The Mind in the Making Part 6

We now realize more clearly than did Lecky that the Church was really a State in the Middle Ages, with its own laws and courts and prisons and regular taxation to which all were subject. It had all the interests and all the touchiness of a State, and more. The heretic was a traitor and a rebel. He thought that he could get along without the pope and bishops, and that he could well spare the ministrations of the orthodox priests and escape their exactions. He was the "anarchist", the "Red" of his time, who was undermining established authority, and, with the approval of all right-minded citizens, he was treated accordingly. For the mediaeval citizen no more conceived of a State in which the Church was not the dominating authority than we can conceive of a society in which the present political State may have been superseded by some other form of organization.

Yet the inconceivable has come to pa.s.s. Secular authority has superseded in nearly all matters the old ecclesiastical regime. What was the supreme issue of the Middle Ages--the distinction between the religious heretic and the orthodox--is the least of public questions now.

What, then, we may ask, has been the outcome of the old religious persecutions, of the trials, tortures, imprisonings, burnings, and ma.s.sacres, culminating with the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes?

What did the Inquisition and the censors.h.i.+p, both so long unquestioned, accomplish? Did they succeed in defending the truth or "safeguarding" society? At any rate, conformity was not established.

Nor did the Holy Roman Church maintain its monopoly, although it has survived, purified and freed from many an ancient abuse. In most countries of western Europe and in our own land one may now believe as he wishes, teach such religious views as appeal to him, and join with others who share his sympathies. "Atheism" is still a shocking charge in many ears, but the atheist is no longer an outlaw. _It has been demonstrated, in short, that religious dogma can be neglected in matters of public concern and reduced to a question of private taste and preference_.

This is an incredible revolution. But we have many reasons for suspecting that in a much shorter time than that which has elapsed since the Inquisition was founded, the present attempt to eliminate by force those who contemplate a fundamental reordering of social and economic relations will seem quite as inexpedient and hopeless as the Inquisition's effort to defend the monopoly of the mediaeval Church.

We can learn much from the past in regard to wrong ways of dealing with new ideas. As yet we have only old-fas.h.i.+oned and highly expensive modes of meeting the inevitable changes which are bound to take place.

Repression has now and then enjoyed some temporary success, it is true, but in the main it has failed lamentably and produced only suffering and confusion. Much will depend on whether our purpose is to keep things as they are or to bring about readjustments designed to correct abuses and injustice in the present order. Do we believe, in other words, that truth is finally established and that we have only to defend it, or that it is still in the making? Do we believe in what is commonly called progress, or do we think of that as belonging only to the past? Have we, on the whole, arrived, or are we only on the way, or mayhap just starting?

In the Middle Ages, even in the times of the Greeks and Romans, there was little or no conception of progress as the word is now used. There could doubtless be improvement in detail. Men could be wiser and better or more ignorant and perverse. But the a.s.sumption was that in general the social, economic, and religious order was fairly standardized.

This was especially true in the Middle Ages. During these centuries men's single objective was the a.s.surance of heaven and escape from h.e.l.l. Life was an angry river into which men were cast. Demons were on every hand to drag them down. The only aim could be, with G.o.d's help, to reach the celestial sh.o.r.e. There was no time to consider whether the river might be made less dangerous by concerted effort, through the deflection of its torrents and the removal of its sharpest rocks.

No one thought that human efforts should be directed to making the lot of humanity progressively better by intelligent reforms in the light of advancing knowledge.

The world was a place to escape from on the best terms possible. In our own day this mediaeval idea of a static society yields only grudgingly, and the notion of inevitable vital change is as yet far from a.s.similated. We confess it with our lips, but resist it in our hearts. We have learned as yet to respect only one cla.s.s of fundamental innovators, those dedicated to natural science and its applications. The social innovator is still generally suspect.

To the mediaeval theologian, man was by nature vile. We have seen that, according to the Christian Epic, he was a.s.soiled from birth with the primeval sin of his first parents, and began to darken his score with fresh offenses of his own as soon as he became intelligent enough to do so. An elaborate mechanism was supplied by the Church for was.h.i.+ng away the original pollution and securing forgiveness for later sins.

Indeed, this was ostensibly its main business.

We may still well ask, Is man by nature bad? And accordingly as we answer the question we either frame appropriate means for frustrating his evil tendencies or, if we see some promise in him, work for his freedom and bid him take advantage of it to make himself and others happy. So far as I know, Charron, a friend of Montaigne, was one of the first to say a good word for man's animal nature, and a hundred years later the amiable Shaftesbury pointed out some honestly gentlemanly traits in the species. To the modern student of biology and anthropology man is neither good nor bad. There is no longer any "mystery of evil". But the mediaeval notion of _sin_--a term heavy with mysticism and deserving of careful scrutiny by every thoughtful person--still confuses us.

