No More Learning

F. Jodl, Getchichte der Ethik in der neueren Philosophic. 2 vols. Stuttgart,
1882-89.
B. Punjer, Getchichte der chrittlichen Religiontphilotophie teit der Reforma
tion. 2 vols. Braunschweig, 1880-83. [Eng. tr. of Vol. I. , History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion from the Reformation to Kant, by W. Hastie, Edin. and N. Y. 1887. ]
[B. F. Burt, History of Modern Philosophy. 2 vols. Chicago, 1892. ]
The antitheses which make their appearance in mediaeval philoso phy at the time of its close have a more general significance ; they show in theoretical form the self-conscious strengthening of secular civilisation by the side of that of the Church. The undercurrent, which for a thousand years had accompanied the religious main movement of the intellectual life among the Western peoples, swelling here and there to a stronger potency, now actually forced its way to the surface, and in the centuries of transition its slowly
wrested victory makes the essential characteristic for the beginning of modern times.
Thus gradually developing and constantly progressing, modern 348
of the Renaissance. 349
science freed itself from mediaeval views, and the intricate process in which it came into being went hand in hand with the multifold activity with which modern life in its entirety began. For modern life begins everywhere with the vigorous development of details; the tense (lapidare) unity into which mediaeval life was concen trated, breaks asunder in the progress of time, and primitive vigour bursts the band of common tradition with which history had encircled the mind of the nations. Thus the new epoch announces itself by the awakening of national life; the time of the world- empire is past in the intellectual realm also, and the wealth and variety of decentralisation takes the place of the unitary concen tration in which the Middle Ages had worked. Rome and Paris
cease to be the controlling centres of Western civilisation, Latin ceases to be the sole language of the educated world.
In the religious domain this process showed itself first in the fact that Home lost its sole mastery over the Church life of fihriat-. iimjty Wittenberg, Geneva, London, and other cities became new centres of religion. The inwardness of faith, which in Mysticism had already risen in revolt against the secularisation of the life of the Church, rose to victorious deliverance, to degenerate again at once into the organisation which was indispensable for it in the outer world. But the process of splitting into various sects, which set in in connection with this external organisation, wakened all the depths of religious feeling, and stirred for the following centuries the passion and fanaticism of confessional oppositions. Just by this means, however, the dominance at the summit of scientific life of a complete and definitive religious belief was broken. What had been begun in the age of the Crusades by the contact of religions was now completed by the controversy between Christian creeds.
It is -not a matter of accident that the number of centres of scientific life in addition to Paris was also growing rapidly. While Oxford had already won an importance of its own as a seat of the Franciscan opposition, now we find first Vienna, Heidelberg, Prague, then the numerous academies of Italy, and finally the wealth of new universities of Protestant Germany, developing their independent vital forces. But at the same time, by the invention of the art of printing, literary life gained such an extension and such a widely ramifying movement that, following its inner impulse, it was able to free itself from its rigid connection with the schools, •trip off the fetters of learned tradition, and expand unconstrained in the forms shaped out for it by individual personalities.
Philosophy
_Sa philosophy in the Renaissance loses its corporate character, and
Becomes in its best achievements the free deed ot individuals; It"
350 Philosophy of the Renaissance. [Part IV
seeks its sources in the broad extent of the real world of its own time, and presents itself externally more and more in the garb of modern national languages.
In this way science became involved in a powerful fermentation. The two-thousand-year-old forms of the intellectual life seemed to have been outlived and to have become unusable. A passionate, and at the first, still unclear search for novelty filled all minds, and excited imagination gained the mastery of the movement. But, in connection with this, the whole multiplicity of interests of secular life asserted themselves in philosophy, — the powerful development of political life, the rich increase in outward civilisation, the exten sion of European civilisation over foreign parts of the world, and not least the world-joy of newly awakened art. And this fresh and living wealth of new content brought with it the result that philos ophy became pre-eminently subject to no one of these interests, but rather took them all up into itself, and with the passing of time raised itself above them again to the free work of knowing, to the ideal ot knowledge for its own sake.
