PREFACE

The author i s deeply conscious of the incompleteness of this study in view of the vast range of the subj ect . But if it may serve to stimulate a few minds to intelligent consideration o f a large and important problem in our present - day thought it will fi its have ful lled purpose . My grateful acknowledgments are due to Professor John

o vivifi Dewey , whose vig rous thought has ed and reshaped my

i f f I ac ent re philo sophy o nature and o man . Likewise gladly knowledge my indebtedness to Professor John Angus Mac

V'annel , whose instruction first stimulated my interest in the liv ing problems of philosophy ; and to Professo r Paul Monroe whose ideals of careful scholarship I have attempted to follow in the f preparation o this study .

W . G . o C lumbia University , I st 1 1 0 April , 9 .

¢ ’n \

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTR O DUCTIO N

hr d m u i n h u h - I . T ee o inant attit des t o g t life 1 u a u m . S pern tmralis 2 um . . H anis u m 3. Nat ralis

- The emergen c e o f these world attitudes i n Greek philoso phy . Purpose of the following study

CHA PTE R I

NATURALI SM AND HUMA N ISM mTHE RENAISSANCE

ma mo a h f h c I . The u nis t e earl y Renaiss n e 1 c c ml c ec ul . Influen e upon os o ogi al sp ation 2 . Man as a The first beginnings of Nat uralism ’

1 m . . Bruno s ato ic theory 2 r m . Ast ology and agic of n ew 3. Vives and Telesio as heralds a order m of l md ue Co r K The develop ent natura is to pe nicus , epler u n and Galileo . The revol tionizi g of sc ienc e by the d i s co very of a reliable method Evidences of naturalismin social theories Montaigne as an epitome o f hi s age The errors of both naturalismand humanism

CHA PTER II

T H E DEVE LO PM E N T o r NATU RAL I SM mTH E S EVENTEENTH A N D EI G HTEE N TH CENTU R I ES

Tendenc y toward systematization Divergence of science and philosoph y Bacon as the representative of the n ew sc ientific spirit mf c The thought syste o Descartes . Its influen e The world view of Leibniz English philosophy as represented by Hobbes and Lo cke Its psychologi cal and moral trend

r c . Psychologi al aspect Condillac and Helvetius 2 u mof L Mett rie . The nat ralis a vi Contents

h F h h e m — Conti n ued T e renc Enlig t n ent . of 3. Voltaire as the leader French thought

c . 4 . Diderot and the En yclopedists ’ mc c w - w 5 . The e hani al orld vie of D Ho lbach mo 6 . h oc um T e s ial h anis f Rousseau . to 7 . The relation of nature human perfec tibility

CHAPTER III

T H E HUMANISM o r T HE GERMAN ENLI G HTENMEN T

l c Its ear y rationalistic harac ter . The beginnings of Romantic ism I The transformation of individualismin to a broad humani tarian i sm

2 L s Sc h ll . es ing , Herder , Goethe and i er The influenc e of Hume ’ ’ K l o f o m m s l o u ant s so ution the pr ble of an re ati n to nat re . ' Fichte s subjective nature- phil osophy ’ Sc hellin g s contribution to the problem The humanistic - naturalismo f Hegel ’ Sc hopenhauer s denial of the harmony between nature and huma n life The contrast between the nat ure - philosophies of Franc e and

CHAPTER IV

TH E CO N F LICT o r NATURAL I SM AND HUMANISM I N T II E NI N ETEENTH CENTURY

The po sitivismof Auguste Co mte The soc ial and ethical charac ter o f English philoso phy Benthamand James Mill The nat ure- philosophy o f John Stuart Mill The revol utionizing work o f Darwin ’ - Spencer s humanistic naturalism. The modern idealistic school

Its strong humanistic bent . The contrast between pres en t -da y naturalismand idealism Pragmatismas a positive means of reconciliation

CHAPTER V

HUMAN I SM AND NATU RALI SM I N EDUCATI O N

m mof l s c I . The hu anis the ear y Renais an e Petrarch a n d the later humanists

The educatio nal philosophy of humanism. t I u u . Pa l s Ve rge ri us ’ 2 Casti l io n e o s . g s Doctri n e f Courte y Con ten ts

— The ed u cational philosophy of humanismC on ti n ue d p A G E 1 8 3. Vittorino da Feltre . 3 V The spread o f humanismto the No rth 1 38 1 l m in F c 1 8 . Its deve op ent ran e 3 V V 2 n . 1 . H umanismi Germany 39 Erasmus the master humanist 1 40 l c 1 1 3. The English Renaissan e 4 1 4 2 Narrow humanistic education 1 43 ' Rabelais naturalistic humanism 1 44 Educational philosophy of Montaigne 1 4 5 Naturalismi n Education 1 48 1 1 . 48 2 C m u 1 . o eni s 49 ea 3. The R lschulen of Germany S i n m c 1 r . c F 4 ience rench and A erican s hools s ~ " u m m mi n VIII . The conflict of nat ralis and hu anis English education 1 5 2 1 c 1 . Spen er and Huxley 53 ’ 2 w m c . Matthe Arnold s plea for hu anisti studies 1 5 7 w 3. Sidg ick and Mill o The present opposition f humanistic and scientific studies .

CHA PTER VI m I . The pragmatic theory of nature and of an i n their mutual relations The pragmatic theo ry of knowledge Co ntrasts presented by pragmatismto

1 um m. . H anis 2 m . l Natura is . Application o f the pragmatic philosophy to education 1 c o f uc . Its general con eption ed ation as an expe rience

2 o o o f o w of m . Its rec nc iliati n the pposing vie s h u ani sts and sc ientists O BIBLI GRAPHY .

THE CONFLICT OF NATURALISM AND HUMANISM

INTRODUCT ION

When the unceasing flux of natural forces has generated re

fl i e — of the ect v beings , nature becomes self evaluating and critical T meanings she has heretofore blindly evolved . his reflective of power , focussed in man , confers upon him the fice of mam

taining and multiplying the meanings which nature suggests , and

f s so of o organizing the e , far as may be , into an ordered realm

To - values . this colossal task , nothing less than the construction of of a significant world , responsive to the needs and purposes its u — b ilders , mankind have bent their energies with increasing

- T self consciousness . hat the work should have pushed forward

steadily and in one direction could hardly have been anticipated . A multiplicity o f obscure natural causes have operated from the ’ beginning to determine each man s attitude toward the world of of i s nature , institutions and of ideals into which he gradually

initiated from his birth . Regarded as the conflict of reason with

lbrute e mere exist nce and change , human history reveals periods of intense activity and progress in the transmutation of physical

o f energies into spiritual values , followed by epochs comparative

intellectual torpor . But through the myriad chang es and variations in the li fe of

thought , three dominating attitudes may be traced with some i s The defln tenes . first , which may be called the supernatural . attempts to explain all material and spiritual phenomena by ref e e to to er nc tremendous unseen personalities , or a great First

Cause , distinct from man and nature , and more or less directly

f or T - responsible their countless manifestations . his world view , a rooted deep in hum n nature , has its ardent adherents in every of H period . From the age the omeric myths to the times o f

o f religious upheaval that brought forth the stern theology Calvin , the upholders o f supernaturalism have outpoured their faiths and ’ T i - ea . ts f rs in literature his attitude , having well spring in man s The Confli ct of Naturali smand H umani sm

' o wn attempt to read back his emotions , first into natural obj ects and then into unseen agencies , shows little evidence of relaxing its grasp on his intellectual and emotional life . Not antagonistic to the supernatural , yet by no means always in accord with it , is the humanistic attitude , which seeks the key H to the riddle of the universe in the existence of man . uman e life with its needs , its ideals , its possibiliti s of achievement , is the rudder by which the cosmic ship is steered , and the better ment of this life is the supreme goal to which the whole crea ” T tion moves . hus the significance and worth of the universe

e . rest in their relation to the life of man , the touchstone of all valu Such conceptions of the meaning o f the world incline not rarely toward the supernatural attitude . If the cosmos reveals bene ficent o f design working toward the ultimate apotheosis man, such a rational and kindly order must presuppose some gracious

Spirit o f Reason working at the heart of things . Although the H ma philosophy of humanism , from Plato to Kant and egel , y take stubborn issue against certain tenets of the theology o f super o f naturalism , the two are not necessity opposed and indeed may o not infrequently be found in amicable co peration . The last of the three world - attitudes mentioned above is that of — naturalism , the attempt to explain human life , as well as ’ all phenomena that penetrate man s experience , by reference to to natural forces , operating throughout the universe produce

W el tanschannn unvarying sequences of events . Such a g firmly relegates to the sphere of hypothesis all assumptions o f whatever sort that can neither be proved by logical necessity nor confirmed by experience as growing inevitably out o f the facts and leading

- o f to favorable reactions upon them . In the world scheme the

‘ naturalist , human life finds its place as a modification of the same physical energies that hurled suns and planets into their courses and produced an ordered world from a primeval chaos . N eedless to say , such a view does not lend itself to the exaltation The of ma n as lord of the univers e . inspiring words of the ’ The Psalmist , heaven , even the heavens are the Lord s ; but ” 1 a n the earth h th he given to the childre of men , find little response in the mind of him who has come to regard nature as a vast and delicately intricate mechanism whose blind forces can

sa lms C 1 6 . P , XV , I n trod ucti on

be directed into channels useful to humanity only by painstaking f T i s discovery and control of its modes o operation . hus man only one o f the countless offspring of an ever - pregnant Nature and it cannot be confidently asserted that he is a specially favored

- on . s Consciousness , from this view point , is a somewhat imper ti nentl fi y intrusive phenomenon , dif cult of explanation and quite possibly transient in nature . Absorbed in famcts and the problems and verifiable hypotheses suggested by the , the naturalist has ’ little time or sympathy to expend in the humanist s task o f uh e o f ravelling the history of human ideals , with its r cord failure n Cui bono? o less than of achievement . Since man has sprung

o f from the womb nature and will return thither , how can he more profitably engage his energies than in understanding and controlling those material forces which produced him and which may be made to ameliorate the hard conditions of his existence ? Nor has naturalism developed more fraternal relations with Th f supernaturalism than with humanism . e history o the conflict of science with religion reveals a marked divergence of attitude ’ one in these hostile camps . On side is man s quenchless yearn o f ingmfor a supreme ideal , cramped within the binding folds a dog atic theology , yet still vital and eager and asserting an inalienable right to interpret the universe in consonance with ’ o its deepest emotions . Opposed to this is man s devotion t truth to as revealed rational intelligence in the facts of experience , a of one e calm , critical spirit analysis and synthesis , yet capabl Th of . e vast enthusiasms and loyalties former attitude , embodied

o f in the great institution the Chumrch , constituted itself the reso lute aggressor against naturalis , until the latter , gaining s ff trength and cogency , in turn assumed the o ensive and pushed its ancient foe so shrewdly that an armed truce was the outcome . At present each pursues its goal with little strenuous opposition — from the other , the one ministering to emotional and the other to intellectual craving . Indeed it is by no means uncommon to

fi nd o - e— men men who are adherents of both w rld views at onc , who , like Pierre Gassendi , rest content with a complete dualism in their philosophy and their religion .

T status uo hus the q , far from being an organic synthesis of

- s three world attitudes , each rooted deep in human nature , reveal a condition of marked cleavage , with rather dubiously successful

m the atte pts , here and there , to throw temporary bridges across The Confli ct of Naturali smand H uman i sm

chasm and thus secure an appearance of unity . But the division on not in thought lives and reveals itself alone in science , phil O SO h p y and religion but in current social theory and in education . In his creed of social regeneration the humanist makes much of o f the remedial influence education and moral training, while the naturalist preaches the overthrow by science o f those conditions of extreme poverty and misery which furnish direct incentives to social and moral degradation . While the humanist turns hi s eyes lovingly toward the past and urges the rich study of human aspiration , struggle and achievement as the supreme means o f education , the naturalist points with pardonable pride to the mastery and redirection of physical forces wrought by modern T a science . his conquest, he urges , was m de possible by patient

- investigation of present day problems and facts and , however f partial it may be , has already vastly improved the conditions o The human life . humanist tends to the belief that coming gen erations may be made wise and efficient through much contem f Th lation o f o . e on p the youth the race naturalist , the other o f hand , not understanding the vital relation ideal and fact so which the Book of the Past vividly sets forth , would throw aside this record and immerse the student in the immediacy of T the present . hus the one fails to see that ideals are vital only when born of present needs or ministering to them ; the other is blind to the truth that the very facts to which he binds his faith are dependent for their discovery upon those ideals that he ignores . To the student of the developme nt of human thought this divergence in world - attitudes is early apparent and bears witness of to the antiquity of the problem . With the growth reflective life among the Greek people , these positions emerge and receive clear definition . At first Greek philosophy is directed outward . t and , stimulated to reflection by the flux of things , it seeks o

' reduce all change and qualitative difl erence to one underlying

- ta The o a Wel t s ff . Ionian scho l bequeathed to its successors logical physics which yet maintained its hold upon experience in that it sought for the fundamental substance in elements familiar e to all . In this arly Ionian philosophy a humanistic note was The clearly sounded . universe was regarded as a perfect realiza tion of that balance and j ustice which human society so i ncom T ple tely set forth . hus the cosmic order was at first conceived In troducti on

o f - as ethical in purpose . But in their notion a world substance the Ionians suggested the two antithetic conceptions o f never

f - T changing substance and o self initiated changes . hese opposing views gave rise to the schools of Parmenides and H erakleitos in whi ch the changeless Being of the one is set over against the 2 a — s t n ce seless flux of the other , eternal Substance again t e er al o 3 Becoming in accordance with a definite rder . But the failure o f these metaphysical speculations adequately to explain the daily and yearly phenomena of nature gave rise to Em those systems of pedocles , Anaxagoras and Leucippus which ,

o f while preserving the notion the eternal , homogeneous nature o f true Being, sought to explain qualitative change by shattering the universe into elements and introducing some dynamic prin ci l e E p to force them together . In the systems of mpedocles and Anaxagoras this motive power was anthropomorphic in char 4 —i n e o f acter , the former being the dual strif love and hate , in

o f - ff - the latter a species animate and tenuous soul stu , self moved o n 5 and gu iding all cosmic moti n in accorda ce with rational ends . But with Leucippus all trace of humanism disappeared and a mechanical theory o f the universe was for the first time elab

. a o f orated While retaining the bsolute , unchangeable Being E i n the leatics , Leucippus broke this up into countless atoms ,

a - h biting infinite space and causing by their blind , self initiated f movements , which brought them into contact , the formation o o o f H w rlmds and obj ects . ence all change was due to the mechan ical ovements and collision of atoms in space , and the principle of as mechanism , barely suggested by his predecessors , w by L eucippus clearly enunciated . Thus early Greek philosophy was strongly materialistic and culminated with Leucippus and Democritus in a naturalistic ex planation of the universe from which the humanistic conceptions o f m Th teleology and spiritual dyna ics were rigidly excluded . e initial step in this development was made when a vague con cepti on of nature was drawn from crude experience as its first ff s di erentiation . But this notion wa so saturated with human

m m - C . 1 0 . r f Par enides , Frag ents , 35 5 Trans . by Fairbanks , Ea ly

h of - r c . 8 . P ilosophers G ee e , pp 9 9 7

Cf He rakl e ito s r 2 0 - 2 2 0 . F r. 68 F . 6 . , 5 , , 4 , , pp . 9 , 3 .

- - m . C . 2 0 o i 1 8 c t . . 6 1 1 . f Frag ents , 33 9 , p pp 3

F m 1 - 1 - 8 2 2 . rag ents , , pp . 37 4 5 6 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d H u man i sm feeling and sentiency that only very gradually could nature be stripped o f extraneous and irrelevant accompaniments and its T machinery laid bare . hat Greek thought advanced so rapidly from supernatural and humanistic world - views to a mechanical conception o f nature furnishes but on e more illustration of its remarkable vigor and fertility .

hv otheses But a metaphysical physics , however daring in its p and cogent in its reasonings , could not permanently nourish the intellectual cravings and practical needs o f so reflective a people was as the Greeks . It ill prepared to furnish satisfactory explana tions of the pressing questio ns suggested by their broadening experience . In the national awakening following hard upon the

Persian invasions , the Greeks were confronted with urgent polit

The ical and ethical problems that cried aloud for solution . old reverence for custom and precedent was undermined by a spirit of o of criticism which smote at the very r ots ancient institutions , and by the ardent desire for independent reflection and useful The t innovation . demand was made upon philosophy o come forth from its isolation and demonstrate its practical worth in o f the agora public life . Social disintegration and social unrest o gave birth to a new philosophy in which human life , human go d and the problem of human knowledge became matters of supreme The o ff o f . f interest conception nature , first o spring reflective of and practical experience , gave place to a conception self and

o f . e mind , hitherto only vaguely defined Greek philosophy becam subj ective and practical and concerned itself for the first time with the essentially human questions o f moral and political well the being . In their train followed pressing problems regarding o i the constituti n of human nature , the orig n of moral ideals and universal validity of knowledge . T of l hus out human need , with its demand upon rationa intelligence , Greek humanistic philosophy came into being . With

H an Prodi cus the sophists ippias d , however , this humanism is hi10 5 0 hic largely tinctured with the earlier naturalism . In their p p teaching the first clear distinction is made between nature on 6 n The e the o e hand and l aw on the other . former is regard d as changeless and eternal in its operations while the latter is held

‘ C h f c 1 6- 1 8 e . hi o . f Benn , The P losop y Gree e , pp 3 3 ; also The Gr ek h 80 ff P ilosophers , I , p . .

8 The Confli ct of Naturali smand H uman i sm

of o f interest human need and by the agency human intelligence . The - o f H world attitudes ippias and Protagoras , having given to of o E i birth the rival systems Cynic and Cyrenaic , St ic and p u curea , disappeared in the Middle Ages only to assert themselves ' m with renewed vigor a id the seething interests of the Renaissance ,

d efiniteness and later , with sharpened , in the France of Voltaire

and Rousseau . But the sincerity which undoubtedly marked the search of the earlier sophists after an ethical source and standard was lacking

in the work of their successors . Both schools became infected by Th the corruption and selfishness of their age . e conception o f natural right degenerated into the doctrine that right is the n c interest of the stronger , and the huma istic reed led to the f denial of all general truth or obj ective reality . In the midst o a

widespread social and moral disintegration , the three master minds of Greece strove in vain to construct a philosophy of human life which should meet the urgent needs of their country men and arrest the tide o f decay which threatened to sweep away

the ancient institutions . In the tmw m mw rai n is clearly

dominant . Caring not at all for the cosmologicafspeculations of

previous philosophers , he concentrates all his thought upon the solution of the moral and social problems suggested by the H ow unsettled condition of the Athenian state . shall individual reason and interest be given free play without endangering those general standards of virtue and j ustice upon which society is grounded ? This led to the correlative problem " How discover a method by which mankind may attain to a standard o f judgment of good and evil ? The answer of Socrates is embodied in his O ft ” “ " quoted sayings Knowledge is virtue , and An unexamined life ” is one not fit to be led by man . In the first statement may be detected that craving of the Greek mind for a unifying pri nciple which underlay the speculations of the earlier naturalistic phil O S herS c o o f O p . By a omparis n various arts Socrates found Th knowledge to lie at the root of each . e potter knows most about vases and bowls because he knows their use and can skill H is fully adapt the crude clay to serve a purpose . ere clearly a tendency to regard the function of a thing as the standard o f or knowledge . Knowledg e , then , is concerned with the use the Th functions o f man and things . e good man is he who performs I n troducti on 9

hi r certain acts which constitute s peculiar excellence o virtue . Knowledge o f the good was to restore the broken harmony as between the individual and custom , embodied in the institutions of the and ideals the Greek state , and was to furnish both f o . criterion and the means virtue Believing , as he did , that i ts coO e ration reason is synthetic in activity , uniting men in closer p its o f by control purely individual passion and desire , Socrates earnestly sought a method of attaining knowledge through the The determi n exercise of a rational power common to all men . o f and o f t ation the worths values life , and the me hod of attaining

e i o of o f to cl ar concept n these , superseded all investigation natural phenomena in the work of Socrates . Indeed , in his opinion , all scientific knowledge of nature was o f doubtful validity and the attempt to attain unto it a misuse of powers that might better be f T exercised in the problems o human life . hus Socrates added the force of hi s teaching to the tendency of the age to separate the o f o f interests man from the course nature . In Plato is revealed the catholic mind which sought to mediate between the humanism of Protagoras and Socrates and the naturalism o f Hippias and the physical philosophers . Profoundly o f concerned , in his earlier years , with the problem the possibility of and source universally valid knowledge , Plato undertook that s o f analy is the soul which led him to rej ect empirical knowledge , as uh based upon the shifting nature of sense perception . For such certain knowledge he substituted the general conceptions framed e t o f by reason . Sense ph nomena illus rate the principle the H out o f ex eri eracleitean flux , and all knowledge growing sense p i — T ence s a mixture of being and unreality mere O pinion . ruth not lies within the soul , without ; in universal concepts , not in the " perc eptions of sens e Thus Plato create s a dualism between empirical and rational knowledge which is paralleled by the 8 dualism between s ense and rea son . T o o . hus far Plat and S crates are in accord But the disciple , o f unlike his master , cannot remain content with a conception the Good which is confined within the domain of morals . What is the origi n and what the validity and worth o f those concepts of of measure and order , beauty and j ustice , with which the soul man i s endowed ? Must not the philosopher— this seeker after

- 0 . Theaetetus (Jowett pp . 33 334

- u l c ow 6 1 66 . Rep b i , V , (J ett pp . 3 3 1 0 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i s m the Good— pass beyond the sphere of the human and subj ective

and , by the light of the soul , discover that obj ective and eternal order which is both the source and the condition of all good ? H im uman good cannot be conceived apart from an eternal , mutable system of existent goods in which it has its place ; and the human soul must likewise be viewed in its relation to the order ’ f 9 T o nature . hus Plato s passion for reason and order lead him into those cosmological speculations which constitute the ground of work his philosophy . As there are degrees of knowledge , O ranging from mere pinion to ultimate philosophy , so there are

of o r — grades being , from the void , non being , through matter in

- —be o process of coming to , to th se ideal principles which exist The eternal and unchanged . soul , the source of movement , mediates between these highest forms of being and those partial

realities , represented by natural phenomena , which are in con ti nu l H a flux . ighest of all in the hierarchy of true Being is the G Idea of the ood , which , although transcending both existence and ’ 1 0 Th o t . kn wledge , is yet heir ultimate cause us Socrates con ce tion or o-f of p of virtue , the good , was taken out the sphere was morals where alone it applicable , and was carried over into an ontological realm where it served as a unifying bond between

reality and thought .

In Plato , then , philosophy reveals a tendency to turn from man to o f nature , or rather to work back from the constitution the ’ humansoul to the ultimate nature o f the cosmos . Man s highest good can only be discerned when he is conceived as part of a rational order ; his purpose or end is unintelligible apart from no the general purpose of the cosmos . Indeed there can be doubt that Plato regarded the cosmological mode of approach to the

problems of human life and destiny as the higher method . In the “ Phaedo ”1 1 “he clearly states that such a method of attaining to knowledge of the operations of Reason in the universe was

attempted and cast aside as unsatisfactory in its results . But it should be remembered that Plato unhesitatingly expressed his Opinion that the subj ective mode of approach to philosophy was a secondary method to be employed only when the cosmological

method had failed .

t d rus o w . 1 8 1 . (J ett pp 4 , 49

- l c . . u . Rep b i , Bk VI , pp 395 39 9 w C o o . . f . Phaed , (J ett I , p 4 75 I n troducti o n 1 1

The tendency to seek for a purely human good in that o f an “ ” - all embracing whole , apparent enough in the Republic , is the ’ ” H o w. d minant motive in Plato s latest work , the La s ere he discusses the source of movemen-t in the universe and by a course of reasoning seeks to prove that all motion externally originated “ - must ultimately end in that of a self moved mover . But the only instance of such movement known to man is the human Th . e s sun soul argument lead to the conclusion that the , moon and the sphere of the fixed stars are moved by souls , themselves endowed with dynamic power by the supreme Mind . In the “ " sa o f words of Plato If, my friend , we y that the whole path m o f heaven , and the move ent all that is therein , is by nature

t and akin o the movement and revolution calculation of mind ,

as and proceeds by kindred laws , then , is plain , we must say that the best soul takes care o f the world and guides it along the good ” 1 2 T path . his supreme spirit , the ruler of the universe , has , in “ o f the theory Plato , ordered all things with a view to the

o n o f preservation and perfection of the whole . And e these own how portions of the universe is thine , stubborn man , which ,

has V ever little , the whole in iew ; and you are created ” 1 8 f or o f an- the sake the whole d not the whole for the sake of you . Between this obj ective order and the human Sphere o f morals

The and politics the organized State acts as mediator . State is the image of that ordered whole which reflects the rational pur o f H pose the supreme Mind . ence , only in a State organized in

o f harmony with a unifying purpose , which is part a larger cosmic end , can the individual soul grow akin to the divine . Thus the supreme idealist of Greece turns his back upon o f phymsical science , as representing the lowest grade opinion , and for ulates a theory of the universe based upon pure dialectic . Hi s humanistic interest in the problem o f moral good forces him to construct a theological cosmology which , not infrequently , 1 4 n H seems crude a d uninspiring . ere all the powers of super naturalism are invoked to combat the mechanical theory of causa tion elaborated by the atomists . The philosophy of Aristotle represents the supreme eff ort of

to o f Greek thought transcend the dualism man and nature , form

w C . a w 6 . f L s (Jo ett ed . ) Bk . X , p . 4 7

Ibid , p . 4 75 .

C . ma ow . 6 1 2 f Ti eus (J ett p e t seq . 1 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm m and matter . Although Aris—totle is com only regarded as a 9 scientific naturalist , emphasizing observation and exact knowledge , yet his writings are animated by the same passion for rational speculation that flamed in the nature of Plato , while they clearly f lack the pragmatic tendency that marked the work o his master . T o o i to observe, to draw conclusions from these bservat ons , and mount from general truths to a consideration o f the most universal ’ and abstract principles demonstrable by reason was Aristotle s

H o f unvarying method . ence his theories are less the fruit a pro found ethical and human interest than the outcome of a deep rooted predilection for organized knowledge . Yet there can be no intelligent study of Aristotle which does not recognize at the outset that the concept of end dominates T all his thought ; and this notion is fundamental in ethics . rue of to his conception definition , Aristotle held that any attempt to define the moral end must be an attempt to subsume it under the genus end o f which it is a species marked with a peculiar character . Now the genus in this instance can be none other he o f i T o than t end the cosmos tself . hus Arist tle transfers a

o f moral concept , applicable in the sphere human conduct, into the universe of Being and builds his metaphysics upon it . A similar humanistic bias appears in his approach to the dis ussion f c o metaphysics . In the first chapter he analyzes the idea o out o f of art and disc vers that an art comes into being when , o f one many conceptions experience , universal opinion is evolved ” 1 5 d with respe ct to individual cases . Knowledge and understan “ ing pertain to art rather than to experience ; thus we reckon ” artists mo re wise than the experienced because they are ac ” 1 8 w quainted with the where fore and the cause . Such kno l edge alone is scientific . With true Greek scorn for the merely useful , Aristotle conceives those sciences not designed for bare utility as highest in the scale of values , since they are not regarded H as a means to ends beyond themselves . ence the noblest wisdom “ ” “ N ow i s is conversant about first causes and principles . it ” one manifest, continues Aristotle , that ought to be in possession of a science of primary causes ( for then we say that we know each individual thing when we think that we are acquainted with the

Mc Mahon 1 M s . etaphysics , tran , I , , 35 d 8 Ibi , § . I n trod ucti on 1 3

o f first cause) By such a train reasoning , Aristotl e i s led to consider the concept of cause in the universe ; and once more he falls back upon human arts for the explication of this E own idea . very art has manifestly its subj ect matter and its T i s o wn . end his end accomplished because some agent, guided or o hi s by an ideal an actual m del , achieves purpose in shaping T the crude material to his idea . hus in every human art are ffi involved the material , the e cient , the formal and the final causes . m — Why , then , in the greatest and most co plex of all arts the art — o f nature itself should not these same causes stand clearly revealed ? To be sure the efli ci ent cause in nature i s in the process itself, whereas in art it is lodged in the agent . But with this distinction duly noted , the parallel holds good throughout . But the foregoing is only the propaedeutic to a more complete implication of human concepts and values in the succession of ” material events . In the Metaphysics the whole scheme of human standards i s carried over into nature and the multiform factors of the cosmic process are stamped as lower and higher, better and worse according as they reveal a greater or less degree of unchanging uniformity in the performance of function . As a close student of organic life , Aristotle was profoundly impressed by the fact that each living thing tends to realize its perfect and

T o f universal type . hrough progressive stages growth the species and the genus are evolved ; the acorn becomes the scrubby bush ,

- - the bush the sapling and this in turn the full grown oak tree , maintaining its perfection by an ordered performance of the to functions peculiar itself . On the animal plane the same holds true ; the fertilized egg produces the chick which by the immanent tendency of its o wn nature will develop into the hen— the com l H o f p eted type . ighest in the scale organic life is man . Like the lower animals , his body attains its completion through suc ce ssive stages ; but into his nature i s introduced a new principle of which determines his peculiar excellence . Not the functions not o f con mere nutriment , those desire and passion , but those cerned with reason are his distinctive endowment . Yet , even T of . here , are g rades activity with their concomitant values hat life which consists in the regu lation o f passion and appetite by the practical reason is good and its highest realization is the life

i s of the statesman . But nobler than this that exercise of reason

‘ 7 M c s 1 0 . c . eta physi , ha p III , 1 4 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

T which has no end beyond itself . here must be war for the

o f sake peace , business for the sake of leisure , things useful and ” 1 8 necessary for the sake of things honorable . It follows that the activity of the practical reason exists for the sake of that rational 1 9 N activity which is a supreme human good in itself . ow since man alone among the higher animals is the possessor of reason and thus must be regarded as the noblest product of nature , his peculiar excellence and functions must be shared by the universe itself . Stage by stage the grades of Being in this earthly sphere mount from the inorganic to the organic , each with its complete ‘ ’ T end . hen the earth , exemplifying the maximum of matter ‘ ’ o f and accident and the minimum pure form is left behind ,

sun and there succeed the spheres of the moon , the , the planets

H rimummobi le and the fixed stars . ighest and outermost is the p “ o f which moves with immense velocity , because the fervent longing of all its parts to be united with the quiet Empyrean 20

Go d . where dwells In this calm summit of the universe , the Deity as pure form is engaged in ceaseless contemplation of its T own thought processes . hus the universe reveals an immanent teleology , an eternal process of realization of ends , till the end in — — T itself , the activity of pure reason , is reached . his is both the logical and the obj ective culmination o f the whole hierarchical scheme . Hi Within this universal system man exists as a microcosm . s body is composed of cosmic elements obeying the law of their own development and constituting the possibility of the lowest form of

Th ne - . e o soul life vegetative soul , an entelechy from view point , becomes the potentiality of the desiring soul , which is , in turn , not f only an end but likewise the potentiality o the practical reason . T o his , in its turn , exercises functi ns which are not an end in them — selves but a means to the activity o f the speculative reason the X h ” o f . supreme entelechy man In Book of the Metap ysics , Aristotle warms to eloquence when he describes the j oys o f the life o f pure contemplation which links the mind o f man with the “ ” “ Divine mReason . So then , he exclaims , the energy of the gods , e inent in blessedness , will be one apt for contemplative

1 “ w e d h 1 o l c o . c . . P iti s , J ett , 4

Ibid . ’ 3° C u oo ch s . . f . Dante Banq et , B k II , IV

1 6 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

to of e of Th reduced the humble position a m re accident things . e universe in all its manifestations is the product of the chance movement of indestructible atoms . But the humanistic note i s clearly sounded when Epicurus calls upon natural science to serve d human needs , and proclaims that the sole value of knowle ge is in T f relation to action . herefore the supreme purpose o philosophy

should be to introduce tranquillity and happiness into human life . This pragmatic view of knowledge is likewise maintained by the

who - Stoics , pursue science solely for the sake of human well being .

Logic , metaphysics and the sciences have no value in Stoic

as philosophy save an introduction to the study of human conduct . The previous dualism of thought and things gives way to a

o o f one realistic m nism . Mind and body are but two aspects reality and are revealed in the Supreme Being , who is identified with the universe . As the soul of the world , God governs the

n destinies of ma kind and desires their good with providential love .

T o hus supernaturalism and . humanism are blended in the St ic c o f philosophy , and the riddle of the ourse nature in its relation

of i s to the life man passed on to the Middle Ages unsolved .

After the decay of the civilizations of Greece and Rome , their philosophy in modified form was taken up into the life of the Middle Ages and constituted the bone and sinew of Christian o f theology and Roman law . But this was a period of action , The control of unruly hordes by authoritative dogma . problem ’ o f man s relation to nature , of thought to thing s , inevitably sank out o f sight in the awful struggle of organized civilization with o f of undisciplined barbarism . But when the ideals law and supernatural control had done their work , when the Germanic races had assimilated what was set before themof the ancient The civilization , there appeared the dawn of a new order . sense of individual power and worth was born again and the lure of unknown fields of knowledge and experience impelled mankind toward a truer comprehension of nature and of human ends .

In this brief survey , the antiquity of the problems suggested by naturalism and humanism has been indicated . Clearly outlined by

- the Greeks , these two world views asserted themselves again and again in pagan philosophic systems and stimulated a perpetual o f 1 to conflict of ideals . It is the purpose the present work ( ) describe the re - emergence of these ancient world - attitudes during I n trod ucti on 1 7

m of fini the intellectual fer ent the Renaissance , their more clear de tion in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and their con scious opposition in the nineteenth ; ( 2 ) to trace the profound influence of this Opposition upon educational theory and practice

’ in diff erent periods ( 3) to attempt a re co n cil ation of the views of naturalist and humanist upon the basis o f the theory of prag mati sm; and (4 ) to suggest the implications o f such a synthesis o f for the philosophy and art education . CHAPTER I

HUMANIS M AND NATURALISM IN THE RENAISSANCE

By the dawn of the fifteenth century the intellect of Europe had lifted itself above the levelling floo ds of conformity which had

threatened to submerge it . Filled with a new and lusty life , it

off n so threw the swaddli g bands , long confining its growth , and surveyed the world with a nai ve wonder and a boundless

. The O f o d t enthusiasm knell the old r er , hat sought to confine the theoretical spirit and its Vitalizing discoveries and insights within

off n the boundaries marked by dogmatic theology , was sou ded s with increasing volume and in istence . Speculation had trod and retrod the same well worn paths and had gleaned no fresh truth

in her wanderings . First in Italy and later in transalpine coun tries the barbarian mind had ass imilated its frugal meal of pagan as o f culture , thoroughly seasoned it was with the salt Christian

- dogma . Rendered vigorous and self reliant thereby , it asserted its — capacity to partake of a richer banquet , to enter into the priceless

heritage of Greek and Roman thought . In the realm of the

- no intellect , as in religion and government , a world rule was

long er possible . But the enfranchisement of the spirit cannot be the work of T the a day . here must ensue a period of tutelage during which mind of Europe sits in fervent admiration at the feet of its pagan

— for masters , hears , accepts , appreciates , and finally speculates The of itself . problems of nature and man present themselves with fresh insistence and tempt all thoughtful minds to labor in

their solution . But to the conflict are brought all those human preconceptions and preferences which are to clog the progress of

The scientific research for many centuries . world of nature is

not clearly delimited , for purposes of investigation , from the world

of human aff airs ; rather are the two regarded as inseparable . T hus it comes about that the rediscovery of the external world

1 8 Humani smand N aturali smi n the Ren ai ssance 1 9

man and of proceed together , each acting and reacting upon the N as other . or , since philosophy had so long been conceived a

heo rv t of human life and its ends , is it at all surprising that the earliest systems of natural science should wear the garb of humanism and clearly betray their human origin by their abstract ness an d absorption in questions o f end and value . Nothing is easier and more inviting than idealistic speculation which is , ’ ff T in truth , the first o spring of man s reason . o the undis c ipli ned mind the austerity and limitations of science are alien and uninviting . From its accumulated treasure of meanings and e w values , thought builds a fair , ideal structur hich it elects to T regard as representative of the external universe . his is a widespread human tendency and , during the Renaissance , it was h m reinforced by the mig ty exa ple of classic cosmology . Plato hypostatizes the meanings reason has wrested from experi ence ; Aristotle reads the tel eology of human arts into the mechan f ism O nature .