Of man's impulses, the one which played the greatest part in mediaeval thoughts of sin and in the monastic ordering of life was the s.e.xual.

The presuppositions of the Middle Ages in the matter of the relations of men and women have been carried over to our own day. As compared with many of the ideas which we have inherited from the past, they are of comparatively recent origin. The Greeks and Romans were, on the whole, primitive and uncritical in their view of s.e.x. The philosophers do not seem to have speculated on s.e.x, although there was evidently some talk in Athens of women's rights. The movement is satirized by Aristophanes, and later Plato showed a willingness in _The Republic_ to impeach the current notions of the family and women's position in general.

But there are few traces of our ideas of s.e.xual "purity" in the cla.s.sical writers. To the Stoic philosopher, and to other thoughtful elderly people, s.e.xual indulgence was deemed a low order of pleasure and one best carefully controlled in the interests of peace of mind.

But with the incoming of Christianity an essentially new att.i.tude developed, which is still, consciously or unconsciously, that of most people to-day.

St. Augustine, who had led a free life as a teacher of rhetoric in Carthage and Rome, came in his later years to believe, as he struggled to overcome his youthful temptations, that s.e.xual desire was the most devilish of man's enemies and the chief sign of his degradation. He could imagine no such unruly urgence in man's perfect estate, when Adam and Eve still dwelt in Paradise. But with man's fall s.e.xual desire appeared as the sign and seal of human debas.e.m.e.nt. This theory is poignantly set forth in Augustine's _City of G.o.d_. He furnished therein a philosophy for the monks, and doubtless his fourteenth book was well thumbed by those who were wont to ponder somewhat wistfully on one of the sins they had fled the world to escape.

Christian monasticism was spreading in western Europe in Augustine's time, and the monkist vows included "chast.i.ty". There followed a long struggle to force the whole priesthood to adopt a celibate life, and this finally succeeded so far as repeated decrees of the Church could effect it. Marriage was proper for the laity, but both the monastic and secular clergy aspired to a superior holiness which should banish all thoughts of fervent earthly love. Thus a highly unnatural life was accepted by men and women of the most varied temperament and often with slight success.

The result of Augustine's theories and of the efforts to frustrate one of man's most vehement impulses was to give s.e.x a conscious importance it had never possessed before. The devil was thrust out of the door only to come in at all the windows. In due time the Protestant sects abolished monasteries, and the Catholic countries later followed their example. The Protestant clergy were permitted to marry, and the old asceticism has visibly declined. But it has done much to determine our whole att.i.tude toward s.e.x, and there is no cla.s.s of questions still so difficult to discuss with full honesty or to deal with critically and with an open mind as those relating to the intimate relations of men and women.

No one familiar with mediaeval literature will, however, be inclined to accuse its authors of prudishness. Nevertheless, modern prudishness, as it prevails especially in England and the United States--our squeamish and shamefaced reluctance to recognize and deal frankly with the facts and problems of s.e.x--is clearly an outgrowth of the mediaeval att.i.tude which looked on s.e.xual impulse as of evil origin and a sign of man's degradation. Modern psychologists have shown that prudishness is not always an indication of exceptional purity, but rather the reverse. It is often a disguise thrown over repressed s.e.xual interest and s.e.xual preoccupations. It appears to be decreasing among the better educated of the younger generation. The study of biology, and especially of embryology, is an easy and simple way of disintegrating the "impurity complex". "Purity" in the sense of ignorance and suppressed curiosity is a highly dangerous state of mind. And such purity in alliance with prudery and defensive hypocrisy makes any honest discussion or essential readjustment of our inst.i.tutions and habits extremely difficult.

One of the greatest contrasts between mediaeval thinking and the more critical thought of to-day lies in the general conception of man's relation to the cosmos. To the medieval philosopher, as to the stupidest serf of the time, the world was made for man. All the heavenly bodies revolved about man's abode as their center. All creatures were made to a.s.sist or to try man. G.o.d and the devil were preoccupied with his fate, for had not G.o.d made him in his own image for his glory, and was not the devil intent on populating his own infernal kingdom? It was easy for those who had a poetic turn of mind to think of nature's workings as symbols for man's edification. The habits of the lion or the eagle yielded moral lessons or ill.u.s.trated the divine scheme of salvation. Even the written word was to be valued, not for what it seemed to say, but for hidden allegories depicting man's struggles against evil and cheering him on his way.