The new birth of the purely theoretical spirit is the true meaning of the scientific " Renaissance," and in this consists also its kinship of spirit ivith Greek thought, which was of decisive importance for its development. The subordination to ends of practical, ethical, and religious life which had prpvailpH in Hip whole philosophy of the Hellenistic-Roman period and of the Middle Ages, decreased more and more at the beginning of the modern period, and knowledge of reality appeared again as the absolute end of scientific research. . J 11st as at the beginnings of Greek thought, so now, this theoretical impulse turned its attention essentially to natural science. modern mind, which had taken up into itself the achievements of later antiquity and of the Middle Ages, appears from the beginning as having attained a stronger self-consciousness, as internalised, and a~s~haviiig penetrated deeper Into Its OWh nature, in comparison with the ancient mind. But true as this is, its first independent intellectual activity was the return to a disinterested concej tionoiNaEuTe": —The whole philosophy of the Renaissance presse toward this end, and in this airTtlinn 'f annipvpH its greatest results.
Feeling such a relationship in its fundamental impulse, the modern spirit in its passionate search for the new seized at first upon the oldest. The knowledge of ancient philosophy brought out by the humanistic movement was eagerly taken up, and the systems of Greek philosophy were revived in violent opposition to the mediaeval tradition. But from the point of view of the whole movement of
Xne
Philosophy of the Renaissance. 351
history this return to antiquity presents itself as but the instinctive preparation for the true work of the modern spirit,1 which in this Castalian bath attained its youthful vigour. By living itself into *■*"»■ world of Greek ideas it gained the ability to master in thought its_ own rich outer life, and thus equipped, science turned from the sub- tility ot the inner world with full vigour back to the invpstigiition of Nature, to open there new and wider paths for itself.
The history of the philosophy of the Renaissance is therefore in the main the history of the process in which the natural science mode of regarding the world is gradually worked out from the humanistic renewal of Greek philosophy. It falls, therefore, appro- pnately into two periods, the humanistic period and the natural t&eJtce period. As a boundary line between the two we may per-
■ftaps regard the year*^. 600f\ The first of these periods contains the
of mediaeval tradition by that of genuine Grecian thought, and while extremely rich in interest for the history of civilisation and in literary activity, these two centuries show from a philosophical point of view merely that shifting of earlier thoughts by which preparation is made for the new. The second period in cludes the beginnings of modern natural research which gradually conquered their independence, and following these the great meta physical systems of the seventeenth century.
The two periods form a most intimately connected whole. For the inner impelling motive in the philosophical movement of Hu manism was the same urgent demand for a radically new knowledge of the world, which ultimately found its fulfilment in the process in which natural science became established and worked out according to principles. But the manner in which this work took place, and the forms of thought in which it became complete, prove to be in all important points dependent upon the stimulus proceeding from the adoption of Greek philosophy. Modern natural science is the daughter of Humanism.
1 In this respect the course of development of science in the Renaissance ran exactly parallel to that of art. The line which leads from Giotto to Leonardo,
Kaphael, Michael Angelo, Titian, DUrer, and Rembrandt, passes gradually from the reanimation of classical forms to independent and immediate apprehension of Nature. And- Goethe is likewise proof that for us moderns tie way to Mature leads through Greece.
supplanting
CHAPTER I.
THE HUMANISTIC PERIOD.
Jac. Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italic*. 4th ed. . Leipe. 1886. [The Civilisation of the Renaissance. Tr. by S. G. C. Middlemore, Lond.
1878 and 1890.
Mor. Carriere. Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Reformationszeit. 2d ed. ,
Leipa. 1887.