N - - In the ferment of ideas which marks the age , eo Platonic con cepti on s of the universe struggle for supremacy with those of a

Pomon zz i The purified Aristotelianism as championed by p a . 1 0 Platonic Academy , established in Florence in 44 , has a brief but illustrious history and exerts a profound influence upon the nature philosophy of the period . Although it enthusiastically ’ avows its allegiance to the teachings of Plato , yet the master s thought is draped in th e mysticism of Plo tinus . In the sp ecula o tions of Brun , Boehme and Paracelsus are the same fundamental

- — - world v i ews z the universe is a revelation o f an all pervading spirit which is the unifying principle underlying the varied i phenomena of nature . All apparent imperfections and contrad c — tions dis appear in the harmony of the All One who unfolds Hi s T nature with beauty and purpose in the world . hus the essence of the cosmos is made one with the essence o f God and a pan theistic philosophy has possession of the domain of natural science . But the essential humanism o f these early Platonists not only underlies their cosmology but i s the animating motive o f all their eager search for knowledg e . From their human

- vantage ground , the questions of supreme import are the true nature of man and his rightful place in the universe . In varied forms appears the Aristotelian doctrine of man as a micro 20 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm m cos mn , and this view colors all metaphysical speculation . In a as d bo y , mind and spirit is gathered up the essence of all the material and spiritual elements of the cosmos . Like can only be T known by like . herefore man may pierce the secrets o f the universe only because his body represents the sumof all material substances and forces ; he may know the operations and forms of the world of intelligence only because he shares in its essential nature ; and he may slip the sheath of sense and mount to the realm of pure spirit only because his soul is a spark of the divine

fire . With Campanella humanism is manifest in the doctrine that man can truly know only himself . All knowledge of the external world is gained through the medium of sense - per c eption ; but in this process it is mot the things themselves see o f — that we but the signs things , mere mental states which T they induce imn us . hus man can know the world only as it appears to hi self, only as it unfolds with the development of own m or his nature , which is a ore less complete expression of the

- All One . But even in the midst of the prevailing humanism signs are of H not lacking of the dawn a new order . opeful for the future triumph o f scientific method is the revived interest in N eo

- T Pythagorean number philosophy . his is most clearly apparent f T in the writings o Bruno . horoughly impregnated with Platonic t and Py hagorean Speculation , Bruno conceives of the world as composed of an infinite number of monads or metaphysical elements , each reflecting in its individual life the divine nature which seeks expression through it . Man finds his place in the world - scheme as a more perfect mirror of the Creative Unity than the monads by which he is surrounded . But more significant f or science is the connection that Bruno establishes between T the monad and the physical atom . his latter conception is plainly borrowed from the nature philosophy of the Greek atomists passed through the medium o f Epicurean thought . Its fruitfulness lies in the fact that Bruno returns to the Pytha gorean view that things in the last analysis are determined by the ff s geometrical forms o f their elements . All qualitative di erence may be resolved into quantitative arrangements of atoms o f vary ’ T ing geometric forms . hus Aristotle s ruling theory that all forces are qualitatively determined and must produce certain ends is ’ i s smitten at its root . Furthermore there in Bruno s thought the H uman i sman d N aturali smi n the Ren ai ssan ce 2 1 same dim apprehension of the numerical relations existing among 1 physical elements that appears in the writings of Plato and the

Pythagoreans . Nature is a vast system of geometrical forms and H th number relations . armony is brought into the universe by e T combination Of atoms in definite numerical proportions . hus there reappears in the sixteenth century the ancient conception a —a of the intim te correlation of mathematics and physics , theory n which , in the masterly ha dling of Kepler and Galileo , is destined o f to prove the reliable tool modern scientific research . But there can be no genuine natural science so long as man remains unconscious of the degree in which his thought - systems are warped by his own preferences and hindered by his ardor for o f T o of the immediate mastery all truth . storm the stronghold ’ o nature with the untested weap ns of the imagination , is child s play when compared with the endurance and detachment from H self demanded o f patient besiegers . ence astrology and magic masquerade in the garments of science , and their unfruitfulness testifies to the meagre knowledge of chemical elements and energies possessed by their devotees . In the writing s of Para celsus , Pico della Mirandola and Campanella may be discerned ’ the same ardent desire to discover a philosopher s stone , a mystic formula , a magical potion which shall make them all at once the

T ben e fac lords of nature . hen , indeed , shall they become the true tors o f mankind by the eradication of disease and pain from T human life . his superb confidence in the power of human intelligence to comprehend the working s of nature needs only to be reinforced by a correlative distrust o f metaphysical specula tion as the proper method in order to produce favorable co ndi tio ns for the development of a genuine scientific attitude and T oo method . But the time is not yet ripe . frequently the thought o f the age is in sympathy with the sentiment which the poet puts into the mouth of Paracelsus

Truth i s withi n o urselves ; it takes no ri se ’ m w s w a o u ma l Fro out ard thing h te er y y be ieve , There i s an inmost centre i n us all Wh ere truth abides i n fullness ; and a round ll u w l o mit i n Wa pon al the gr ss flesh he s , ” 3 — w c c cl c i s u . This perfe t , ear per eption hi h tr th

- m . . 6 C u w ed . f Ti ae s , Jo ett , pp 37 39 2 ro w a c l su B ning , P ra e s 2 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

As of the herald a new order , in which natural science is truly

conceived , Ludovico Vives is a significant figure . Although he o f o f avails himself the rich learning the ancients , he yet insists

that their conclusions shall be confirmed by individual experience . 3 In his most famous work he boldly rej ects the time - honored notion that self- knowledge must begin with an analysis of the ’ o f nature the soul . Rather he asserts that man s chief concern is ’ to know the soul s functions . Now the mind is chiefly employed in gaining experience from the things of sense ; hence sense

o In percepti n is the groundwork of all knowledge . the thought o f Vives appears an interesting attempt to diff erentiate man from the world o f nature . Although he does not wholly rej ect the

N eo - - Platonic conception of an inter penetrating soul in nature , he insists that only the conscious spirits of men are directly divine

The of in origin . souls plants and animals are g enerated by physical forces and perish with the matter that produced them . It is no small step in scientific progress that man is once mo re dis ti nguished from the material universe as the possessor of rational intelligence , while nature is deprived of spirit and made the abode o f purely physical energies . Little could be accomplished in the solution of the pressing problems of nature and of human life until these two universes of discourse had been clearly delimited ’ i n man s thought . Further g round is gained for naturalism in the work of o f Telesio . Firmly taking his stand on the validity sense T experience , elesio criticises his predecessors for seeking to f attai n knowledge of nature by the exercise o reason alone . i e e ’ T N on rat one s d s nsu . . , is his guiding principle Yet elesio cannot wholly shake himself fr ee from the tyranny o f Old habits of thinking . Although he explains the physical world in terms of matter and force rather than in the accepted Aristotelian terms of m matter and form , he falls back upon the ancient etaphysical o conceptions of hot and cold , moist and dry , as primordial s urces f of all motion . But the importance o his thought in moulding

- that of Bruno and his successors can hardly be over estimated . He fearlessly attacks the strong entrenchments o f Aristotelianism T and carries some o f the outworks by storm . hus he rej ects the initial assumption of Aristotle that natural processes can be explained by reference to their accomplished results . Instead

me t 1 8. De Ani a Vita , 5 3

2 4 The Confli ct of Naturali smand Human i sm

of upon a slender basis tested facts , rather than to confine intellectual activity to a well - defined area in which observation

n and experiment may be persistently carried o . To c Copernicus , Kepler and Galileo is lue that remarkable development o f naturalism which marks the seventeenth cen s f tury . By their successful haping o the keen tool of scientific method , they laid the foundation stones and sketched the plan of o f d the vast structure mo ern science . Upon the minds of these men gradually dawned the illuminating ideamthat observa tion , unsupported by reflective analysis and experi ent may lead s the wisest thought astray ; that , o far from things being what e O they seem to the s nses , they frequently are in exact pposition to such testimony . Actuated by the conviction that observed experience must be interpreted by reflection and that the hypothesis thus set free must be subj ected to tests both con ti nuous of and varied , these thinkers achieved results exhaust The less fertility . outcome of the new method was not only a mass of fresh material for the further investigations of astrono o a ne w mers and physicists , but , more imp rtant still , point of view regarding the solution of all physical problems . By these n early scie tists nature was strictly delimited from spirit , and its operations were , in process of time , regarded as . the result f o f o the mechanical movements corporeal atoms . Inveighed “ against by Bacon as one o f the i dols and by Spinoza as the outcome of anthropomorphism , teleology was ultimately driven from the field of physical science and found its permanent home within the fold of philosophy and theology . Finally , the relation between mathematics and physics , vaguely conceived by the Greeks and later by the Neo - Pythagoreans o f the earlier Renais sance , was seized upon and clearly formulated by Kepler , Galileo and Newton . The significance o f Copernicus lies in the fact that he made the first successful assault upon the A ri stotelio- Ptolemaic world scheme and proved to the satisfaction of fair - minded thinkers that the organization of the universe may be in flat contradiction

- to the evidence of sense perception . Dissatisfied with the cumber m H ' some and overloaded syste of ipparchus and Ptolemy , Coper nicus o f , like other astronomers his age , raised the question whether there may not be a simpler method of explaining the H i s movements o f the heavenly bodies . researches in Greek Human i smand N aturali smi n the Renai ssance 2 5 philosophy had acquainted him with the suggestion of Pythagoras — that the sun is the center o f the planetary system a suggestion

‘ taken up by Aristarchus three centuries later , and restated in the writings of Nicholas of Cusa at the first dawn of the Renais of sance . It is the great merit Copernicus that he accepted this suggestion as a hypothesis and experimented with it for many years with a view to determi ning how exactly it fitted in with observed facts . In the course of his reflective study he developed

o f c — one the principle of the relativity spa e relations , of the f H e most fruitful theories o modern astronomy . first made

plain the fact that , if a motion occurs in space , the percipient or cannot at once determine whether the obj ect is moving , he are himself , or whether both he and the obj ect moving with

varying degrees of velocity . Copernicus held that , if the ’ o hypothesis of the earth s m tion be accepted , it can be demon strated to an observer on the earth that the heavenly bodies n ecessarily appear to move about it . But if the observer remove himself in imagination to some point in space he will probably discover that his senses have played him false . Acting on this hypothesis and making use of such crude instruments as then existed , Copernicus finally became convinced that the theory of the annual movement of the earth around the sun affords the T true interpretation of a vast body of astronomical data . hus Copernicus reverses the ancient method of thought and instead of seeking for facts to support an a pri ori assumption he inquires what hypothesis will best agree with and explain O bserved facts . H enceforward his method becomes the approved instrument of who a n an d the naturalists , bandon speculatio for experiment , sub stitute observation of what is for assertion of what ought to be . Hardly less potent in the development of scientific method were the discoveries of Kepler . Incited by the Pythagorean notion of definite mathematical relations in the universe , Kepler first develops a philosophy marked by a friendly alliance between

Pythagorean doctrines and Christian theology . But he does not

linger permanently among these unfruitful speculations . Falling heir to the wo nderfully exact and abundant observations recorded by T o f ycho Brahe , Kepler seeks to interpret them by his theory H e quantitative relations in nature . defends this theory by reference to the psychologi cal fact that the mind most readily

grasps quantitative relations , whereas perception of qualitative 2 6 The Confli ct of N atu rali sma nd Human i sm

ff di erences varies with individuals . Only upon the quantitative of side is demonstration obj ective truth in any degree convincing . Starting once more from this hypothesis Kepler labors patiently to discover the mathematical relations which will accord with the ’ T cho s facts presented in y tables , and is rewarded by the dis “ o r o f of c ve y the three laws planetary motion . ’ From this time forth Kepler s methods grow steadily more Hi s o f scientific . philosophy nature , abandoning the animistic view of spiritual agencies as the source of the motions of the

- sphere , approximates more closely to a mechanical world view . The concept of cause is interpreted more and more confidently of on in terms physical energy , the ground that the causes assigned to natural events must be such as can be demonstrated f to be operative in nature . Yet Kepler was the child o his age and by no means abandoned his faith in a Divine Architect of the world whose purposes are worked out through the medium o f G o d " matter and force . Oh , I think thy thoughts after Thee "” he exclaims from a full heart when he has triumphantly

verified his third law . ’ Proceeding upon Kepler s principle that mathematically meas urable relations may be discovered in the phenomena of

o f . motion and change , Galileo creates the science mechanics the b In laws of falling odies , formulated by him , is contained the key to all scientific knowledge of the physical world . More ” i n Dial o us 1 6 2 over , his g , published in 3 , Galileo confidently states the theory suggested by Plato and the atomists , that all qualitative changes in nature must be explained in quantitative Th terms . e only qualities we are bound to attribute to things

are form , size , and motion or rest . Most significant o f all for the progress of science is the con

i i y tr but on made by Galileo to scientific methodology . By anal sis he seeks the simplest types of motion capable of mathematical m f deter ination and by a method o synthesis he demonstrates , by experiments with inclined planes , that his mathematical theory , l applied to the simple elements of motion , eads to conclusions T identical with those of experience . hus experiment assumes a new meaning and becomes an intelligent isolation of natural processes in order to subj ect them to exact measurement . The results o f the untiring labors o f these early naturalists have revolutionized science and undermined the world - old attitude H uman i smand Natu rali smi n the Renai ssance 2 7

o toward the universe . So , far fr m being the center of the cosmos , the earth is only one o f a systemof planetary bodies whirling

s n The l - around a central u . Aristotelian wor d view that attached varying degrees of perfection to diff erent spheres of nature receives its death—blow in the seventeenth century and in its place is set the hypothesis o f the homogeneity of all parts of the universe . From this theory springs the corollary that man , at hi s on e least in physical being , is with the substances and energies f The o nature . gulf between animate and inanimate is at this N point bridged . o longer are the heavenly bodies conceived as the abodes o f angelic spirits who direct their movements in i 4 ha rmony with a vast design n the mi nd of the Creator . T eleology in nature is gradually discredited by science , and l of to natura phenomena , from the motions the spheres the falling of i a pebble , are henceforth to be interpreted as vary ng forms of i a the mechan cal principle of motion , acting in accord nce with mathematical formulas . It is not matter for marvel that supernaturalism awoke to its danger and fought desperately to recover its old unquestioned ’ o f supremacy over man s thought . As an integral part a so despiritualized and mechanized nature , man can no longer be confidently regarded as the special concern o f a Creator who is conceived as constantly intervening in the processes of nature f The to secure the chastisement or the good o his creatures . Church foresaw its inevitable dethronement as the sole arbiter of alil g ita ble truth , and Catholic and Protestant bodies mw p 5 to the . Lacking insight to perc eive that the of its noblest teachings would inevitably as secure their survival , the Church arrayed itself the bitter opponent o f science and contested every inch o f its advance . But naturalism had come to its o wn and defended its domain N right valiantly against every hostile incursion . ewton verified and extended the work of Kepler and Galileo and afforded con vi nc ing proof o f the value of instrumental hypothesis in inter preti ng observed facts and thus in building up a consistent and

- H mof self supporting world . arvey discovered the mechanis the circulatory system and added the force o f this evidence to the ’ I l o c . C . u C f Dante s Banq et ( onvito) , B ok II , ha p . IV 5 f o c i n C . O f c h o l f White , A History the Warfare S ien e and T e ogy

l . c . 1 . C om. Vo a hristend I , h p 28 The Confli ct of N atu rali sman d H uman i sm

conviction , slowly gaining ground , that the human body is governed by the same mechanical laws that operate in nature . But the conflict of naturalistic and humanistic views is not T confined to the field of physical science . heir sharply opposed methods of investigation and explanation are transferred to the sphere of human society and in particular to that of the State ,

of o which is in process transformation into its m dern form .

o Stimulated in part by the exigencies of changing economic , s cial , and political conditions and in part by the literature of humanism , which restored to the modern world the ancient Greek view of of the functions of the State , a significant group Renaissance thinkers concerns itself with the essentially human problem of the origin , development and ends of government . First in point of time , and perhaps of influence , in this circle of writers is

- - Machiavelli , arch cynic and time server , who yet stands out as h the profoundest political t inker of his age . Ripe in knowledge of men and of states , gained in a broad diplomatic experience , Machiavelli is led into an attitude of bitter hostility toward exist ing social and political conditions . In this spirit of criticism he turns to classic literature and becomes enamoured of the pagan T o conception and administration of government . imitate antiquity and to reproduce in the Italy o f the sixteenth century the power and material well - being of Greece and Rome becomes his dominant ideal . But he clearly perceives that this end can only be realized when Italy has shaken itself free from the iron hand of the Church and has rigidly restricted the influence o f To the latter to the sphere of religion . Machiavelli the State is not a divine order but is the purely natural outcome of human

A s necessity and interest . such its function is to extend its power and to proc ure for all its citizens such conditions as shall The redound to their material prosperity , health and wisdom . State then exists not only to advance its own prestige and 6 - authority but to secure the well being o f its members . But Machiavelli too frequently ignores the latter end in his zeal to Il e secure the former . In his shrewd and able work Princip he magnifies the greatness of pagan ethics at the expense of

- m f . Christian orality , with its doctrine of self e facing humility Hence he does not hesitate to urge his Prince to deeds of

C c M l e d . . 1 . f . The Prin e , or ey , p 43 Human i sman d N atural ismi n the Renai ssan ce 2 9

- audacious daring , mean duplicity and cold blooded cruelty which he j ustifies so far as they serve to upbuild the glory and strength 7 o f a unified Italy .

o f i of Despite his naturalistic view the orig n the State , Machia velli reveals little of the scientific interest and method of the naturalists . Unlike Cardanus , the Italian physician and mathematician , who regarded the State as a natural organism revealing conditions o f health and disease that might be diagnosed

- sci entific and treated by pseudo methods , Machiavelli gave little of attention to the actual constitution and forces human society . He was too thorough a humanist in his absorption in the game of political intrigue and mastery to recognize or rightly to estimate of those vast economic forces mechanics , commerce and productive industry , in their relation toma Slowly developing science , which were destined to shape the odern State . o f In the social theories Campanella , More and Bacon the contemporary discoveries of natural science are evaluated solely with r eference to t he improvement of the material and social o f conditions human life . Although these men accept the view of as the body politic a natural order, they unite in maintaining that human insight and reflection may result in producing an ideal state grounded upon social relations that are purely natural i in origin . In such a state relig ous freedom would be conceived as a natural right and complete toleration would be enforced f “ despite the protests o warring religious sects . In the New A of o f T M tlantis Bacon , the Utopia Sir homas ore and the o f o f City the Sun Campanella , the principle is advanced that experiment and research with their resulting discoveries and inventions are to be utilized for the control of natural processes

f - in the interest o human well being . Into the mouth of the “ ’ “ Father o f Solomon s House Bacon puts the words " The end of our foundation is the knowledge of the cause and secret motion o f things ; and the enlarging of the bounds of human ” f 8 the empire to the e fecting of all things po ssible . Again in “ ” Novum Organum Bacon sounds the same humanistic note " No w the true and legitimate goal o f the sciences is none but this " that human life be enriched with new discoveries and

7 C . c C a r . f The Prin e , h pte s XVII , XXVI

d . 1 6 N ew s C s ll e . Atlanti , as e . , p 7 30 The Confli ct of N atu rali smand H uman i sm

” 9 ’ wealth . In Campanella s ideal city the rulers are chosen for

- their scientific wisdom . N 0 man merely versed in book knowledge

“ is regarded by these citizens as truly learned since he has given his mind with useless result to the consideration o f the dead f H signs o things . ence he knows not in what way God rules s N the universe , nor the ways and custom of ature and the ”1 0 nations . It is clear that in this passage Campanella has aimed a shaft at the enthusiastic humanists of the period who were so immersed in the learning of the ancients that they were blind

to o f o wn and deaf the needs and tendencies their formative age , f o . and in particular to the vigorous growth science Yet , although o f Campanella urges an empirical study nature , which must

ultimately be interpreted according to its own laws , his empiricism ,

as has previously been suggested , is deeply dyed with super f naturalism and humanism . All the phenomena o nature are manifestations of the indwelling life of Go d . Man must observe

; , nature but he perceives not the things themmselves , but the inner feelings they arouse in him . As a microcos his knowledge of the universe is bound up with his developing knowledge o f

- his own capacities . From this view point nature simply furnishes — “ a necessary s timulus to self - knowledge and her so called laws are evolved by man from within his own consciousness as a means of harnessing the energi es of nature to serve his all T important purposes . In this itanic labor it is the function of the State to disseminate all forms of useful knowledge and to secure by this means the material and spiritual advancement o f Th its citizens . us the State exists for man , man only in part for the State . In taking this position Campanella allies himself with the humanistic social philosophers of all ages from Plato to

Rousseau and H egel . In the Protean nature o f Michel de Montaigne all the many x sided interests of the Renaissance find some degree of e pression , although his prevailing attitude is ardently humanistic . In the Add ress to the R ead er which serves as a preface to his Essais e m he boldly strikes the keynote o f his theme . J suis moi esme ” H — as la matiere de mon livre . e might well have added , myself to e the mirror of mankind . Gathering up in himself the intens

O xf . o v . O r . N g , ord Press , p ’ C C ma ll C O f S un i n Id eal Common wealths o u f . a p ne a s ity the , R t

l e d . 2 0 . edge . , p 3

The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umanism no opinions have been too extravagant to be established by her as

H e - laws . who is self reliant enough to emancipate himself from the rule of Custom “ would find several things received with absolute undoubting opinion , that have no other support than the ” 1 2 hoary head and rivelled face of ancient usage . Yet Montaigne has nothing of the ardent spirit of the social reformer and urges submission to the existing body of law on the ground that there cannot so much benefit accrue from its modification as there is ” 1 8 n it danger a d inconvenience in altering . “ - E o f In the well known essay Of the ducation Children , Montaigne urges the tutor to familiarize his charge with the eloquent records of history and philosophy that he may converse ” with the great and heroic souls o f the best ages . But not alone by fixing a reflective backward gaze upon the past can the intricate web of human nature and human life be unravelled . “ This great world is the mirror wherein we are to know ourselves as we ought to do in the true bias . So m d many hu ours , so many sects , so many j u gments , opinions , a of our own l ws and customs , teach us to adj udge aright , and i n form our understanding to discover its imperfection and natural ” 1 4 i s . T infirmity , which no trivial speculation hus the present ’ an d th e past alike are to assist man s eager search fo r the key a th t will unl oc k the meaning o f his own nature . 5 0 heart- whole an advocacy of the humanistic world - attitude ’ would seem to exclude from Montaigne s philosophy all trace f of s . so o naturali m Yet he is truly the product his age , fashioned by its spirit and its thought , that a naturalistic view looks out confidently at the reader from some of his pages . Reference has been made to his theory o f a prevailing nature in every individual which determines his world - view and hence his thought and h conduct . In armony with this thought are the social views “ ” hi s E expressed in ssay on Cannibals . Like many another ’ n thinker of his time , Montaig e s imagination is quickened by the undreamed of discoveries of dauntless voyagers to the New t o f World . After listening o the glowing tales a servant in his or o f employ who had spent ten years more in the region Brazil , he writes " I find there is nothing barbarous and savage in this

12 l 1 2 ed . . Essays , Haz itt , p 7 .

d 1 0 . Ibi , p . 3 1 8 d . . Ibi , p 7 H umani smand N aturali smi n the Renai ssan ce 33

T m sa nation . hey are savages at the sa e rate that we y fruits o f own are wild , which nature produces herself and by her ordinary progress ; whereas in truth we ought rather to call those wild “whose natures we have changed by our artifice and diverted N fromthe common order . either is it reasonable that art should gain the preeminence o f our great and powerful mother ” 1 5 a e s e the nature . Cle rly, Montaigne express h re same trust in

o f the unerring method nature , when operating in societies and H e a m . races , that ani ates him with respect to individuals rails t “ the philosophers who wi sely send us back to the rules of ” “ nature , but who falsify them and present us her face painted so with too high and adulterate a complexion , whence spring many she i diff erent pictures o f so uniform a subj ect . As has g ven us

she t feet to walk with , so has given us prudence o guide u s in ’ The e to life . most simply to commit one s s lf to nature , is ” 1 6 t i a e as do it most wisely . In h s p ssage nature is conceiv d an orderly and all - controlling force which has made man what he is and which may be trusted to work out his final good . Again ’ i n n The it is nature ma which is Montaigne s chief concern . study of nature as a system o f material forces is wholly sub ordinate in his philosophy to reflection upon its operations in the spirit , institutions and ideals of humanity . Indeed he advises the teacher of a growing youth as follows " After having taught

him what will make him more wise and good ( i . e . the u o f h manities ) you may then entertain him with the elements logic , r ah -d physics , geometry , hetoric ; the science which he shall then

hi s himself most incline to , j udgment being beforehand formed ” 1 7 l ak own . and fit to choose , he wi l quickly m e his In this cursory study of the warring attitudes and interests of n the preg ant era of the Renaissance , the successive conquests of naturalism are no less marked than the prevalence of human i n r ism As the fo mative age of Greek philosophy , the domain of thought is once more rent asunder by opposing world - views and in the bitter struggle the naturalists give promise o f an o f ultimate victory . Yet none these fearless frontiersmen o f

science , in this or succeeding ages , has attained any insight into the distinctly human character o f all his investigations and dis

O u c it . . 2 . p s , p 5 3

8 - O x e c 88. i . f E p r en e , pp 3 7 3 ‘ 7 f i . 1 0 O . o C l f the Ed h dren , p 9 . 34 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Human is m

i cover es . Mechanism has become the goal o f physical

' speculation because it introduces mathematical certainty into the f fluctuating processes o nature . Yet mathematics is the product of human thinking and the mathematical postulates essential to

o f interpret the data sense are logical habits , sanctioned by their

f r agreement with nature and their utility o man . Moreover the

faculty of observation itself, employed in amassing the facts of

a specialized problem , involves the senses , and these in turn their

human organs . Finally the purpose that animates all the experi ments of the scientists in the realm o f necessary causes is a purely human category having its home in a fair domain of human

desires and ideal ends . Because he so wills it man may come

to conceive of himself as part of a vast , mechanical system , and may even separate himself from both the purposes and the data

ma with which he is concerned that he y estimate the value of both . In so doing he manifests himself as the arbiter of his own destiny in j ust the degree in which all the conditions and circum stances oi his life are brought within the control of a discip lined

The - reason . science of the naturalists is a man made structure , the product of human interest , and dependent for its continued existence or decay upon the acceptance or the rej ection of nature . From such considerations we are led to recognize the implication of human desire and thought in the blind processes of nature , albeit this truth was hidden fro m the enthusiastic naturalists of e the sevente nth century and , indeed , its clear formulation is Of

recent origin . But j ust as the naturalists erred in failing to render due honor ’ of s to human purpose as the source and motive power cience . so the humanists were at fault in infusing all nature with those ends and values which were the off spring of their o wn desires T and interests . hat nature cannot intend those creatures whose existence is the condition of all intention or purpose seems clear " enough . et this fact by no means discredits human knowledge f T or ideal aspiration and ef ort . ruth reared by human hands in fi harmony with the facts of experience , and modi able by them , may prove more fair and lasting a temple than that mighty yet mythical structure . ascribed to the Absolute , which human knowl edge may imperfectly shadow forth but may in no wise al ter in a single detail . CHAPTER II

THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATURAL I SM IN TH E SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

o f o f In the seventeenth century the problem nature and man ,

r m in thei utual relations , challenged the keenest minds of the age a and produced the widely v riant philosophies of Descartes , H obbes and Leibniz . Shaking themselves as free as they might from the binding control of scholasticism , these men attempted to work out thought - systems which should embody the recent

- T discoveries and world views of science . o harmonize scientific knowledge with those established conceptions of the origin of

o f o f the universe and the nature the human soul , the validity

be- which was still largely unquestioned , came the gigantic task f Th o the period . e impulse toward systematization of those aspects of experience from whi ch reason had wrested a val id meaning revealed itself with remarkable power and fertility . T hus a metaphysical cosmology , based upon science , held the field against the human problems of knowledge and worth that had shared the attention of preceding thinkers . Inspired by the ideal of an intuitive and deductive science which should introduce the same coherence and meaning into natural phenomena infused u by mathematics into quantities and fig res , the philosophers of the century eff ected a union of physics and metaphysics destined to have a powerful influence upon succeeding thought . Meanwhile science quietly pursued a path which diverged more and more from the speculative highway of the philosophers ; and now and again it announced fresh discoveries of far - reaching sig nifican The o f ce to the human race . earlier labors Kepler and

N T-orricelli Galileo were carried forward by ewton , and Boyle while new fields o f experiment and discovery were opened up by T H . Vesalius , arvey and Snell his was an age when the con fide nce a o f ed , like scientists and theirmsympathizers , was undaunt and hope ran high . What marvels ight not be accomplished by 35 36 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm the new method of induction The riddles o f the universe that ’ so long had defied man s thought seemed destined to disappear before the conquering march of science . was s Such the impelling ideal of Bacon , who be t epitomizes the scientific spirit of the first quarter of the century . Deeply dyed with classic thought and hardly less at home in the E Romance literatures of urope , this arch humanist was yet the of s greatest popularizer cientific method that the period aff ords . In his Weltansclmuung science exists for human ends ; naturalism is alike the product and the tool of human need and ’ i s T endeavor and amply j ustified of its children . hough Bacon s knowledge of induction was incomplete and grounded upon “ ” of s o f scholastic conceptions the form things , and though his work in the field of science was singularly unfruitful , yet he was an ardent and effective opponent o f a barren speculative physics and a convincing advocate of the method of experiment . In him the age finds a trumpet voice expressing its boundless hope in the victories o f science and in the consequent trans ’ “ i T formation o the life of man . o Bacon s thought man is the minister and interpreter of nature who does and understands so much as he may have discerned concerning the order of nature ”1 r by O bservation o by meditating on facts . In presenting his view of the true method o f science Bacon l fear essly attacks all preconceptions ( idola) , derived from er inh itance , tradition and human association , which interfere with the formation of those valid generalizations from O bserved H e o f o f facts that constitute science . is the first a long line followers in England to recognize the disastrous eff ect of e r implicating mental states , merely subj ectiv and transito y , with that truth whose chief claim to acceptance is its uniformity and

H e one universality . bewails the fact that no has yet been found with the courage and constancy utterly to abolish common theo o c e ries and c n eptions , and to apply afresh to particulars an Int llect ” 2 r e clea ed and lev led . After this preparatory work shall at last b o f have een accomplished , the whole field natural phenomena lies

f - Open to observation and experiment in the interest o human kind . ’ But Bacon s dread of human prej udice and predilection , as the f to the prime enemies o a valid scientific method , blinds him

mO umK c s . 1 1 . Novu rgan , it hin tran , p

d . . Ibi , p 79 Development of N aturali sm 37 significant contribution o f the mind to the formulation of any Hi s to o scientific principles , however simple . exhortation m unt to s by successive steps , from particulars lesser Axiom , to thence to intermediate ones and , lastly in due time , ” 3 the o a c e e m st general , reve ls l arly nough the mechanical and hi lifeless character of s idea of induction . Although he urges the formation of provisional hypotheses which may be tested by he i experiment, yet displays na ve confidence in the ability of the crudest mi nd to bend nature to the purposes of man if only it be f f T in possession o the mechanics o his marvellous method . hus ’ the association of naturalism and humanism in Bacon s thought The seems in part an external one . intimate action and reaction o f i s of nature and mind , whereby the hypothesis born , applied and tested , seems but imperfectly comprehended by this apostle of science .

Yet , although Bacon may not give full credit to the human hi s aspect of all scientific procedure , humanistic purpose and interest are profoundly sincere . Indeed it is probable that in his zeal to accomplish results of practical value Bacon defeated hi s n of ow end . Science claims a certain disinterested allegiance her devotees and has few favors to bestow upon tho se humanists whose purpose is purely pragmatic . Devotion to a compelling ideal of truth for its own sake must precede the aims of applied simle 0 science ; the naturalist ure and , ens up a path which the humanists following in hi s rear my expand into a broad and

’ etween Bacon s vast humanistic learning and his enthusiasm for the new knowledg e and method is at times preserved with sound discrimination . In a passage in the ” Novum Organum he refers to the admiration felt by some

- men for antiquity , by others for while few are able to keep the mean between tearing up what has been established T by the ancients or despising the contribution of moderns . his takes place to the great detriment of the sciences and philosophy , since these are likings not j udgments as to Antiquity and Novelty ; whereas Truth is to be sought not from the felicity of r f o f any particula time which is variable , but rom the light nature ” 4 and experience which is eternal . In the alembic of experience m m o 8 . u O u . N v rgan , p 4 8 it . 2 2 . O . c . p , pp 7 , 8 The on i ct o N atu ali smand Human i sm 3 C fl , f r

o f o f N the truths both literature and nature must be distilled . o sounder basis o f j udgment o f the relative values o f the sciences the e be and humanities in developing truth can asily found . It is small wonder that this brilliant rhetorician became a o f powerful influence in the spread naturalism . Dabbler in science he might be , interested in Persian magic and scornful of the achievements o f his contemporaries ; yet he O pened the eyes of thinking men to the mighty interests and forces which were

' o f — an working toward the dawn a new order , order where natural sci ence was enthroned only to raise fresh problems con h cerning uman destiny . More than a century after his death Diderot proclaimed this English pseudo - scientist the true inspirer

- — of his life work the legitimate parent of the great Encycl opedia to which sought realize his ideal .

While science is thus finding a convincing advocate in Bacon ,

o Th r l metaphysics claims its adherents n the Continent . e evo u tionizing principles o f the new astronomy and physics inevitably suggest the query " Is nature a purely mechanical system o f which man forms but an insignificant part ; o r is man himself the point of departure in any rational and hence authoritative cosmology ? To this problem Descartes and Leibniz bend all their energies and work out contradictory solutions . In the mind of Descartes the mystery can be unravel led only The by severing the universe in twain . material world may mof ma then be handed over to the scientist , while the real spirit y be fenced in as a thing apart subj ect to its own laws . Such a partition of the universe not only surrenders to the Church i n to of ts own but gives ample recog ition that spirit individuality , that dominating sense of personal power and dignity which f T forms part of the rich fruitage o the Renaissance . hus Descartes as a physicist i s enabled to maintain a purely mechanical theo ry o f the material universe while as a metaphysician and a humanist he rests hi s entire nature philosophy upon the existence

H o f - of the thinking self . ence the foundations his world scheme are laid in pure humanism . In the attempt of Descartes to find some bed - rock of truth of to be neath the doubtful knowledge his time , he is led the conviction that knowledge must connect itself by rational steps with that vivid and certain apprehension of our own existence i which cannot be thought away . Doubt , however m litant, can

40 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

mental physicist whose later years are largely devoted to

investigations in anatomy and physics . Indeed it is probable that his experiments in the sphere of physiology served to convince

' him o i the mechanical character O f the organic as well as the

inorganic world . Like physical nature , the animal body is an 8 intricate machine . w m In building up a mechanical orld fro a primeval chaos , Descartes brings forward that well - known hypothesis of vortices that was seized hold upon by Fontenelle to combat the theory N Hi s the of ewton . naturalistic bias leads him to attempt explanation of present conditions through the mechanical opera f f tion o the laws o motion . Yet this naturalism is modified at the next moment by reference to G od as the spiritual power which alone can lend concurrence to nature and allow her to ”9 T act in accordance with the laws which he had established . his t concession o current religious beliefs once made , however ,

' es r es i n r s D ca t g o e all teleological presuppositions . Although he doe s not deny final causes he does not concern himself with for them . Rather he asserts that it would be presumptuous reason to seek to penetrate the purposes o f God .