This is a perennially appealing conception of things. It corresponds to primitive and inveterate tendencies in humanity and gratifies, under the guise of humility, our hungering for self-importance. The mediaeval thinker, however freely he might exercise his powers of logical a.n.a.lysis in rationalizing the Christian Epic, never permitted himself to question its general anthropocentric and mystical view of the world. The philosophic mystic a.s.sumes the role of a docile child.

He feels that all vital truth transcends his powers of discovery. He looks to the Infinite and Eternal Mind to reveal it to him through the prophets of old, or in moments of ecstatic communion with the Divine Intelligence. To the mystic all that concerns our deeper needs transcends logic and defies a.n.a.lysis. In his estimate the human reason is a feeble rushlight which can at best cast a flickering and uncertain ray on the grosser concerns of life, but which only serves to intensify the darkness which surrounds the hidden truth of G.o.d.

In order that modern science might develop it is clear that a wholly new and opposed set of fundamental convictions had to be subst.i.tuted for those of the Middle Ages. Man had to cultivate another kind of self-importance and a new and more profound humility. He had come to believe in his capacity to discover important truth through thoughtful examination of things about him, and he had to recognize, on the other hand, that the world did not seem to be made for him, but that humanity was apparently a curious incident in the universe, and its career a recent episode in cosmic history. He had to acquire a taste for the simplest possible and most thoroughgoing explanation of things. His whole mood had to change and impel him to reduce everything so far as possible to the commonplace.

This new view was inevitably fiercely attacked by the mystically disposed. They misunderstood it and berated its adherents and accused them of robbing man of all that was most precious in life. These, in turn, were goaded into bitterness and denounced their opponents as pig-headed obscurantists.

But we must, after all, come to terms in some way with the emotions underlying mysticism. They are very dear to us, and scientific knowledge will never form an adequate subst.i.tute for them. No one need fear that the supply of mystery will ever give out; but a great deal depends on our taste in mystery; that certainly needs refining. What disturbs the so-called rationalist in the mystic's att.i.tude is his propensity to see mysteries where there are none and to fail to see those that we cannot possibly escape. In declaring that one is not a mystic, one makes no claim to be able to explain everything, nor does he maintain that all things are explicable in scientific terms.

Indeed, no thoughtful person will be likely to boast that he can fully explain anything. We have only to sc.r.a.pe the surface of our experiences to find fundamental mystery. And how, indeed, as descendants of an extinct race of primates, with a mind still in the early stages of acc.u.mulation, should we be in the way of reaching ultimate truth at any point? One may properly urge, however, that as sharp a distinction as possible be made between fict.i.tious mysteries and the unavoidable ones which surround us on every side. How milk turned sour used to be a real mystery, now partially solved since the discovery of bacteria; how the witch flew up the chimney was a gratuitous mystery with which we need no longer trouble ourselves. A "live" wire would once have suggested magic; now it is at least partially explained by the doctrine of electrons.

It is the avowed purpose of scientific thought to reduce the number of mysteries, and its success has been marvelous, but it has by no means done its perfect work as yet. We have carried over far too much of mediaeval mysticism in our views of man and his duty toward himself and others.

We must now recall the method adopted by students of the natural sciences in breaking away from the standards and limitations of the mediaeval philosophers and establis.h.i.+ng new standards of their own.

They thus prepared the way for a revolution in human affairs in the midst of which we now find ourselves. As yet their type of thinking has not been applied on any considerable scale to the solution of social problems. By learning to understand and appreciate the scientific frame of mind as a historical victory won against extraordinary odds, we may be encouraged to cultivate and popularize a similar att.i.tude toward the study of man himself.

NOTES.

[20] St. Ethelred, returning from a pious visit to Citeaux in the days of Henry II, encountered a great storm when he reached the Channel. He asked himself what _he_ had done to be thus delayed, and suddenly thought that he had failed to _fulfill_ a promise to write a poem on St. Cuthbert. When he had completed this, "wonderful to say, the sea ceased to rage and became tranquil".--_Surtees Society Publications_, i, p. 177.

VI

Narrabo igitur primo opera artis et naturae miranda.... ut videatur quod omnis magica potestas sit inferior his operibus et indigna.

--ROGER BACON.

I do not endeavor either by triumphs of confutation, or pleadings of antiquity, or a.s.sumption of authority, or even, by the veil of obscurity, to invest these inventions of mine with any majesty....

I have not sought nor do I seek either to force or ensnare men's judgments, but I lead them to things themselves and the concordances of things, that they may see for themselves what they have, what they can dispute, what they can add and contribute to the common stock.--FRANCIS BACON (_Preface to the Great Instauration_).

12. THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION

At the opening of the seventeenth century a man of letters, of sufficient genius to be suspected by some of having written the plays of Shakespeare, directed his distinguished literary ability to the promotion and exaltation of natural science. Lord Bacon was the chief herald of that habit of scientific and critical thought which has played so novel and all-important a part in the making of the modern mind. When but twenty-two years old he was already sketching out a work which he planned to call _Temporis Partus Maximus (The Greatest Thing Ever)_. He felt that he had discovered why the human mind, enmeshed in mediaeval metaphysics and indifferent to natural phenomena, had hitherto been a stunted and ineffective thing, and how it might be so nurtured and guided as to gain undreamed of strength and vigor.

And never has there been a man better equipped with literary gifts to preach a new gospel than Francis Bacon. He spent years in devising eloquent and ingenious ways of delivering learning from the "discredits and disgraces" of the past, and in exhorting man to explore the realms of nature for his delight and profit. He never wearied of trumpeting forth the glories of the new knowledge which would come with the study of common things and the profitable uses to which it might be put in relieving man's estate. He impeached the mediaeval schoolmen for spinning out endless cobwebs of learning, remarkable for their fineness, but of no substance or spirit. He urged the learned to come out of their cells, study the creations of G.o.d, and build upon what they discovered a new and true philosophy.

Even in his own day students of natural phenomena had begun to carry out Bacon's general program with striking effects. While he was urging men to cease "tumbling up and down in their own reason and conceits"

and to spell out, and so by degrees to learn to read, the volume of G.o.d's works, Galileo had already begun the reading and had found out that the Aristotelian physics ran counter to the facts; that a body once in motion will continue to move forever in a straight line unless it be stopped or deflected. Studying the sky through his newly invented telescope, he beheld the sun spots and noted the sun's revolution on its axis, the phases of Venus, and the satellites of Jupiter. These discoveries seemed to confirm the ideas advanced long before by Copernicus--the earth was not the center of the universe and the heavens were not perfect and unchanging. He dared to discuss these matters in the language of the people and was, as everyone knows, condemned by the Inquisition.

This preoccupation with natural phenomena and this refusal to accept the old, established theories until they had been verified by an investigation of common fact was a very novel thing. It introduced a fresh and momentous element into our intellectual heritage. We have recalled the mysticism, supernaturalism, and intolerance of the Middle Ages, their reliance on old books, and their indifference to everyday fact except as a sort of allegory for the edification of the Christian pilgrim. In the mediaeval universities the professors, or "schoolmen", devoted themselves to the elaborate formulation of Christian doctrine and the interpretation of Aristotle's works. It was a period of revived Greek metaphysics, adapted to prevailing religious presuppositions. Into this fettered world Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, and others brought a new aspiration to promote investigation and honest, critical thinking about everyday things.

_These founders of modern natural science realized that they would have to begin afresh. This was a bold resolve, but not so bold as must be that of the student of mankind to-day if he expects to free himself from the trammels of the past_. Bacon pointed out that the old days were not those of mature knowledge, but of youthful human ignorance.

"_These_ times are the ancient times, when the world is ancient, and not those we count ancient, _ordine retrogrado_, by a computation backward from ourselves." In his _New Atlantis_ he pictures an ideal State which concentrated its resources on systematic scientific research, with a view to applying new discoveries to the betterment of man's lot.

Descartes, who was a young man when Bacon was an old one, insisted on the necessity, if we proposed to seek the truth, of questioning _everything_ at least once in our lives. To all these leaders in the development of modern science doubt, not faith, was the beginning of wisdom. They doubted--and with good reason--what the Greeks were supposed to have discovered; they doubted all the old books and all the university professors' lecture notes. They did not venture to doubt the Bible, but they eluded it in various ways. They set to work to find out exactly what happened under certain circ.u.mstances. They experimented individually and reported their discoveries to the scientific academies which began to come into existence.

As one follows the deliberations of these bodies it is pathetic to observe how little the learning of previous centuries, in spite of its imposing claims, had to contribute to a fruitful knowledge of common things. It required a century of hard work to establish the most elementary facts which would now be found in a child's book. How water and air act, how to measure time and temperature and atmospheric pressure, had to be discovered. The microscope revealed the complexity of organic tissues, the existence of minute creatures, vaguely called infusoria, and the strange inhabitants of the blood, the red and white corpuscles. The telescope put an end to the flattering a.s.sumption that the cosmos circled around man and the little ball he lives on.

Without a certain un-Greek, practical inventive tendency which, for reasons not easily to be discovered, first began to manifest itself in the thirteenth century, this progress would not have been possible.

The new thinkers descended from the magisterial chair and patiently fussed with lenses, tubes, pulleys, and wheels, thus weaning themselves from the adoration of man's mind and understanding. They had to devise the machinery of investigation as investigation itself progressed.