A. Stockl, GesehicJUe der Philosophic des MittelaUers. 3d vol. . Mainz, 1866. [J. A. Symoods, The Renaissance in Italy. 5 pis. in 7 vols. , 1875-86. ]
The continuity in the intellectual and spiritual development of European humanity manifests itself nowhere so remarkably as in the Renaissance. At no time perhaps has the want for something completely new, for a total and radical transformation, not only in the intellectual life, but also in the whole state of society, been felt so vigorously and expressed so variously and passionately as then, and no time has experienced so many, so adventurous, and so ambi tious attempts at innovation as did this. And yet, if we look closely, and do not allow ourselves to be deceived, either by the grotesque self-consciousness or by the naive grandiloquence which are the order of the day in this literature, it becomes evident that the wholp multiform process goes on within_ thff hnnndtn>f anrient anri_jnHirr val traditions, and strives in obscure longing toward a goal which is an object rather of premonition than of clear conception. It was nofuntilthe seventeenth century that the process of fermentation became complete, and this turbulent mixture clarifiecT
The essential ferment in this movement was FBe
between the inherited philosophy of the Middle AgesT which was already falling into dissolution, and the original works of Greek thinkers which began to be known in the fifteenth century. A new stream of culture flowed from Byzantium by the way of Florence and Rome, which once more strongly diverted the course of Western thought from its previous direction. In so far the humanistic Renaissance, the so-called re-birth of classical antiquity, appears as
a continuation and completion of that powerful process of appropri 362
opposition
Chap. 1. ]
Humanistic Period. 853
ation presented by the Middle Ages (cf. pp. 264 if. , 310 f. ) ; and if this process consisted in retracing in reverse order the ancient move ment of thought, it now reached its end, inasmuch as essentially all of the original ancient Greek literature which is accessible to-day,
now became known.
The becoming known of the Greek originals, and the spread_of
humanistic culture, called out a movement of opposition to Scholas-
ticism, at rirst in Italy, then also in (jermany, France, and £ngland. J^V
\s regards subject-matter, this opposition was directed against the* jVuJLf'Cc
mxlueval interpretations of Greek metaphysics ; as regards method, against authoritative deduction from conceptions taken as assunvjv tium; an regards form, against the tasteless stiffness of monastic Latin : and with the wonderful "restoration of ancient thought, with the fresh imaginative nature of a life-loving race, with the refine
ment and wit of an artistically cultivated time for its aids this oppo sition won a swift victory.
A/V^'TL_ ( j^^a^. ^
But tris opposition was divided within itself. There were {P/q/o- (f)
nisis\ who for the most part would better be called Neo-Platonists ; there were^J ristotelians\ who, in turn, were again divided into differ- ent groups, vigorously combating one another, according to their attachment to one or another of the ancient interpreters. There, too, were the reawakened older doctrines of Greek cosmology, of the Ionians zntTlPt/thagoreans} the conception of Nature held by \pemocritu9i and yEpicuruQ rose to new vigour. yScepticism\ and the mixed popular and phUosojfhi«al\ Erlecf^isnA lived again.
While this humanistic movement was either religiously indiffer ent or even engaged together with open " heathenism " in warfare against Christian dogma, an equally violent controversy between transmitted doctrines was in progress in the life of the Church. The Catholic Church intrenched itself against the assault of thought more and more firmly behind the bulwark of Thomism, under the leadership of the Jesuits. Among the Protestants, AuQustinejraa the leading mind—-a continuation of the antagonism ubocrved in the Middle Ages. But when dogmas were thrown into philosophical form in the Protestant Church, the Reformed branch remained nearer to Augustine, while in the Lutheran Church, in consequence of the influence of Humanism, a tendency toward the original form of the Aristotelian system prevailed. In addition to these ten dencies, however, German Mysticism, with all the widely ramified
traditions which united in it (cf. § 26, 5), maintained itself in the religious need of the people, to become fruitful and efficient for the philosophy of the future, more vigorous in its life than the Church erudition that sought in vain to stifle it.