But although science may not concern itself with divine ends , t it o f o f ye clearly serves the purposes man . In the view Descartes

o f the sciences should be regarded as the instruments reason , enabling the individual to control nature and thus to liberate his rational powers for wider spheres of usefulness . Philosophy and

are o coO eration science in harmoni us p , the one furnishing the e ff thical aim that should inspire all intellectual e ort , while the l a latter supp ies the indispensable means . In the last an lysis , with

D o f . escartes as with Bacon , the end knowledge is pragmatic A review of this most influential of early modern philosophies The reveals some significant antitheses . whole material world is ’ surrendered to mechanism with the sole proviso that God s will stands behind the clatter of the machinery . Natural events cannot even be said to reveal divine purpose . On the other hand , the whole fabric of knowledge and of reality rests upon the existence o f ff a conscious human soul , whose substance is essentially di erent o f God from that matter , and whose innate ideas of , extension and

n d 2 c o n Ma e . . . Tra t , Torrey , p 75 n u S c o M O C . 6. Dis ourse ethod , pen o rt eries , p 4 Developmen t of Naturali sm 4 1

T motion are guaranteed by a Creator who cannot deceive . hus To the supremacy of man in his world is duly maintained . the urgent problem of the p ossibility o f intelligent interaction between a wholly material external world and a purely spiritual i principle in man , Descartes furn shes an answer far from satis f i n H i s y g . description of the mutual influence exercised by mind and body through the medium of animal spirits in the pineal 1 0 gland seems crude and nai ve enough to the scientific thinker o f to- day ; while his degradation of sense - perceptions and feelings to merely mechanical processes o f the body reveals a shallow psychological analysis .

n With eve stronger humanistic conviction than Descartes , Leibniz takes up arms against that scientific world - view which tended to reduce man to a mere cog in the vast mechanism of a nature . But , unlike Descartes , he finds little satisf ction in a complete division of the universe which renders the problem o f knowledge and of intelligent action so overwhelmingly diffi cult o f n solution . Rather does Leib iz elect to make the spiritual of o f energy the human soul the underlying essence all reality , both mental and material . With true humanistic bias he revolts against a cosmology that explains the beauty and harmony o f

- the world in terms of matter and motion in self initiated action . Yet hi s scientific studies with Huyghens and his wide acquaintance with the literature o f science forbid him to ignore or to minimize the facts pointing to a mechanical theory o f

. N to nature evertheless , his human view , rational design clearly underlies all natural events . however mechanical in their apparent T Operation . hus Leibniz is confronted with the double problem of maintaining the supreme reality and value o f that spiritual is principle which revealed in the human soul and in nature , a a - g inst the levelling influence of a mechanical world view , while at the same time attempting a complete reconciliation of teleology and mechanism . The exigencies of his problem lead Leibniz to formulate a f exhaus shrewd hypothesis concerning the nature o matter . An s o f tive analy is the external world reveals , not the extension and of H or to motion Descartes and obbes , but force only , capacity w E n reveal a manifold ithin a unity . nergy is the fu damental

1 ° o f So u e d 2 8 Passions the l , Torrey . , pp . 9 4 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Human i sm

category of existence and extension an d figure are mere ly its f i to e . T ab f ects his penetrating theory , wh ch science seems out ff a of a es s confirm , a ords striking illustration the fact th t the gu se of metaphysicians have not infrequently become the principles o f

natural science . By thus reducing matter and consciousne ss to i energy , Leibniz is assisted not only in bridg ng the ancient gulf and between matter and mind , nature man , but in proclaiming o f t i i s the essential spirituality bo h . In its final terms real ty 1 1 s Th o f ubs tance si m p ychical energy . e universe is composed s s les or p monads , identical in content but differing vastly in dynamic E mi r i r i t f . m o v van o power ach windowless onad is a , independent o f any other , containing within itself its principles development ” and ceaselessly engaged in representing with greater or less 1 2 T o o f . c mpleteness , the complex manifold the universe his o l the con representative p wer , only dimly revea ed in dark and e fused p rceptions of the monads composing body , is more clearly set displayed by the lower animals , and is most fully forth in the

i s rational work of apperception of which man alone capable . 1 3 The h e m human soul is arc it ctonic , and like the Supre e E ntelechy , is perpetually employed in the construction within f s T itself o an intelligible and atisfying world . hat the mind is constantly active may be established by an analysis of our simplest

perceptions . Crude and confused as they may be , they yet bear the marks of rational activity in the evolution o f many sensations ’ i 1 4 ma nto intelligent apprehension of an obj ect . Moreover n s or r ceaseless craving for happiness , g eater fulness and harmony

o f o f life , acts as a continual spur to the appearance new and of more complex perceptions . Desire lies at the foundation

Thu- conscious life . s Leibniz anticipated the dynamic psychology f 1 5 o the present age by two centuries . In the capacity to unfold hi s nature in clearer and more distinct perceptions and to present to himself not alone an external world related by lois d e con v enances but a rational world of necessary and eternal truths , 1 6 i Not o man reveals h s individuality . nly are human souls

- c e t r c . Prin ipes de la Nature de la G a e , 4 1 ” 1 Ibid , § 3. 13 1 Ibid , 4 .

- No uv . s C . 8 1 1 . Es ais , h IX ,

Mo l 1 . nado ogie , § 4

c . M . . Prin ipes , 7 onad , § 33 Developmen t of N aturali sm 43 immeasurably s upe rior in representative power to the lowest T order o f monads but they vary widely among themselves . hose fortunate spirits who can grasp not only the contingent laws relating natural phenomena but the higher truths which form

- an intelligible and moral world order , grounded in the nature o f to o o f Go d the First Cause , may mount a c mprehension him ” T an d o f and . o self , become members a fair divine city such enlightened s ouls the pain and imperfection of earth disappear in o f the beauty and order the whole , and they gladly proclaim this universe to be the best of all possible worlds that God could 1 8 have chos en to create . Although Leibniz may seemto have ree stablished the supremacy of o f e individuality , alike in lower orders life and in human natur , yet there appears but a small degree o f freedom in the eff ort of e of its each individual monad after clearn ss , or the unfolding own e nature , since this is a n cessary process accomplished in

The o-f exact accordance with divine law . principle “ e pre stablished harmony , by which Leibniz seeks to explain the of a o f one appearance ction substance upon another , involves the of strict necessity all events and processes . Indeed Leibniz does not shrink from the logical conclusions of his hypothesis and n H recognizes o freedom save in the realm o f morals . ere he concedes the possibility of free control o f passion and desire by reason . ’ A s f di s we have seen , Leibniz s knowledge o science did not t n t pose him o deny i to o the mechanism of natural events . Rather he desired to insert into the apparently mechanical proce sses of

o f nature the human concepts purpose , means and ends , and thus bring abo ut a reconciliation of the opposing theories of teleology and mechanism . H ence his assumption that natural laws are

u e . p rely contingent , i . , they might readily be conceived as

9 ' 1 ri i t . T nc es de convenan ce o f o herwise hey are p p , the choice 20 f . e n e a divine wisdom Only truths o re ason are ternal a d nec ss ry . o o Reason compels us to pass fr m one c ntingent truth to another ,

so on dependent upon it , and from this to a third , and until we are finally led to the conception o f a First Cause suffi cient unto itself

‘ 7 Mo 8 86 . nad . , 5 ,

c s 1 0 - 1 Prin ipe , 3.

Mo a c - n d . , 5 33; Prin ipes , 7 . c 1 1 Prin ipes , § . 44 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

God e o f o 21 is nec ssary as a principle explanati n , hence he exists . It may be remarked in passing that this i s not the sole instance of the use of the very flaws in philosophical premises to j ustify o f the existence a Divine Being . But his Deity once established , Leibniz can translate the whole series o f mechanically connected ’ events i n nature into a systemof means and ends by which God s The purposes are realized . finite realm of efficient or contingent causes acts in perfect accord with the external realm of final or 22 e h s i n cessary causes because God as o willed t. T hus Leibniz is seen to be the herald o f German humanistic H e idealism . illustrates once more the quenchless desire o f man to impress his scheme of values upon the universe and to pro claim himself the most perfect work of a Creator conceived in hi s o wn to image . Moreover he recognizes that man , in attempting of its investigate nature , tacitly assumes the intelligibility The m processes . proble suggested by this fact he meets with the “ ” f o n r elaborate explanation o preestablished harm y . It is t ue that no impressions can enter the soul through the senses and therefore it follows that this central monad perceives itself alone i n The and ts ow contents . more comprehensive and adequate i the mage it presents to itself , the more complete is its perception o f T to the universe . hat body and soul , matter and mind , seem act and react on each other is due to a preestablished harmony

The set in Operation by the Deity at the creation . monads con stituti ng body and the ruling monad o f the soul necessarily agree o like two perfectly regulated watches . It would seem to f llow that the ultimate perfectibility of ma n will be in no wise hindered f by the apparently mechanical operation s o nature . The vast influence o f the systems of Descartes and Leibniz can readily be traced in the thought of France and Germany for many o f generations . In the system Descartes the Jansenists and Oratorians o f France seek a fresh basis for harmonizing theology The f is and science . best known o these attempted reconciliations — “ found in the well known work o f Malebranche La Recherche ” H ff de la Verite. ere a vig orous e ort is made to render Catholic dogma consistent with Cartesian rationalism while preserving a T purely mechanical and geometrical theory of nature . hus by his

21 M . onadologie , 37 3’ 88 c 1 6 . Ibid . , ; Prin ipes , Developmen t of N aturali sm 4 5 identification o f valid knowledge with deductive reasoning from clear and distinct conceptions , Descartes stamps an impress upon ot French thought which it bears for more than a century . N originality but clearness and intelligi bility become its ideal and ” it acquires that taste for too simple solutions which character izes the whole Cartesian school . From Descartes likewise came the initial impulse to modern humanistic idealism . If truth abides within the human soul , if the external world is not only guaran e of h t ed by mind but receives most its qualities from it , t ere need but a few courageous steps to bring the thinker to that vantage ground whence he views the entire material world as the T product of the rational activity of man . his road Leibniz had partially traversed ; but it remained for the German idealists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to carry humanism to its extreme limits . In England the acceptance of Cartesianism was by no means s n as The i o e thusiastic in France . psycholog cal and ethical trend given to English philosophy was due rather to the naturalism of f Thomas Hobbes than to the dualistic system o Descartes . A humanist o f no mean ability was this English materialist as is “ n T evidenced by the excelle t translation of hucydides , pub li shed at the opening of his literary career , and by the translations his of the Iliad and the Odyssey that marked its close . Yet e interest in the natur , history and institutions of mankind was so everywhere colored by that predilection , marked in early Greek s h o philo op y , for reducing the c mplex processes of nature and Of ma t H m n o one material principle . aving com itted himself heart and soul to the theory that all change whatsoever throughout the f H universe may be explained in terms o motion in space , obbes works out a systematic philosophy on the basis of this 23 hypothesis . Adopting the deductive method of Descartes , he not only constructs a mechanical nature but draws into his world scheme all mental phenomena and the customs and institutions H to which they give rise . Fearlessly consistent as he is . obbes labors to explain the data o f ethics and politics as the natural 24 E products of the motions of the mind . thical laws are the ’ laws of nature and grow out o f man s all - controlling desire f or

d 2 2 C o C e . . o . De rp re , alkins , p

L 1 - i l . e cd . . v athan , Wa ler , pp 9 46 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d H uman i sm

25 - Th f self preservation . e natural state o mankind is on e of per

etual - p conflict , dictated by self interest , which the natural laws f s H of reason are powerless o them elves to control . ence the need of a power strong enough to enforce order and secure the persons

o f and property all men . From this need arises the Common “ wealth instituted when a Multitude o f men agree to authorize the of all actions of that man , who represents the person them ” 26 T . the n all , as if they were his own hus the power of Sovereig ,

though absolute and not to be overthrown , is derived from the original agreement of his subj ects and is based upon purely

natural necessity .

The o f H philosophy obbes , crude and unconvincing though it

may be , represents a most suggestive attempt to build a universe upon mechanics in which there should yawn no unclosed chasm T between the spheres of nature and of human life . hat he finds diffi culty in explaining all mental phenomena upon the hypothesis of motion he ascribes to the complexity of the subj ect, not to the f weakness o his assumption . But his courageous naturalism stirred the minds o f his countrymen to an O pposition which

compelled them to clarify their own views . By placing ethics and politics upon a naturalistic foundation Hobbes was the forerunn er o f the English empirical school which searched for the origin of

ethical principles in the constitution of human nature . From the o f H E t time obbes , nglish philosophers sought the key o human destiny in the actual facts o f human nature and in well - grounded f T a knowledge o human conditions . hus he advanced the c use of scientific investigation in many branches of humanistic knowl to edge . Although his vigorous thought was not at first able com

o f bat the sway Cartesianism in France , after the middle of the eighteenth century his influence was felt i Ii every active and

- o iconoclastic thought m vement , from the materialistic naturalism ’ of Diderot and D H olbach to the humanistic naturalism of

Rousseau . ‘ E ven more clearly , through the entire course of the phil o E c os phy of the French nlightenment , may be tra ed the

shaping hand o f John Locke . Doubtless it would have been a

' o f to thi s - - matter surprise and regret God fearing , law abiding

2“ - 8 1 0 . Leviathan , pp . 9 9 2° 1 2 0 . Ibid , p .

48 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

” 3° to itself, But his alternations between a conception o f e the mind as ntirely dependent upon sensation , even in its

functi onin s o f of g , and that the mind as a source intellectual of O activities , merely set in motion by the sting external bj ects ,

” of proved disastrous to the more spiritual aspects his psychology . Th h Illuminati e somewhat superficial philosophy of the Frenc , o of with its ideal of simplicity and clearness , to k no note these doubtful issues and concerned itself with the development and exposition of a crude sensationalism . Locke defines knowledge as the perception o f the agreement o r 31 i the e a d s agreement of our ideas . But content of thes ide s is derived fromsensation— hence all human thought is sensuous in T origin . his theory formed the starting point of the French o r immedi psychologists . Yet Locke places intuitive knowledge , 32 of o ur ate perception mental states , in the highest rank and ” H e accords to sensitive knowledge the lowest place . is led to this position by the fact that we can have complete certainty of the presence of an idea in the mind but have no such assurance that this idea corresponds to an external obj ect . Between these two forms of knowledge , Locke inserts a third which he terms f o o . demonstrative knowledg e , or kn wledg e ideal relations Of its validity he is not so certai n as in the case of intuitive knowl ” edge , since demonstrative knowledge is not immediate but i n is based step by step upon intuitive knowledge , and slips

r reasoning a e possible . We can have knowledge no further than we have ideas or perceptions of their relations and these are E e limited perceptions . ven sensitive knowledge r aches no further than the existence of things present to sense organs not “ - T over delicate . hus the extent of our knowledge comes not only short of the reality of thing s but even of the extent of our ” 4 3 th e E e own ideas . In hands of Voltaire and the ncyclop dists this theory became a powerful weapon wielded in the cause o f pragmatic as O pposed to purely speculative thinking .

The essential humanism of Locke , his faith in the capacity and prerogative of human nature to work o ut its own salvation in

sa 1 2 . Es y, II , , 4

d 1 2 . Ibi , IV , , 3’ s 2 1 . Es ay IV , , ” d . Ibi , 4 “ 6 . Ibid , Developmen t of N aturali sm 49

every field of experience , if given a free hand , is the animating motive o f his Letters Concerning T oleration and his Essays “ ” T . o Of Civil Government French thinkers , cramped and held in subj ection by the unyielding absolutism of Church and State , these works were a proclamation of mental and moral emancipa T tion . heir broad and humane spirit aroused enthusiastic faith in human possibilities of attainment , and their influence is clearly H apparent in the social philosophy of Montesquieu , elvetius and E the ncyclopedists .

Thus in. the eighteenth century the natural rhythm o f thought r esults in France and elsewhere in a movement away from meta physical speculation and toward a more adequate understanding of of human nature , its functions and possibilities . As in the age the

o f Greek sophists , philosophy concerns itself with the problem ’ man s place in a universe which is now widely conceived as me

hani cal o f c . in its operations What is the nature mind , what are the limits of its certain knowledge , and how may this knowledge assist in solving urgent problems concerning human good ? The hostile attitude o f the Church in France toward all independence o f thought in grappling with these questi ons arouses feeling to a

- o fever heat . Despotic authority pr vides a fertile soil for the N reception of the revolutionizing ideas of Locke , Bacon and ewton ’ ” sur as presented in Voltaire s Lettres les Anglais , and in the ” E des more moderate sprit Lois of Montesquieu . But once

- o f sprouted , these seed thoughts produce a harvest , not empiricism but rathermo f a sensualism which speedily develops into the crudest materialis . Accepting the principle established by Locke that

i n' every idea must prove its truth by its origin experience , the philosophers of the Enlightenment applied it with startling eff ect

to . current notions in religion , ethics and politics Supplemented ’ as it was by Voltaire s dogma o f the all - suffi ci en cy o f reason and of by the doctrine natural right , worked out by the social theorists o of the seventeenth century , it resulted in the producti n of a philosophy dominantly humanistic which yet was conceived in the o f spirit and elaborated by the methods naturalism . Until after the middle o f the century the forces o f reason and enlightenment are captained by Voltaire and Diderot . But many able leaders of lesser influence are i n the field and add their quota to the development o f a philosophy essentially pragmatic E f and sensualistic . very department o human experience finds 5 0 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H u man i sm

its ardent investigators , animated rather by desire for clear and systematically organized conclusions than by that spirit of patient research which would first examine exhaustively into the nature of The its data . domain of psychology and epistemology is taken H over by Condillac and elvetius , the sphere of social institutions f by Montesquieu and Diderot , the realm o metaphysics by ’ M ettri e D Ho lbach s La and . But the animating pirits of the entire movement are Voltaire with his impassioned advocacy of human as b m reason , against the stub orn and oppressive dogmatis of and tradition , Diderot spurred on by the eager desire to o rganize and extend human knowledge for the betterment of human society . Th e psychological foundations of the philos ophy o f the

Illumination were laid by Condillac . Going beyon d the con clusi ons of Locke , he attempted to establish the proposition that all o f o o the elements c nsci usness , not alone its content but its

o f E functions , are merely modifications passive sensations . ach sense perception is a purely passive modification of consciousness . Scientific knowledge results from a careful analysis o f this con

eri The es . o f g of sensations minmd acquires its faculties attention , comparison , abstraction , j udg ent , since these are merely the ff e ects of sensations . simultaneously present to consciousness . Thus attention is aroused if one sense modification is vivid and s m per istent enough to exclude others . Co parison is nothing but

s - simultaneous attention to two sen ations . In his best known “ T é work rait des Sensations , Condillac compares man to a statue whose mental activities are awakened one after another .

" et - , since he has grounded knowledge upon attention and

of - o f analysis sense impressions , he recognizes the need furnish

t e ing some motive power o s t the whole machinery in motion . This he supplies by his theory of pleasure and pain as particular kinds of sensations bestowed by the Creator upon man as a means of stimulating attention and thus inaugurating the process of T o f analysis . hrough comparison sensations of pleasure and pain , instincts and desires arise and influence the development of the various faculties . From this imperfect explanation it seems

clear that Condillac was seeking , to organize mental life on a basis of feeling ; but the tardy development of the biological sciences rendered his task too difficult for his powers . Developmen t of N aturali sm 5 r

’ The mechanical character of Con dillac s psychology i s f f su ficiently apparent . Its reduction o mind to the humble role of of o e ns a its a mere bearer c ntending s nsatio , st mped upon,

its identifi c passive substance by external obj ects , coupled with a

of all of tion mental faculties . with the conflicts these impressions ,

of " et reduces man to a mere puppet external conditions . this e psychology found ardent supporters in Franc , especially when H its humanistic implications had been made plain by elvetius . ’ ” L Es rit In his suggestive work De p , this author eagerly strives to establish the vital connection between morality and education , in its widest sense of environing conditions . Assuming with ’ Condillac that physical sensibility is the unique cause of man s 35 h a o a i o and o H s t oughts , p ssi ns , ct ns s ciability , elvetiu deduces from this the corollary that the physical and social environment

m hi s The ff be of man wholly deter ine character . vast di erence tween the noblest citizen and the meanest social outcast may be traced back, step by step , to its source in education . But edu cation is determined by the form of government ; hence the arbitrary and restrictive institutions of France are to be regarded f to as a source o unmitigated evil . Only when man learns

e - o to id ntify self interest , the pr duct of his susceptibility pleasure and pain , with the public good will moral depravity yield place to civic and personal worth . But this supremely desirable result is hindered by the very institutions which should further it . Only a few men have the breadth o f knowledge and experience to appreciate the necessity of merging personal interest in public

? 6” uti lity Man esteems only such i deas as are analogous to his

n ow . Until he is admitted to active participation in public life and his interest in its problems is thus aroused , his ideals will remain self- centered and he will find no sufficient motives for enlightened action in the interest of the greatest number . Mor ’ m ality , education and the nation s laws all rest upon the sa e T ground of public utility . herefore let the moral philosopher from his lofty vantage - ground indicate the laws of which the legislator secures the execution . Could these principles once be generally accepted “ with what facility would the legislator ex

’ Es ri t 2 - l . De p , I , 7 3° 1 . Ibid , III , The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

tin ui sh i g the torches of fanatic sm and superstition , suppress abuses ” s7 and reform barbarous custom-s l The reformatory and humanistic tendency of French philosophy i s H clearly apparent in the work of elvetius . No sooner has a

sensualistic psychology been worked out , than it is eagerly seized

as upon , not to serve a point of departure for metaphysical specu e lation , but as a means of xalting education and of attacking those despotic institutions which confine the intelligence and the

T H el moral nature of humanity within swaddling bands . hat vetius was by no means successful in bridging the gap between 38 self - interest and zeal for the general welfare should not blind us to the fact that once more , as with the Greeks , morality is based upon the constitution of human nature and its functioning in the life of society .

But humanism. does not possess the whole arena of thought even at this period . Naturalism claims its adherents in a group o f French philosophers who , influenced by the progress of physical science , would reduce all the phenomena of the organic and the The inorganic spheres to modifications of a primitive matter . movement bears witness to the growing influence that the tech ’ nique and the conclusions of science are exerting upon man s o f conceptions of the world and his place within it . In his much “ ’ ” L H omm M ettri e discussed work entitled e Machine, La lays f the foundation stones o French materialism . Starting with the assertion that we have no sure ground for maintaining any ff qualitative di erence between man and the brute creation , he bring s forward evidence to show the similarity in organization and functions of the lower animals and man . From this like ness he urges a similarity of essential nature . It is but a step further to extend this comparison to plants and then to inorganic nature . From its lowest to its highest forms , nature is endowed with sensation . Psychical life varies with the complexity of ner vous organization and its functions are most diversified in man . Anatomy and physiology alike teach the uselessness o f the hypothesis of an independent spiritual substance . But because mind is corporeal and our most exalted ideals are only modifica a us tions of one primeval m tter , that fact should not make despise

’ ’7 it l E s r . De p , II , 3 33 1 Ibid , II , 7 . Developmen t of N aturali sm 53

the soul . Its true greatness should be sought , not in its origin but in its capacity for profound and accurate thinking , and for enlightened action in the service of social reconstruction .

T of hus the conclusions the biological sciences , so recently and w incompletely developed , are used as eapons with which to fight a good fight for huma n emancipation from the slavery of custom . No longer does philosophy assert that man is possessed of an eternal spiritual principle to be rescued from everlasting pain only by the intervention of a Church which has set its face f against all change and progress . Rather do the philosophers o the Illumination turn to Nature as a fostering parent who can teach great things to the child she has produced and nurtured , and who proclaims his kinship with herself in no uncertain terms . All these various strands of speculation are woven into the comprehensive , unsystematized thought of Diderot , and , in a modified degree , into that of Voltaire . But , while Diderot shows the fearlessness of the Greek mind in his eagerness to “ follow ” e the argument whitherso ver it leads , Voltaire holds ever before him a sturdy belief in the social value of outworn creeds and ideals which prevents him from following hi s con temporaries far

‘ along the path toward an atheistic materialism . Yet he was pro ’ foun dly impressed with that passage in Locke s Essay in which the Englishman suggests that man cannot know whether matter not may not be made by God to think , since we know wherein to thinking consists , nor what sort of substances the Almighty ” 39 e a o T s u has been pleased to giv th t p wer , his g ff gestion , together with the empirical psychology of Locke , a ord

Voltaire the foundations of his philosophy . We know as little 4 0 t e H n h essential c haracter o f matter as that of the soul . e ce

i s the materialist who asserts that all matter , with no knowledge i of o f e to the nature that he so sagely discusses , is as lik ly be in error as the Spiritualist who proclaims the existence in man o f - T a never dying Spiritual substance . hus with regard to this

- o i much mooted problem of his time , V ltaire elects the m ddle H to ground of agnosticism . ere he is content remain , nor would he squander much time and thought upon these doubtful issues . “ In the spirit o f Locke he exclaims " O man " God has given

3° ssa 6 . E y , IV , 3, § 4 ° (Euv re s C me 1 1 - 1 2 Vol . . . o pl tes , XVII , pp 3 3 5 4 The Confli ct of N aturalisman d H uman ism thee the understanding to live well and not to penetrate into the “ 1 of H e r essence the things has c reated . Matter may o may 4 2 not be senti ent and ete rnal but the solution of this problem is

not r to . of vital impo tance man Morality is his chief concern . Centuries have been required to learn one sma ll part of the f f laws o nature . One day su fices a wise man to learn the duties 4 3 o f mankind . ’ r But when the question of God s existence is brought forwa d , ’ i s E f Voltaire s agnostic attitude abandoned . very piece o work ” implies a workman , said Voltaire , and nature is manifestly a f o . o work consummate art God . then , is needed to fill the r le f i s o omnipotent Architect . Still more is H existence necessary to supply that constraining influence that shall hold the ignorant canaille to a wholesome regard for morality . Without a divine m y Lawgiver to guarantee the fundamental oral principles , societ could not maintain itself against the recklessness and vice of a brut ish multitude . Philosophize between yourselves as much as you ” E please , exclaims Voltaire to a group of advanced ncyclopedists , but take good care not to perform this concert before the ignor ” 44 ant , the brutal and the vulgar ; was f Such not the attitude o Diderot . Animated by a larger social sympathy and a sincerer faith in the possibilities of hu manity than Voltaire , Diderot combined with these impelling

y motives a distinct leaning toward a positive philosoph , the f product o a scientific method . Humanist as he was in his asser tion of the essential good of human nature and of its indefinite m o f capacity for i provement , his solutions current psychological and ethical problems were strongly naturalistic . A fine and true f observer o human institutions and human life , Diderot ennobled

hi s own man by placing a sense for right within nature , at the same time that he reduced him to a lowly place in the universe . “ ” To ? the metaphysical query of his time , Can matter think Diderot returned an afli rmative answer which he felt to be sup c ported by the facts o f science . Physics and hemistry alike “ T furnish evidence that matter is living throughout . here is

e . but on substance in the universe , in man and in the animal

4‘ ( Euvre s Comle Vo l X 1 68 on S u . p tes , . VII , p , , Essay the o l

‘ 2 - X n . 1 d l o M . Vo . X Ibi , , Essa y atter , pp 5 53 3 ‘ 1 o n l o 6 s . Ibid , p . 9 , E say Phi os phy - 1 6 f Mo . o . i n c . . Le l . o d l F vy Bruh , Hist Phi s ran e , p 9

5 6 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Hu mani sm prej udice gave way before his attacks and unfriendly minds be came hospitable to his gospel of the authority and prerogatives o f reason . To disparage the work of Voltaire because it was purel v i n tellectual in nature , and concerned itself little with the gaunt misery of the toiling masses , would be an ungracious act . A true

w as humanist he , albeit his gaze was concentrated on but one

f - T o the many obstacles to human well being . hat he became better acquainted with the suff ering of humanity in his later years is evidenced by the difficulty he experienced in reconciling ’ his views o f God s existence and good ness with the misery o f T “ ” man . hus , in his essay on Providence he asserts that the divine power is circumscribed within limits . God is waging a ceaseless warfare against a stubborn and eternal matter and in H e some instances is on the losing side . Voltaire has little sympathy with the complacent satisfaction with the world dis o f a played by Leibniz . Instead m intaining that this is the best ’ world possible he asserts " N ous n avons pas to fron t d e di re ’ Tout est bi en nous disons Tout est l e mai ns mal u i l se ; ; , q ” ouvai t 8 p . N o less enthusiastic a humanist than Voltaire , Diderot con secrates his life to the enlightenment of the people of France P ros ectu through his great Encyclopedia . In the p s of the work

to he acknowledges his debt the Chancellor Bacon , who sketched the plan o f a universal dictionary of sciences and arts at a time ” The to . when there were not , so say , either art or sciences aim of E not the ncyclopedia was not theory but practice , literature ” 9 a but life . Diderot was fully aware th t knowledge of the facts of physical science would d o little to bring abou t social recon T of struction . hese facts must be transmuted in the crucible human experience into guiding principles of practical worth . ’ The many collaborators in the great scheme of D Al embert and Diderot were men of broad knowledge and social sympathy who f profoundly influence d the life o the nation . Into all its phases ,

o o f economic , p litical and moral , they infused the principles a t hu humanized science . Wi h vigorous faith in the possibility of E man progress by purely human means , the ncyclopedists turned

( Euv e s C mle Vol . 2 . r o . p tes , IV , p 99

Mo l . 1 2 1 " r . r ey Dide ot , p Deve lopmen t of N aturali sm 5 7 the full light of scientific ideas ‘ upon the customs and institutions of the age . Nor did they ignore the enormous importance in the

f ne life of society o all forms of productive industry . No o can turn over the pages of this treasure house of arts and sciences without being profoundly impressed by the new spirit which it

The portrays . age of engrossing interest in verbal knowledge e is past and a new era is h ralded , in which things count for more than words , and scientific knowledge outranks speculative dialectic . But splendid as were the h0 pe and high resolve of these Illum i nati it is only too evident that their common stock of notions mo concerning psychology , history , politics and rals had never been subj ected to a critical and searching analysis . Ardent adherents of science they might be , but its methods they still neglected to

m H a su erficialit apply to human proble s . ence a cert in p y and “ cocksureness about their philosophy— a failure to seize more than on e aspect of a problem— which the clear - sighted criticism ‘ T o f a later age has ruthlessly revealed . o assert that matter is endowed with sensation because all animal life is possessed of it and because chemistry reveals atomic energy , is not to follow “ ” e the secure method of a science . Mor over to ignore , in an i analysis of knowledge , all contributions made by the mind tsel f ,

to l as an active and feeling principle , is grasp but half of a vita problem . The sensualistic tendency in all French thought o f the eighteenth ’ century finds its c ulmination in the atheistic materialism of D H ol

- E bach . From its mechanical world view even the ncyclopedists revolt ; and Voltaire seizes his pen to refute a doctri ne which The seems to him to strike at the roots o f social morality . e N 1 0 Syst me de la ature published in 77 , is characterized by 5 0 Morley as a thu n dering e ngine of revolt and de struction w hich produced a widespread shock . Its leading motive is the dependence of social reform upon intellectual enfranchisement and this in turn upon the substitution o f a naturalistic world - view for f the theistic doctrines o the Church . Matter is eternal and moves 5 1 ceaselessly by its own energy thus pro ducing all natural proc

N are esses and events . atural phenomena rigidly determined , and no isolated or independent cause can exist in a world where

5 ° C . 1 f Diderot , p . 5 7 . 5 ‘ em l u 2 0 - 2 Syst e de a Nat re , I , pp . 7 . 5 8 The Confli ct of N aturali s mand Humani sm

2 i n 5 bodies are constant mechanical interaction . Man is but one of the products o f this incessant change and his actions are the expression of an energy which he shares with all other natural

hi s things . Because acts are complex and almost infinitely varied , he fails to see the chain of natural necessity that links one to 5 3 w another . Free ill is thus seen to be an illusion and the con cepti on of intelligent order in the universe a human n otion rightly

of applicable only in the sphere human actions . ’ ’ Yet D H olbach s message is not wholly one of gloom and

The o despair . go d man is a feeble spring in the vast machinery of one nature , to be sure , but whose parts fulfil their functions s o as to enhance the welfare of his fellowmen . Once more the e assertion is boldly mad that education , customs and institutions of make men good or bad , since they produce the motives 5 4 H e society . ence man should cease to search for happiness b yond the boundaries o f his own world and should turn to nature that 5 5 he n c o may learn her unchangi g laws . S ience is the true m ther f T o morality . herefore let man renounce the discredited dogma of immo rtality and expend his energy in improving the outward conditions of life that make for moral goodness . Let him throw “ superstition courageously behind him and affirm " There is no God but Reason " Extreme as these views may be in their rej ection of every of f accepted religious dogma the age , it is idle to a firm their m The essential i morality . spirit of an enlightened humanism ’ inspires the entire treatment of man s social relations . But it would be more difficult to disprove the charge of partial and even crude treatment of a subj ect far less simple than the author The how is inclined to believe . crucial problem of man as a mechanical product o f nature can estimate and j udge of the

forces which brought him forth is barely touched upon . Yet ’ D H olbach recognizes the diffi culty and attempts to dispose o f T it by deriving all mental faculties from feeling . his funda mental capacity is a consequence of the essence and properties of

organized bodies , in the same way that electricity and magnetism

“2 S m 1 e l . . yst e de a Nature , I , p 7 53 Ibid , p . 79 . 5‘ 2 . Ibid , I , p . 94 “5 2 1 0 Ibid , II , p . . Developmen of N aturali sm 5 9

e of for are . By m ans it man has a criterion estimating the facts

f H a o . d e his experience psychology but develop d a little further , ’ D Holbach mi ght have worked out a more detailed and satisfying of f it account the relation o the mind to s world . By the middle of the century the forces of rationalism had lost f their initial vigor and enthusiasm . A revulsion o feeling against a philosophy which emphasized reason at the expense o f every other human faculty was vaguely stirring and waited only for a mouthpiece . At the moment when the age had most need of i — To him appeared ts supreme humanist Jean Jacques Rousseau . this child of sentiment his own personality was a microcosm o f f the external world . From the founts o his own feeling he drew the postulates upon which he built a scheme o f life for all hu

o f manity . Against the atomistic psychology Condillac , which makes the mind an aggregate of impressio ns gained from the

of outer world , he opposes a theory natural feeling as the gov f E hi s erning principle o all mental life . ndowed at birth with certain tendencies and feelings , the individual is from the very T first a determining factor in his own spiritual development . hus Rousseau satisfied hi s intense individualism and expressed in the same breath his spirit of revolt against a cold gospel o f reason which seemed to bear no message for the ignorant and of downtrodden the earth . It has been frequently remarked that Rousseau loved humanity H most when he was least in contact with it . owever true the ’ of epigram may be , the sincerity Rousseau s ideal human feeling

- sati sfi ed f will hardly be questioned . Ill with the harvest o ration ali smand profoundly distrustful of any human progress which

- built upon then existing institutions , Rousseau turns his gaze lovingly toward the past and contemplates a primitive age when ” to con the race lived according nature , unhampered by human

en i ons The f o f hi s v t . complexity and unnaturalness o the life of age with its sharp distinctions birth and privilege , with its absentee nobility supporting their luxurious leisure upon the stark of o misery the verburdened peasantry , fill him with deep and genuine indignation . Ready to his hand he finds the conceptions “ ” of of a state nature and a natural law , and these he uses to the utmost in hi s construction of a philosophy of sheer a hum nism . 60 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

The idea of a law of nature had its beginnings in Greek phil

0 5 0 on phy . Passed to the Romans , it received a legal coloring and resulted in the conception o f a jus natural e which is higher and more permanent than the jus ci vile and to which the latter should approximate . In modern times this notion was seized hold upon and popularized by Grotius who applied it to ethical and et political problems in his De Jure Belli Pacis . But French philosophy was most profoundly influenced in its theories o f nature by the views of Hobbes and Locke regarding a state of T o H nature . obbes this state was the original condition of man in which his natural egoistic impulses had free play . But as o i n this freed m resulted in continual warfare , the fundamental stinct o f self- preservation forced these atomic individuals to form 5 6 an artificial social organization made permanent by a contract . Locke accepts the theory o f a state of nature but conceives of as f it a social condition of a fair degree o happiness . After describing the origin o f government as a means of maintaining the natural rights of life and property , Locke paints a glowing “ ” picture o f a golden age of prosperity and goodness when 5 7 a m an i f social life w s si ple d wholesome . It was not d ficult for his admirers in France to confuse this golden age with the original state o f nature and to argue that if such conditions had once

x . e isted , their restoration was not impossible It is not diffi cult to detect the shaping influence of these ideas f T upon the social philosophy . o Rousseau . hroughout his various writings the concept of nature furnishes the dominant theme N o and provides the author with his ultimate ideal . longer is nature conceived as a vast system of interrelated things and forces , but is viewed from a purely human standpoint . In his earlier Discourses Rousseau clearly regards nature as a primi tive state not far removed fromsavagery . Rej ecting part of the of H theory obbes , while retaining his atomistic viewpoint , Rous o f seau writes enthusiastically the youth of the race , a period when man lived free and innocent in the primeval forests . In this happy age neither society nor knowledge had existence . Far from improving human life , the arts and sciences have worked o f irreparable inj ury to mankind . Astronomy was born super

5° 8 8 . o L ha . 6 H bbes , eviat n , pp , 7 7 “ m 1 1 1 of C o . Essay ivil G vern ent , II , § Developme n t of N aturali sm 6 1

i i n The st t o . , geometry of avarice , and physics of vain curiosity owe to our Sciences their birth , then , vices , Born ” o f an d idleness they in turn nourish it , worse than all they are the parents o f that fatal luxury which undermines the morality “ of . nations Let knowledge , then , be confined to those men to whom it belongs to raise monuments to the glory o f the human ” ” 5 8

th . spirit . Virtue is e sublime science of simple minds H ere is clearly a challenge sounded to the rationalists of the of eighteenth century . In a state nature not knowledge but ’ was o f s instinct the basis man happiness and welfare . Wander ing about the forests without industry , without speech , without o f e standing in need his fellows , as well as without any d sire ” 5 9 of hurting them primitive man was yet happy in o f own the untrammelled development his impulses and desires . Only when some mistaken mortal enclosed a piece o f ground “ ‘ ’ o sa T was and t ok it into his head to y his is mine , the ” 6 0 e n i r human race plung d into servitud e a d m se y . It is not within our province to criticize the lack of historic ’ sense or of historic knowledge which characterizes Rousseau s “ ” o ur first two Discourses . Rather must interest center upon o f m o f this his early view nature . a term ad itting various inter i pretat ons . From the brief extracts cited it seems apparent that u o f un Ro sseau regards the original nature man , unformed and hampered by any human conventions , as the norm by which o o f to test the w rth all social institutions . It is as if Rousseau affirmed that the original as opposed to the acquired o r the T artificial is the norma l and the right . hus his view claims kin

o f hilo so- hers o f ship with that the Cynic p p Greece and , in a

~ of . 0 lesser degree , with the nature philosophy the Stoics Yet R us seau does not agree with Hobbes that men in a state of nature are fairly equal in bodily and mental powers . Only in opportunity f is there equality even in the state o nature . ” In the Contrat Soc iale Rou sseau abandons his destructive attitude toward society and attempts a serious study o f the con ditions under which a State can exist and actually promote the hi s welfare of its citizens . Yet at the very outset he dallies with

“9 e t . Discours des scienc es et des arts pp. 44 seq ” ’ ’ c L O ri i n e L In e alité t t mm Dis ours sur g de g pa ni les Ho es , 1 0 8 1 0 pp . , 9 . 1 1 6 Ibid , p . . The Confli ct of N aturalisman d H umani sm

of Man earlier concept nature in the statement , is born free , ” i . H s and everywhere he is in chains problem , then , is to find a form of association which may defend and protect with the whole force of the community the person and property o f each of associate , and by means which each, coalescing with all , may ” b o a e 6 1 nevertheless o ey nly himself , and rem in as fr e a s before . H ere speaks the intense individualism of the eighteenth century of in the language its supreme individualist . Clearly , to Rousseau the j udgme nt of Aristotle that Man is by nature a political ” animal carries little weight . Rather does man appear to hi s partial insight as an atom forced into an artificial relationship

with other like atomic beings to secure certain individual ends . That social institutions are a natural outcome of human instinct and interest and furnish the necessary means f or the development “ ” of u a truly natural human being, as disting ished from the brute ,

is a thought which never fully dawns upon his mind . We must ” o ch ose between making a man and a citizen , writes Rousseau “ ” “ ”6 2 the m we . in E ile , for cannot make both at once Yet he is feebly groping within hi s own nature to find some bond of

social union which shall not be purely external . In his dis cussion concerning the pe0 p1e as sovereign he asserts that this of body , being formed only individual members , can have no h 6 3 The interest contrary to t eirs . general will , representing the f ff sum o particular wills , after individual di erences have been cancelled , can do no wrong , and to its decrees every citizen must H ow of . a conform an ggregate individual desires , each express

- f or ing self interest , can result in an intelligent regard the com mon good is a problem too difli cult for any one save a Rousseau

has —u o f to solve . If nature left out of the make p man all spon

n u ta eo s social instincts and sympathies , the omission would seem to be fatal to any enduring human association . u b In j ustice to Ro sseau , however , it should be remem ered that he expressly states in the Social Contract that the civil state produces beneficent results for man not possible in the state of of nature . Although he is deprived many advantages that he derives from nature , he acquires equally great ones in return ; his faculties are exercised and developed ; his ideas are

1 0 . So c . Cont . p . 9 E m 1 . ile , p .

