading of Scholasticism. Indeed, this spirit of pride was abroad in the world in the 14 and following centuries. Humility faded with the fading of the Faith. The works of pride which supplanted humility are, as the Apostle says, manifest: Liberalism, the pagan Renaissance, the Protestant Reformation, naturalistic philosophies, Humanism, Sociology. Among such things truth cannot live; it is pushed to the background ; it inevitably fades.

Scholasticism faded in the 14 century. Yet by the middle of the 15 century there was a notable movement afoot to restore it to its rightful place. The Dominicans and, later, the newly established Society of Jesus, did much good service in that direction during the 15 and 16 centuries, and we come upon notable names among the Scholastics of the time: Cajetan, Francis de Ferrara, Francis de Vittoria, Melchior Canus, Bannez, John of St. Thomas, Fonseca, Vasquez, Molina, Suarez. But, despite the splendid efforts of these champions, Scholasticism was increasingly regarded as a system outmoded, a religious philosophy suited only for the Catholic whose Faith was now scorned by the majority of men. Scholastic philosophy failed to secure a place of prominence in the eyes of the non-Catholic world until late in the 19 century.

The human mind, as Karl Adam aptly says, cannot live upon denial; it is made for thesis and affirmation. With the fading of Scholasticism men turned to other doctrines.

The impatience of the post-medievals with the authority of the masters of Scholasticism was only a phase of a general and increasing impatience with all authority, notably religious authority, and even divine authority. The ideals of the Cross, of self-discipline, of life in obedience and docility under the guidance of God’s Church, were unacceptable to the mood of the time. Men were caught in the shackles of half-education and baseless selfesteem. They forgot the lesson of wisdom that it is truth which makes men free. They sought what they called a larger freedom, which was but a mirage of freedom, in the things of man and time rather than in the things of God and eternity. Scorning the masters of immediately preceding times, they shifted their allegiance to ages long past They found something new and exhilarating in the works of the ancients, the achievements of the old pagans in language and letters, in arts and philosophy. Interest and enthusiasm grew for sheerly human achievement. Thus was humanism born into the world.

Plato and Aristotle, recaptured for Europe in acceptable translation, won many admirers. The Stoics and the Epicureans had followers too. Some revived the doctrines of Averroes as the final philosophy, but most turned to teachers more ancient In all this stir of humanistic study there was something of the thin enthusiasm which accompanies the promotion of a fad. And the fad died, leaving no valuable fruits. Of course, the flight from authority never really made a start; all that the Liberals of the time accomplished was a shift of authority, a substitution of the dubious authority of half-grasped ancient theories for the truly liberating authority of sound philosophy.

No really eminent names are encountered in the lists of philosophers of the revivalist movement in the 15 and 16 centuries. Among Platonists of the 15 century we may mention: Pletho, Ficino, Bessarion, Giovanni della Mirandola. Among Aristotelians (falsely so called, for they were materialists and not true Aristotelians at all) were: Theodore of Gaza, Achellini, Pom- ponazzi, and, in the 16 century, Andreas Caesalpinus, Joest Lips, and Peter Gassendi.

c) Philosophy and Natural Science

The newly developing experimental sciences of the 15 and 16 centuries offered themselves as a substitute for philosophy to men who had cast aside,—for the most part without examining it,—the ordered system of Scholasticism. Naturalistic philosophies made their appearance. And the name natural philosophy was given to what we should now call experimental physics.

The naturalistic philosophers were in tune with the humanistic mood of the time. Man was doing things; man was discovering what makes the universe tick. “Glory to man in the highest,” (as Swinburne was later to sing) “for man is the master of things.” The swift formulation of philosophies from the findings of incipient physical science helped humanism to do its work,—that is, it helped dehumanize mankind. In the older and spiritual philosophies man was regarded indeed as the clay of the earth, but clay infused and in-formed by spirit, and cast in the image of God. In the naturalistic and humanist philosophy man was soon regarded as animal merely, the product of a blind clash of physical forces in a wholly material universe; man was, as Homer had called him, “only the saddest of the beasts of the field.”