_. —'
(j>
(""Jv
_^jjr
^-^ r\/7\ *vS0 v^As)
354 Philosophy of the Renaissance. [Part I V.
The new which was being prepared in these various conflicts
wa; the consummation of that movement which had begun with Put-
Scotus at the culmination of mediaeval philosophy, viz. the separ tion of philosophy from theology. The more philosophy establiatif itself by the side ot theology as an independent secular science, tit more its peculiar task was held to be the knowledge ofNature. In tl»» result all lines of the philosophy of the Kenaissance meet, l'hilu-
phy shall be natural science, — this is the watchword of the tame. ihe carrying out of this purpose, nevertheless, necessarily mc
at first within the traditional modes of thought; these, howwt, had their common element in the inthropocentric character of ' '«r Weltanschauung, which had been tRe" consequence of the develop ment of philosophy as a theory and art of life. For this reason \b* natural philosophy of the Renaissance in all its lines takes 'ox da
^tarting-poin^ in constructing its problems, man's position '« j*e cosmosj, and the revolution in ideas which took place ia this aspect, under the influence of the changed conditions of civilisation, became of decisive importance for shaping anew the whole ' theory of th» world. At this point metaphysical imagination and fancy was moc deeply stirred, and from this point of view it produced its costnical poetry, prototypal for the future, in the doctrines of Giordano
Bruno and Jacob Boehme.
*
I
The following treat in general the revival of ancient philosophy : L'. Heeren. Geschichte der Studien der classischen Litteratnr (Gottingen, 1797-1802) ; G. Vogt, Die Wiederbelehung des classischen Alterthums (Berlin, 1880 f. ).
The main seat of Platonism was the Academy of Florenre, which was founded by Cosmo de' Medici, and brilliantly maintained by iiis 'successors. The impulse for this had been given by Georgius Gemistus Pletbo (. 356-1450). the author of numerous commentaries and compendium^. ' and of a treatise in Greek on the difference between the Platonic and the Aristotelian doctrine. Cf. Fr. Schultze, O. 0. P. (Jena, 1874). — Bessarion (born 1403 in Trebizond. died as Cardinal of the Roman church in Ravenna, 1472) was his influential pupil. Bessarion's main treatise, Adversus Calumniatorem Platonis, appeared at Rome, 1469. Complete Works in Migne's coll. (Paris, 1*M1). — The mmt important members of the Platonic circle were Marsillo Ficlno of Florence
(1433-1499), the translator of the works of Plato and Plotinus. and author of a Theologia Plntonira (Florence, 1482), and at a later time, Francesco Patrissl (1529-1597). who brought the natural philosophy of this movement to its completest expression in his S'ova de Universis Philosophia (Ferrara. 1591).
A similar instance of Vpo-i'l^t""'"'" alloyed with Xfo-'V'Tiremi and ancient Pythagorean motives is afforded by John Pico of Mirandola ( 1443-94).
The study of Aristotle in the original sources was promoted in Italy by Oeorglua of Trebizond (1390-1484 ; Comparatio Platonis ft Aristtirlis, Venice, 1523) and Theodoras Gaza (died 1478), in Holland and Germany by Rudolf Agricola (1442-1485), and in France by Jacques Lefevre (Faber Stapulensis, 1455-1537).
The Aristotelians of the Kenaissance (aside from the churchly -scholastic line) divided into the two parties of the Averrolata and the Alexandrisu The University of Padua, as the chief seat of Averroisin, wu also the place of the liveliest controversies between the two.
Chap. 1. ]
Humanistic Period. 355
An representatives of Averroism we mention Nicoletto Vernias (died 1409), especially Alexander Achillini of Bologna (died 1518; works, Venice, 1546); further, Augostino Nifo (1473-1546 ; main treatise, De Intelleetu et j kemonibus ; Opuscula, Paris, 1654), and the Neapolitan Zimara (died 1•">::■_').
To the Alexandrists belong Ermolao Barbaro of Venice (1454-1493 ; Compendium Sciential Naturalis ex Aristotele, Venice, 1647), and the most important Arjsl/iteliaii of the Renaissance. Pletro Pnmpnna. d (bom l41>2 in M iritua, died 1524 in Bologna. His most important writings are De Immortali-
ta'e Animas with the Defensorium against Niphus, De fato libero arbitrio prat- deftinatione providentia dei libri quinque ; cf. L. Ferri, La Psicologia di P. P. , It ne, 1877), and his pupils, Qasparo Contarini (died 1542), Simon Porta
(/'•d 1566), and Julius Cmmt Scaliger (1484-1558).