C 1 2 . Soc . o . . nt , p 3

64 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani s m

T i«s h tive , his passage ighly sign ificant as setting ’ forth what was probably Rousseau s final conception o f nature and ” e society . Plainly the natural , i , . , original man , is strongly

T o egoistic and self centered , at least in his earlier years . place the child in a social mili eu from his birth is to warp and distort H his nature . ence away with him to the country , where a simple , individualistic mode o f living in harmony with his inborn tend enci es H is rendered possible . ere , in close touch with an external nature , toward which he is instinctively drawn , he will develop

bo hood . and into natural , unspoiled y , if freed from all human con straint will find out for himself those inflexible laws of nature n which he cannot with safety i fringe . It will be time enough to teach Emile of his r elations to his fellow - me n when his tard v o s cial instincts make their appearance . Thus to the meaning o f nature as a state o f primitive sim plicity and independence must be added two further sign ifications 1 sum 2 ( ) nature as the of original impulses , and ( ) nature as a systemof external things acting in accordance with purpose r The o law . second of these meanings is that which leads Rous

o f seau in the Confessions a Savoyard Vicar ( Emile , Book IV) to break forth into a panegyric upon the wondrous creative — design so clearly revealed in the uni verse a design which arouses man in the spirit of adoration for its divine Author . In Rous o f seau was undoubtedly a spiritual element , the product his u w f sens ous feeling , hich impelled him to a firm the reality of beneficent o c God , not alone because of the rder of the osmos , but ” because the existence of the Deity is traced upon every heart . H e charges the philosophers o f the Illumi nati on with under mining al l the most glorious and consoling emotions of human ’ nature . God may escape our senses and understanding but man s o deepest feeling proclaims his reality . Once m re Rousseau makes his own inner moods and emotions the starting point of his T or philosophy o f man . hat the Christian the atheist is privileged to use the same subj ective criterion in arriving at a totally different conclusion seems to have escaped hi s notice . When Rousseau grapples with the problem of the soc ial edu E cation of mile , he makes the noteworthy assertion that moral “ ideals are not merely abstract terms , pure moral creations

E m . 6 . ile , pp 5 , Developmen t of N atu rali sm 65

ff of founded by the understanding, but real a ections the soul n enlightened by reason that by reason alo e , inde of o pendently the c nscience , we cannot establish any natural law ; and that the whol e law of N ature i s but a d elusi on if i t i s not ” 8 h r 6 H e found ed upon a need natural to the uman hea t. ere w ’ ot come upon the kernel of Rousseau s doctrine . N only is the natural that which i s original but it i s expressed rather in spon T taneous emotio n and desire than in rational thought . his is ’ the heartmof Rouss eau s gospel and this passionate faith it i s when co bined with a golden utterance , that renders him a mighty force in his age . As we review in imagination the fruitful epoch of the Enlight enment E in France and ngland , perhaps its most salient char ri i t T acte st c is seen o be a certain dauntless optimism . his spirit h . t reveals itself in two ways First . there is a sturdy belief in e illimitable perfectibility of the human race . Secondly , this con vi cti on i s b ound up with a tacit , but none the less ardent, faith in the harmony existing between nature and the purposes o f N i s man . Far from being unfriendly to her human child , ature o the regarded as a nurturing m ther , prepared to contribute to o f ff T utmost to the advancement a favored o spring . hese views receive interesting expression not only in the writings of the

E o two - - ncycl pedists , but in well known politico economic works , ’ “ ” ’ m 1 Con dorcet s na ely , Godwin s Political Justice ( 793) and Outlines of a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human ” The s of Intellect . fir t maintains that with the advancement science and the dissemination o f enlightenment the vast diff er ff ences in individuals will tend to disappear . For men di er less o f by nature than by circumstances . With the spread a general en y n lightenment, also , the wide disparit betwee wealth and

o inve n poverty will vanish . Scientific disc veries and mechanical o n o to tions will , under these c nditio s , bec me unmixed blessings f the whole o mankind . In such a society sensual desires will o bec me weak and pallid, and intellectual and moral distinction s will alone remain to diff erentiate men " In time the human species will probably cease to propagate itself , since men will have learned f f from nature the secret o the indefinite prolongation o life . Such conditions will not necessarily produce the evils o f excessive

Em 1 0 2 . ile , p . 66 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

’ o For be populati n . it will be a long time fore nature s food

u o f supply is exha sted , and meanwhile the proportion food to i populat on will somehow be maintained . H Condorcet writes in similar hopeful vein . istory may be

divided into ten great epochs , the first of which is that of hunting and fishing and the ninth the age of the Enlightenment when f humanity , tolerance and reason are the animating motives o

The . o e thoughtful men tenth ep ch , still unborn , is d scribed by Condorcet as the age of the scientific mastery o f nature and of ’ f the vast extension o knowledge and intelligence . Man s capacity for progress is unlimited ; and this advancement will bring in its

o i h train equality of material comf rt and prosperity , as well as

elle u l o Th t ct a and m ral perfection . e science of medicine will develop to such a po int that human life may be extended without th f limit . Likewise by e aid o natural science the earth may be made indefinitely productive to serve the needs of its enormous ff human o spring . w It was such optimistic pictures of a future society, in hich reason was apotheosized at the expense of every other faculty o f of human nature , that called forth the protest Malthus , written

from the stan dpoint of naturalism . In his influential Essay on Population he maintained that the sex instinct shows no sign o f weakening with the advance of civilization ; and this instinct leads c a i E a . e to a onst nt ncrease in population ven as m tters then wer , ’ there was not room at Nature s table for all her children who

were clamoring for food . Yet extreme poverty and vice yearly removed large numbers of human beings and thus held in check any enormous disproportion between the population and the food ’

. G supply In odwin s Utopia , where vice and misery did not w ff exist, there ould be no such influence at work to carry o the

The s surplus population . outcome would be an intense truggle

for existence and the reappearance of the old evils of inequality . S x o long as human nature remained human nature , se ual desire would result in the production of new individuals with little regard h Notwithstand to the crucial problem of ow they should be fed . o f has ing , Malthus urged that the pressure natural necessity ’ to positive advantages since it sharpens men s wits , leads dis coveri es and inventions and thus is one of the most powerful

factors in human progress . Development of Naturalism 6 7

’ r s e n th now O u interest in Malthus work lie chi fly i e fact that , a m for fi ime he en re ha mo o f na re h l o st the rst t , t ti r ny tu wit human i l d W e ha na e purposes s serious y challenge , heth r t t tur be regarded ’ as an external systemof things and force s or as man s original o i t end owment f nstinct and feeling . It follows hat the indefinite r l o f man so far as is de en en u cofi era p e fectibi ity , this p d t pon the p

o is ex ed o e i . Th o tion f nature, pos t grave qu st on e influence f f — Malthus upon the thought o his time was deep and far reaching .

What if nature were indifferent , if not actually inimical to the o f ? ideals man If such were indeed the case , the uninterrupted of e progress the human race became an idle dr am , a mere phan

- fi n con de t . tasy , born of over optimism Thus by a long j ourney we have come to the closing decades The of the eighteenth century . dualistic interpretation of nature and of man in Descartes gave place in time to the dynamic spir itual monism of Leibniz or to the materialistic world - view of The H . o obbes latter , in combinati n with the fruitful humanism o f L ocke , gave rise to well nigh all the currents of thought char

ri s i E acte t c of the French nlightenment . Many were the changes

e a rung upon the concept of natur , but man was the st rting point

T o E and the goal of them all . the ncyclopedists nature appeared as a purely mechanical s ystem o f self- initiated changes— a machine

w . in hich man was but an insignificant wheel But , in their eager desire to get outside themselves and survey nature from a cosmic e o vantage point , th y took but a shallow sounding of the functi ns of the human mind and of its contributions to the making o f o experience . M reover the great lesson taught by history of the intimate relation of human institutions to the outward conditions was and inner needs of human life lost upon these social theorizers . “ ” That customs and beliefs have a history as well as a logic

Montesquieu attempted to make plain , but his message fell upon

- deaf ears . When the half century mark was past , Rousseau came forward and with but scant interest in the obj ective nature of

E e the e e -an the ncyclopedists reduc d conc pt to a pur ly hum sph ere . When he does consent to regard nature as external to man it is only in order that he may derive from such a standp oint sup port for his religious feeling or satisfaction for his sincere love f f o natural s cenery . Valuable as were the services o Voltaire the Enc c10 e di sts n o and y p , these men had such radical influence upon succeeding generations as had this unhappy apostle o f human 68 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

Hi s feeling . message proved a tremendous regenerating ferment of e in the thoughts men , remoulding th ir literature , social theory, Th h mi ti . e u n mement o f philosophy, and education great a s c ov E d t the German nlightenment, and the i ealistic systems o which it

to V o f - a gave birth , owe much the italizing theories this arch hum n i st n e to , who first sou ded the r call a more wholesome and simple life in which all the elements of human nature might grow to maturity and power . CHAPTER III

THE HUMANISM OF THE GERMAN ENLIGHTEN MENT

While France had thus given itself up heart and soul to natural i sm a t e the e , which it t empted to reconcil with humanistic th ory

' o f e o f A u klarun the ultimate p rfectibility man , the German f g

h The a of was proceeding along divergent pat s . emancip tion

as the of human reason was , indeed , in France , watchword the age ; but i n the earlier phases o f the movement this enfranchisement was eff ected by the eff ort of every individual to unfold the c apa cities o f hi s o wn reason with no depen

to dence upon nature furnish stimulus , means and guid

The f . o L ance philosophy eibniz , as interpreted by Christian ff f Wol , had complete possession o the field of speculative thought . T hereon a temple of dogmatic knowledge was reared which but imperfectly exemplified the mo re profound and fructifying prin ’ ci l es f ff o p o the founder s thought . Indeed Wol c mpletely lost

of n of ffi m sight the basal conceptio his master, which a r ed the essentially dynamic character o f the soul and its continuous un o f f folding under the spur desire for completeness o life . Instead hi s f he finds point o departure in ideas , as the constituent elements of e mental life, which reason may elaborate into intelligibl systems f T o . knowledge hese fundamental notions concerning God , the w c soul , and the orld are made to serve ea h as the groundwork hiI S hi T ff f or s o f O O c . a particular tructure p p truth hus Wol , like ’ hi s own the spider in Bacon s metaphor , spins from mind thought a o systems dealing with rational theology , ration l psychol gy , and The i ntelli i rati onal cosmology . test of truth is in clearness and g ili ff b t not m c of ce . was y, in agree ent with the fa ts experien Wol ’ far from perceiving the deep significance o f Leibniz s contention i s mn of o f that energy the funda e tal category experience , which xt an ff n he e e ension d figure are merely e ects . I stead introduc s once more into philosophic thought the Cartesian dualism of ex tended and thinking substances . 70 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Hu man i sm

For a generation or more the intelligibility and clearness of the W olffian system greatly facilitated its popular acceptance . Fur thermore human nature was gratified and stimulated by the o f Th ap theosis of reason attempted by Wol f and his followers . e

confusion of perception and thought , begun by Leibniz , was con

- tinned by his successors . Ideas con - — 3 stituent elements of soul life TBe f eeptions were only dark and

confused ideas . Whatever in the soul was not immediately in “ ” telli ible as a " g was conceived chaos and d rkness . More light i was f the cry o the age , a cry inspired by supreme faith in the efficacy of human reason to promote the advancement of man i I i k nd . nd vidualism thus expresses itself at first in unchecked

rationalism . But by the middle of the century forces were at work to under mine the self- confidence and dogmatic conclusiveness of the

Wolffi an school . The pietistic movement proclaimed the sacred ness and reality o f inner feeling an d the value of individual dif ferenc es r o ex n s l in eligi us perie ce . Thus it oppo ed itself to al dogmatic thought-systems and urged the importance of right i x n o n n feeling rather than theolog cal e act ess . Th ughtful me bega to rais e the question whether human nature received its ri ghtful ll n al due when a me t Operations were reduced to modes of reason . Might there not be other function s unj ustly ignored in this “ n s ? In Aesthetica in I 0 m s a alysi his , published 75 , Bau garten fir t u sed the termaesthetics in the now current sense of a theory f he au i But he o lowe the en e of his a e o t be t ful . f l d t d ncy g in conceiving thi s theory as laying down rules for the dark ideas of the o i s the 10 e of the n nde s a s ul , that , for w st part huma u r t nd As a s his e a o s of ae e el n Men ing . re ult of inv stig ti n sth tic fe i g, delssohn was led to point out the startling conclusion to which s s on ms ea If the e n for a i s a o thi a sumpti u t l d . fe li g be uty ss e a men knes en the ro es enl enmen l ted with tal dar s , th p gr s of ight t l i x n The d man o l must reSu t in ts complete e tinctio . culture w u d then be deprived of a fount of purest joy which still would In es a n a ew bubble up in the soul of the ignorant . prot t gai st vi so unwelcome to humanity and so little substantiated by eXperi i an n e e de e emn at feel ng is i d p n nt l e t , Thi s was a step forward in the direc

- o The tion of a much needed diff erentiation of psychical functi ns . o Teten s a W rk was carried onward by , who clearly delimited sens

7 2 The Confii ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

o . N humanity as a wh le o longer is the independent individual , developing his own power to the utmost for the sake of his own

- The delight in free self expression , the ideal of thoughtful men . H greatest productions of Lessing , erder , Goethe and Schiller all

out of lead narrow , isolated , fragmentary conceptions of life

o f T into the broad daylight universal humanity . hey all tend i ” 2 toward the representation of human nature in i ts total ty . In them is a prophecy o f the g olden age when the conflict between

sense and reason , natural instinct and social duty , the individual i et so c v . and , shall end in harmony More and more the leaders io f German thought are brought to a deep realization o f the organic h relationship existing between man and t e state . As a forerunner " ’ o f e - this coll ctivistic ideal , Lessing s conception of the inner

t of connec ion nature and history has significance . In his view , God is not apart from but immanent in the world which he has H cr eated . ence the universe represents an eternal process of development from lower to higher forms of life and from bar

barous to enlightened stages of social living . Divine revelation

has been a means o f education of the human race . Although ’ man s reason could have discovered religious truth independently

of o o f all revelation , yet without the co peration the One and All the process of enlightenment would have been vastly more n ffi prolo ged and di cult . But of the organic view man and nature , man and the race , H finds its noblest expression in erder . Strongly influenced by o Rousseau , he at first c nstitutes himself an ardent champion of the claims o f nature and freedom and the right o f every

- individual to the fullest sel f realization . But in his later work he urges the perfection of the national type as the surest road to f o . the perfection the individual With penetrating thought , he conceives of history as revealing in its trend a striving toward

the j ust equilibrium of individual and collective forces . In his

- H o f well known work , Ideas for a Philosophy of istory ” 1 8 Mankind , published about 7 4 , he shows the same true historic sense that animated Montesquieu when he asserts that all social institutions are the natural products of huma n instincts in inter

“ action with environing conditions . Organic forces are at work

c m u mn d Soc l F . 8. Fran ke , Ger an Literat re as deter i e by ia orces , p 34 The H uman i smof the German En li ghtenment 73

t of throughout the dep h and breadth nature , and its various

a o o f e i forms are the n tural pr ducts th se organizing energ es . The end o f the long travail of nature i s humanity and the per i n f ect o of human powers . But these powers should be regarded f i s not as developing under the spur o necessity . Reason an innate capacity which flowers into full perfection unaided by

l to c i s n the sting of need . Man must earn reason , whi h o ly to say that he must learn to direct hi s ideas and powers toward T e ends of value to himself and the community . herefor the individual must be educated if he i s to becom e truly man ; and this educatio n i s complete only if he shares to the utmost in o f T the life humanity . hrough the perfection of the individual , the perfection of the national type i s secured ; but conversely on ly through the continuous development of the nation can the individual approach completenesss . In his splendid tribute to “ ” huma nity in the fifteenth boo k of the Ideen H erder writes "

All beings have their centre in themselves , and each stands in a well - proportioned relation to all the rest ; they all depend on the o f on e equilibrium antagonistic forces , held together by central for organizing power . With this certainty a guide , I wander

o of see thr ugh the labyrinth history and everywhere harmonious ,

. w divine order For whatever can happen , happens ; hatever can T as work does work hus history leads us , it were , into of o f the council fate , teaches us the eternal laws human nature , and assigns to us our own place in that great organism in which o reason and go dness have to struggle , to be sure , with chaotic forces , but always , according to their very nature , must create ” ‘ f 3 order and go fo rward on the path o victory . In the passage j ust quoted it seems clear enough that H erder “ ” regards nature as furnishing the chaotic forces for reason to wrestle with in i ts triumphant progress toward the harmoniza

of The o f o tion all experience . mature productions G ethe and S set T chiller forth the same view . here is no hint in the fervidly human pages of these heralds o f Romanticism o f the mechanical f conception o the world so enthusiastically proclaimed in France .

' — o f Man is , in a sense , the product of nature , the last outcome orderly forces working according to natural laws . But these humanists by n o means look up on nature as the bearer o f blind

3 i 2 . r c o c t . 2 8. Trans by F an ke , p . . , pp 3 7 , 3 74 The Confii ct of N aturali sman d H uman i sm

e en rgies . Rather are its events and processes controlled by an of immanent Reason which , in the fulness time , brings forth a e of b ing, rational like itself, and capable hastening the great culmination when perfect harmony shall exist between feeling and

e . thought , nature and r ason The hold of W olfii an rationalism upon the minds of thinking r E Th men was still fu ther undermined by nglish thought . e empirical philosophy of John Locke won eager students among

f ff The the younger followers o Wol . empty rational systems of hiIO SO hel' e e the German p p , d duced st p by step from untested s to assumptions , lent them elves readily the content which m e to e piricism seem d able supply . Great emphasis was laid upon expe rience and upon the n eed for a careful collection of e material from natur and from human life , both in its individual n a d social aspects .

' But the rudest shock to the confident dogmatism of the W olffian H H e was school was administered by David ume . it who first conceived the notion that it might be well to investigate the of grounds for those ideas substance , causality and the soul of which the philosophic systems all ages had taken for granted . ’ Then it was that Wolff s finely Spun webs of thought disappeared f s n under the rays o a searching u of criticism . Directing his “ attack against the age- old principle o f causality or suffi cient ” ou H e to e gr nd , um calls upon reason d clare how such a notion Th f can be formed without the aid of experience . e idea o causality virtually asserts that when A exists B must also exist no in immediate succession . But there is logical necessity which i forces reason to affi rma pri ori any such necessary connect on . H not ume therefore concludes that this notion is born , of reason f x r but o imagination and e perience . From these sources sp ing certain ideas which are united by the law o f association . Now “ every idea i s copied from some preceding impression or senti ment ; and when we cannot find any impression we may be ” “ i the certain that there s no idea . When same obj ect is always followed by the same event we then fee l a new sentime nt or i e mpr ssion , to wit, a customary connexion in this thought or imagi nation between one obj ect and its usual attendant ; and “ this s entiment is the original of t hat i dea which we seek for .

u C c um . Enq iry on erning the H an Understanding , § IV The Humani smof the German En li ghtenmen t 75

The unity and necessity so characteristic of the notion of causality the o f e fo r e cannot be product experienc , experi nce is only of i fl x the manifold and s in constant u . Such necessity as attaches t of o the idea is purely subj ective , arising from the habit associating certain impressions or ideas which have been presented o f in uniform sequence . Since reason cannot assert itself that a o e of bec use one thing is , an th r must necessity be , its vaunted a pri ori knowledge is nothing but experience masquerading under a false name . By the same relentless reasoning Hume destroys the ancient o f conception substance . If the secondary qualities of color , smell , taste are purely mental perceptions with no original in i a the world of external obj ects , then the pr m ry qualities of exten sion and solidity , which are likewise acquired wholly through a H sense and feeling , belong under the s me category . Thus ume undermines the fundamental postulates of reason upon which all her lofty towers of speculation had been reared . In so doing he by no means denies the value and even the necessity of thes e

o - I n tions in every day experience . ndeed he urges that the Operation of the mind by which we infer like effects from like

vi ce v ersa s a causes , and , is o essential to the subst nce of all human creatures , it is not probable that it could be trusted to the o f i s o fallacious deductions our reason , which slow in its pera not tions , appears , in any degree during the first years of infancy e and at best is , in every age and period of human life , extrem ly b ” 5 . L lia le to error and mistake et knowledge , then , confine itself within proper bounds and devote itself to its true purpose , — of the preservation and welfare of human life . Investigation final causes and ends is quite beyond the bounds of human knowledge , limited as it is to mathematics and the facts of “ Th f experience . e only obj ects o the abstract sciences or of demonstration are quantity and number and all attempts to extend this more perfect species o f knowledge beyond these b ” ounds are mere Sophistry and illusion . ’ The vital bearing of Hume s iconoclastic reasoning upon the ’ e The probl m of man s position in nature is suffi ciently obvious . individual learns only through experience and experience its e l f is Wh e an unsolved mystery . y there should be sequences in sens

d . Ibi , V 76 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d Human i sm

i nsol u experience , which are paralleled by sequences of ideas , is T ble by human thought . hus reason is dethroned and is assigned

f o a mod est role in the control o experience . Man nce more assumes a humble place in the midst of a world which he can

Hi s a ri ori never hope to understand . boasted p principles of f h reason are nothing but the eff ect o abit strengthened by belief . “ Even his - so - called scientific laws may conceivably be over turned by an upheaval and rearrangement of the flux o f events i and things . A challenge s clearly sounded alike to the humanist and to the naturalist to defend their cherished assumptions or to abandon them entirely and content themselves with far more f modest pretensions . Menacing clouds overhang the world o

The o f thought . deep need of the time is for a philosophy life more satisfying, alike to reason and to feeling , than any hitherto T elaborated . his need can only be satisfied when the origin , the nature and the limits of human knowledge have been sub ecte d j to a searching analysis . Roused from his dogmatic slumbers by the clarion call of H n o o f ume , Kant summo s all his p wers penetrating insight and keen logical thinking and constitutes himself an indomitable Th champion of human knowledge and human faith . e notions G od too of , freedom and immortality are in his view far practical and priceless possessions o f humanity to be lightly surrendered to scepticism ; and the growing body o f scientific knowledge is too closely bound up with the interests of human ” ” life to be stigmatized as accidental and contingent . More over Kant feels a wholesome distrust of a theory which lands H its adherents in a slough of enervating doubt . e recognizes that ’ H ume s empirical deduction of concepts and principles , which renders them impossible of application beyond the limits of here ' not . t sense experience , is refuted by the facts For is in a ri ori existence a body of scientific knowledge p , namely , pure ? a mathematics and physical science K nt proposes , then , to ’ avoid on the one hand Locke s error of deducing concepts from experience while yet using them for knowledge beyond the limits ’ o f on H all experience , and the other hand ume s destructive H e of n attitude of doubt . makes the experiment discoveri g “ whether it is not possible to conduct reason safely between to to these two rocks , to assign her definite limits , and yet keep The H uman i smof the German En li ghten men t 77

”6 open for her the prope r field for all her activities . In this ’ statement is a prophecy o f Kant s final position regarding the relation of thought and the external world , of man and nature .

so H . Reason , sorely discredited by ume , is to be restored to her rightful control ; but her domain i s to be strictly limited and defined .

“ At the outset , Kant makes it clear that he has adopted a he humanistic standpoint ; i . e . regards the mind as contributory f E to the making o its world . xperience he defines as the first of our i n s product understanding, while employed fa hioning the ” 7 raw material of our sensations . But this experience reveals certain concepts and j udgments derived from them which must have originated a pri ori since by means of them we can predicate mo f can ore obj ects than be learned from mere experience . T l hese propositions , moreover , have the character of universa ity and necessity which mere empirical knowledge can never furnish . But more surprising than this is the fact that certain o f k ow kinds n ledge leave the sphere of all possible experience , and seem to enlarge the sphere of our j udgme nts beyond the limits o f experience by means of concepts to which experience ” 8 r an N-ow can neve supply y corresponding obj ects . knowledge i f s o o f . made up j udgments , and these are two kinds , viz , analytical and synthetical . Analytical j udgments merely explicate what i s already comprehended in the subj ect ; but synthetical j udgments add to the concept of the subj ect a predicate which not only was not originally contained within it H i s but which cannot be deduced from it . ere at once then , ’ Kant s problem " H ow are synthetical j udgments a pri ori possible ? The Critique of Pure Reason contains his answer t o this crucial query . In order to carry out a pro-pe r division of his subj ect Kant “ asserts thmat there are two stems o f human knowledge which a o us . perhaps y spring from a common r ot unknown to , viz , sensi bi li t un d erstandi n y and the g , obj ects being given by the ” 9 forme r and tho ught by the latter The purpose o f the

C of ur M l r Vol S l m u Mfil e . u ritiq e P e Reason , ax ed I , pp e ent XIII , 1 p . 43 . 7 Vo . r . . 1 O . Ci t l . p II , Int od , p 3 d 2 . Ibi , p .

d . 6 . Ibi , p 78 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

Transcendental Aesthetic is to discover whether there are a pri ori forms of our sensibility under which alone obj ects can be given

. an o f e to us By analysis rudim ntary expe rience , Kant s eeks to make plain that Space and T ime are the pre- conditions of all n intuition ; they fur ish the stable , unchanging factor o f sense e experienc , the constant element within the flux of sensation . “ ” “ e the e S As the ext rnal and int rnal sense , pace and Time can be shown to have reality only within the experience of individuals ; beyond that field they are me rely ideal concepts

. W having no obj ective validity ithin experience , however , their T reality is undisputed . heir function it is to impress upon the ” a o f n ll crude materi l sensation their ow forms . A obj ects of b h sense , therefore , are inseparably ound up with t e pure forms of The ma space and time . obj ects themselves y be viewed in ff o f r two aspects . As the e ects some unknown thing upon ou sensibility they are sensations ; as related to that unknown obj ect o they are phen mena . But how is the n ever - ending flux of intuitions organized into coherent knowledge ? Kant replies " By the mind itself which or contains certain concepts , principles of connection , by means h of which experience is made into an organized whole . T e o f o r th stability and coherence u experience belong, not to e — for se stream of phenomena , how can nsations arrange and place themselves -but to the architectonic work of the under

e . standing . At this point Kant is confronted with two probl ms or of First , how can these categories , pure concepts the under

e . e e i s standing, which s em merely subj ctive det rminat on , have ? e b m to obj ective validity S condly , how can the categories e ade apply to so heterogeneous a material as that o f sense ? The first question Kant answers by attempting to prove that the conditions a pri ori of any possible experience in general are at the same time conditions of the possibility o f any obj ects ”1 0 N all o - con of our experienc e . ow will agree that kn wledge i To sists not in separation but in organ ze d synthesis . this end T i o n . h obj ects must be apprehended , repr duced and recog ized s o f " 1 leads us to the three great sources knowledge ( ) intuition , f 2 i . o ( ) imaginat on , ( 3) apperception By means the first , as Th f . e a we have seen , the stu f of all thought is furnished stre m

1 ° O cit 8. p . . , p . 9

80 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

unity, and the soul as a simple , imperishable substance , free in O its perations , which are the foundation stones of metaphysical ? speculation . What validity have these notions Do they lead to truth or only to misconception and illusion ? Kant replies that they are transcendental ideas overstepping the limits of all x h ” e perience whic can never supply an obj ect adequate to them .

Yet they are not mere superfluous fancies . For , although no one obj ect can be whit better known by their employment , yet the understanding may be more sur ely guided forward in its pursuit o f knowledge if these concepts mserve as regulative principles for the systematic unity of e pirical knowledge . ’ Nevertheless Kant s condemnation of the use o f these limitative as ex tendi n concepts a means of g valid knowledge is decisive . Such attempts plunge the daring speculato r i nto the sophistical syllogisms o f pure reason from which even the wisest of men The o f cannot escape . tendency reason to seek for an absolute whole in the series of conditions i s the very essence of its nature ; but it produces the antinomies o f pure reason which toss the thinker from one horn o f a dilemma to the other . With unwonted aptness of phrase Kant terms this mode of speculation ” “ a dialectical play of cosmological ideas . It represents the brilliant pretensions of reason , extending its domain beyond all ” 1 4 the limits of experience ’ Despite Kant s insistence upon the rigid delimitation of the h he n o sp ere of knowledge , by means fails to perceive that human interests are closely bound up in this dogmatism of pure

E - reason . very right thinking man , he urges , has a practical as well as a speculative interest in establishing the truth of the

. N . transcendent ideas of God and freedom o such practical , i e . e moral , interest attaches to mpiricism , which insists upon keep The ing strictly to the realm o f natural laws and phenomena . empiricist would never allow that any epoch of nature should be considered as the absolutely first . or any limit of his vision ” 1 5 H e e be consid ered as the last . would n ver approve a transition from the obj ects of nature which can be analyzed by observation to those which can never be concretely represented

r . N by sense o imagination ow , if the empiricist were satisfied

cit . 0 O p . , , p 4 3. 1‘ d . 0 . Ibi , p 4 9 The Humani smof the German En li ghten men t 81 with putting down the presumption of reason in mistaking her t ff rue purpose , his e orts would only serve to teach moderation ” “ in claims and a greater modesty in assertions . But as a matter of fact , empiricism frequently becomes itself dogmatical “ and boldly denies what goes beyond the sphere of its intuitive u knowledge , and thus becomes g ilty itself of a want of modesty , which here is all the more reprehensible because an irreparable h ” 1 6 inj ury is the reby i nfli cted on t e practical interests of reason . N ow o f , although in the phenomenal world nature there is a t s rict causal nexus operating by natural necessity , this empirical causality can be conceived , without contradiction , as representing

ff - m an e ect of a non e pirical and intelligible causality . In other words there is no inherent lomgical contradiction in considering the causality of any being fro two sides , as intelligible in its ff action , as a thing by itself, and as sensible in the e ects of the ” 1 7 i a ac tion as a phenomenon in the w o rld of sense . In th s w y freedom and nature might exist together in the same event , according as this is referred to its intelligiblme or to its sensible cause . Yet such speculation , although ad issible , does not l establish the rea i ty of freedom . Nor does it even prove its

a ri ori kn ow possibility , since from mere concepts p we can never o T f the p ssibility of any causality . hus the proud claims o human reason are in large measure rej ected by its profoundest critic .

. Indeed it is asserted that this erstwhile dictator is in need o f discipline to check its vagaries and to guard against the in evitable illusions springing from them .

Where , then , does this first Critique leave the whole enigma ’ of ? N nature and man s relation thereto ature , obviously , can be of e nothing else but the flux phenomenal app arances , into whose chaos order and intelligibility are brought by the understanding

f - i - Of . N as o n man himself ature , constituted things themselves , — capable of free , self initiated action , is a dream of human reason o f o on quite impossible dem nstration speculative grounds . Back of the organizing activity of the understanding is the permanent

o a n and unchanging Eg , dem nding, as the co dition of all be knowledge , that experience made coherent and intelligible .

It is we ourselves , therefore , who carry into the stream o f

t . 1 1 ci . O p. , p 4 . 1 7 . 6 . Ibid , p 4 5 82 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

phenomena we call nature that order and reg ularity not inherent

in them . Yet, because natural phenomena are given to us

e a ri ori independ nt of all p forms of thought , the key to the

comprehension of them must be sought , not in our own under but standing, in external events and things . For this reason natural science contains an infinity of conj ectures with regard ” w a 1 3 to hich certainty c n never be expe cted . In many instances the key to the understanding o f natural events cannot

be found at all . Only in the science of mathematics can there be complete universality and necessity because this science alone is

f r not dependent upon variable sense phenomena o its content .

i s Within the confines of experience , then , man a prisoner fast o f bound . Although it be of the very essence human reason to subsume the manifold of this experience under the all - embracing o f ideas freedom , the intelligible universe and God , let man beware lest he regard these notions as capable of enlarg ing f Th “ o . e of o o the domain knowledge proud name Ont l gy , as the science which claims to furnish a pri ori knowledge of n oumena or - i n - t , things hemselves , must be replaced by the more ” 1 9 modest name of a mere Analytic of the pure understanding . Thus Kant has rescued knowledge from its low estate only to The o f limit its domain to the world of appearances . dualism man and nature is paral leled by the dualism of sense - perception T and understanding . his price , nevertheless , Kant cheerfully pays in order that he may not be swept off his feet into the maze o f

subj ective idealism .

But , unlike the empiricist , Kant is by no means prepared to deny those concepts which transcend the sphere of intuitive T knowledge . hose guarantees which he denies to theoretical of reason he freely concedes to the practical reason . It is the ’ very nature of man s practical reason to be determined to action by a moral law in n o sense dependent upon empirical conditions .