The student is cautioned here not to confuse the genuine scientists of this time with the mistaken and absurd philosophers of science. Sometimes indeed a real scientist overstepped the bounds of his province and turned philosopher. It is a thing even the best intentioned scientists are forever trying to do. But others attended, in the main, to their own business; they accomplished a great deal for the advancement of true scientific knowledge. We appreciate the achievements of a Copernicus (1473-1543) and a Kepler (1571-1631) ; we deprecate the foul ineptitude of an unspeakable Girodano Bruno (1548-1600). The Church as well as true philosophy recognizes the findings of true science, esteems the genuine scientist and furthers and fosters his work. But the Church and true philosophy also recognize the sham scientist. They see in him the enemy of truth, and they condemn him as such. Yet out of this sane procedure a muddle-headed minority takes occasion for charging the Church and Scholastic philosophy with opposition to science. The student must be prepared for this. When he hears the silly phrase about “the conflict of science and religion,” let him be ready to show, with enduring patience, that there never was, never is, never can be, a conflict between the true religion of the Catholic Church and genuine science.

The whole history of science and of the Catholic Church is evidence of the fact that truth never contradicts truth. Time after time, over-enthusiastic scientists, as well as the foggy- minded fellows who call themselves Liberals and Progressives, have sought the unqualified approbation of the Church for their seemingly well-founded theories. And, failing, they have turned on the Church as decadent, outmoded, fogyish, doomed to general contempt as a hopeless reactionary and stick-in-the-mud. But each time the scientists and the sciolists and the Liberals and the Progressives have had to change their tune and their theories. Meanwhile the Church, secure and serene, remained the sane guardian of truth. Sometimes even Catholics, like Lord Acton in 1854, have been so dismayed and provoked by the attitude of the Church towards “progressive culture” that they have broken out in petulant complaint But time proved the Church right and the Progressives wrong. This sort of thing has happened so often and so invariably, that one might suppose that the Progressives, the Liberals, the Dawnists, and the materialists of every stripe would proceed with some caution in their judgments upon the stand of the Church. But Progressives never progress; they are proof against learning anything. The Church has been in vital existence for two thousand years; the scientific effort (since man’s genius has supplied it with laboratory instruments and the means for controlling the conditions of investigation and experiment) has a history of four or five hundred years at the most. In this long course of time, in pre-scientific and in scientific ages, the Church has steadily vindicated her character as the promoter and guardian of truth. At the same time she has risked name and reputation a hundred times to stand squarely against some suddenly popular theory which all the world regarded as scientific fact Time has always justified the Church. For the Church has never run with the mood of the hour; she has never cared a fig about being in the fashion; she has never flinched under the angry charges that she is obstructionist and reactionary. She has cared for truth, and she has neither feared to protect it at the cost of popularity or to promote it in the face of mistaken opposition. And in all this, the Scholastic philosophy parallels the Church. This is not due to the fact that Scholasticism is “Catholic philosophy,” but to the fact that both the Church and Scholasticism are eminently sane.

Those who dislike the Church and Scholasticism are eager to have these institutions seen in any unfavorable light. They like to talk of “the quarrel of science and religion” and of “the conflict of the Church with scientific progress.” Such phrases are wholly false and unwarranted; the man who uses them confesses the essentially defective character of his education. When confronted by what appears to him an amazing denial, such a man will murmur something about Galileo. And that “sizes” the gentleman once and for all. For if anything were needed to show that the Church is the defender of true science, the case of Galileo would meet all requirements. No matter what a few churchmen had to say, the Church had no condemnation for the scientific teachings of Galileo; Copernicus had taught these in a work dedicated to the Pope, and Copernicus, a faithful son of the Church and perhaps an ecclesiastic, had been dead twenty years when Galileo was born. What the Church,—and even local Church authority, —condemned in Galileo was his attack on Holy Scripture, and in this the Church was manifestly right and Galileo was wrong. The so-called imprisonment of Galileo (referred to sometimes as “a martyrdom in the sacred cause of science”) was an enforced residence for a short period in the palatial home of a friend. This imprisonment was a disciplinary measure imposed, according to the procedure of the time, upon a recalcitrant Catholic; it had nothing whatever to do with his scientific teachings. Further, the scientific data propounded by Galileo were based upon unscientific grounds. The Church would not approve the deducing of even true conclusions from false premises. Nor would she allow the scientific world to be deceived by the theory of Galileo that there is a contradiction between scientific fact and the revealed word of God. In a word, the Church stood for science as opposed to scientism, for truth as opposed to falsity.