- mi ■in; the later Aristotelians, Jacopo Zabarella (1632-1689), Andreas
C. alplnus (1619-1603), Cesare Cremonlnl (1662-1631) and others seem rat In t to have adjusted the above oppositions.
<»t the renewals of other Greek philosophers, the following are especially to be in. ntioned : —
JcMt Lips (1647-1606), Manuductio ad Stoicam Philosophiam (Antwerp, 1604),iind other writings ; and Caspar Schoppe, Elementa Stoicas Philosophies M'. rali. (Mainz, 1606).
DM, Sennert (1672-1637), Physica (Wittenberg, 1618); Sebastian Basso ( Philosophia . ' ttnralit adversus ArisUitelem, (Jeneva, 1621); and Johannes Magnenus, DM oeritus Itrviriscens (Pavia, 1646).
Claude de le^rigard as renewer of the Ionic natural philosophy in his CWwH Pitani ( L'dine, 1643 ff. ).
Pierre Oassendi (1592-1656), De Vita Moribus et Doctrina Epicuri (Ley- l«-n. 1647) [works, Lyons, 1668], and lastly
Kmanuel Maignanus (1601-1671), whose Cursus Philosophicus (Toulouse, ■lefends Kmpedoclean doctrines.
I"li»- ollowing wrote in the spirit of the ancient Scepticism: Michel de Montai-ne (1633-1692 ; Essais, Bordeaux, 1580, new editions, Paris, 1866, and Bordeaux, 1870) [Kng. tr. by Cotton, ed. by Hazlitt, Lond. 1872 ; also by Klorio, e«l by Morley, Lond. 1887], Francois Sanchez (1562-1632, a Portu guese wh > taught in Toulouse, author of the Tractatus de muttum nobili et prima uniremali scientia quod nihil scitur, Lyons, 1681 ; cf. L. (rerkrath, F. S. , Vienna, 1860), Pierre Charron (1641-1603; De la Sagesse, Bordeaux, 1601) : later Francois de la Motte le Vayer (1586-1672, Cinq Dialogues, Mons, 1673), Samuel Sorbiere (1615-1670, translator of Sextus Kmpiricus), and Simon Toucher (1644-96, author of a history of the Academic Sceptics, Paris, 1690).
The sha, pest polemic against Scholasticism proceeded from those Humanists who set agalTOl u me Koman eclectic popular pnuosopny W sound common
sense in an attractive lurln. anl EBB H
BB
«i»il.
I ininnln is u> or mentioned here also, with his treatise De Intentions Dinlectica (1480).
Bffure him was Laurentiiis Va,l|a (1408-1467 ; Dialectics Disputationes contra AristoUleot, Veil! HOiM. Ladovjco Vlves (born in Valencia, 1492, died in Brugge, 1646; De Diseiplinis, Hriigge" 1631, works, Basel, 1666; cf. A. I-ange in Schmidt's Encyclopadie tier FMagogtib, Vol. IX. ), Marlus Nizolius (1498-1576; De veris principii* et vera ratinne philosophandi, Parma. 1653), finally Pierre de la Ramee (Petnis Kamus, 1516-1572, Institutions Dialer- tiar, Paris, 1543 ; cf. < h. Waddington, Paris, 1849 and 1866).
The tradition of Thomistic Scholasticism maintained itself most strongly at the Spanish universities. Among its supporters the most prominent was Francis Suarez of Granada (1648-1617 ; Disputationes Metaphysics , 1606, works, 26 vols. , Paris, 1856-66 ; cf. K. Werner, 8. und die Seholastik der Ulztm Jahrhundtrte. Regensburg, 1861) ; the collective work of the Jesuits of Coimbra, the so-called Collegium Conembricense, is also to be mentioned.