Free from all determination by obj ects of desire , this principle T is the mere form o f a universal law . his law Kant states as “ follows " Act so that the maxims of your will may be in ” 20 harmony with a universal syste m o f laws It is clear that

‘ 8 cit . 1 8. O p . . , p 4 1 ° 2 1 . Ibid , p . 5 2° 8. C u c c o e d . . 2 6 ri tiq e of Pra ti al Reason , Wats n , p The H umani smof the German En li ghtenmen t 83

of such a principle is empty all empirical content , hence it is

o independent f all natural necessity . A will determined by such

- N a sel f imposed law is therefore free . ow since will is always

ff i s the cause of e ects in the phenomenal world , a free will a li ree causa t . e f y Man , therefor , in his practical reason is a free T or n oumenon . cause a hus the existence of the moral law , as a o f a fact needing no deduction , leads inevit bly to the c nception o freedom which it guarantees by its own existence . But Kant i s further concerned to show that the moral law is no merely subj ective principle but has obj ective validity o f a T be practical kind . his cannot doubted since the moral law “ gives to sensuous nature the form of an intelligible world or supers ensibl e na ture without in any way interfering with the i f ” 21 c o . s me han sm of the world sense In other word , as a sensuous being man i s subj ect to empirically conditioned laws ; i s and this heteronomy . But reason makes us conscious of a as law to which all our maxims are subj ect , if an ordered system f n our T law o ature must be produced by will . his must be “ therefore the idea of a systemof nature which is not presented in experience but which yet is possible through freedom " a supersensible world to which we ascribe obj ective reality , at least in relation to action . because we regard it as the obj ect ” 22 T e whic h as pure rational beings we ought to will . hus pra tical reason adds certainty to the problematic ideas of speculative reason concerning freedom and an intelligible world , although this certainty holds good only in the sphere of action . “ In the second Critique , then , Kant restores to man those In practical ideas so essential to the moral life . his will , only, — a . man is autonomous , free cause and therefore a noumenon But the gap between man as free causality and nature as deter mined by mechanical la-ws yawns as widely as before ; while the ’ dualism in man s own nature between reason and faith is glar i n l T e g y apparent . his gap Kant attempts to bridge in th ” f H e Critique o the Judgment . defines judgment as the faculty o f thinking the particular under the universal . Like under a ri ori standing and reason , this faculty has its own p principle o f of which , because the unifying character j udgment , Kant

O c it . . 2 p . , p 73. 23 d . 2 . Ibi , p 75 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d H umani sm

ri ri . an a o asserts is the idea that all nature is purposive Such " p “ principle mediates between nature and freedom , and makes p ossible the transition from the conception of conformity to ”23 he t n o f T law to t concep io an ultimate end . hus the j udgment bridges the chasm between the theoretical and the practical reason by the a pri ori principle that nature is shot through and through with purpo se . Yet Kant acknowledges that wherever the idea o f mechanical causation can operate it should always be used as a principle f o f explanation . But in the case o organized bodies he feels that such a principle is quite inadequate to explain the facts . The blade of grass or the human body cannot be known in ff experience , even as an e ect , without certain presuppositions of E of o id ea reason . ach these is c mprehended under an which determines all its parts . Moreover those parts of the organism whi ch unite to form the whole are reciprocally cause and eff ect ’ “ o f each other s structure and function . In such a body , ffi accordingly , the conj unction of e cient causes is at the same ” 24 T time regarded as an e ff ect through final c auses . herefore “ ” o a organized b dies are n tural ends . Yet this is not the same conce as saying that they are ends of nature . Although the p tion o f a natural end necessarily leads to the idea o f the whole ” 25 o f o f nature as a system ends pointing to an ultimate end , yet such a principle belongs not to the determinant but to the reflective j udgment . While not interfering with the law of t mechanical causality, such a principle supplies us wi h a guiding m w idea ( i . e . of a final cause) by eans of hich our knowledge of nature may be extended . Now since j udgment may start from unmderstanding or from reason , it produces two maxims which see at first to be con “ r di tor The f ~ t a c y. first asserts that all production o material thing s must be j udged to be possible according to purely ” “ The mechanical laws . second maintains that some products of material nature cannot be j udged to be possible according w ff to purely mechanical la s , but require quite a di erent law of ”26 f t a c . no causali y , n mely that of final ause But Kant is t ba fled

’3 mn o f n 21 C e o cd . . ritique the Judg t , Wats , p 3 . ”4 t 2 O . ci . 8. p . , p 3 25 0 . Ibid , p . 33

2 . Ibid , p . 33 The Humani smof the Ge rman En li ghtenmen t 85

To sa t by this apparent Oppo sition . y that all na ural products must be judg ed to be p os sible on groun ds o f natu ral necessity l h i s is not to assert that they are possible on y in t is way . It at least possible to regard the material world as a mere phenomenon and to think of its unknown substrate as a e a ex la noumenon . Accordingly w may pply mechanical laws in p of nation whatever is necessary in the sensuous world , while we apply teleological laws to explain those pe culiar natural forms which we must view as obj ects of reason . Nature may then be j udged on two diff erent principles which yet may not conflict . Their apparent opposition may be due to the nature o f our o f knowledge . In j udging the possibility of any organism the o f f teleol gical connection o cause and e fect is indispensable . But the reason for this point of view cannot be fo und in the substrate of reality in nature since this must forever remain unknown . “ Therefore we are compelled by the c onstitution of our intellectual faculty to seek for the supreme ground of teleological connections in an origi nal Intelligence which is the cause of the ”27 world . When the Kantian philosophy had slowly found its way into the comprehens ion and appreciation o f thoughtful minds there appeared a profound dissatisfaction with its inherent dualisms T and contradictions . hese could all be traced back in the last ’ analysis to Kant s obstinate retention of a shadowy Thing - in itself which reason could only postulate but never know . If consciousness be essentially a constructive activity why is it not

n o f . . possible to co ceive this original energy as absolute , i e as creating its own material as well as prescribing its own forms ? T e s hought would then reveal the sam unity a art , and all division and externality would vanish fromthe inner consciousness . Once more there appears in thought - life the same yearning f or systematic , comprehensive unity that characterized the system

' o f of builders the seventeenth century . But the centre gravity has shifted from the external world to the self . Kant has , indeed , “ ” ff o e ected a Copernican revolution in phil sophy , whereby a e m x e thinking , e p riencing go has beco e the centre of the The li phenomenal world which is dependent upon it . prevai ng desire to annihilate the Kantian dualism in an all - embracing

27 O it c . . . p . , p 343 86 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

and T unity of self is furthered alike by poetry by science . his

the o e n s is g ld n age of Germa literature , and in the poem of Goethe and Herder are presentiments o f the inner unity of f nature and man . Likewise new views o the material world are clearly suggested by the developme nt of the science of com

arative f p anatomy and by the beginnings o modern chemistry .

T - hus literature , science and the deep seated human impulse to unify all phenomena lead the post - Kantian philosophers into the f inner recesses o the territory of idealism . o f th The Fichte is the initiator e movement . method of

exposition adopted by him is the opposite of the Kantian method . Whereas Kant had started with the multiform obj ects o f con sci ousne ss and had finally worked back to the unity of the e o of transcendental g , Fichte begins with the primitive activity the self and seeks to deduce from it the multiplicity o f sensuous o e o experience . Reflection and intr spection alike reveal the g T as essentially an activity . herefore , argues Fichte , there can be nothing in consciousness which i s not the product of that

activity , even though the self be quite unconscious of having The produced many things in its experience . empirical self

- of is always limited by a not self , i . e . by a world obj ects , which H it has not brought into existence . ence it points to an active principle in conscious life which is unlimited and comprehensive . H e T . his principle Fichte calls the pure , absolute ego conceives it as the true source of those obj ects which are opposed to the 28 F or finite se lf as limits and obstac les to be overcom e . we o — can think b th of self and of not self , but we can think the f latter only by means o the activity of the ego . By keeping a

firm hold upon the idea of a free activity , in which the duality o f subj ect and obj ect has no existence , this primitive organizing power becomes a reality to us and we are led to rej ect the assumption of a separate soul mdistinct from the body . Between self and obj ects is utual interaction . Involuntarily — the activity of the ego is carried over into the so called external

world whenever its parts are thought of as mutually dependent . ” Henc e arises the notion of mechanical causation in nature . Thus our conception of the universe as an interrelated whole

2° h f l 1 2 1 2 1 c a o 8 . 6 . Wissens ts ehre , B nn ed 34, pp , 7 3° 2 8 Ibid , p . 5 .

88 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

x ee e c ds in intensity all natural desire , are the guiding spirits of the who in race. arouse inferior souls that pas sion for moral T m worth which animates themselves . herefore an should live in close association with hi s fellows ; only in thi s way can he

- become tru ly man . Self realization is the moral ideal ; yet each individual should deve lop hi s personality to the utmo st only ea of b u w c as a m ns bringing a o t the highest good , hi h is the

- attainment of self dependence and reason by the entire com ~ The munity . ego , then , is , after all , only a tool to assist in the great work of the realization of moral freedom on the part of

every human being . ’ Fi chte s view of the self as attaining freedom through the conquest of obstacles proj ected by its own inherent activity leads himto maintain that control of all produ cti ve industry T e should be in the hands o f the state . h n only is it possi ble to assure to every man that opportunity for labor and eff ort

by which his spiritual eman ci pation may be achieved . It is a the clear , then , that this intense individu list was also fore runner of modern socialism ; albei t his purpose in so conceiving

the functions of the state was far removed from. that of the

s ocialisti c school of the present . ’ the What is , then , bearing of Fitche s thought upon the whole question of the mind and the material world in their recip ’ ” rocal ? n - an - relations By his annihilation of Kant s Di g sich , Fichte makes man the creator of a nature that he is ultimately

destined to subdue and to hold in subj ection to ideal ends .

Humanity and its moral realization fix the limits of reality . Everything external is swal lowed up in the proj ecti ng and H organizing activity of the ego . uman experience comprises not only the whole of which we can have certain knowledge

f . N r but the totality o being ature , with its system of fo ces the of the w i h acting under laws , is purely product self , h c transfers its own activity into the phenomen a it has proj ected i and organizes them according to the principl es inher ent n itsel f . T f ruly the apotheo sis o human nature can go no further , since it is now made to comprehend both the external world and a God to be r ealized in the future by its own strivi ng with

r material natu e . In the thought of Schelling is sounded a protest against the ’ - subj ectivity of Fichte s nature philosophy . Although Schelling The Hu mani smof the Ge rman En li ghtemnen t 89

shows an unmistakable tendency to work out his conclusions by means of symbolism and analogy rather to follow in the steps of e a e e e the gr at critic l philosophers , he yet s s cl arly that nature is worthy of more positive recognition than is accorded it by his u be Fle hte . In view neither nature nor the h man spirit can

understood so long as they are regarded as alien . Only when

nature is conceived as containing both matter and spirit , merged a ec in an bsolute underlying unity , does it b ome comprehensible The to man . natural scientist accepts the world as a reality immediately given and then attempts to explain all its forms and 31 i n i n m events terms o f matter and mo tion e chanical interaction . In the view of Schelling such an explanation ignores the apparent purposiveness of nat ure and leaves no room for the ideal element o o of experience . Science d es not c ncern itself with that which the c how must be entral problem of philosophy , namely , can a system like that of nature arise in consciousness ? In oth er

- words , how can nature generate sensibility and self consciousness in any of its parts in such wise that it becomes an obj ect to itself ? This spiritual aspect of reality is comprehen sible only i f there be forces operating in nature quite Other than those of mechanical action and reaction . ’ Schelling s solution o f this crucial problem is as follows . At the heart of nature i s a force which expresses itself throughout th s the world in e duality of subj ect and obj ect . Since con cious

life . revealing this dualism as its essential character , develops f o . out nature , then nature must exhibit the same opposition i ” 32 N s . ature is vis ble pirit , spirit is invisible nature In matter the Spiritual element is slumbering ; in spirit matter is in process of realization . Starting from the spiritual forces as revealed t in man , Schelling conceives of these forces as working hrough f out the whole o nature at lower powers . By reducing obj ects to their lowest powers we can take ou r departure from them and trace the stages by which nature has mounted to its com l eti on 33 p in spirit . To be su re Schelling by no means makes

31 z u l S é mmtli ch e W Ideen einer Phi osophie der Natur ; erke , II , pp

- 4 30 .

e . 6 . Ide n , II , p 5 33 r w h r f u Sammtli ch e We Ube den a ren Beg if den Nat rphilosophie , rke ,

. 8 . s wu ms Natur hiIO SO hi e IV , P 5 Al o Erster Ent rf eines Syste der p p , 5 - IV , 3 5 5 . 90 The Confli ct of N aturali s mand H umani sm

how clear the construction is to be accomplished . Indeed he plainly distrusts the method o f the naturalist who is satisfied with explaining nature as he sees it and who seeks for no

symbolic meaning behind its phenomena . With an audacity ff almost sublime , this philosopher of Romanticism o ers his nature symbolism as a substitute for the painstaking eff orts of science to N explain natural events by the laws of reciprocal interaction . or does he make any serious attempt to verify his speculative theory H by reference to experience . aving formulated it , he attempts to show without obj ective proof that at every stage of nature each power reveals the polarity so characteristic of conscious

ness . In nature the obj ective pole is uppermost ; in man the

subj ective is in control . Such a theory of orderly gradations in nature might well suggest that Schelling was groping toward

an evolutionary view of the development of organic life . But ’ i 34 s s . HOffd n c uch is not the ca e As g has pointed out , S helling s view not only belittles the theory o f mechanical interconnection but also denies that there is an actual transition from one ” The power to the next . absolute unity underlying nature attains completion by means of a series of forms ; but each form mo f arises from the original productive force , not from other for s

f - its infinite process o realization . Such a nature theory became current among scientific men during the closing years o f the t f n . o a eigh eenth century It had the advantage furnishing , explanation of the undeniable similarity among natural phenomena without recourse to the theory o f actual progression

of higher from lower forms .

In his maturer years , Schelling turned his thought from he nature to human life . As he himself tells us , had learned to see that religion , public faith , civil life is the point on which ” 35 o Re everything turns . In a later work Philos phie und li gi on he admits that nature and history reveal forces too an tagoni stic to be capable of deduction from the idea of absolute livi n o it unity . Although a g unity c ntains contradictions within of self, this Opposition must be reconciled during the course

natural and social development . Clearly Schelling has come to recogn ize the uncontrolled and irrational principle in ex

3‘ 1 68 1 . M l . . 6 Hist . of odern Phi os , II , pp , 9 3“ ’ 8. Aus Sch ll e . e ing s L ben , II , p 7

9 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

of The systematic form the operations this spiritual force . dualism of the critical philosophers offended his sen se of the unity of all life no less than the unsystematic methods and results of Schelling repe lled his instinct f or thoroughness and organization . Accordingly he sets up as his supreme task to

how ff e f show , by inner necessity , the di erent lements o existence are translated into one another . In his view the Absolute is spiritual life passing with in finite patience through the multi form phases of nature and o f history in order to d evelop in each f 36 all the c ontent o which it is capable . ’ Despite H egel s knowled ge of natural science and his assertion m be that nature ust understood as it is , not as philosophy chooses

t . to conceive it, he yet attempts o discover the truths of nature e by the method of dialectic . No more than Schelling do s he T make use of the exact methods of empirical investigation . his is due to the fact that Hegel assumes a parallelism between 87 h n o f E methods of t ought a d processes existenc e . ach limited concept tends to pass o ver into its oppo site and both are negated only to issue in a unity . For example , the abstract concept of pure being passes over into n ot- being and the unity of the two is expressed in the concept o f becoming which is neither being 38 - he e i n nor no t being . In t same way very finite thing existence points beyond itself and becomes part of a great upward move N " 1 ment . ature reveals two great principles ( ) the passing over of opposites into o n e another and thei r transformati on into 39 n e w an d 2 o the forms , ( ) the c nservation of all energies and o f T a the worths existence . o be sure the corn must perish if oak is to come into being ; but in the oak is treasured up al l N the essence of the seed . othing essential and valuable is ever To s lost from nature or from human life . eparate the ideal sharply from the real is to run the risk of its vanishing from existence so that the golden ages of history could never be The o repeated . world of nature like that of spirit is g verned E e s by general laws . xhibit d in abstract form in logic , the e T e x f . laws are e p essed obj ectively in existence hus , like a tru

3° P n m i e ha o en ol og des Geistes ; Vorrede . 37 En c ycl opadie der philosophischen Wissensc haf ten (Bo lla nd

81 8 8 1 8 1 0 . , 4 , 5 , 3 , 4

33 - 8 . Ibid , 7 95 3° 1 1 8- 1 2 1 1 Ibid , , 5 The Human i smof the German E n li ghtenment 93

H a humanist , egel does not hesitate to bstract from human experience both its concepts of value and its methods of thinking and to interpret the manifold of the external world in terms of his own preferences .

As a result nature is conceived as climbing up , stage by stage , m of — fro mere obj ectivity to the inner life spirit , from mechanism thro ugh physic s and chem'ism to spiritual H on e o f But , like Schelling, egel is loth to regard grade being

' T En l o adi e as actually produced by another . hus in his cyc p ne aber ni cht s o he states that o stage results from another , ’ as i i an der an dere n natii rli ch erzeu t wiird e sond ern d s d e e ne s g , ” ' 4 1 r en ran r N atur ausmache nden l d e i er i nne en d G d de e . n d , Indeed he goes so far as to characterize the notion of actual evolution of complex from simple organisms as ill - grounded i s and absurd . No more than Schelling he prepared to accept

a mechanical Weltanschammg . In the third part of his systematized philosophy Hegel con 4 2 a . o the of H siders the manifest tion f the Idea in life man . e traces its operatio ns in mental life or psychology ; in community h its life , w ere it manifests inner workings in the history , and a institutions and ideals of society ; fin lly in art , religion of and philosophy , where the Absolute , the totality spiritual life , 4 3 o e a h o e is m st clearly reveal d . But lt ugh th se last are life

- a forms of the world spirit , yet since they appear to att in realiza f tion only in the sphere of the human , the Spiritual life o man f must be the highest plane o existence . Once more H egel proves himself unable to rise above an anthropocentric view - point in hi s

philosophy o f nature . Indeed it is questionable whether any thinker can cast off all human predilections and interests when he comes to the investi gation o f some problematic aspect of

hi s The m - world . ost thorough going believer in a mechanical nature uses his co nvi ction as a method of controlling his environ hi ment in the furtherance of s own ends . In the apt phrase of “ H‘ ofi din N t ff g , o dialectic can teach u s o jump o our own

° 4 En c clo ad i e h s h ch en W ch f l y p der p ilo op is issens a ten ( Bo land ed . )

2 1 2 2 . 5 , 5

2 . Ibid , 4 9 42 d 88 8 Ibi , 3 , 3 9 .

“ - Ibid , 5 53 5 77

1 8 . Ibid , p . 5 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H u man i sm

’ H a egel s hum nism is social rather than individualistic . Only in community life can man realize his powers and become truly

man . At times Hegel subordinates the individual wholly to the

The moral order which works through him . state , taking up l a o i into itse f th t which is m st valuable in family and civic l fe , “ represents the progression o f God in the world far more T perfectly than nature ever can . hus H egel is led to regard the state as an institution almost divine and to ignore certain 2 grave defects in the then existing order . Between 1 8 0 and 1 8 1 w 3 , hen his country was passing through a period of clerical of reaction and neglected political promises , he continues to

maintain that the existing conditions exemplify the living Idea . H umanism , starting as it does from personal preference , is far more liable to fall into this species of error than its opponent naturalism which makes the ascertainable facts of the situation

the point of departure of its speculative reconstructions . The thought of Schleiermacher is suggestive from the stand point of our problem chiefly because it asserts the ultimate goal o f of all knowing or acting to be the unity thought and being .

In nature being has the upper hand and its science is physics . In the l ife o f man reason is uppermost and its supreme science f . o is ethics . But even in nature a lower form ethics is exhibited ; f or the will is here revealed as advancing from the inorganic to the organic sphere and attaining its highest development in of man . Because his absorbing interest in ethics Schleiermacher seeks to unify it with the natural sciences ; for he feels that without this harmony between nature and human ideals ethics ’ would be impossible . Man s attempt to make himself the master of nature represents the shaping and organizing aspect of the

T o ethical powers . this phase belongs the development of property , of industry and of organized society . But the ethical process is also expressed in a symbolizing activity, by means of which man stamps his inner spiritual life upon the world . Schleiermacher is sincerely optimistic regarding the final unity of nature and reason . Yet at times he is led to deplore the f o apparent supremacy o the rganizing activity , relatively of materialistic as it is , over the symbolizing activity the moral The i s " process . harmony of the natural and the ideal not yet Schopenhauer is a unique figure in the philosophic movement f o f o his age , for he boldly rej ects the presupposition the harmony

96 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d H umani sm

beings . With consciousness comes realization of the misery o f

existence , driven onward by the goad of unceasing desire . ’ It will be seen that Schopenhauer s philosophy o f nature leads him to a conclusion totally opposed to that of his contemporaries o f a H the Rom ntic school . owever , he attempts a reconciliation of th e. end less conflict o f nature and o f human life in hi s views of of art and asceticism . In artistic feeling the restless soul

finds peace , albeit this is but momentary . Only in complete resignation , in entire negation of the will to live , is there sur

e c ase of pain and a lasting calm . And this blessed quiescence has been attained only by the great saints and ascetics of history .

The o of N c mmon run mankind reach no such peaceful irvana . The pessimism of Schopenhauer did good service in driving home into the minds of men the bitter fact of the existence of evil . No longer could this be lightly passed over by philosophic

Optimists . Its reality must be recognized and explained in any satisfying theory of the world . It will be seen that the answer furnished by German thought to the world - riddle o f nature and man in their reciprocal relations diff ered widely fro m that worked out in France . While French thought inclined strongly to naturalism and furnished too ready o f solutions a complicated problem , the German mind plunged into the depths of human experience and emerged with the exalted conviction that the world is comprehen sible only in T terms of the spiritual principle in man . o the deeper insight

- of the German philosophers , French world views appeared shallow since they gave no explanation of the nature of experi i ence itself , but na vely assumed an external world from which man has been mechanically evolved . Yet the dominant humanistic bias of German thought led its leaders into errors t no less harmful than those of the French naturalis s . Kant

- o f was mi s alone , as the master mind his age , conscious of the take involved i n reading nature in terms of human preference and purpose . But his caution resulted in the inherent dualisms

hi - T o of s thought system . hen came Fichte and boldly t ok The the plunge that Kant had carefully avoided . whole universe is now neatly packed away in the Ego itself ; and nature is made a purely negative thing , a self produced obstacle necessary to the moral developme nt of The Human i smof the German En li ghtenmen t 97

man . Schelling likewise stands within the circle of his

n on ow shadow and , while he insists the independent reality of of nature , yet he interprets his world as the manifestation a single spiritual principle polarizing itself as subj ect and obj ect . Again H egel perpetuates the tendency to explain the whole of nature by reference to its latest , and in his view , highest product . Science had not then developed to the point where man could get outside himself and survey nature with an impartial and

to obj ective gaze which the first and the last , the origin and — H o on o . the pr duct , rest a comm n plane as facts not values ence ,

e H . obj ectiv as are his interests , egel is a supreme humanist Schopenhauer rounds out the long list o f intellectual giants

s o f with his humani tic conception the world , as the outward

f evolu manifestation o the inward striving to live . In him the ti on r a y view of nature finds an early herald . Furthermore ’ o Schopenhauer must be ranked with a small , but increasing b dy of thinkers who maintain that the unlimited perfectibility of

s T o man is impossible o long as he follows nature . this con clusi on i s not o f he led , however , by a scientific investigation the world and the mind o f man in their actions and reactions but by his inner consciousness of the struggle and the suff ering of human life . T hus , at the end of the first half of the nineteenth century , the thoughtful individual o f philosophic bent i s free to choos e o n e f n o th ese two opposing solutions of aturalism and humanism . H e may ally himself with the French school and maintain a purely mechanical world—view which regards man as himself a complicated mechanism wholly dependent on environment for all that he is and can be . Or he may j oin hands with the idealists and seek the key which will unlock the meaning o f hi nature within s own breast . Faulty and incomplete as the

first view now appears , it yet is far more in accord with the f spirit and procedure o modern science than the latter . With the enormous expansion of scientific knowledge and control

- during the past century , the speculative world systems of the Kantian and Romantic schools seem d oomed to a not far - distant s o dissolution . Indeed o brilliant a thinker as Profess r William Jame s has been led by his appreciation o f the errors of idealism to express the desire that mod ern philosophy might have gone 98 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Hu mani sm

around Kant rather than through him . But such was not to be ; and it is doubtful if the world woul d have been better off had F or such a course been possible . only when a profound and sincere theory of experience has been worked out to its extreme can a n in conclusions , thought discover the f ults i herent it and , i of old e out s tak ng unto itself the best the , strik into fre h paths of discovery which will enlarge the boundaries of tested knowledge .

1 0 0 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

most notable in the fields of chemistry and biology . Owing to the continuous experimentation of Priestley , Lavoisier , Dalton , o W hler and others , the gases composing air and water had been o discovered , the the ry of the chemical atom elaborated , and plant and animal organisms proved to be chemical laboratories in mwhich conditions are peculiarly favorable for building up co plex compounds of a few familiar elements , under the The operation of universal chemical laws . chimera vital force ” i n 1 could no longer ga n recog ition in the domain of chemistry . Equally brilliant results were recorded in the development o f Th biology and physiology . e chemistry of digestion and respir ation in both plants and animals was established through the

S ollanzani H E researches of p , unter and rasmus Darwin ; the classification o f the animal kingdom and the proof of the adaptation o f al l parts o f the animal organism to one an other were the great contributions of Cuvier ; and valuable facts con cerning cell structure were furnished by the Germa ns Schleiden T and Schwann . hus in the first half of the nineteenth century an imposing body of scientific knowledge was rapidly was accumulating, and the domain of science being continuously o f The cut up into fields specialized research . whole positivistic movement was a protest against the point o f view that only scientific specialists can profit largely from the advance of science . On the contrary the positivists urged that the conquest of nature should result in the complete reconstruction o f the conditions of

no human life , both material and spiritual . In uncertain utter ance they proclaimed that the time was ripe for the utilization of scientifi c knowledge in the development o f a wholly new conception of human faith and conduct . Starting from the approved facts and laws of positive science , let man reconstruct his world - scheme on a new basis and froma point of view too

— - frequently ignored that of the well being o f humanity . ff As the high priest of positivism , Auguste Comte o ers a fresh

n r o f . solutio of the iddle man and nature Like Immanuel Kant , Comte belongs to an age of transition ; he stands between the

of . old order and the new , sharing in the ideas both In his of view , as in that the great German , morality and social well all being are the ends of supreme human importance , to which

W m s of c c . . illia s , Hi tory S ien e , IV , pp 54 , 5 5 Confli ct i n the Ni n eteen th Cen tury 1 0 1

theoretical interests and investigations should be subordinated . 2 n om e a o f the As Caird has poi ted out , C te was enabled , b c use period of social unrest in which he lived and because o f his sen sitive social sympathies , to give his readers such insight into the corruptness and the needs of s ociety as could not be looked for T m from Kant . here can be no doubt that Co te was acquainted , the albeit somewhat superficially, with the critical philosophy of

H e w Konigsberg sage . accepts ithout question the dualism between experience and reality , sense perceptions and under i n standing , so fundamental the system of Kant . But he goes “ ” hi s N . o further than predecessor ideas of pure reason , beckoning the thought of man to the consideration of a possible of realm of reality transcending that sense , are given respectful recognition by Comte . If such ideas exist they must be rigidly suppressed or made wholly subservient to the facts o f science . By the necessary limitations of our intelligence we are forever shut out from a knowledge of ultimate reality and from any “ ” f The absolute view o existence . riddle of the universe can 3 be no further solved than is n eedful for the progress of humanity . e While Comte thus insists that we can know only phenom na , he clearly implies that there i s a realm o f reality beyond the flux “ o f appearances . But no obj ective synthesis of this reality f o . is possible in the nature the case Let man content himself , “ ”

w . therefore , ith a subj ective synthesis ; i . e let him regard all the obj ects and forces o f nature solely in relation to human T wants and ideals . his conception lies at the basis of the entire The i s Comtian philosophy . individual to view the universe i from the standpoint of ts use in furthering his life . But ’ Comte s gospel is no selfish individualism ; for he regards each

The f human being as vitally related to his race . progress o i H con biolog cal science gave to Comte , as to erbert Spencer , the ce tion p of an organism as a living whole of interrelated parts , each sustaining and being sustained by the vital functions of all 4 T " t t o . h t a o the thers his notion t ey bo h pply to human s cie y , wi h the result that the individual i s no longer conceived as the inde ’ f pendent atom o Rousseau s early theory . Rather is it held that every personality owes its existence to the moulding influences

3

So f o m . C ci o C 20 . aird , The al Philosophy te , p 9 3 m - Co o s . M . 6 . te , P sitive Philosophy , tran by Harriet artineau , I , pp 4 d 2 2 2 2 Ibi , pp . 4 , 5 . 1 0 2 The Confli ct of N aturali sma nd H umani sm of unnumbered generations which have passed away leaving their o f free gifts to the vast social heritage institutions , knowledge T f i ” . W o and ideals hus the hirligig t me brings in its revenges , of n as w out and the error pure i dividualism , orked in the bloody of days the French Revolution , leads to a violent reaction in favor o f social cooperation and even of individual subordination 5 in r ma the interests of the soc ial o ganis s a whole . Strongly infl uenced as he was by the political theories of Saint

Simon , Comte yet was repelled by the scheme of socialistic i . s despotism to which they led H problem was , then , the ancient on e of maintaining a sound social organization while securing o f due scope for the development individual taste and initiative . The o f solution this problem he found , as had Condorcet before o f its him , in the expansion science with accompanying contri butions to the welfare and happiness of mankind . Indeed , in ’ o f Comte s view , positive science is the true cause all human 6 o i e e the pr gress . In the pr mitive stat , men wer held in grip of two — o ne warring tendencies , impelling to sociality and the other m The at o to selfish egois . latter prevailed first ; yet it was rec g n ize d o f , even at that early stage of history , that the supremacy

" T r the social instinct w as necessary to human welfare . herefo e the tribal leaders worked out an explanation of the world which T they vaguely felt would serve to strengthen the social bond . hus arose what Comte terms the theological stage of human associa 7 N t tion . atural even s were referred to the direct agency of super natural beings whose malignant caprices must be placated by nd e ample sacrifice a cer monial . But even here were the crude The f beginnings of positive science . wills o the unseen beings who controlled nature were not always capricious and arbitrary . In some directions they acted with a r egularity which gave birth ” to the notion of natural law . Little by little the field con trolled by law was extended and that given over to caprice was for correspondingly diminished . Fetichism made way polytheism 8 o E the t an d this in turn for mon theism . ach stage in purifica ion o f e the early crud theology , Comte views as a step forward toward

C m h h . r M i u o te , Positive P ilosop y , trans by Har iet~ art nea , III ,

o 0 8. pp . 4 7 , 4

- 1 82 1 88. Ibid , II , pp . 7 fi d . 1 0 . Ibi , II , p 3 lf ff . 82 Ibid , III , p . 33 , p .

1 0 4 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

an unfailing clue to the mystery of nature in its bearing upon the life of man . Whereas Comte was fully alive to the need for specialization in t the sciences , he yet felt keenly that they tended o lose them 1 3 selves in a multiplicity of detail . There fore he urged the o r gani zation of all branches of scientific knowledge and research around the synthetic principle o f the advancement of human

welfare . In this way social benevolence and scientific knowledge would act and react upon each other to the profound advantage

of . T mboth hus , in the midst of a universe unknowable in its ulti ate nature , human life might attain a certain unity and com l en s p et es . Although man could exert no control over vast areas of nature , yet the laws of his immediate environment and of his own nature could be discovered and utilized to bring about the

greatest good that the scheme of things permits . ’ This brings us to a consideration of Comte s conception of

nature in its relation to the purposes of man . It seems clear that he holds a far mo re pessimistic view o f nature in the Posi tive Philosophy from that which he presents in his later work — i . the Posit ve Polity In the former , nature is conceived as a vast mechanism of things and forces in mutual interaction ac 1 4 l a cording to infl exible laws . As the domain of natural w is

extended through the ages , man comes to conceive of nature as n a grim necessity hemming him in o every side . But science itself in time teaches him to look upon the human race as a mighty living organism of which every individual is a part or m 1 5 the e me ber . Between the individual and relentless machin ry — ‘ 6— o f nature stand s the Deity of Comte H umanity interposing its knowledge and skill to relieve the treme ndous pressure o f

external fatality . Passed thus through the alembic of humanity , brute necessity is transmuted into something approaching provi

dential activity . Physical , chemical and biological phenomena are continually modified by the generations o f mankind and made 1 7 to subserve human needs And this knowledge and control are passed on to future ages and serve to ameliorate and

‘ 3 it O . c . . . p , I , p 9 2 1 2 1 Ibid , pp . 3, 4 . 1 “ 0 0 8. Ibid , III , pp . 4 7, 4 1° fl em l u . 2 . Syst e de Po itiq e Positive , I , p 3 9 ‘ 7 d - 2 Ibi , I , pp . 39 4 . Confli ct i n the Ni n eteen th Century 1 0 5

’ advance the life o f the race In the words of one of Comte s most discriminating critics " The life of the individual in any

of age is what it is , by reason the whole progressive movement of humanity ; and the later the time of his appearance the more ” 1 8 ’ he e as a e owes to his race . Man s existenc an obj ect in n tur h s a no intrinsic value . Only if he add his quota to the goodly heritage of science and skill which is to mould the lives of unborn generations can he be said to have j ustified his existence on this “ ’ earth— to have contributed to the subj ective existence of humanity . But Comte is forced to acknowledge that humanity has no unlimited power over nature . Its activity is bounded everywhere

ff - of by a brute force , indi erent to the well being man , which it a can modify only in part . Since hum nity has not created the materials which it employs , it must be forever limited by them . By obedience to those laws which he has not himself imposed l w upon the material wor d , and hich he must therefore patiently ’ discover , lies man s only hope of harnessing the mighty energies

f o f o nature to carry forward his designs . It is the law the uni The verse that the higher should subordinate itself to the lower . inorganic sphere limits and controls the organic ; and man must work out his destiny by a complete submi ssion to all the various for-ms of necessity , physical , chemical and vital , by which he is

T . surrounded . his is the price of his ultimate limited control Poetry may paint in glowing imagery the picture of nature as the beneficent friend o f man ; but science knows full well that the arrangements of the universe in its various spheres are often far from favorable to human existence . Were it not for the

ben eficent W ff long influence of humanity , the world ould o er a harsh and inhospitable home to man . Comte has little sympathy ’ w Con dorcet s o i ith ptim stic visions , which he criticises as wan d erin s r g afte an indefinite perfectibility , and chimerical and absurd ” 1 9 a t u e a r s h the nticipation s . Al hough he nh sitatingly sse t t at amelioration of life proceeds pari passu with the development of positive science , he hastens to add that both are subj ect to limits , The general and special , which science will be found to prescribe . chimerical notion of unlimited perfectibility is thus at once ex

C r o . cit . . 2 ai d , p , p 5 . ° 1 O c it . . 20 2 p . , II , p . The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

” ’ 2° u cluded . But within bo nds the improvement of man s condi d as tion will go steadily forwar it has done in the past . More over Comte clearly maintains the gradual and slow improvement of e — a human natur itself , theory which he bases upon Lam ’ arck s view of the influence of a homogeneous and continuous x a an d e ercise in producing , in every anim l organism , especially in M an l of i , an organic improvement , susceptib e be ng established ” 21 i ffi T h co n n t c . o o the race , af er a su cient persisten e supp rt t is elusion Comte cal ls attention to the superior aptitude for mental

z combinations , independent of all culture , among highly civili ed ” 22 “ ” p eople and the correspon dingly inferior aptitude among

— a t - l savages , posi ion which present day anthropology and socia psychology regard with considerable doubt . ’ But the attitude of cautious Optimism revealed in Comte s H earlier work is abandoned in the Positive Polity . ere he maintains that the spur of physical necessity not only stimulates ’ ff man s first e orts toward scientific knowledge , but that by means of this same sharp goad he learns to bring his original egoistic impulses under the discipline of daily labor in cooperation with

- his fellow me n . By a thorny road man has moved steadily toward H is e the goal o f social sympathy and helpfulness . egoistic t nd enci es sub dominate his life , until he sees that he must first be a

l a missive servant of natural w if he would later be master , and that he must further the well - being of others if he would make 23 « n of m o them instrumental to his o w . Out the sub issi n of selfish e caprice to natural and social laws , man slowly develops his int l ligence and social sympathy until they control his lower im 24 o f pulses . It is the splendid triumph humanity that it has

o f m made the soulless fatality nature , which see ingly condemned ” of it to brute egoism , the chief means its rise to moral insight

The al an and power . soci sympathies , once in control , have attractive power which draws man on in the path leading to the 25 o f xt o f betterment o f all mankind . Because e reme division

in m x i w labor our co ple ndustrial system , each man orks for the

2° O . cit . . 2 2 2 . p , pp 3 , 33 2‘ 2 Ibid , p . 33. 23 2 Ibid, p . 33.

- S em l u 2 . yst e de Po itiq e Positive , I , 7 33 1 1 6 Ibid , pp . 5 , . 6 Ibi d , II , 99 .