There is no conflict between the Church and science; quite the contrary. But there is, and must be, a conflict between the Church (with Scholastic philosophy) and sham science,

d) Philosophy and Social Science

The humanistic interest in everything that man has achieved turned, in the 16 century, to the matter of laws and the management of civil society. The emergence of “the principle of nationality” lent emphasis to the interest in social science and helped to make it a substitute for philosophy and even for religion.

St. Thomas More (1480-1535), the glorious English martyr, wrote a book called Utopia (a name coined from two Greek words which mean “not a place” or “nowhere” ) in which he described the life of a people living on an imaginary island. Their government was that of a republic. Laws were administered most wisely;

absolute equality was insured to all citizens; all enjoyed continued peace and happiness. Now, St. Thomas More was an able statesman; he knew well how governments are run. His picture of the ideal island republic may be a whimsy to express “wishful thinking/’ or (and more likely) it may be a satire on the new voices that were crying wildly for social legislation as the one means of salvation; the “heaven on earth” people; the “make the world a better place to live in” crowd.

Hugo de Groot (commonly called Grotius, a Latinized form of his name) was a studious Protestant divine who wrote well and learnedly on The Right of War and Peace. He failed, however, to recognize the fact that man is by nature a social being. He thought that civil society (or The State) is somehow the product of a kind of arrangement and agreement among men, an artifiicial and not a natural institution. This social contract theory (taught later by Rousseau and by Hobbes) is untenable; it has long been recognized on all hands as fallacious, and it holds a place in the history of human thinking only as a philosophical curiosity. De Groot died in 1645.

A name familiar in the ears of modern men, especially when there is question,—as there is such painful question today,—of the rights of governments over citizens, is that of Nicholas Machiavelli (1469-1527). His famous book II Principe (“The Prince” or “The Ruler” ) sets forth a theory of government which may well be called diabolical. Machiavelli held that the whole purpose of man’s existence and efforts is the glorification of the State. The State is supreme. The State owns the citizen. Nothing whatever is wrong or unlawful if it helps to establish or maintain the supremacy of the State. The ruler, therefore, must have no qualms about devising measures, however crafty, and enforcing edicts, however cruel or oppressive, so long as these things serve to make the power of the State absolute. It is manifest that this doctrine is not a philosophy of State supremacy, but a religion of State worship. As a religion it is necessarily opposed to the true and divinely established religion. Machiavelli re- i3o COURSE OF PHILOSOPHY TO OUR TIMES nounced and denounced Christianity, as every heretic has done since the founding of the Church. For centuries civilized peoples have considered the very name of Machiavelli a term of reproach. The adjective “Machiavellian” is used to describe what (on the part of rulers or racketeers) is mean, sly, crafty, heartless, inhuman, and filthy. But we have lived to see a day, and that in a century that is forever advertising itself as “enlightened,” when the base ideals of Machiavelli are not only adopted, but actually achieved, in the greater part of what was once Christian Europe. And the crawling infection of this loathsome thing threatens to spread over all the earth.

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have noticed some philosophical trends of the 14, 15, and 16 centuries, the period of transition from the Golden Age of Scholasticism to the vague conflicts of modern philosophy. We have seen how Scholasticism faded from favor and from the knowledge of men. We have noted the reasons which account for its recession, and we have rejected the cheap explanation which puts the entire blame for the submerging of the doctrines of the Schoolmen upon the Scholastics themselves, although we have seen that a good deal of the blame actually attaches to them. We have noted the rise of humanism, that soul of the Renaissance, and the revival of pagan philosophies which it brought briefly into vogue. We have noticed the infiltration of the humanistic spirit into physical science and the arts of law and government,—as well as into what we now call sociology, —and we have seen how it emerged in philosophies of naturalism which tend to deny or ignore God and Christianity and the true purpose of human life.

Among philosophical terms which we shall meet in later studies and serious readings, we have met and mastered the following: humanism, naturalism, liberalism, the State, the Social Contract T heory, Machiavellianism.