Protestantism stood from the beginning in closer relation to the humanistic movement. In Germany especially the two went frequently hand in hand ; cf. K. Hagen. Dcutschtands liltcrarisrhc und religiose Vei haltnisse im Refui ma UonMxeitalter. 3 vols. , Frankfort, 1868.
At the Protestant universities Aristoteltanism was introduced principally
"I ihi'imnni
356 The Renaissance: Humanistic Period. [Part IV.
by Philip Melancthon. In the edition of his works by Bretschneider and Bindseil the philosophical works form Vols. 13. and 16. Of chief importance among them are the text-books on logic (dialectic) and ethics. Cf. A. Ricbter, Af. 's Verdienste urn den philosophischen Unterricht (Leips. 1870); K. Hart- felder, M. als Praxeptor Germania: (Berlin, 1889).
Lather himself stood much nearer the position of Augustinianism (cf. Ch. Weisse, Die Christologie Luther's, Leips. 1852). This was still more the caae with Calvin, while Zwingli was friendlier inclined toward contemporaneous philosophy, especially the Italian Neo-Platonism. The scientific importance of all three great reformers lies, however, so exclusively In the theological field that they are to be mentioned here only as essential factors of the general intel lectual movement in the sixteenth century.
Protestant Aristotelianism found its opponents in Nicolaus Tauxellus (1647-1606, Professor in Basel and Altorf; Philosophic: Triumphus, Basel, 1673 ; Alpes Ccesce, Frankfort, 1697 ; cf. F. X. Schmidt-Schwarzenberg, N. 7", Der erste deittsche Philosoph, Erlangen, 1864), further in Socinianiam founded by Lelio Sozzini of Sienna (1526-1662) and his nephew Fausto (1639-1604 ; cf. A. Fock, Der Socinianismus, Kiel, 1847, and the article S. by Herzog in bis Theol. Enc, 2d ed. , XIV. 377 ff), and especially in the popular movement of Mysticism. Among the representatives of this movement are prominent Andreas Osiander (1498-1552), Caspar Scbwenckfeld (1490-1561), Sebas tian Franck (1500-1645; cf. K. Hagen, op. cit. , III. chap. 6) and especially Valentine Weigel (1663-1688 ; Libellus de Vita Beata, 1606, Der guldne Gnf, 1613, Vom Ort der Welt, 1613, Dialogus de Christianismo, 1614, TrwA <r*i-r6>. 1616 ; cf. J. O. Opel, V. W. , Leips. 1864).
The tendency toward natural philosophy in attachment to Nic. Cusanus appears more strongly in Charles BouilK (Bovillus, 1470-1663 ; De Intellect*
J. Dippel, Versuch einer system. Darstel- lung der Philos. des C. B. . WUrzburg, 1862), and Girolamo Cardano (1601- 1676 ; De Vita Propria, De Varietate Berum, De Subtilitate ; works, Lyons.
and De Sensibus ; De Sapientia. Cf .
1663). Cf. on this and the following, Rixner und Siber, Leben und Lehrmeinun- gen beriihmter Physiker im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert, 7 Hefte, Sulzbacb, 1819 ft). The most brilliant among the Italian natural philosophers is Giordano Bruno
of Nola, in Campania. Born in 1548, and reared in Naples, he met so much sus picion in the Dominican Order, Into which he had entered, that he fled, and from that time on, led an unsettled life. He went by way of Rome and upper Italy to Genoa, Lyons, Toulouse, held lectures in Paris and Oxford, then in Witten berg and Helmstadt, visited also Marburg, Prague, Frankfort, and Zurich, and Anally, in Venice, met the fate of coming into the hands of the Inquisition by treachery. He was delivered to Rome, and there, after imprisonment for sev eral years, was burned, 1600, on account of his steadfast refusal to retract. His Latin works (3 vols. , Naples, 1880-91) concern partly the Lullian art (esp. De Imaginum Signorum et Idearum Compositione), and in part are didactic poems or metaphysical treatises (De Monade Numero et Figura ; De Tripliei Minima) : the Italian writings (ed. by A. Wagner, Leips. 1829, new ed. by P. de Lagarde, 2 vols. , Gottingen, 1888) are partly satirical compositions (II Candelajo,
La Cena delle Cineri, Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante, German by Kuhlenbeck, Leips. 1890, Cabala del Cavallo Pegaseo), and on the other hand, the most complete expositions of his doctrines : Dialoghi della Causa Principio ed Uno, German by Lasson (Berlin, 1872) ; Degli Kroici Furori; DeW Injlnito, Uniterm e Dei Mondi. Cf. Bartholmess, G. B. (Paris, 1816 f. ) ; Dom. Berti, Vita di G. B- (Turin, 1867), and Documenti Intorno a G. B. (Turin, 1880) ; Chr. Sigwart in Kleine Schriflen, I. (Freiburg, 1889) ; H. Brunnhofer, G. B. U Weltanschauung und Verhangniss (Leips. 1882). [G. Bruno, by I. Frith, Lond. , Trflbner: T. Whitaker in Mind, Vol. IX. ].