1 0 8 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

d efiniteness s its ways to man by its and certainty , but al o by its

m - f vast utility in pro oting the happiness and well being o the race . H ence the tendency toward a purely mechanical Wel tanschauung has T gradually gained tremendous headway . O be sure the stream o f positivism which took its rise in France received a set- back

. H in Germany ere , as we have seen , the attempt was made to show that the whole mechanical scheme of things is the phenom o f u E enal instrument a purposeful spirit al Being . In ngland , likewise , although positivism exercised profound influence , it was sO by no means daring in its ultimate conclusions as in France . English speculation confined itself more strictly within the limits out H H laid by ume and Kant . ence it too k sides neither with an w m absolute idealism nor ith an absolute aterialism . With the E sanity so characteristic of nglish thought , its philosophers maintained that even determinism is not absolute but i s merely t a hypo hesis indispensable to science . Since experience can bring us in contact with but a small portion of this vast universe we are in no position to assert that mechanism everywhere prevails . Man must content himself with the relative truths o f science and f neither deny nor a firm the existence of absolute determinism . Let him proceed as though the mechanical interaction o f phe nomena as thou h were universal , g the laws worked out by observation and experiment were changeless and eternal . S O shall he substitute a useful positive science for an unfruitful meta physics without being forced to deny the reality of an intelligent

Providence . of E o f As a result this attitude , the nglish philosophers the first half of the nineteenth century turned their attention to social and ethical problems . Political and religious interests were uppermost . Bentham and James Mill took what was most sound from the psychology and ethics of the previous century and w applied it to current moral and social questions . In his ell ” known work , Principles of Morals and Legislation , Bentham stated his principle of utility an d attempted to show that its fi demands are neither more nor less than the dictates o f the most extensive and enlightened benevolence . With the utmost zeal this founder of the utilitarian school of ethics devoted his life to the reconstruction of the English constitution and the k h cause of legislative reform . Li e Bent am , James Mill was a H i s philanthropist in the best and broadest sense . strong psycho Confli ct i n the Ni neteen th Cen tury 1 0 9

‘ ’ logical bent led him to seek a foundation for Benthams principle H o f utility in the laws o f psychical life . ence he made a syste matic eff ort to explain all mental facts and processes by the f h o f o . T e theory the association ideas utility principle , thus

firmly grounded in natural laws , was vigorously applied by Mill T to the reform o f various political and social evils . hus a f naturalistic humanism is the keynote o all his thought . But the most significant and influential philosopher of the pre E evolutionary period in ngland was John Stuart Mill . In cordial H agreement with elvetius , he insistently proclaims that char acter and personality are the outcome O f social environment and n H a e rational educatio . ence hum n character is indefinit ly modi l f fiab e by circumstances and training . As a leader o the empirical o f school his day , Mill denies that knowledge can be extended by pure thought . Only by Observation and induction can the O f of body truth be enlarged . Upon the possibility bringing all hypotheses and O pinions to the test of experience depends the o f a advancement humanity . Although Mill w s not wholly suc cessful of in establishing his theory pure empiricism , yet his method o f bringing experimental and critical inquiry to bear upon a wide diversity of practical problems was of the utmost value in evoking a scientific and critical spirit in his contem r ri e s po a . ’ Mill s view o f nature in its bearing upon the econ omic and moral progress of mankind is of interest not only because o f his disagreement w ith the final position o f Comte but also because his standpoint represents the mo st advanced views of English

o - empiricists previous to the ep ch making work of Darwin . In his essay on N at-ure Mill defines this much misused and mi s i n understood term two senses . First , nature may mean the ” aggregate o f the powers and properties o f all things . In this “ to sense it is a name for the mode , partly known us and partly ” 27 o a Th the in unkn wn , in which all things take pl ce us term cludes all phenomena produced by human agency no less than “ those we call spontaneous . In the second sense nature no longer signifies all which takes place in the inner and the outer f world but all which happens without the agency o man . From l this standpoint the natural is opposed to the artificia . With true humanistic interest Mill proceeds to show the significance o f these

”7 C on l . . 6 . f . Three Essays Re igion , (ed p 1 1 0 The Confli ct of N aturali sma nd H umani sm

concepts for human conduct . Man can take advantage only of

the properties he finds in the world . H e may move Obj ects and

‘ bring them into contact thus calling into action natural force s

. o d i ntelli hitherto dormant But the v lition which esigns , the and o gence which combines , the muscular f rce which executes ” t s e ar e 28 he e movem nts , themselves powers of natu re . Now in h er e a r me o f ethical theory t e seems to app ar thi d aning nature . Here the term stands for what ought to be as Opposed to what “ is . People are bidden to follow Nature as a trusty guide whose unerrin g r ectitude is set in noble c ontrast to the caprice of ra how i s os and inj ustice human law and mo lity . But it p e f or n th sible , argu s Mill , an i dividual to do any ing else than “ ” follow Nature since all his thoughts and acts are under the domi nion of natural laws ? T o be sure man can use one law to counteract anothe r ; in this way he may plac e himself under f “ one o . set natural laws rather than another If , therefore , the us eless precept to follow nature were c hang ed into a precept to study nature ; to know and take heed o f the prope rties of the to so ‘ as e e things we have deal with , far these prop rties are capabl of forwarding or obstruc ting any give n purpose ; we should have ” 29 i l n arrived at the first princ ple o f all inte lige t action itself . T ff c e w his , then , is the essential di eren e b t een wise and foolish — o f e e conduct , to apply intelligence to the regulation thos forc s

which in any event we must obey . “ But since the dictum to follow Nature is used not on ly as a e e o to x prud ntial but as an ethical prec pt , it beh oves us e amine “ ” i s . e . nature in the econd sense , , as the spontaneous course

of d . H events and processes not irected by the agency of man ere , s e to a Mill is at som pains point out , the maxim is not only ” Fo r not superfluous but is also absurd and contradictory . is the end and aim o f human action to alter and improve nature in the sense of the natural course of things ? If the artificial be “ ? not better than the natural why do all the Arts exist Why a a o f a drain noxious sw mps , pply improved methods griculture , utilize electricity and steam in a hundred ways ? H ere nature — e is conquered not submitted to. Inde d it may truly be said “ that all praise of art and civilization is so much dispraise of ’ Natu re ; an admission Of imperfection which it is man s busi ness

2° O . cit . . 8. p , p 2° 1 . Ibid , p . 7

1 1 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

Origin of Species . Both Mill and Comte undoubtedly held to of T the idea evolution in individual and racial life . hus Mill ’ writes of Comte s theory of social development ; From this time any political thinker who fancies himself able to dispe nse with of of f a connected view the great facts history , as a chain o ff causes and e ects , must be regarded as below the level o f his ” 34 age ; But that the theory of evolution from simpler to more complex forms of structure and of adaptation should throw fresh light upon the length and breadth of nature ’ and of man s life in relation thereto never dawned upon the minds of T . to these positivists herefore , great as were their services

of o f human thought in the first half the century , much their work has been undermined and much has required revision in the f light o the new doctrine . The has revolution in human thought , which been brought about by the work of Charles Darwin has frequently been likened to those vast changes in world -View eff ected by Copernicus and N e of wton . As far back as the closing decades the eighteenth

e so- c ntury , the similarity existing among the various called species had attracted attention no less than the variations from " ur type presented by members of the same species . In his ” 1 80 t Morphologie , published in 7, Goe he formulates the law that H e the more perfect the being the more dissimilar its parts . adds “ that Subordination of parts indicates high grade of organiza ’ f 1 2 o 8 8. tion , thus anticipating Von Baer s law It seems rea sonably certain that in this work Goethe had some notion of the f evolution o species . But to Lamarck belongs the honor of having first clearly conceived the idea of gradual transmutation of species T at from an original simpler organism . his change Lamarck tempts to explain by the incessant eff orts of each organism to striv meet the demands imposed by the environment . Constant ing means constant use of organs and such use tends to the The development o f these organs . advanced views of Lamarck a who were sharply opposed by his famous countrym n , Cuvier , drew upon a vast array o f data to prove the absolute fixity of E H species . In ngland erbert Spencer was groping toward a satisfactory theory of the evolution of organic forms and enunci 85 ’ ated an imperfect explan ation before Darwin s publication o f the

86 C m Po siti vi srn . . Auguste o te , and , p

Cf hi s c l . . Psy ho ogy , first ed Confli ct i n the Ni neteen th Cen tury 1 1 3

f T E Origin o Species . hus uropean thought had been gradually made ready for the establishment o f that revolutionizing theory which was to bring about a reshaping o f every department of human thought . As early as 1 837 Darwin had clearly conceived his problem f and had begun that long series o observations , very soon directed

- by an illuminating hypothesis , which led twenty two years later to to the publication of his famous work . In the Introduction the Origin of Species he gives due credit to Malthus in his “ Essay on Population for suggesting to him a principle of explanation of the gradual development of the diff erent organic ’ species . In Malthus theory of the struggle for existence among human beings , due to the high geometrical ratio of their increase ,

Darwin found a clue to the whole problem of organic evolution . Little by little he became convinced that the origin of species may be ascribed to the unceasing struggle for existence in the midst of environing conditions by no me ans wholly favorable to the T “ organism . his desperate struggle flows from the high rate

' at which all organic beings tend to increase . More individuals are produced than can possibly survive . If vast numbers of this progeny were not destroyed , the earth would soon be covered ff by the o spring of a single pair . In looking at nature it should never be forgotten that every creature is striving to increase in numbers , that each lives by struggle , and that heavy destruction on l i n falls young or o d at recurrent intervals . Checks to the crease of any species are found everywhere in the amount o f of o f food , conditions soil and climate , and in the existence numerous enemies . Owing to the perpetual struggle for life , “ o be to variations fr m the type , if they in any degree profitable the i ndividuals o f a species in their infinitely complex relations to o f other organic beings and to their physical conditions life , t of will tend to the preserva ion such individuals , and will usually ” 36 be inherited by the offspring Thus the favo red progeny will f have a better chance o survival . Such preservation of favor able individual variations and the destruction o f those wh ich N o r prove injurious Darwin calls atural Selection , the Sur ” 37 vival e n sur of the Fittest . In this sel ction of i dividuals for

3" f O o c o . 6 . rigin Spe ies (L ndon , p 7 37 8 Ibid , p . 9 . 1 1 4 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

vival f or , Nature cares nothing appearances save as they can be “ ” . o w N useful While man selects only for his n good , ature o n of lo ks o ly to the good the being which she tends . Working

with extreme slowness , natural selection has at last produc ed all

the myriad species and variations upon the earth . As new forms m i are produced and gain in strength and nu bers , they must n evitably cause the gradual extinction o f many old forms whose ’ places they take at Nature s table . It should not be supposed

- o that progress is the key note of evolution . N t only have useless or harmful variations brought about the prompt extinction of o f vast numbers organic forms , but many organisms , having o f attained a fair degree adaptation to surrounding conditions , have shown no tendency to greater complexity of structure and

function during countless periods of time . Moreover in those instances where , for any reason , the environing conditions have been simplified , natural selection not infrequently brings about T a reversion to more rudimentary forms o f life . hus Darwin plainly denies that there is a n ecessary tendency in nature to produce beings increasingly complex in organization and corre n in spo d gly varied in function . ’ The significance of Darwin s thought in bringing about the reconstruction of the entire world - view of the nineteenth century To man rero a can hardly be estimated . one belongs the proud p g tive of shaping the trend of scientific , social , philosophical and For he ethical systems for generations yet to come . has broad ened the whole concept o f nature and has impressed upon the minds of men the idea of the intimate connection be tween those silent , insignificant forces , working uninterruptedly in the womb of nature , and the races of mankind in their present form . d Once more , as in the ays of Copernicus and Galileo, man is removed from his lofty seat in the universe and peremptorily The o f bidden to find a lowlier place . sphere natural law is ex tended i n unbroken continuity from the crudest forms o f organic life to the intricate thought processes o f the human organism . Thus a bright light is shed not only upon the physical life of the world but upon those mental functions which had previously i ncreas been considered in isolation . In consequence it became l o of o f i ng y clear that psychol gy , which treats the phenomena s w the o f mental life , can no longer dispen e ith aid those biological sciences which describe the origin , function and historic develop

1 1 6 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Human i sm various stages of development and in connection with the theory of o f T natural selection the fittest to live . o Da rwin the origin of both physical and conscious life appeared as an insoluble mystery . Furthermore his researches into the secret places of organic nature had caused the problem o f suff ering and evil to h be thrust home to his mind and eart with painful intensity . Therefore he could not adopt the easy solution of the orthodox believers of his day which declared that a beneficent Providence had directly created a few elemental forms and had then set the c Th whole ma hinery of evolution in motion . e reality of the pain and inj ury , the brutality and bitterness which are the direct out growth o f natural selection forced him slowly and steadily toward a vigorous scepticism regarding the existence of a Providential T Being . hus , while Asa Gray in America was waging a doughty o f ff warfare against the critics Darwin , in an e ort to prove his 4 0 n s hi m views not i con istent with an orthodox theology , Darwin 4 1 self had reached a po sition of agnosticism . Naturalism had won the day . The vital significanc e of H erbert Spencer with reference to the historical development of naturalism lies in his colossal attempt to organize many of the important branches of humanistic know-l edge and investigation around the central concept o f evolution . In the spirit of the positivist he approaches organic nature and seizing hold o f its underlying principle he applies it with brilliant

' if not complete success to the interpretation o f human life i n ’ T e h . its psychological , social and t ical phases hat Spencer s interest in this vast undertaking was humanis tic and practical as H e well as scientific and speculative can hardl y be d oubted . very properly belongs among those intellectual noblemen of ” 4 2 w e o f E whom he rites in the Principl s thics , whose highest “ ambition it is to have a share— even though an utterly unappre — ‘ ’ ciable an unknown share in the making of Man the ” further evolution of Humanity . ’ Spencer s philosophy he has himself christened as a Trans ” ‘ - 3 fi re . V o gu d Realism In his iew some bj ective existence , mani “ f ” e o t . f ested under some conditions , is a final n cessity hought ’ C w . f . Gra y s Dar iniana , Essays II , VII , XIII ‘ 1 C d e Vol . . 2 . f . Life an L tters , II , p 4 7

ol . . . V II , p 433 ‘3 ff C r c l of c l Vol . . . f . P in ip es Psy ho ogy , II , p 4 94 Confli ct i n the Ni neteenth Century 1 1 7

But this doe s not imply that either the e xistence o r the co nditions “ are more to us than the unknow n correlatives of our feelings ” and the relations among our feelings . Such a realism neither affi rms that any mode o f obj ective existence i s in reality what it seems nor that the connections among its modes are what they l and . al e obj ectively appear B ehind manif stations , both inner i “ s n . outer , a Power whose ature is unknowable Yet its universal presence is the absolute fact without which there can ”4 4 e c . a n be no relativ fa ts Very gradu lly man comes to lear that , hidden behind all the changing forms o f material and psychical “ one r e i s k life, the thing pe man nt the Un nowable Reality ” 4 5 Neither religion nor science has been successful in i ts attempts to express by concepts the essential nature of the Th o . e w rld concepts of time , space , force and motion are clear h and appli cable within t e domain of e xperience . But when they are employed to describe the nature o f th e Absolute they lead an f e e to contradictions d endless di ficulties . Ultimately both sci nc and religion will agree that the i nnermo s o exi stence

e be o f is incomprehensibl , although much may learned the manner in which this essence is rev ealed in nature and in man .

the n r n ex eri At outset , then , Spe cer asse ts a dualism betwee p ence and reality as fundamental as that which characterizes the s Kantian philo ophy . But a e e , lthough Spencer expr ssly d nies that we can know o f he c the hidden nature the world , yet employs the oncept “ ” force as the ultimate symbol o f both material and psychical In s o f t are existence . nature the element ma ter and motion ‘ 6 merely forms o f the manifestation of force . By no means can the phenomena o f the material world be regarded as spiritual

os in their inmo st nature . Spencer is p itive upon this point ; for he feels convinced that man can explain the spiritual e lements he recognizes in himself only by the help o f ideas and relmations abstracted from nature . By using symbols borrowed fro the external world alone can we form an y clear notion of the nature ‘ o 7 T f consciousness . hus Spencer reverses the method of the German Romanticists who a ssert the neces sity o f deriving all

‘4 O . c it . 0 . p . , p 5 3 4‘ Ibid . c l of c Prin ip es Psy hology (Third § 63. ‘ 7 Ibid . 1 1 8 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Human i sm

a o f concepts expl natory of nature from the conscious states man . From his fundamental principle Spencer deduces the important corollary that the disti nction between psychical and material he a be o m p nomena c nnot transcended . B th , he aintains , are l t of l w mutua ly irreducible manifes ations an u timate , unkno able

and are s Force , therefore ubj ect alike to the laws governing l al natural phenomena . Between the phenomena of these two modes of energy is an interconnection due to their common f determination by the law o evolution . ’ Thus Spencer s view of material nature is that of a vast f o . unfolding force, revealed under the forms matter and motion t are All phenomena, as manifesta ions of this primeval energy , subj ect to the universal law of evolutio n which in general means E has transition fro m homogeneity to heterogeneity . volution Th three di stinguishing marks . e first is integration or the

m e . co bination of elem nts Such an integration , in the vast cosmic process , is responsible for the origin and development f s all o the solar system . Likewi e organic growth proceeds in a h o p rt by this met od , But only in the m st rudimentary forms o f life is evolutio n merely integration . Within the protoplasmic ff mass , segregation of elements and di erentiation of organs T are the marks o f continued development . hus a comparison of earlier and later forms shows plainly enough a transition from almost complete homo geneity .to great complexity of organic

c . evo stru ture Finally , in order to distinguish dissolution from luti on o e , b th of which are characterized by increasing het ro eneit g y, it should be added that in evolution there is an advance o o to e from c nfusion to order , fr m undeterminate d terminate H . a arrangement ence development , unlike decay , is transition from relative chaos to a unified whole . When both integration and diff erentiation have reached their culmination the re must result a state o f equil ibrium which cannot long be maintained ‘ 8 o infl en es the against the ceaseless peration o f external u c . In progress of time dissolution must inevitably set in , and then ther e results a new chaos to be followed in its turn by a fresh T a movement of evolution . hus nature reve ls a rhythmical 4 9 o f process alternate growth and decay . Which tendency is

" 4 c l of l Prin ip es Bio ogy , II , F c l 1 irst Prin ip es , 33.

1 20 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

e m nt of instincts and feelings and in the association of ideas . The empiricist is in error when he fails to see that the original nature of every individual determines the way in which he re

ive s ce and organizes the matter of experience . Also the criterion f re o iti n i i s o s o . e . t the truth of any p p , the consciousness that “ ” a ri ori not opposite would be a contradiction , is an p element i to be deduced from experi ence . But n making this concession i s Spencer by no means yielding the field to the rationalists . T e o a hos m des of feeling and knowledge , inborn in the individu l , are the results of long periods of racial experience , of a struggle

r struc for su vival , which has profoundly modified the nervous h ture of t e offspring. Gradually these racial tendencies develop in the course of personal experience and must be reckoned with in all schemes for individual or social reform . But the environment of man is social and ethical as well as material ; hence adaptation to external nature is but o ne phase o f that complete adj ustment which is the condition of the welfare

o f and happiness o f the individual . Because his sincere social interest, Spencer is concerned to show that the original mental equipment of man i s not unfavorable to the development of the o f highest social and ethical virtues . In the closing chapters his Principles of Psychology he describes in detail the develop ment of gregarious instincts leading in time to the feeling of he o pleasure in mere social contact . In the same way sh ws how the th o f a social instinct , combined with e influence sexu l and 5 2 parental relations , has directly cultivated social sympathy . This latter feeling is enormously furthered by every increment of intelligence which increases the power of discrimination and combination and enhances the vividness and variety of repre e scutation . In the course of social evolution , egoistic fe lings T may become altruistic through the influence of sympathy . hus ’ Spencer does not sha rply difi erenti ate these two classes Of feel “ i ings , but asserts that altruistic emotions are all sympathet c ”5 8 excitements of egoistic feelings ; The egoisti c factor of altr uism finds satisfaction in a social environment which The puts no restraint upon the activities . factor of sympathy , e which renders the former feeling altruistic , ever t nds , as it de

- t . o . c i . p , pp 5 75 5 77 53 6 1 2 . Ibid , p . Confli ct i n the Ni n eteenth Century 1 2 1

velo s - e p , to excite a vivid fellow feeling with this love of uur strained activity in others ; In consequence social “ progress tends toward a state wherein every citizen will be ’ sympathetically anxious for each other citizen s due sphere of acti o n as for his own ; and will defend it against invasion W hile ” 5 5 . t th he refrains from invading it himself Such fac s as ese ,

as e evolu declares Spencer , stamp erron ous the notion that the tion of mind by the inherited and cumulative eff ects of racial experiences cannot result in moral sentiments and correlative ’ r moral principles which a e universal and enduring . Man s whole social history proves the contrary . It is clear that Spencer draws nourishment for a healthy though

n o mod ified O ptimism from Nature herself . H e recognizes deep rooted antagonism between nat ural processes and the social prog

o f a ress man . Furthermore he denies that all adv ncement de

o n a e pends n tural sel ction , and therefore he combats the widely discussed theory of Wei ssman that acquired characters cannot i n

fluen — ce . the cells of the germ plasm Such a view , he feels , has a profound bearing upon social and ethical questions . For i f the natures of any large social group are modified by transmiss ion of the e fte cts produced by the institutions and ideals o f the social

o o f environment , then these agencies can render the evoluti n 5 6 e In humanity more rapid than natural selection alon . the “ m ” essay entitled Weissmanis Once More, Spencer urges that , since all the higher sciences are dependent o n the scien ce of life and must have their conclusions vitiated if a fundamental

o datum given to them by the teachers of this science is errone us , it behooves these teachers not to let an erroneous datumpass current ; they are called on to settle this vexed question one way ” 5 7 r H i s o anothe r . own position he states in Factors of Organic “ Evolution as unreservedly in favor o f the theory that the i n heritance o f functionally produced modifications takes place uni ”15 8 er all v s y.

‘4 . i . 1 8. O c t . 6 p , p 55 Ibid . 5° i n c c C . c to of O c v u S f Prefa e Factors rgani E ol tion , Essa ys ientifi S cu l l c l 6 . pe ative and Po iti a , I , p . 4 4 5 7 o 8. C ntemorar Revi ew Vo l . . 60 p y , LXVI , p 5 " 2 Se o c s o f 1 . . . e l Essays , p 4 3 als Prin ip e Biology , II , § 3 4 1 2 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

The optimism of Spencer regarding the harmony that may exist be tween Nature and her more vigorous off spring is tempered by recogn ition of the pain and loss involved in the whole process o f

evolution . After chi ldhood is left behind and the youth enters

o i n up n adult life, no mistaken sympathy should be allowed to terf ere with the education gained through struggle with the actual of conditions life . Such an interaction is essential to the vigor ous of H development both the individual and the race . ere Spencer conceives of Nature as a stern but ultimately beneficent

- e task mistress of humanity , eliminating the weaklings , but d velop u ing intellect al and moral power in the survivors .

c o ro Like the development of the individual , so ial evoluti n p ceed s through natural causes In hi s Principles of Sociology ” The o i and likewise in his little essay on S cial Organ sm , Spencer draws a detailed analogy between the development of society f . o o and the individual organism B th, in the course evolution ,

are characterized by increase in mass and complexity , together 5 9 T th with greater mutual d ependen ce . rue to his belief in e edu f cative influence o free interacti on with environing conditions , Spe ncer insists that the State should exercis e no more control over its members than is necessary to the preservation of its i n te ri g ty . Paternalism in government inevitably hinders and com

plicates development, in societies as in individuals . In social life the reward of every citizen should be proportioned to his " 0 t ffi . wor h, his prosperity should be adjusted to his e ciency And this can only be brought about i f the struggle for su rvival be n o more hamp e red by social g uardianship than is essential to securi ty d an order . The are ethical views of Spencer , like his social philosophy , d e grounded in biology and psychology . Fundamental in moral v e10 pment are the principles of sympathy and benevol ence ; yet these are the products o f the struggle and pain of unnumbe red h of mi . t e pri tive generations In earlier stages life , the brute im st ruggle for existence nourishes egoism . But the altruistic

t . pulses , springing from sympathy , slowly develop in streng h h e Appearing first under t e form of care for the helpless , th se feel

f S O m c t . . 0 6 l c o f o n o c o . i C . Essay ial rganis , p , p 3 ; a so Prin iples

c l 8. So io ogy , § 44

o f So c . 2 2 . Prin . , § 3

1 24 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

th It may , perhaps , impress e student of Spencer as somewhat inconsistent that the leading evolutionist of his age should write thus confidently of a state of soc ial and ethical perfection in which ideal beings are con stan tly engaged in pursuits inherently to noble and directly designed promote the general welfare . It ‘ may well be asked what guarantee nature afi ord s that any such e quilibrium between egoism and altruism , inclination and ideal , will ever be attained . If the ultimate term in nature be Force, a a reve ling itself, not in an equilibrium of energies , but i n o rhythmic pr cess of change , development , decay , by what right does any individual holding this view speak of a perfect future state o f humanity and of an absolute ethics Do not these

a ? To be two conceptions present fundamental antithesis sure, nature i s responsible alike for selfish impulses and for benefi cent

o - n ones . M reover she has developed self consciousness in o e

- o th phase of her all embracing life . But d es e struggle for exist on ence the plane of the physical , the social , the ethical , hold out to man any hope that definite limits may be assigned to it ? o o f o n D es it not rather suggest that a state c nflict , produced whe — ever organized habits are confronted with novel conditions a state followed by more or less successful accommod ations of

o — be organism and envir nment is of the very nature of life , it or ? physical , or mental , social moral of the In view the fact that Spencer lays down the principle , at t ” m outse of his Synthetic Philosophy, that Force is the ulti ate n n a e symbol by which man co ceives of a Power in itself unk ow bl ,

' his n atural i 5 w a Although unreservedly a naturalist in his general method and ’ a himto point of view , Spencer s deep hum nistic interest impels dream of an idealized humanity and even to leave the d oor aj ar

the od . for the restoration of old g s to their temple For, although ’ r of to Spencer s intelligence , there could be no satisfying wo ship

o r t \ a Deity wh se attributes were forever shrouded in myste y , ye many anoth e r mind might accept his theoretical position whi le deriving Spiritual satisfaction from a continuance of the old re i l gi ous rites . An unknowable God at least has reality and thus can be pictured by the imagination and adored by the heart o f man . During the closing decades o f the nineteenth centu ry the issues o f naturalism and humanism were more sharply defined than ever Confli ct i n the Ni neteen th Cen tury 1 2 5 before and the conflict between these world - views grew propor

i ll of t ona y bitter . In Germany a revolt again st the extremes

n T M ol eschott Bii ch er. Romanticism was led by Vogt , and aking

e their stand upon the established facts of science , thes men preached a doctrine of unadulterated materialism . In their view the law of the conservation of energy is the ultimate principle from which all conceptions of the univers e must take their rise . But in the breasts of these extrem e materialists there burned a flame of humanistic feeling which led Bii chn er to protest against the confusion of materialism as a method and world - view with a e materialism in rel tion to the guidance o f life . Whil the ma te ri ali st asserts that the noblest emotions and the lo ftiest ideals o to are essentially functions of matter , yet he acc rds them their full value in the evolution of a worthi er humanity . In sharp opposition to the We ltans chauung of the materialists is that of the modern idealistic school represented by Messrs .

c ' an d fi H e Royce and Bradley mtwo Cairds . umanists to th i r ’ o f hearts core , these contemporary representatives idealism find it impossible to conceive of an external nature save in relation to a con scious subj ect . A leading representative of the schoo l ’ ’ " The e writes thus words obj ectivity , obj ect , carry with th m ’ ’ e to as their inseparabl correlatives subj ectivity , subj ect , and ask us to conceive of an obj ect which is out of relation to a sub ect i n a j , is to ask us to conceive of that which is given only rel tion as existing ou t of relation— of that which has no meaning o f o save in and for consciousness , as existing outside consci u s H ence the notion of a systemof nature aining itsel I l ete dent of consciousn ess S a p illusion , for ” thought or intelligence is presupposed in all obj ective reality . To be sure man does not create the thought which is in nature and humanity ; rather does he discover a rationality independent

hi The of himself to which s reason readily responds . history o f science is the history o f mind or intelligence finding itself in N ow e , since reason is impelled to discover b yond the can flux of phenomena an enduring unity , an absolute reality . it not seek here any more than in the world of sense an obj ect out F r i of all relation to thought . o that which s at once the pre

o C r r u o l . 2 1 . J hn ai d , An Int od cti n to the Philosophy of Re igion , p ‘ 7 it . 2 2 . O . c . p , p 1 2 6 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Hu mani sm

suppositi on and the final goal o f thought is not and cannot be an

a o o f Absolute which is simply the neg ti n thought , but rather that which comprehends all finite things and thoughts only because it T ” 6 8 is itself the Unity of hought and Being. It is o f the very

o f nature this Absolute to realize itself, not alone in the exte rn al world but in the hi ghest degree in the self- consciou s life of a a hum nity . And the awful gr ndeur surrounding the idea of the e m Absolute Reality aris s fro the belief, not that it is forever

unknowable , as Spencer would have us think , but that it is for human consciousness the realization o f its noblest ideal o f spi ritual T excellence . hus, once more man places himself at the apex of existence and surveys with a lofty serenity the w orld of nature

- which is merely the obj ective aspect of his own thought life . B ec aus e he is the highest manifestation of the Absolute he can “ discover in nature that rational plan , in all thinking things , all ” obj ects of all thought , which has been working itself out through the ages to its proximate culmination in himself . All further progress can only consist in the development of his finite i ntelli gence and will into closer likeness to that of the Absolute of which

it is a feeble expression .

T rn l - the antithesis between these two world conceptions , thus h ' bri cfl su e sted seems com lete . Bot in s ir hod

— r they are antagonistic . One school rev eals that deep rooted e

e of the idealist . Science has laid bare the m chanism of a world M i n gradual process of evolution from chaos to relative order and organization . In the course of that development creatures have been produced having the capacity to reg ulate their adj ustments b to external conditions by intelligence . In human eings this

capacity for intelligent adaptation seems gr eatest . But nowhere in the u nbroken nexus of cause and eff ect can the sci entist dis — cover anything more than Kraft und S taff matter in process of change by means of its own inherent energy . And this change is by no means always in the direction of higher organization and o mo re complete adaptation . Retr gression and decay are facts of evolution as ultimate as that which we call progress . By what

' right does man set himself up as lord o f the universe ? The con

. i t . c . 2 . O p , p 3

1 2 8 The Confli ct of N atu rali smand H umani sm

Professor William James has compared the temperament and attitude of the empiricist and the rationalist in such wi se as to i . 1 m bring into clear relief their str king contrasts 1 1m , a

minded opponent , on the contrary , li ious N . e g , W ow Mr James clearly r cog “ w . mizes that the naturali stic spirit is in the ascendant in this year o f

our 1 1 0 . Lord , 9 But he also takes note of the fact that this

spirit , as expressed in crude materialism , is far from spiritually h satisfying to t e reflective man . If the thoughtful individual r tu ns to the idealist, however , for satisfaction of his inward

fo r fo r e a craving spiritual values , he pays his escap from m terial

The ism by losing contact with the concrete parts of life . more absolutistic philosophers dwell on so high a level of abstraction ” 7 1 a N o th t they never even try to come down . w the reflective minds of the present day demand a philosophy of life which com bines the devotion to facts characteri stic of the naturalist with that reverent faith in ideal values which marks the humanistic

creed . Such a philosophy, it seems to the writer , is furnished

by that much misunderstood , much berated theory of reality,

truth and moral worth which passes by the name of pragmatism . It will be the purpose of the concluding chapter of this study to attempt a reconciliation o f the conflicting attitudes of naturalism ’ an d humanism by recours e to the pragmatist s explanation o f two of nature and o f human li fe . If this philosophy can satisfy the deepest needs of human nature— the need for demonstrable — truth and the need for spiritual values by a consistent theory of the o f meaning and worth existence, it thereby approves itself as the soundest philosophy upon which to ground a general theory

of education . a But before this final task is attempted , it will be desir ble briefly to trace the shaping influence of humanism and naturalism upon educational principles and practice from the Renaissance to the

present time .

7 ° - m . 1 0 1 . r m . P ag atis , (ed pp 3

cit . 1 . Op . . , p 9 CHAPTER V

HUMAN ISM AND NATURALISM IN EDUCAT ION In the preceding chapters the word humanism has been used in its broadest philosophical sense to signify that world attitude which tends to interpret the universe in terms borrowed o f from the consciousness man , and to identify the goal toward which all things are supposed to move with the spiritual advance T ment of humanity . hroughout the present discussion , however , the term humanism will be employed in its more customary usage to indicate that type of classical education which flourished o f with small let or hindrance , from the age the Italian Renais — sance until well nigh the middle of the nineteenth century . Slowly and most reluctantly this conception o f education has yielded ground to the militant educational philosophy of naturalism , unti l in some places to - day it finds itself on the defensive in a struggle he . t to maintain its position in the curriculum What, then , are o f significant facts in the origin and development humanism , and what influences have been at work to draw the sharp line o f demarcation between the sciences and the humanities so notice able at the present time ? a o f o After the dec y the civilizations of Greece and R me , bar barian Europe required an interval o f growth covering a thous and years before it had attained the intellectual statur e necessary to understan d and appreciate the remn ants o f pagan culture it

h ad . carelessly preserved But when the hour was fully come , when the autonomous city- states of Italy had nou ri shed a vigor ous - n citizen body , kee and alert in mind and sensitive in aesthetic

e - t mperament , then , once more , the treasure houses of Greek and T Latin thought were Op ened wide to an eager throng. urning wi th disgust from the en dless disputati ons o f Averroists and A ri stotelians , the leading minds of Italy sought refreshm ent in the recovered literatu res of those pagan civilization s which they own O n gratefully recognized as vastly superior to their . e by

1 2 9 1 30 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d Human i sm

o ne the great writings of antiquity were recovered from musty comers ; the various manuscripts were compared and edited with enthusiastic zeal ; and the completed works were once more put within the reach of minds prepared to assimilate their conten ts

to the F or and to apply their ideals the life of fifteenth century .

it should never be forgotten that , in its inception , the Renaissance was a far broader movemen t than the mere revival o f classic The e culture . int llectual , emotional and aesthetic life of the

t had o f I alian republics been quickened , the sense personal power e and worth profoundly deep ned , by their varied political and ” h economic activities . More and better life " was t e watchword o f as the the age ; and the pagan writings , sounding, they did , of the e heights and depths human nature , and covering whole wid e gamut of human interests , satisfied the de p craving of the age for a richer spiritual experience than was furnished by the out h worn culture o f t e Middle Ages . It was becaus e the Greeks and Roman s had trod before them the paths leading to knowledge ’ o f man s inmost nature , and had blazed in clear letters the prin

ci l es a - p of political , soci l and moral well being, that the merchant princes an d self- made despots of Italy followed so eagerly in h . e t e their trail Mor over , as has frequently been pointed out,

Italian humanists , great and small , felt a deep , instinctive response of h the t eir whole nature to sonorous rhetoric and vigorous , clearly comprehensible thought o f the late Republic and the Au T gustan age . hese virile thinkers whose masterly style brought exquisite aesthetic . satisfaction to the Ren aissance scholars , were e own — o f a e th ir progenitors , the noble ancestors the It lian p ople , whose highest ambition it should be to restore som e semblance o f the political and intellectual splendor that once was Rome . ” The term humanitas , then , did not at first refer primarily to f literature but to life . In the words o a famous humanist of the e fift enth century , Learning and training in Virtue are peculiar ’ H to man ; therefore our forefathers called them umanitas , the ” 1 pursuits , the activities proper to mankind . But he quickly adds " And no branch of knowledge embraces so wide a range i of subj ects as that learning ( . e . classical literature) which I ” have now attempted to describe .

1 w r u O Do ce n d i e t S tud e n d i . b W B . G arino , De rdine ; trans y ood a d

in F . 1 . Vittorino da eltre , p 77

1 32 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

The of E e o o universities urop , given ver as they were t the t e apotheosis of Aristo le and Averro s , offered but scant hospi to of H e tality the devotees the new learning, ence it cam about that it was in the papal chancelleries of Nicholas V and X o f o of N f Leo and in the courts Alf nso aples , Frederick o the S a ha Urbino , the Medici , forza and the M ntuan princes t t H humanism found a congenial home . ere state correspondence was carried on by the leading humanists of Italy in their capacity a as pap l or princely Secretaries . Faultless Latin style char acteriz e o f ffi a d most this correspondence , both o ci l and private . t Indeed , few letters were writ en by humanists in those days which were not intended for immediate or ultimate publicity . T o f o o his intense admiration R man orat ry , especially that of f Cicero, was revealed in the earnest e forts of every humanist to

- excel in this new fi eld of self expression . As envoys to foreign w governments , as public speakers designated to elcome visiting a d fi princes , as newly ppointe of cials , those versed in Latin eloquence were given ample opportunity to display the breadth and exactness of their classical scholarship and the peculiar felici

t . n and ties of heir style Soo the emphasis upon forcible , varied o f graceful expression , according to the accepted canons Latin f . or style , received marked and increasing emphasis Indeed , more than two centuries the humanists took the position that Latin was and must remain the only language worthy to be f H the instrument o literature . ence a strong pressure was bro ught to bear against all misguided poets who attempted to s voice their sentiments in the Tuscan tongu e From the end of the fourteenth century Cicero was universally acknowledged f t as the mod el o pure Latin prose . Both le ters and orations were patterned more or less slavishly after his style in both vocab f ulary and phrasing . By the close o the fifteenth century the admiration of Cicero had reached such e xtremes that every word or phrase which his usage did not sanction was pe r l a e emtori . w s a d p y rej ected It such d adening imit tion , estructive of all individual thought and expression which drove Erasmus i n he i cero ans Th to write his famous sat re o t C m . us the original

f self «assertive of d of Spirit o individualism , evelopment personal i n the e of t and s force and talent s rvice art , le ters ociety , led l n w o on the e to u timately , whe the h le movement was wan ,

Cf h d h c i n 2 2 ff rc r s . . . Bu k a t , T e Renais an e Italy , pp 5 Humani smand N aturali smi n Educati on 1 33

artifices of i of as expression , skilful imitat on things worthy a 4 f or r substitute becoming wo thy , an f u o o al Such awakening o intellect al and em ti n life, happily of combined with the restoration a great literature, speedily f u brought about a changed co nception o education . In s ch

t as en w mi m cen ers Florence , V ice , Padua , Ferrara , here hu an s

e ne was bo flourish d , a w educational philosophy ela rated and new type s o f schools were founded by the humanists themselves . Prominent among these expo nents of a new education were

i - Ver er us e re . Paulus g , Guarino da V rona and Vittorino da Felt The former, in his influential work entitled De Ingenuis ” M o ribus ca o f f or , went far to shape the edu tional thought Italy Hi s more than a century after his death . essay , with the newly e s of set the an o f a discover d treati e " uintilian , st dards hum nistic e n ducatio followe d by all the l eading Italian educ ators . A o f a o o f c study this work will mply repay the hist rian edu ation , since it sets forth all the controlling interests and ideals o f

a f The e i to this ge o spiritual renaissance . tr atise s addressed Ubertinus son of , the younger Francesco Carrara , the lord of Ver eri us o hi s Padua . g c ngratulates the young patrician upon ad d o f desire to to the career arms traditional in ( his) family , an equal success in that other great discipline of mind and o f a e a character , the study Both c re rs ppeal to men of nobl e spirit and both lead to fame and honor in the “ To a the wo rld . ruler art of oral and written expression is no slight advantage in negotiation wheth er in public or private E of concerns . specially in administration the state , when inter o f a t vals rest and privacy are accorded to prince , how mus he value those m eans of occupying them wisely whi ch the knowl edge of literature aff ords to It should be the highest

“ d of son e n ma uty a parent to train his in sound l ar ing, that he y win distinction for his name and bring honor upon his native ar a s f city . Such e the im o humani stic education at its best to equip young men of birth and breeding fo r the attainment of s l s of ocia , political and intellectual di tinction , in an age brimful s r e and r the mi d n timulating oppo tuniti s , to en ich n with lear ing

w c W o ar Ed c du 6 . o d d , u ation ring the Renaissan e , p . ’ For of Ve r ri us r W w rd e d a. translation g t eatise see ood a , Vittorino r 6- 1 1 8. Felt e , pp . 9

O . cit . . 1 0 . p , p 4 1 34 The Confli ct of Naturali smand Humani sm

’ f F r against the approach o age . o once more A ristotle s ideal “ ” of of l h s f T the noble use eisure a seized the mind s o men . hus Vergerius urges the study of humane letters as a spring of ” e 7 int rest for a leisured life .

t er erius Like many another humanis ic educator , V g urges that di li gent study be made of the temperament and tastes of the

yo uth to be educated . Bent of character may be recogn ized T in early years and should guide the work of the teache r . his prescription was faithfully carried out by Vittorino in his school

a the t hi -s at M ntua , with resul that few of s student did not receive from him definite and well directed assistance in o attaining distincti n in their future careers . Such study of tempe ramental tendencies was felt by most humanists to assist the of of instructor in the moral education youth , a branch training which was never lost sight of by the Renaissance educators . Vergerius next considers those studies rightly included in a e complet education . In this connection he frames that definition of liberal studies which embodies the noblest conceptions o f t li ber of humanism . We call hose studies al which are worthy the fre e man ; those studies by which we attain and practice r virtue and wisdom ; that education which calls fo th , trains and develops those highest gifts o f body and of mind which c to r n ennoble men , and whi h are rightly j udged a k next in ” t 8 l dignity to vir ue only . It wil be seen that , like the Greeks “ Ver eri us e u and Romans , g restricts a lib ral ed cation to the free

c t . man , to the favored hild of fortune with weal h and leisure And this restriction has clung to humanistic education from da his y almost to the present time , giving to it that character o f class prerogative so marked in the traditions o f English ed ucation . l Ver erius In naming those studies which are tru y liberal , g accords first place to history o n grounds both of its attractive n and to ess its utility , qualities which appeal equally the scholar and to the N ext in importance rank moral phil “ to men o f rue osophy , which is designed teach the secret t ” and so to the freedom , eloquence , which enables us present

7 ci t . . 1 0 Op . , p 4 . ‘ 1 0 2 . Ibid , p .

d 1 0 6 . Ibi , p .

1 36 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Hu man i sm

although his renowned father was the first mod ern to grappl e

o f s with the problem ancient geography . At the advanced age of ev

ent - of and of y nine , Guarino Verona corrected translated the text “ o the H r Strabo , c mpleting great work in three years . alf a centu y “ E of later , rasmus , dreaming his favorite dream a republic of ” of E enlightenment, which should include all the nations urope , made one by the po ssession of a common classical and Christian f culture , showed scant sympathy toward the investigatio n o a nature . So marked w s the indiff erenc e of this master humanist of the North that Luthe r was moved to fling a bitter j ibe at his opponent " Erasmus is indiff erent and does not care h to know how fruit is developed from the germ . But by t e grace of God we already r ecogn ize in the most delicate flower f the wonders o divine goodness and omnipotence . E o rasmus passes by all that , takes no account of it , and l oks ” 1 5 upon extern al obj ects as cows look upon a new gate . e r riu But to return to V ge s. Like most of the earlier Italian

humanists , our author accords a high place in the education of t his bo a prince o the arts of war . From earliest years a y e x must be gradually inur d to privations and grave e ertion , to enable him to bear strain and hardship when he reaches man

Luxury only enervates mind and body alike , while

exertion f ortifie s both and devel ops courage and endurance . Therefore as soon as a boy is able to use his limbs let him be trained to arms . Let him learn the art of the sword , the cut , the thrust and the parry ; the use of the shi eld ; o f the spear ; of ” 1 7 the club ; training either hand to use the weap on . Further

more let him be exercised in running, j umping, wrestling, boxing, f or archery and horsemanship , by variety of exercise the youth ” r may be made ready for combat hand to hand o in troop . With this bodily training should go instructi on in the principles of generalship , strategy and tactics , that the futu re leader may have that calmness and confidence which belong only to himwho has a Th n thoroughly learned his rt. e emphasis upo bodily exercise , v n ot only for its future utility but for its physical and moral alue,

1‘ W w d c o u s . . ood ard , E u ati n d ring the Renais ance , p 33

L on c . 1 6 . Painter, uther Edu ation , p 3 1° O . 0 t . . 1 1 . p 1 , p 3 ‘ 7 t 1 1 . ci . . O p . , p 5 H umani smand N aturali smi n Ed ucati on 1 37 is found in the educational treatises of all the fifteenth ce ntu ry

S e of Italian writers . Aeneas ylvius d votes the first part his work De LiberorumEducati one to a discussion o f the proper care

e o f e o d and developm nt the body , ev n going int etails respecting

T o food , drink and clothing. hese things , however , are w rthy of regard only so far as they are indispensable to the vigorous activity of body and spirit " all beyond that is triviality or eff emin ” 1 8 The o acy . early and m re vigorous humanism , then , departed entirely from the Middle Age view of the essential evil o f the

e . body , nec ssitating its rigid suppression and n eglect Something of the Greek ideal of the harmoniou s development of a beautiful body as the home of a gracious an d well- dev eloped soul animated f the minds of the humanists o the " uattrocento . One further aspect of the humanismof the Italian Renaissanc e r the may claim ou attention for a moment . In sympathy with eager d esire for self- expression and personal distinction so char acte ri stic o f i s the period , marked attention given by many writers s f a to habit o dress and manner and to details of courtly beh vior . Both Ve rgeri us and Aeneas Sylvius pay slight tribut e s to this o a e ex osi aspect of humanistic education , but its m st appreci tiv p tion may be found in the Il Cortegiano or the Doctrine o f o t a 1 28 T C ur esy , written by B ldasarre Castiglione in 5 . his influential wo rk was animated throughout by the Re naissance “ of idea that personality is one complex morals , intelligence , E o or e emotions and activity . very m vement every attitud of e o f the body , every gesture , ev ry detail graceful and becoming ’ asti lion e s the a dress reveal the inner man . C g Courtier was ide l th personality as conceived by humanism . In an age when e Cou rt E u throughout urope was the dominating force in social life , p . holdi ng the highest standards of intellectual and political achieve ol ment , the Cou rtier had an important r e to play as director and o f hi s e re adviser Princ , serving him in all ways which may n T -t d o u d to his honor and interest . herefore he mus 20 be of be skilled in Arms and Letters , and must master the arts o f F r be no pleasing address . o in a true Courtier there should discord between character, intelligence and action .

1 ° oo w r o . cit . . 1 0 . W d a d , p , p 4 f 1 0 1 o u b . C . O d The Book the o rtier, trans y p yke , 9 2° O t . . . ci . p , p 5 9 1 38 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

The m preceding discussion , incomplete and frag entary though

it be , may perhaps bring into clearer relief the intellectual breadth

and the moral and social trend of humanism in its vigorous prime . The princely school of Vittorino da Feltre at Mantua aff ords convincing evidence of the splendid results that can be accomp li shed of under the stimulus the highest humanistic ideals , and o o e H in a s ciety where the orator has an important r l to play . ere were gathered not only the sons of Italian rulers but promising i s n H children of the m ddle cla s , desig ed for professional life . ere first in modern times was worked out the Greek ideal of a har moniou s Th and complete education of body , mind and spirit . e e rare and lovable personality of Vittorino himself, combin d with his single - eyed devotion to intellectual and moral excellence as

expressed in the service of the state , animated the entire work

of the school . But these worthier ideals and practices of humanism were on h The the wane in Italy by the opening of the sixteent century . enthusiasm for the enrichment of human life and for a truer e understanding of human natur , which had made the literatures of Greece and Rome but a means to the attainment of a noble Th . e purpose, was ebbing away tendency to make the mere mas ter e the y of the anci nt tongu es the test of educated man , and to put showy rhetorical accomplishment before eff ective social an d

intellectual achievement grew apace . In the cl osing years of the

fifteenth century the Renaissance movement , shorn of its first

t o . streng h , swept n rth of the Alps Carried into France by the o f X II victorious armies Charles VIII and Louis , it encountered

the o o f bitter opp sition the University of Paris , where theology

had sat enthroned since the days of Albertu s Magnus and St . the T . homas Aquinas But, under the patronage of young King

e . Franci s I , humanism slowly made its way into g neral favor The College de France began its career in 1 530 with the estab

li shment H w , by its royal founder , of chairs in Greek and ebre , i Budé and later in mathematics and Lat n . Guillaume , made l 1 22 ff o Roya Librarian by Francis in 5 , was unwearied in his e rts to spread throughout the lengt h and breadth of France the civil

izing and ennobling influences of humanistic learning. At his death in 1 540 humanism had won the day against the scholastics and obscurantists of the universities and was transforming the the e e intellectual life o f the French people . As in Italy , mov m nt

1 40 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

o E to all and learning was c extensive with civilization . Yet ras mus was far too wise to dream that the political system and the culture of the Roman Empire could be reproduced in the Europe of the sixteenth century . Rather did he long to combine a com prehensive and thorough kn owledge of ancient literature with sound Christian learning, which last he felt could be rightly under stood only i n connection with the thought - life o f the pagan world in which it had developed . From the study of classical literature ’ E o of rasmus l oked for a broadening men s interests , a stimulation of their rational power , a wider dissemination of sound learning. to Yoked with a purified Christian doctrine , pagan thought was reform flagrant social evils and lift the life of humanity to a wo rthier plane than it had ever been able to reach since the decay of imperial Rome . Thus ignoring mathematics and the newly developing sciences of cosmography and astronomy as lacking in human interest , Erasmus regards pagan and Christian literature as the only suit able material for education . Language claims first place in the order of studies and from the outset should include ” both Greek and Latin . For within these two literatures are contained all the knowledge which we recognize as of vital im ” 22 H . portance to mankind . ere is the fine essence of humanism u E Yet , broad as are the ed cational views of rasmus , they lack something of the comprehen sive and gracious spirit of early To a Italian humanism . be sure he urges that learning is but ffi to means to e cient living, that no man is born himself , but 23 to his country and his God ; moreover he maps out a wide field of classic literature to be read with intelligen ce and appreciation that it may furnish the material for graceful and eloquent expres ’ E o f sion . But rasmus s scheme education omits elements that w e re fundamental in the work o f Vittorino . Bodily grace and vigor as in itself a worthy thing, makes no appeal to him . Only as intimately related to the health of the mind and soul can the E body claim any care and attention . Furthermore rasmus has little appreciation f or the charm and won der of nature in her ” -ne Studii visible forms . In the De Ratio he classes natural o r com science , mathematics , ge g aphy and astrology all under the

'

m . 1 . n Stud i i . i n W dw r 6 De Ratio i , trans oo a d s Eras us , p 3 33 it . . 1 8 . In stituen d i s o . c De Pueris , p , p 7 H umani smand N aturali smi n Educati on 1 4 1 mon term res and feels that their understanding dep ends wholly

u . upon a grasp of the ancient lang ages For , like most of the humanists of his day, he recognizes no sound and organized knowl edge concerning natural phenomena other than that to be culled from Greek literature . And when one considers that naturalism was in its earliest infancy, even if it could be said to exist at all ’ E f to in rasmus s day , his position is not di ficult either understand o or to j ustify . Yet it remains true that Vittorin found room in his curriculum for special treatment o f the quadrivial studies ; ” whereas Erasmus regarded them as forms of eruditi o or in formation necessary to be imparted to the student in order that the ancient writings should be better comprehended . Nowhere is it suggested that observation o f natural e vents might furnish a new and valuable source of knowledge in addition to classical ’ E learning. And rasmus s attitude expresses the tendency of the I - o f age . Finally , a whole hearted appreciation the sheer beauty of classic thought and style never inspired Erasmus to the degree Th m . e that it ani ated the Italian humanists sober , ethical and religi ous character of the German Renaissance was brightened by littl e genuine aesthetic enthu siasm . But this limitation was so also a safeguard , since the Germans did not fall completely as did their Italian contemporaries into the absurdities of

Ciceronianism . The Renaissance movement first stirred English thought in the

G roc n closing years of the fifteenth century , when y and Linacre returned from a soj ourn in Italy full o f zeal for the dissemination

- of the new learning . Both had drunk at the fountain head of humanism in an age when Lorenzo de Medici was the generous patron of scholarship and when the Platonic Academy was exer

cising a potent influence in the spread of Greek culture . Linacre had even enj oyed the rare good fortune of sharing with the sons f n o f o Lorenzo the instructio the renowned humanist Politian . 1 E Returning to Oxford about 493, these nglish pioneers began the great work of introducing an enlightened humanism into the E o universities of ngland . Some years later J hn Colet caught

o f hi s “ fire from the enthusiasm Oxford teachers , and spent some years in France and Italy in study of the great writings of

antiquity , especially the works of the early Christian Fathers . ’

1 1 2 o f . o In 5 , Colet , then Dean St Paul s , founded that fam us schoo l which was destined from its beginning to be a centre of 1 4 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm humanistic education and to furnish an example to the other ” — great Public Schools of England those already established and those soon to be founded— with respect to the proper subj ect “ ” F o r matter of a liberal education . Dean Colet resolutely t e “ ected al l corru ci on a j all barbary , p , all laten dulterate , which bl nde o ignorant y folis brought int this world , an d

e litteratur proclaimed his d sire that his boys be taught good e , b oth laten and greke , and especially those authors as had the Roma n e eli uence o n d wi sdome veray y q j y y with , specially Cris tyn anctours that wrote theyre wi sd ome with clene und chast ”24 laten other ( ei ther) in verse or prose . E E f S arly humanism in ngland , as reflected in the writings o ir T E a e homas lyot and to a less degree of Roger Asch m , k pt in sympathetic touch with the social and political needs of a country in process of development into a vigorous world power . In ’ “ ” El ot s The Governour ub y quaint work Boke named the , p li shed 1 1 o are r in 53 , are sounded the same n tes which st uck over H n and over again by Italian humanists . ere is o mistaken tribute rendered to classical learning for its own sake . At the outset Elyot urges parents of means to educate their sons for “ the ” 25 administrati on of a publike weale . No one appreciated better than himself the great opportunities open to youths of ability and ’ H E of learning in the age of enry VIII , and ngland s sore need E the such men . And if learning chiefly meant to lyot acquisi

o f tion ancient languages and literatures , he was but subscribing to the most enlightened opinion of his age . It should be remem “ bered to his credit that he regarded grammar as but an intro duction to the understanding of autors ” whose writings have sounded the heights and depths o f human capacity and achieve E o f ment . lyot lays out a broad course reading and study in the

o . Latin and Greek p ets , historians and orators In oratory the o f youth should form his style upon the great models Isocrates , “ ” T The Demosthenes and ully . utilitie of such study lies in i a counsail e or th s , that , when he sh ll happe to reason in , shall to o of e speke in a great audience , or strange ambassad rs gr at a n ot constra ned sod a n e princes , he sh ll be y to Speake wordes y ”26 and d esord red but shal bestowe them aptly and in their places . ’ 3‘ ’ S u Sc i n Lif of hn Co l . 2 . Stat utes of t . Pa l s hool , Lupton s e Jo et , p 79 2° 1 8 Vol . . 2 . m G ov ernour C f ed . 8 The Boke na ed the , ro t , 3, I , p 7

. ci t . . 6 . O p , p 7

1 44 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

the brilliant and favored few , becomes a lifeless study of ancient Ed u models with a vi ew to an even more devitalized imitation . cators work o ut logical methods o f instruction in grammar and rhetoric with little regard to the unfolding minds whi ch are som e T how to assimilate this organized knowledge . he path once marked out and delimited by educational pioneers becomes more To deeply worn with each passing generation . write Latin prose to and verse with some approximation classic style , to gain a smattering, or something more , of the Greek language and litera the ture , becomes ideal of the educated world which had known e r eriu E m the broad humanism of V g s and ras us . Methods and

- subj ect matter alike become traditional and crystallized . While the great scientific movement goes on outside of all the established e institutions of learning, little not is taken of its achievements by humanistic teachers who are in full possession of the educa

n l 6 ti o a . 1 field In 44 , after Bacon had made his vigorous appeal for the substitution of an enlightened scientific method and sub e ct d j matter for the lifeless material of the schools , Milton urge that all knowledge of science be gained through recourse to the classic authorities . And in this regard his was the general spirit o f the time ; even though the humanism o f the poet was far more nearly akin to that of its earliest exponents than was the narrow linguistic study of his age . But protestants against this circumscribed view o f what it e so means to educate a man wer not lacking, even early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries . In the writings of Francois o f Rabelais , monk , physician , humanist and keen observer men ff a a and a airs , we find an early ple for re lism in education as opposed to the merely formal study of the classics . In his well ” known Life of Gargantua , overlaid as the thought is with ex

ra a ance t v g and an almost boisterous humor , we catch glimpses ’ k o f the author s insight into the value of scientific nowledge . ’ Rabelais princely gi ant is encouraged to observe the things and processes o f nature as well as to master a vast an d varied amount of classic learning suited to his enormous proportions . After his daily exercise in riding, fencing, wrestling and swimming, he returns with his tutor through the fields and is led to observe f o . the trees , plants and forms life about him Moreover he is provided with all the instruments r equisite for herborizing and daily brings home great han dfuls of plants f or analysis and classi Humani smand N aturali smi n Educati on 1 45

fi i n hi s to cat o . When it is full night he goes with teacher observe o the heavens and to study the figu res , situations , ppositions and o f to conj unctions the heaven ly bodies . At dinn er he is led “ f observe and discourse upon the virtue , propriety , e ficacy and nature of all that was served and if his observations are sup le mented p by the customary reference to the works of the ancients , e extrava their value is not lessened thereby . In charact ristically gant fashion Rabelais voices his revolt against the barren fo rmalm i smo f o ' the educati n of his day , while he urges a more liberalizing study o f the classics and a far more exact and sympathetic obser f f vation o natural phenomena . Now in the matter o the knowl 30 o f edge the works of nature , writes Gargantua to his son “ Pantagruel , I would have thee to study that exactly ; that so

' b ea ri ver n or of there e no s , fountain , which thou dost not know - the fi shes ; all the fowls of the air ; all the several kinds o f shrubs t and rees , whether in forest or orchard ; all the sorts of herbs and flowers that grow upon the ground ; all the various metals that are hid within the bowels of the earth ; together with all the diversity o f precious stones that are to be seen in the orient and T ro the south parts of the ruly a pretty , naturalistic p ’ l own in gram , and one that admirably ref ects Rabelais sincere terest in the vast panorama of nature unfolding ab out him " ’ But Rabelais protest falls upon deaf ears and upon minds

Wholly given up to the worship o f ancient culture . A generation later Montaigne "satirizes the barren scholarship of the pe riod “ ” h . T in his essay Of Pedantry rue humanist as e is , he yet “ deplores the current tendency of that type of edu cation to ff r the c stu the memo y , and leave conscien e and the understanding ” 32 i n . e s ot unfurnished and void Sound l arning , he urges , for external show o r ornament but to ado rn and enrich ( the ) inward

d e ffi min , desiring rather to shap and institute an able and su cient ” man Off man than a bare learned . It is this ideal the well ’ equipped man of aff airs that dominates Mo ntaigne s entire view “ of education . Although he concedes that Latin and Greek are ” e e gr at ornaments in a gentleman , he do s not hesitate to express “ ” are t his Opinion that they purchased at oo high a rate . For the youth who is to be an effi cient member of the s ocial world

- C . L of r u M rl d . o e . 82 f ife Ga gant a ( e y pp 74 . “ r c s of a u l o i t . 2 2 0 2 1 . c 2 . The He oi Deed P ntagr e , p , pp . , O 1 it . . 1 . c l p (Haz itt pp 54 , 5 5 . 1 46 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

of the sixteenth c entury must know both men and institutions

o . at first hand , not al ne through the writings of a bygone age ’ ’ I would have this world s frame to be my scholar s choice b T ook , he proclaims . herefore only the first fifteen or sixteen

e s o . years are due unto p danti m , the rest unt action t a Foreign travel , wi h a wise and discrimin ting tutor, not only “ informs young men regarding the ‘humo rs and fa shions of those ” “ e how countries , but enables them the b tter to know to correct and a o o f prep re their wits by th se of others . In this sch ol o ” ’ o commerce and s ciety among men , the youth s education is to be c ontinued until he learn to suppress all manner of aff ection to undertake any action otherwise than for a public good and ” i s duty . In th s tatement is positive rec ognition of the inalienable relation of all sound education to the needs and purposes o f

human life . The views of M ontaign e struck a responsive chord here and there in the minds of certain men of s ocial prominence who felt that linguistic studv was not the ideal preparation for leaders o c in government and war . As the p wer and prestige of Fran e

e as n e o enormously incr ased , the natio al language gr w int a beautiful and flexible medium of e xpression whi ch became the

co e E n e and o urt spe ch of polite urope , as scientific k owledg meth d

e a a a d e of dev loped p ce , the ttitu the governing classes in France and Germany toward the narrow humani sm o f the schools under o went a profound modificati n . In Paris in the seventeenth

century , the arts of architecture , painting and sculpture flour i shed o , and the developing sciences were hospitably l dged in the new Academy whi ch was destined to shed added l ustre upon the f X I court o Louis V . Frenchmen no longer shrank from a comparison of their brilliant civilization with that of the ancients ; and in the Sphere of science they felt their own age to have a The of to distinct advantage . science Aristotle came be held in l ow esteem by the seventeenth century devotees o f a mathe mati cal physics and mechanics ; and the universities and schools whi ch continued to tea ch an o utgrown scientific knowledge fell

under the ban of their contempt . In like fashion the court circles o f France and Germany looked upon the ro und of instruction in Latin and Greek g rammar and in composi tion in prose and verse as having lo st all vital connection with the stirring life a of the age . Among these c ourtiers new conception of education

1 4 8 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d H umani sm working in silence and with unfl-ag gi ng z eal in obscure nooks and corners throughout Europe .

Popular as were these new types of schools in courtly circles , o ff the vast b dy of educational institutions was una ected by them .

The of gymnasien Germany , the Jesuit schools of France, the

of E endowed Public Schools ngland were all given over , heart

of who off a and soul , to the making young Romans , could turn

e Latin pigram , write a Latin epistle or deliver a Latin oration ’ o e f or in the approved style of Cicer . Bacon s pl a the dissemina and th tion of scientific knowledge method , his attacks upon e

o f verbiage the school s , his arguments concerning the wholesome

?”6 ness of intellectual doubt and the suprem e importance of the ”37 o f i art nquiry or invention did , nevertheless , bear fruit in popularizing science among intelligent and reflective men . While o he was not qualified to j oin the patient pl dders in the field , yet by hi s brilliant and convincing rhetoric he won many adherents to hi s point of view and stirred up certain continental educator s to attempt the application of his philosophy o f knowledge to ques

o f - tions educational subj ect matter and method . Prominent

e was a among th se the Czech preacher and te cher , John Amos

o f n - Comenius . Animated by the ideal organizing a all compre hen si ve system of knowledge in which each part should be seen l in its relation to every other , Comenius yielded but a partia

the o f al legiance to new philosophy natural science . Yet he was in sympathy with the use of the in ductive method when restricted T to the investigation o f natural phenomena . hus he writes " We need standards to which we may bring Things and dogmas con

e cerning them , so that n cessary truths may be readily separated from contingent , useful from useless , true from false . Such a standard the illustri ous Verulam seems to have discovered for N scrutinizing ature , a certain ingenious induction , which is in truth an open road by which to penetrate into the hidden things N h m u se o f ature . Yet e adds at once that the ethod is of small ” i i e hi o f Panso h a . . s e to him in building p , scheme organiz d “ i s o f kn owledge , since it addressed solely to the revelation N ’ T ature s secrets , whilst I look to the whole Scheme of hings

L c m of a i . . Advan e ent e rn ng , Bk II , VIII , 5

X II . Ibid , , 3, XIII H umani sman d Naturali smi n Ed ucati on 1 4 9

( rerum Despite this modified faith i n sci entific

v i n th f method , Comenius was a sincere belie er e stu dy o nature

o by methods according to nature, and was correspondingly p of H posed to the system verbal education then in vogue . e sharply criticized the schools of his day because the y pursued E only intellectual progress and ignored both virtue and piety . ven in this pursuit they had achi eved wretched results since the

e intellect was scarc ly ever nourished by the actual facts , but was

- filled with the husks of words , with a windy and parrot like f ” 3° ff o O . o loquacity , and with the cha pinions Yet the sch ols might be reformed if only sound principles of teaching and of

a learning could be found . If we wish to find “ the o f he remedy for defects nature , writes , it is in nature h f o r erself that we must look it , since it is certain that art can ” 4 0 do nothing unless it imitate nature . S o by a mistake n method of of a analogy with the processes org nic nature , Comenius works out with remarkable accuracy some of the present - day axioms of sound educational method .

t - mt o f Wi h respect to the subj ect at er education , likewise , i H Comenius was out of sympathy with h s age . e urges that if oo th we wish our schools to be truly Christian sch ls , e crowd of Pagan writers must be removed from them . Yet this reformer recognized that, in an age when nearly all learned works were the e o f printed in Latin , and when that language was still sp ech e o international communication , youths must receive som instru

T the e tion in it . herefore , in spirit of compromise , he wrot his ” ” - o — the Li n uarum famous text b oks , Janua g , the Obis Pictus , an d — to c the rest, seeking combine an en yclopedic in formation o f R eali en or ‘ the , real things in the world of nature and of man ,

° with an improved method o f teaching Latin . An analysis of the ” Orbis Pictus makes it clear enough that Comenius was not concerned in this work with genuin e scientific knowledge and method but rather with an all - embracing information which should h o f a sim begin wit the attributes God , le d by connected steps to e o o ple facts concerning astronomy , g ography , z ol gy , botany ,

3“ m Co m u O Didacti ca Om 0 0 1. 2 . s . i n eni s , pera nia , Part I , 43 Tran Ada

of M uc . . son , Pioneers odern Ed ation , p 4 9 3° r c c Keati n e cd . . 8 . G eat Dida ti , g , pp 7 , 79

t . O . c i . 8. p , p 9 1 5 0 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

human nature , the industries , government and destiny of man ,

T n P n and finally to the Last Judgment . his is ot science but a s o hia hi s a The e the p . Yet Comenius , in ch pter on M thod of “ c the m of S iences , urges that com encemen t knowledge must always come from the senses ( for the understanding possesses nothing that it has not first derived from the H e adds “ that science increases in certainty in proportion as it d epends ” n n e o se suous perc ption . But his fundamental thought regarding scientific studies is best summed up in the following words " Whatever is taught should be taught as being of practical appli

i n - T e fi . cation every day lif and of some de nite use hat is to say, the pupil should understand that what he learns is not taken out of o r some Utopia borrowed from Platonic ideas , but is one of d the facts which surroun us , and that a fitting acquaintance with it will be of great service in Thus Comenius was the forerunner o f those militant adherents two of science who , centuries later , forced the strongholds of

ac humanism to open their doors to scientific studies . Yet he complished little , even in the introduction of the real studies into the schools . Generation s passed before Germany awakened to the fact that she was overrating the ancient world at the ex T e o f pense of the present . hen , in the op ning years the eighteenth the H e o e century, Universities of all and G ttingen were transform d

' in method and aim and became the models for the reconstruction The o f of all the universities of Germany . spirit modern science ,

“ the principle of freedom in teaching and i n research , the decay of the ideal of original literary production in classic tongu es , all marked the revolution in thought produced by the extension of “ The o o f scientific knowledge and method . secondary sch ols Ge rmany were slower to respond to changed conditions and 1 H e d needs . It was not until 747 that cker establishe the first

e l . H R als chu e in Berlin ere were taught not only Latin , French c and Ge rman but history , geography , mathematics , mechan i s , drawing an d architecture as well as various industrial branches . The rise into power and influence of the trading and industri al classes in the larger towns and cities created a demand for school s

‘ 1 i . h X X . t c . . O p c , 42 1 8 . Ibid , p . 9

‘ 3 - C l m uc n . 1 1 6 1 2 . f . Pau sen , Ger an Ed ation , Past and Prese t , pp 4

The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

Academies of America introduced the sciences in the first

' f The half o the nineteenth century . first step in the intro duction of natural science into the American Academies is seen T . n e in the emphasis laid on algebra and geometry hen , one by o , “ ” astronomy, natural philosophy , which included physics and E e . R chemistry, and geography wer added ven before the evolu tion a few Academies , here and there, were teaching navigation afi d su rveying .

E c It was in ngland , the stronghold of edu ational conservatism , that the scientific studies waged their hardest battle for recogni tion . In 1 853 the Science division of the Department of Science e T and Art was created under the auspic s of the Board of rade, and the introduction of the teaching of science into secondary ff schools was urgently r ecomm ended . Subsidies were o ered to any place establishing science classes on the results it could show in written examination s ; and payments were made to teachers who had passed the special examination of the Department . After 1 872 organized Science Schools were established which f of ered a course of scientific instruction covering three years . 1 88 so e o f But in 5, tardy was the r cognition the pressing need 4 5 o . of these sch ols , that only three had been organized Th Conditions in the endowed Public Sch ools were no better . e

Report of the Royal Commission under Lord Clarendon , pre 1 86 a sented in 4, st ted that there was little systematic instruction in history and geography at any of the nine Great Public Schools , The T while natural science was almost entirely ignored . aun a to ton Commission , ppointed investigate the education given in E 1 6 the remaining secondary schools of ngland , reported in 8 7 that there was an almost total absence of scientific instruction within their walls , or , indeed , of any sort of instruction other H than classical . Mr . Arthur Leach in his istory of Winchester ” u o College describes , in vivid lang age, the character of the w rk ' ’ done at Winchester in his own day ( 1 863 Wordsworth s m ” “ Greek Gram ar was used which , by way of rendering

obscuri us er obscurum . to p , was written in Latin It remains me to this day the ideal of all that is hideous and hateful in learn ‘ ’ o ing . Another nightmare was the pr duction of vulguses , or Latin epigrams on some given subj ect T hree of these

‘ 5 C u S mof r . 1 8. f . Balfour , Ed cational yste s G eat Britain and Ireland , p 5 Human i smand N aturali smi n Ed ucati on 1 53 hateful things had to be done a week In Junior Part “6 t it was simple tor ure and very useless torture , when one had not the the the dimmest idea of point of an epigram , an d haziest ” 4 7 notions of Latin or quantities Also there were tasks in Latin T prose and verse composition . hroughout the whol e three years E u o and spent in attaining Sixth Book , the nglish lang age , hist ry

i - geography were an untouched reg on . Classics were the be all ”4 8 - o and the end all of our education . French , indeed , was bliga tory , but Mr . Leach describes the lessons in that subj ect as almost worthless largely because French m arks counted not at all with our h the classical marks towards settling places in t e school . “ Science had been introduced under strong pressure from the th Oxford University Commissioners o f 1 857 . But e demands “ o f this unwelcome study were held to be satisfied from 1 857 to 1 862 by a cours e of ten lectures on Saturday afternoon When the Public Schools Commi ssioners criticized this method o f out the 1 8 H e carrying ordinance of 57, the ad Master frankly told the Commissioners that instruction in physical sciences was , who a e a to except for those h v taste , and intended pursue them ” 4 9 or . as amateurs professionally , practically worthless But the Warden of the School finally yielded so far as to compel all Scholars and Exhibitioners to attend a science lecture once a ” The . e week stud nts never took these lectures seriously , and h although there was an examination at the end of t e termM r . ” 5 ° Leach characterizes it as a pure farce . It was such conditions as these that called out the scathing criticisms of Spencer and H uxley and precipitated a bitter con

e e fli t between the adherents of the humanities and the sci nces .

- on E In his well known treatise ducation , Intellectual , Moral and ” Physical , Spencer inveighs against the rude , undeveloped char acter of English education and complains that “ the compara tive worths of diff erent kinds of knowledge have been as yet — scarcely even discussed much less discussed in a methodic way ” 5 1 with definite results Clearly a measure of value o f the rela

4° A Part wa s a division of o ne of the Books o r Classes . ‘ 7 O . c . it . 6 . p , p 4 4 4 8 . 6 Ibid , p 4 5 .

. 68. Ibid , p 4 5 ° Ibid . 5 1 1 1 Ibid , p . . 1 5 4 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

ff tive values of di erent studies was the first requisite . And this Spencer furnishes in the following statement " T o prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to dis charge ; and the only rational mod e of j udging of any educational w ” 5 2 course is , to j udge in hat degree it discharges such function . The im author then proceeds to classify , in the order of their “ o f portance , the leading kinds activity which constitute human ” T life . hese he finds to be the activities concerned in direct self ff i preservation , in acquiring a livelihood , in rearing o spr ng, in the maintenance of social and political relations , and finally the activities which make up the leisure part of life , devoted to the ” 5 3 gratification of the tastes and feelings . In all the first four f modes o activity Spencer shows that science is directly concerned . H ealth may be preserved and the life - span extended by the knowledge an d application of the principles of physi o logy and The hygiene . production , preparation and distribution of com mod iti es , in which nearly all classes are employed , is completely dependent on science in some o f its departments . And the loss from want of this scientific knowledge is frequent and great .