Another tendency is represented by Bernardino Telesio (1508-1588; De rerum natura jnxta propria principia, Rome, 1666 and Naples, 1686. On him see F. Fiorentino, Florence, 1872 and 1874 ; L. Ferri, Turin, 1873), and his more important successor, Tommaso Campanella. Born 1668, in Stilo of Calabria, he early became a Dominican, was rescued and brought to France after many persecutions and an imprisonment of several years. There he became intimati with the Cartesian circle, and died in Paris. 1639. before the completion of the
Chap. 1. § 28. ]
full edition of bis writings, which was to be called Instauratio Scientiarum. A new edition, with biographical introduction by d'Ancona has appeared (Turin, 1864). Of his very numerous writings may be mentioned: Prodromus Philos- ophite Inttaurandcc, 1617 ; Rtali* Philosophic Parte* Quatuor (with the ap pendix, Civitas Solis), 1623 ; De Monorchia Hispanica, 1626 ; Philotophia Hationalis Parte* Quinque, 1638 ; Universalis Philosophic seu metaphysicarum rerumjuxta propria prineipia partes tres, 1638. Cf. Baldachini, Vitae Filosofla ■ii T. C. (Naples, 1840 and 1843) ; Dom. Berti, Xuovi Documenti di T. C.
(Rome, 1881).
The Warring Tradition*. 357
Theoaophical-inagical doctrines are found with John Reuchlin (1466-1622; De Verbu Mirijlro, De Arte Cabbalistica), Agrippa of Netteahelm (1487-1636 ; De Occulta Philotophia ; De Jncertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum), Francesco Zormi (1460-1640, De Harmonia Mundi, Paris, 1649).
A more important and independent thinker is Theophrastus Bombastus Par acelsus of Hohenheim (born 1403 at Einsiedeln, he passed an adventurous life, was Professor of Chemistry in Basel, and died in Salzburg, 1641). Among his works (ed. by Huser, Strassburg, 1616-18), the most important are the Opus Paramirum, Die grosse Wundarznei, and De Xatura Rerwm. Cf. R. Eucken, BeitrSge zur Oesch. der neueren Philos. , Heidelberg, 1886. Of his numerous pupils the most important are Johann Baptist van Helmont (1677-1644 ; Ger man ed. of his works, 1683), and his son, Franz Mercurius, also Robert Fludd
(1674-1637, Philosophia Mosaica, Guda, 1638), and others.
The most noteworthy deposit of these movements is formed by the doctrine
of Jacob Boehme. He was born', 1676, near Gorlitz, absorbed all kinds of thoughts in his wanderings, and quietly elaborated them. Settled as a shoe maker at Gorlitz, he came forward, 1610, with his main treatise Aurora, which at a later time after he had been temporarily forced to keep silence, was followed by many others, among them especially Viertig Fragen von der Seele (1620),
Mytterium Magnum (1623), Von der Onadenteahl (1623). He died 1624. Coll. works ed. by Schlebler, Leips. 1862. Cf. 11 A. Fechner, . /. B. , sein Lebeu und stint Schriften, Gorlitz, 1863 ; A. Peip, J. B. der deutsche Philosoph, Leips. 1860.