The n ig orance of parents concerning the laws of physical , intel lectual and moral growth has entailed enormous suff ering and n loss of power upon their off spring. Finally all social phe omena are phenomena of life and can be understood only T when the laws of life are understood . hus science lies at the basis of the most important human activities and concerns all ” mankind for all time . Yet , indignantly concludes the author , this “ vital knowledge by which we have grown as a nation to what we are and which now underlies our whole o existence , is a knowledge that has got itself taught in n oks and corners ; while the ordained agencies for teaching have been ” 4 be mumbling little else but dead formulas . It might inferred from this exaltation of science that Spencer ignores the uplifting influences of literature and art which he relegates to the leisure

he hours of life and education . But seeks to reassure us on this so point . For when education and science have been systematized that a preparation for the more essential activities may be made

5’ it . . 1 6 . Op . c , p “3 1 8. Ibid , p . ‘ 4 d . . Ibi , p 44

1 5 6 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm

e e but our whole theory of life has long b en influ nced , con sciously

of or unconsciously , by the general conceptions the universe , ” o 6 ° T which have been forced up n us by physical science . his scientific criticism of life appeals not to authority but to nature .

H e Yet , continues uxley , the purely classical education advocat d

H our by the representatives of the umanists in day, gives n o ink

o f ling all this Scholarly and pious persons , worthy

us of all respect , favor with allocution s upon the sadness of the antagonism of science to their mediaeval way of thinking, which betray an ignorance o f the first principles of scientific i n ve sti ati on for g , an incapacity understanding what a man of science a means by veracity , and an unconsciousness of the weight of est b ” li he 6 1 H s d . scientific truths , which is almost comical Yet uxley is far too libe ral to question the importance of the humanities in

. a education Indeed he s ys , An exclusively scientific training will bring about a mental twist as surely as an exclusively literary “ h . N t e training evertheless , he has only condemnation for ordinary smattering of Latin and Greek as preparation for those who mean to make science their calling or who must enter early upon the business of life . After these brilliant and e ff ective so rties into the camp of the enemy , the battle between the sciences and the humanities

Th e was fairly under way . e adher nts of humanistic education

to o f s urged the importance of Greek clergymen , Latin to lawyer

to of and scholars . Driven further defends the usefulness the

the knowledge they presented , they claimed that classics were

c i o f i i the best introdu t on to the study ph lology , furn shed the

o f soundest instruction in the general principles grammar , and were indispensable to a thorough knowledge of English and other modern languages as well as the l iteratures in those tongues . The moral and asthetic influence of the ancient literatures was further insisted upo n as rendering them of paramount worth a u s educational material . Finally the val e of linguistic study as a training of the mental faculties w as descanted upon with T great seriousness . hese educators , blameless , in most instances , o f of any scientific knowledge psychology, tended to regard the mind as a sort of storage - hous e fo r holding the diff erent kinds

O . cit . . r . p , p 49

1 0 1 1 . Ibid , pp . 5 , 5 H umani smand Naturali smi n Ed ucati on 1 5 7 of e a th of e m ntal power , accumul ted in e study Latin and Gre k , ' n a d givi ng them out at the will of the owner . Perhaps one of the most earnest and able pleas for human i sti c study was made by Matthew Arnold in his essay on

a e a t Liter ture and Science . Lik a true hum nist Arnold asser s “ ” that the goal of education i s to know ourselve s and the world . and , as a means to this end to know the best which has been ” 6 2 H H ux thought and said in the world . e reverts to ’ ley s criticism that a purely classical education gives no inkling of natu re as the expression o f a definite order and n o ”

o f . knowledge of the most important facts life But , replies “ ' r cl l e k f A nold , I would in ude in it rature nowledge o great ” “ T e scientific d iscoveries and m ethods . h re is therefore really

- no que stion between Pro fessor Huxley and me "as to whether knowing the great results o f the modern scientific study of nature is not required as a part of our culture , as well as knowing the ” 6 3 o f products literature and art . A rnold is even ready to admit “ that in natural scie nce the habi t gained of dealing with facts i s al a most v uable discipline , and that everyone should have some ” e 4 i h o experience of t. But e differs sharply from th se educators who would give to science the chief place in education , on the gro und that they leave out o f account the constitution o f human ’ c nature . In Arnold s view human nature is made ri h and strong “ o f e by the power conduct , the power of intellect and knowledg , ” “5 the power of be auty and the power o f social life and manners . These are not iso lated po wers ; rather in mo st of us there is a

n tendency to relate them o e to another . Our instinct for knowl edge leads us to acquir e portions of truth which we are impelled

o ur e fo r our f r to relate to s nse conduct and sense o beauty .

t l he u In his desire ies t strength of the hold of letters upon s . Now some kinds o f knowledge cannot be made directly to serve “ ” T so - cal- e this instinct . hese are the led instrument knowl dges i n which the speciali st delights . As examples Arnold cites mathe

e . mati s , Greek accents and formal logic But he concedes that not o n oo natural sciences do stand the same f ting as these , since i their facts and results are intr nsi cally interesting to most men .

“3

c i n Am . c . Dis ourses eri a , p 9 5 °3 O . ci t . p , p . 9 5 . ‘4 Ibid , p . 99 . 1 0 1 Ibid , p . . The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

Yet when some scientific fact is propounded to us we are still in ” The the sphere of intellect and knowledge . maj ority of men will experience an invincible desire to relate this proposition to the sense in us for conduct and to the sense in us for But the o f i e e this , Arnold contends , men science cons stently r fus T do . e and to hey give us only pieces of knowl dge finally , per

t . a haps , general concep s of the universe But these still rem in kn owledge unrelated to conduct and to beauty and therefore “ ” H . as after a certain while , unsatisfying , unvarying If , uxley

a a m intains , the conceptions of science are to prove f tal to the “ o ur o e n beliefs of f refathers , the n ed of huma e letters to establish a relation between the n ew conceptions and our instinct for ” “7 o ur beauty , instinct for conduct , is only the more visible . How the humanities will ac complish this relation A rnold does h not know . But he is confident t at if letters lose their leading “ place f or a time we shall be brought back to them by our wants ” an d aspirations . In the decade between 1 860 and 1 870 the educational warfare n ri i b etween naturalists a d humanists waxed hottest . Sharp c t ci sms n The were ba died back and forth . humanists accused their O pponents of being grossly utilitarian in point of view Th and incapable o f appreciating the finer things of the spirit . e naturalists reto rted by challenging the statements of thei r adver sarie s as to the cultural results of their na rrow humanistic o st e régime . Granting that some b ys of rong literary bent pass d o t a with moderate success thr ugh the raditional classic l courses , they contended that with the greater number the case was reversed .

Fo r a a the mind , being exhausted with the initial l bors of m stering grammar and imitating stylistic effects , imbibed little indeed o of the inspiration and thought of the literature . More ver , the systemof verse - making in Latin and Greek was characterized “ ” ' end as a demonstrable absurdity . Regarded as an it is con f essedl n n t y i significant ; regarded as a mea s , it is no oriously ” 6 8 unsuccessful . writes Dean Farrar . In scathing language he describes the agoniz-ed and unintelligent eff orts of English “ s o - out t cho l boys to fill pentameters with the particular epi het, ” of or which presents the requisite combination longs and shorts , ,

O . t . 1 1 1 . c i . p , p “7 1 1 Ibid , p . 7. “3 C o n c . 2 0 . f . Essays a Liberal Edu ation , p 9

1 60 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

T u e r t his question , he rather h morously ass ts , whe her we or should be taught the classics the sciences , seems to me , I s i confe s , very like a dispute whether pa nters should cultivate or o r drawing colouring, , to use a more homely illustration , et a r wh her tailor should make coats o trousers . I can only reply no ? an th by the question , why t both C anything deserve e nam e of education which does not include literature and science too ? If there were no mo re to be said than that scientific educati on c to i tea hes us think and literary educat on to express our thoughts ,

not o ? is a m 10 do we require b th And not anyone poor , mai ed , p sided fragment of humanity who is deficient in either ? We are not obliged to ask ourselves wh ether i t is more important to

n or . k ow the languages the sciences Short as life is , and shorter still as we make it by the time we waste we are not so badly off that our s cholars ne ed be ignorant o f the laws and our properties of the world they live in , or scientific men t f des itute o poetic feeling and artistic cultivation . I am amazed at the limited conception which many educational reformers ’ have formed to themselves of a human being s power of acqui i Th . e sa s tion study of science , they truly y, is indispensable ; our present education neglects i-t and they think it impossible to find room for the studies which they desire to o ut encourage , but by turning , at least from general education , H o s t h c now . w those w i h are chiefly cultivated ab urd , hey say , that the whole of boyhood should be taken up in acquiring an e o f e imp rfect knowledge two d ad languages . Absurd indeed ; ’ but is the human mind s capacity to learn , measured by that of Eton and W estmi nster to teach ? I should prefer to see these reformers pointing their attacks against the shameful inefficiency w i c of the schools , public and private , h h pretend to teach these ” 7 1 two languages and do not . And in a short time the position of Mill became the conviction o f educational reformers throughout England . As a result of the e r unfavorable report made by the Clar ndon Commission , conce n ing the meagre curriculum and results in the nine leading endowed

o the o 1 868. sch ols , Public Sch ols Act was passed in By the provisions o f the act these schools were required to make new statutes which should emb ody reforms in both administration

7‘ c . . 1 2 1 . O p . it , pp , 3 H umani smand N aturali smi n Educati on 1 6 1

and instruction . Since that time the sciences have been admitted , e s o f o grudgingly nough at first, to ome degree rec gnition . But although scientific branches are now accorded something like oo their rightful place , the endowed secondary sch ls throughout

E e ngland are still strongly humanistic in sympathy . Littl by has little, however, science everywhere claimed its own , until in E the public secondary schools of France , Germany, ngland and

America it holds honored place in all courses of study . During the latter half of the nineteenth century the enormous develop ment of technical schools and schools of pure and applied science of throughout most of the leading countries the world , bears wit ness to the widespread conviction that science is the chief support

e - of an industrial society . In America , at l ast , the once all power ful humanities have been reduced to a somewhat humble and apologetic role . Now and again reflective men sound a warning against the merely scientific and utilitarian ten dency of T o the age . hey urge that a t o exclusive interest in the fac1 s o r o r o science without interpretation , in specialized vocati nal pur suits will inevitably contract the mental horizon and destroy the graciousn ess and light o f true culture . Already the question is o raised whether our science , in secondary scho ls and colleges , is not too colorless and abstract to take hold of the experience of e has the growing youth . A r cent writer urged that there surely

-a e must lie a realm of sound teachable sciences , ch mistry , a r stu physics , a physiology , that relates itself to and inte prets the ’ o e dent s experience , and , wherever and whenever possible , t uch s ” 7 2 i fearlessly hi s prospective activity . Such a scientific n struction would have a broad human interest and bearing, even while it preserved due regard for exact method and knowledge .

the no Clearly, then , the sciences and humanities have signed o f lasting truce , nor are they laboring together in the spirit mutual

T i n o . oo to co peration often they are set opposition each other, as if the scien ces were remot e from the life of man while the humanities deal t only with human problems and interests to the T exclusion of all reference to nature . his unfortunate antithesis has its roots in a philosophy o f nature and of man which i s o f strongly dualistic in character . It should be the task a sound educati onal philosophy to abolish this opposition and to show

7’ M h m l i n A t nti c M onthl f or 1 0 a la . r. Abra F exner , the y June , 9 9 1 62 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm the intimate relation between the life activities of human beings and the forces of nature which are responsible for them . From ’ i o e th s point of view , man s life l s s continuity and a point of attach n ot o d ee an d ment if ro te d p in natural processes laws . More of over the study nature becomes a formal , lifeless thing if it exclude all reference to the multiform interests and activiti es of of society . As a result this division in thought, the study of the humanities tends to produce the man of culture in the sense e of the polished man , mor widely acquainted with the thoughts an d achievements of gen erations past than with the forces at work in his own age ; whi l e the pursuit of the sciences too frequently develops the narrow technician or specialist lacking in breadth of human interest and knowl edge . o o f e In the cl sing chapter this study , the attempt will be mad to present a philosophy of nature and man which will eliminate

so n a e the dualism prevale t in educational thought , and will m k possible a reconciliation of the attitudes of n aturalist and human

- to—be- d ist . If this much desired end is ever accomplishe , it will result in harmonizing the discordant elements of our presen t - day curriculum and in bringing about a higher degre e of unity in the aim and method of education .

1 64 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm

o f o f alon e of science but a growing body philosophers . And this distaste seems rooted in the conviction that whatever trans cend s immediate experience or cannot be shown to form part of a future possible experience has no bearing upon the interests an d concerns of human life an d may therefore be neglected with

entire impunity . ’ But science has wrought a further change in man s conception nd a l . i of the tru e the rea Physics and chem stry, astronomy and geology all have contributed their share to the idea of a world o f in continuous flux , in process transformation into novel forms .

Change, progressive movement , expressing itself through the to b o f medium of material things , seems e the primary datum

reality . And now that the theory of evolution has shed its light

into the dark corners of biology , psychology and the social i sciences , we have come more and more to think of nature n Th . e terms of energy , variation , struggle and adaptation study o f organic structure and function reveals always the same preg nant fact " vital impulse is the fundamental term in the organic o f world , and this force , itself the product physical and chemi use cal energies , makes of material organs as its instrum ents in the everlasting struggle for satisfactory adj ustment to variable

o . e environing conditi n s Life , to be sur , is not all of the reality which nature encompasses but it is that aspect with which man m of ust of necessity be mo st intimately concerned . And this form natural energy alone exhibits at the stage o f human life the ca pacity for intelligent and many- sided adaptation to a transitional

environment . i e Such considerations as these , which are cont nually being driv n home to refl ective minds by the conclusions o f science and the o of teachings of experience , have b rn e fruit in the elaboration that modern philosophy of reality and knowledge called prag i T mat sm. hat this latest explanation of the meaning of thought and things has an unsavory odor in the nostrils o f philosophers a o f the older schools cannot be denied . It is mushroom growth, havi ng no claim to consideration on the grounds o f hoary age i s a an d resp ectability . Moreover it dangerously radic l , cutting under the fundamen tal supports of ancient philosophies in order For e to lay a new groundwork . the idealist and the realist alik have conceived of reality as a ready - made and independent thing which it is the functi on of knowledge to represent with what P ragmati c S oluti on of the P roblems 1 65

T he faithfulness it may. o t idealist reality appears as spiritual e e throughout , being indeed the subj ctive and obj ectiv aspects of x u the e perience of an Absolute , conceived as s mming up within T e . o itself all b ing, all truth, all value, to all eternity the realist, on the an contrary , reality is material , as expressed in in dependent e xternal world of things and forces which he infers fromhi s

n al T o e ow perceptu states . hus b th these theories of existenc e th of e e . are brought face to fac with problem knowl dge Why ,

i s i n o o e if reality complete itself, should man struggle t pr duc ? the his imperfect copies Why, if Absolute embraces the totality of n r e e a e existe ce and wo th, should it el ct to xpress itself in finit of a o the m a world cr mping restricti n s , and through mediu of hum n intelligence which i s so impotent to reprod uce it ? These are the i quer es addressed with increasing emphasis to the idealistic camp .

And a similar diffi culty confronts the realist . Why should it be the function of knowledge to reduplicate existing things ? In the " T o f a language of Professor James heoretic truth , truth p ssive of o as not be copying, sought in the sole interests c pying such , a e ood or somethi n c us copying is g f g, but because copying ought schl echthi n to be a to be , seems , if you look at it coldly , an lmost the e preposterous ideal . Why should univers , existing in itself, also exist in copies M oreover is not such a theory of knowl edge wholly out of accord with the scientific view of reality as nam o ? N m dy ic an d pr gressive ow , j ust here, pragmatism co es to the rescue and off ers a theo ry of existence an d tru th that seems n e to sever this Gordian knot at o e strok . And what i s the solution presented by this much contemned philosophy ? First and foremost pragmatismresolutely refuses to regard the external world of obj ects and their relation s as a

- f T o . o complete , self contained reality which is the bearer truth the pragmatist truth does not take up its external abode in obj ects but i s the preci ous product of the interaction o f thought and i n s . n s a things Obj ective existe ce , from this view point , in co t nt process of transformation an d readj ustment and knowledge i s on e most important means of eff ecting beneficent changes in i s fi to see reality itself . It a little dif cult why such a position should arouse the storm of protest which has be en directed not the no against it . Surely most people will deny that k wing

h M n of u . 6 . T e ea ing Tr th , p 9 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Human i sm

set h process has a natural history , forth in t e validated conclu T sions of biology and psychology . his history traces for us the genesis and development of the brain as that organ in the whol e organic structure whose peculiar function it is to effect favorable reactions in all cases where the issue is doubtful and whe re i n telli e nce to o f g may intervene disentangle the web circumstances . But who will say that the results thus accomplished by the act o f knowing are confined solely to the organism? The brute fact o f steam as hot vapor was long familiar to mankind . But when — — the meani ng of steam its enormous expansive energy was worked out by thought in some situation of ten sion , the face of ' e A reality underwent a chang . thousand appliances were devel N oped for harn essing natural things to serve human designs . ot only the economic life but the physical environment of man was T gradually transformed . his seems obvious enough . But the statement that knowledge is a process by which reality reveals e o e own e itself as tel ol gical , as concern d in its betterment , go s ’

ha . deeper t n this Whatever his ultimate destiny may be , man s T life is rooted deep in cosmic and biologic forces . hus the func tion of cognition in the interests of more satisfactory adj ustment as no is , Professor Dewey has pointed out , merely personal and 2 Mo psychological thing ; it is biologic and cosmic as well . re For over the knowing act introduces a new content into reality .

o a with ut the reacting organism , such distinctions as large , he vy , ea edible, good , painful , would never have been made ; and the m n ings thrown out at haphazard by nature in its process of change would never have been caught up an d crystallized in permanen t a and useful modes of reaction . For to discover that a natur l product is heavy or edible or painful is to alter our entire be haviou r toward it in vi rtue of this added meaning given to reality . ’ Th w e pragmatist s view of nature , then , contrasts sharply ith the vari ous theories held by naturalists and humanists in the long e cou rse of history . Since the Renaissance , all these philosoph rs , as I have attempted imperfectly to show , have agreed in regard e ing nature as a finished and static product , ind pendent in its

- H e make up of the con sciousness that knows it . It is true that gel concei ves of nature as the outward mani festation of the Absolute

Se e article o n Realit y as Pra ctical i n E ssays P hi l osophi cal and P sycho i m ai ues o i cal i n H on or o Wi l l a . 6 . g f j , p 5

1 68 The Confli ct of N aturali sman d H uman i sm

h a true , it may be replied t at this satisfying ch racter of truth ap e plies not alone to the inner attitudes and f elings of the subj ect ,

but to the whole external situation to which that truth is relevant. In other words truth must square not only with experience in its personal aspect but with experience in its broader obj ective

phases . v it th ” run . It is clear that such a conception o f truth aff ords generous Opportunity for the reconst ruction of long- accepted doctrines in

the light furnished by changing conditions . Moreover it should serve to remind intelligent beings of their responsibility to pre serve and foster that attitude of inqui ry and of open - mindedness

to fresh truth , so vitally involved in all progress . Upon man as of o e a th e the bearer valid kn wledg devolves , lso , e trem ndous responsibility of exercising his intelligence in such wise as to pro

duce results o f pure and abiding value . For his j udgments of tru th and his appraisals of worth are not mere acts of knowing h d o performed in lofty isolation from t ings and events . Rather of a they represent the attitudes , the tendencies to action , living

organism brought into vital contact with concrete situations . Even where the original impetus to thought i s ideal rather than to e sensuous , the links in the chain binding that idea experienc

e . able r alities are not far to seek And ultimately , if the conclu t t sio n o which the idea leads us is valid , his truth will j ustify itsel f in our be havior and eff ect some satisfactory change in not be e real ity itself . Such a reconstruction need overt to be pra o f tical . Changes in attitude , in point view , in purpose , are no less real than those transformations o f brute things that knowl

edge has rendered possible . But what are the distinguishing marks o f the knowledge situa ? o tion Clearly , i f the above account be sound , kn wing cannot T consist in mere consciousness of obj ects as present . his is crude

' B a e o i s not n . sensation , or refined p rcepti n , but it cog ition y me ns f no o this mental act alone , it is obvious that addition can be or beneficent made either to knowledge to reality , and no results “ e can accrue to mankind . No mor does that form of kn owl edge ” which we employ in the habitual acts of daily life fulfill T o our all the requirements of the knowing function . dress selves doubtless o nce demanded a considerable degree of con scious attention and intelligent direction o f o ur movement by The o of their foreseen consequences . same holds go d all P ragmati c S oluti on of the Problems 1 69

e o occupations calling for trained skill . But our r acti ns in the presence o f these stimuli have largely ceased to be con sci ously directed and have become habitual or even mechanical . 8 e ma not be has " t y it possible , as Professor Dewey suggested , that th e clue to the whole problem o f knowledge may be found her e ? As an organism whos e continued existence de pends upon acq uaintance with things and with successful modes

' robabl e that of reaction to them , is it not p man first acquired knowledge in the struggle to act efli caciously in response to con ? e e crete stimuli Such responsiv acts , once succ ssfully per the o formed , would more easily be reproduced, and w uld ten d he cu to become habitual . Given t proper e the act would follow with a minimum of conscious attention . But this proposition as i implies its converse . If knowledge , ingrained hab t , no longer makes large demands upon consciousness , it may be in ferred that con sciou sness is required only in circumstances to which the i n i s e dividual unaccustomed . If the elements in this situation wer sufficiently novel it might well happen that old habits of adj ust ment would prove inadequate . A condition of tension would thus be set up ; the activity as stimulus would find no correspond T e o f ing activities of response . hen would be felt the ne d con sciousness o r o f o o , what is the same thing, attenti n directed t ward the unfamiliar factors in the total situation with a view to ascer f a o taining their meaning. In such a state o str in pr duced by e imperfect functioning, r course would be made to past knowledge for guidance in interpreting the present and forecasting the future . But how is this p o ssible ? Indeed the problem i s a knotty on e i f ideas be loo ked upon as Special and imperfect copies of thoughts in the mind of the Absolute or even as faithful rmepro duction s of material things neatly sto red away in the me ory . But fortunately these two m odes of explanation do ' not exhaust f F or the possibilities o the case . if we keep close to the funda of m w mental position prag atism , hich asserts that experience is of to the ultimate term reality , we shall be led consider the ideas themselves as capitalized experience to be drawn upon in case of E need . very stimulus pouring in upon the organism not only results in a relevant response but receives added meaning through

u d c u o n so of duc l d In npublishe le t res the Philo phy E ation , de ivere i n Col um i n 1 0 - 1 bia Universit y the year 9 9 0 . 1 70 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

that response . In other words crude sensations provoke random

or instinctive reactions , which return again upon the stimulus endowing it wi th meaning ; thus these sensations are transformed

. i into percepts In like manner perceptions of th ngs , serving x t themselves as spurs to more comple reac ions , receive , through

the r d rmo f a responses they excite , a ich ad ition in te s me ning T o are and value . the pragmatist ideas these meanings , regarded

as o o f e i n rganic attitudes response , tend ncies to act a specific way when con fronted with doubtful situati ons where old habits

of reaction are inadequate . It is under such conditions of unsat i sfactory functioni ng that experien ce breaks up into fact and idea ; and when harmony is restored the di stinction no longer ” T e n d i exists . hus id as are sta dar ized experience woven nto the nerv ous structure of the organism and capable of being rein stated during occasi ons of s tress to throw light upon the f an n h present di ficulty d to point to future co sequences . W en Copernicus became convin ced that the old Ptol ema-ic habits of thinking would no longer explain the phenomena of the solar r f n e i system , a long pe iod o doubt and strain e su d d u ring wh ch o f d es he called upon a variety i eas , repr enting the meaning of

s e n s i n t o . pa t xperie ces , to as ist the solu i n of the problem At last there dawned upo n his mind the concepti on that the apparent motion of bodies is always relative to the position of the beholder i i t s and to h s state of mot on or rest . Doub les Copernicus had e f h the ovin eh not d the act t at in case of rapidly m g v icles , the tr ees and o bj ects by the roadside appear to move in an opposite T direction from the traveller . his idea promptly proved its worth in sh eddi ng meaning upon the tangled situation and in pointing to certain consequences which would follow upon its acceptance

as a working hypothe sis . For it became clear to Copernicus “ that if the watcher of the ski es could trans fer himself from the earth i nto the abyss o f spac e the apparent motions o f the

e i s heavenly bod i s m ght quite po sibly be reversed , and the earth 4 be di scovered to be i n rapid motion about the sun .

e t n s r o f Id as , hen , are instrume ts in the sati facto y control the x t o the o f flux of e perience . As the ou c me , in form meaning , u e of past sit ations of tension , they are not static impr ssions but the e . modes of reaction , plans of b havior And same holds good

P s Re Cf . w x Arc Co c . a . De ey , The Refle n ept , y , III , 35 7

1 7 2 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H uman i sm that nature as tel eological u For it sanctions the meanings he extracts from events and proves itself amenable to the ends they suggest . To m the naturalist , on the other hand , prag atism might dis course as follows . Granted that nature is a mechanism and man the of e i n has product m chanical energ es , what sig ificance the “ ” term mechanism apart from som e intelligence to which it serves as a principle of explanation and guidance ? Nature might on ou have gone forever , blindly working t her sequences of

not to o f events , had she given birth a being capable estimating o f n E their meaning and worth in terms his ow welfare . very concept o f science is a tool in the service of the theoretic or the practical interests of mankind . Moreover , while it is conceded that even the inner life of man operates according to mechanical laws , as determined by heredity and environment , this is by no means to subscribe to pure determinism . For although his ca

aciti es e p for thought , emotion and achiev ment have their limits and set by natural law, no man knows his own limits ; within them his estimates of value and his choices may be profoundly influenced by intelligent reflection up on the meaning and outcom e e a mere of his acts . Only the hopeless imbecil is m echanism, responding without thought to the myriad stimuli of his surround T of hO e ings . hus in the enlightened will man lies his ultimate p of social and moral advancement . But what is the be aring of pragmatism upon education and in particular upon the problem of the relative value of the sciences and the humanities ? First let us consider very briefly its con tributi on s to educational philosophy in general . Obviously

o f o enough , a theory kn wledge which lays such marked stress upon active experience as the condition o f the knowing activity will attac h great importance to the conception of education as j ust such vital experiencing . Only when ou r educational insti tuti ons reproduce as nearly as may be those life - conditions which chall enge thought by presenting to it n ovel and problematic situa of tions , can knowledge capable functioning in the guidance of too c life be acquired and applied . Our instruction deals mu h H e too e e . with Spectral abstractions , littl with warm r alities enc our students frequ ently do n ot perceive that this s econd - hand e t o its r knowledge, so logically pres n ed , nce had birth in expe ience To our - o a and leads back into it . turn school rooms int pl ces P ragmati c S oluti on of the Problems 1 73 where ample opportunity is furnished for direct experience with things as well as ideas and with the efficient working out of the problems they suggest ; an d to make plain the bearing of all knowl or edge upon human life in its physical , social moral aspects , For this is to educate . under such conditions the individu al is gaining insight into the meaning and complexity o f nature and of s ocial life at the same time that he is growing in power to of f apply his knowledge to the solution the di ficulties they present . Educational institutions of whatever grade should be forging r houses of experience, not pu veyors of a logically arranged , pre digested material of experience . Knowledge cannot be digested vicari ously for any individual . If it is to become part of the bone and sinew of his intellectual and moral life , it must catch ” e —it hold of that lif , must show its credentials to recognition o as a product of the struggle, the c operative effort , the enlighten o ment , the aspiration , that g into the making of social experience , and hence o f the experience of every individual as a member of to e society . Without doubt there may be short cuts exp rience , e of o and it is her that the knowledge past ages , snugly st red o of to away in b oks , may be profound service the present an d coming generations . But it has been wisely said that books are a bloodless substitute for life and until the conditions for a vivid , intimate experiencing are present , in the form of con e crete situations making d mands on brain and hand , the wisdom in those storehouses too freq uently misses its mark or makes but H a a superficial impression . ence the widespread l mentation over

i in our — i ts s the educat onal waste present system , tremendou

expenditure and proportionately meagre returns . Let us turn now to the specific problem with which this whole discussion is concerned— the relation of the sciences and r Th r the humanities as material f o education . e tendency to e not gard these subj ects as unrelated , if opposed , goes back to of its e the beginnings modern science , and history has be n traced o f n in the preceding chapter . One branch recorded experie ce ’ grows out of man s desire to select and appreciate the worthier The an d more enduring values of human life . other originates e to to in his desir subj ugate his environment , penetrate its hidden

secrets that he may mak e it minister to the wan ts o f human li fe . n ot its But these are antagonistic , for each sends roots deep into n on e to the common soil of social experie ce , the grasp the higher 1 74 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Human ism

an d of a meanings worths th t experience , the other to provide

the material substratum , based upon knowledge and control of T natural processes , without which the former could not exist . he ’ to history of science is the history of man s attempt , not alonme adapt himself to his surroundings , but to shape his environ ent N e . n a to serve his developing n eds ature , the , is intim tely bo und up with the s ocial life of mankind ; for fromthis bountiful source man draws the materials and the dynamic energies which make

s present civilization possible , nay , which enter into its very truc The ture . history of thought seems to make plain that true litera

ture , which has passed beyond the stage of a mere record of traditions and is designed to stir the emotions and quicken the imagi nation to sensitive appreciation of the finer values of human

experience , is not born until man has gained such control o f the fundamental processes of nature as to guarantee reasonable se i cur t an d . T has y comfort in social living hen , when nature been e taken up into human lif , and has greatly widened and en riched

' a of o it, man turns reflective eye upon various aspects hi s br ad ened experience an d perceives these in terms of moral and aesthe E of a i n tic worth . ras gre t national expansion are grounded changed economic conditions and these in turn are determined ’ T by man s success in be nding nature to his will . his natural a o f foundation once firmly laid , a f ir superstructure literature t and art may well be added . When Greece had learned how o she out t of control environing conditions , when had spelled par the riddle o f sky and sea and earth in their relation to human — a well being, when economic an d soci l life had been enormously

a a . expanded thereby , then followed great spiritual wakening All of to the old , accepted , customary values life were subj ected

searching criticism an d to ultimate revision o r rej ection . And f the literature o the period , like all great and enduring thought , r e was a reflection of the national life , stirred to its ve y d pths . History reco rds the same truths of the spiritual Renaissance of ’ the fifteenth centurv and o f England s great literary awakening

in the sixteenth . c h a i an d o Why , then , sin e the um nit es the sciences are b th ’ f of outgrowths o social e xpe rience , and the perfection the one is

m e e of the e so rooted in the whol e so e dev lopm nt other , are th y set in such unfriendly j uxtapo sition in present - day edu cation ? n e i s . The answer , I believ , twofold In the first place , whe

1 76 The Confli ct of N aturali smand H umani sm

suff usion of the whole subj ect with worth and meaning as soon as its vital human bearing was made plain ? No subj ect gains in cl earness and d efi niteness by being too soon and too sharply severed from all those connections which serve to bring its salient

features into clear relief . The true bond of ween

to the warm , breath

d f o ff ha o c . t ing, ynamic life the ommunity Cut hem from t t sou rce o f nouri shment and they not only develop antagonism between themselves but fail of their true purpose in the clarifi

of i Th o f cation and uplifting human l fe . e study the human o f o r ities , by reason its isolation from either past present ex e has l p rience , tended to produce the cu tured man of refined taste and feelings but with l ittle true appreciation of the depth and beauty of every - day human life in i ts tensions and mistakes and

t Too so - aspira ions toward better things . frequently such called me n of culture are out o f sympathy and active touch with the o o i mo f p litical , s c al and moral proble s their own day and genera o r m c the ti n , p oble s whi h cry aloud for the solution that only man s i The o f ocial insight and tra ned effi ciency can discover . recent Repo rt o f the English Commission on moral training in 5 the Public Schools of England reveal ed clearly that the H ead Masters o f those s chools keenl y realize the aloofness o f many of their g raduates from the active life of village or town wherein t re E o f a heir ancestral homes a placed . ven problems n tional scop e and bro ad human interest fail to stir many o f thes e young — men whose schoo l days have been devoted to the humanities " An d the is olation of the sciences f rom social experie nce has n o e t The t e too e b b t er result . s ud nt oft n becomes absor ed in mere facts an d th eir relations and in questions of exact technique to o r a n of e the exclusion of all knowledge ppreciatio the , conn ction o f e s science , since its earliest b ginning with the evolution of o n l c wa civilization . Such meth ds train the i te le t in a narrow y he at the expens e of the social and moral nature . And so t “ ” cultivated humanist eyes with disfavor the mere scientist or tech nici an who warmly reciprocates his d isapproval ; and neither “ ” f a ha the o . s learned true meaning culture For , no m tter

Moral Instruction and Training i n Schools ; Report o f an Interna

X II . tion al ch . Enquiry , Book II , Pragmati c S oluti on of the Problems 1 77 w th o hat path e man elects to foll w, be it science or literature , art e o f and industry or , he has reach d the goal a sound genuine culture only when his growth in kno wledge and efficiency has been accompanied by a broad ening o f his human outlook and e a a de pening of his capacity for hum n insight and sympathy . The twofold cause of the O pposition of humanities and sciences seems to lie , then , in their too early and complete seve r ance from their source in social life and in the consequent individ uali s i t c type of education they furnish . We proclaim and urge that the socialized and moralized character is the supreme end of education . Yet we continu e to mark o ff all the subj ects to which we introduce the child fromhis experience as a social being and from the vital connection with each other which their common relation to that experience would supply . W e do this in the vain hope that these precious deposits o f meanings and values which have be en collected in the lo ng co urse of social living can be transmitted to the undeveloped child without the i nterven o n tion of any active experience of his w . Over and over again Professor Dewey has pointed out this fallacy and has shown the 6 ho ma o our educational world w it y be av ided . Only when

o be — oo e sch ols come places where social experience, c perativ eff ort in the solution of common problems and the realization of — common ends , is made possible can we hope to find each sub ject assuming its proper connection with that vital experience and shedding its quota of light on the meaning and worth o f human life . Our boys and girls can be socialized only in a social T environment . hey can be made moral as well as intelligent not by mastery of detached facts but by comprehension of each body of knowledge in its relation to the well - being of society and by training in the active u se of that knowledge in the solution of the social and moral problems of the school and the playground . A genuine experiencing of each branch of study in its relation to a developing life must therefore precede all sharp diff erentiation

- of subj ect matter into number , science , literature and the rest . When these studies have emerged from experience and have been n clearly recog ized in their own peculiar bearing upon it , their

demarcation for special study may be made increasingly definite . The theoretic interest develops earlier in some children than in m Cf hi s Sch d S c C l th e C c l . . ool an o iety and The hi d and urri u u 1 78 The Confli ct of N aturali smand Humani sm others and such minds may advantageously pursue diff erentiated b of r ranches study before other minds a e ready for the work . Which statem ent may be inferre d to m ean that our schools must e fi a o to not be adapt d in grading and classi c ti n growing minds , h - " e t e e to . t e e conv rse which holds day , v n in high school and all b o be mth college, su j ects sh uld approached fro e standpoint of human exp erience and present - day civilization if their true no o b a of k o meaning is t t e lost in det ils n wledge and procedure . of stu But , it may be urged , this is an age specialization and dents must be fitted for highly sp ecialized fields of knowledge and l o e a emp yment . This is tru e . But d tailed rese rch in facts and h a e as o met ods , v luabl it is , cann t be allowed to precede broad and sympathetic acquaintance with human life in its many - sided T o t a . o e th e o v riety educat e mere sch lar , the m re scientist, is fall short of the goal which society has come to perceive as of supremely good . The priceless fruits civilization can hardly be r le a men e our a i n prese ved , much ss ug t d , unless education l i uti s t not e the manufac st t on concern themse lves ac ively, alon in ture of train ed specialists but in the development o f men and wom en with a broad range of social interests made eff ective through social sympathy and social effi ciency . And this most precious flower of culture may be attained by humanist and naturalist alik e ; by hi mwhose chief interest is in discovering o and who the true valu e s f social life , by him seeks more fully to unde rstand and con trol those natural materials and en ergi es upon which all wholesome and progressive social expe rience is d n e Ea ile own e pe d nt . ch , wh choosing his path , may recognize with ungrudging admi ration the worth o f the quest upon which

s s t and the the other ha e forth , its vital function in progressive development and ennobling of human life .

1 80 The Confli ct of Naturali sman d H umani sm

Y h m mm c ca l ? o rnal o O H N . u DEWE , W at does Prag atis ean by Pra ti j f

i loso h a nd P s cho lo Vo l . No . . 1 0 8. P p y y gy , V , 4 9 f w The Significance o f the Pro blemo Kno ledge . University o f t o 1 8 C C u o l . hicago ontrib tions Phi sophy 9 7 . s l i l e t i e o 1 . c o ca 8 Arc C c P ho R w V l . 8 The Reflex on ept y g , III , 9 , - 0 PP" 35 7 37

c S c . C c 1 8 . The S hool and o iet y hi ago , 99 u c The Child and the Curric ul m. Chi ago University Co ntributions

uc 1 0 2 . to Ed ation , 9

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