§ 28. The Struggle between the Traditions.
The immediate attachment to the Greek philosophy which became prevalent in the Renaissance, was not entirely without its precedent in the Middle Ages, and men like Bernard of Chartres and William of Conches (cf. p. 302) were prototypes of the union of an increas ing interest for knowledge of Nature with the humanistic move ment. It is noteworthy, and characteristic of the changing fortune of transmitted doctrines, that now, as then, the union between
Humanism and natural philosophy attaches itself to Plato, and stands in opposition to Aristotle.
1. In fact, the revival of ancient literature showed itself at first in the form of a strengthening of Platonism. The humanistic move ment had been flowing on since the days of Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, and arose from the interest in Roman secular literature which was closely connected with the awakening of the Italian national consciousness ; but this current could not become a vic torious stream until it received the help of the impulse from with out which proceeded from the removal of the Byzantine scholars to
Italy. Among these the Aristotelians were of like number and im portance with the Platonists, but the latter brought that which was
358 The Renaissance : Humanistic Period. [Part IV.
relatively less known, and therefore more impressive. In addition to this, Aristotle was regarded in the West as the philosopher who was in agreement with the Church doctrine, and thus the opposition, which longed for something new, hoped much more from Plato ; and still further there was the aesthetic charm that comes from the writ ings of the great Athenian, and for which no time was more keenly susceptible than this. Thus Italy first became intoxicated with an enthusiasm for Plato that matched that of departing antiquity. As if to connect itself immediately with this latter period, the Academy was again to live in Florence, and under the protection of the Medicis a rich scientific activity actually developed here, in which a reverence was paid to the leaders like Gemistus Pletho and Bes- sarion which was not less than that once given to the Scholarchs of Neo-Platonism.
But the relationship with this latter system of thought went deeper; the Byzantine tradition, in which the Platonic doctrine was received, was the Neo-Platonic tradition. What at that time was taught in Florence as Platonism was in truth Neo-Platonism. Mar- silio Ficino translated Plotinus as well as Plato, and his " Platonic Theology " was not much different from that of Proclus. So, too, the fantastic natural philosophy of Patrizzi is in its coneeptional basis nothing but the Neo-Platonic system of emanation ; but it is significant that in this case the dualistic elements of Neo-Plato nism are entirely stripped off, and the monistic tendency brought out more purely and fully. On this account the Neo-Platonist of the Renaissance places in the foreground the beauty of the universe ; on this account even the deity, the Unomnia (One-all) is for him a sublime world-unity which includes plurality harmoniously within itself ; on this account he is able to glorify even the infinity of the universe in a way to fascinate the fancy.
2. The pantheistic tendency, which is so unmistakable in this, was enough to make this Platonism an object of suspicion to the Church, and thus to give its Peripatetic opponents a welcome in strument with which to combat it j and an instrument that was used not only by the scholastic Aristotelians, but also by the others. On the other hand, to be sure, the Platonists could reproach the new humanistic Aristotelianism for its naturalistic tendencies, and praise their own tendency toward the super-sensuous, as allied to Christianity. Thus the two great traditions of Greek philosophy fought their battle over again, while each charged the other with its unchristian character. 1 In this spirit Pletho, in his vo/xatv ovy-
1 Quite the same relation is repeated in the case of the different groups of Aristotelians, each of which wished to be regarded orthodox, — even at the price
Chap. 1, §28. ] Warring Tradition*: Platonistt, Aristotelians. 359
ypa<£tj. conducted his polemic against the Aristotelians, and incurred thereby condemnation from the Patriarch Gennadios in Constanti nople; in this spirit George of Trebizond attacked the Academy, and in the same spirit, though milder, Bessarion answered him. Thus the animosity between the two schools, and the literary stir it produced in antiquity, were transferred to the Renaissance, and it was in vain that men like Leonicus Thomaeus of Padua (died 1533) admonished the combatants to understand the deeper unity that subsists between the two heroes of philosophy.