Part 5 (1/2)
Though Malebranche's conception was only a metaphysical theory, metaphysical theories have usually their pragmatic aspects; and the theory that the universe is as perfect as it could be marks a stage in the growth of intellectual optimism which we can trace from the sixteenth century. It was a view which could appeal to the educated public in France, for it harmonised with the general spirit of self-complacency and hopefulness which prevailed among the higher cla.s.ses of society in the reign of Louis XIV. For them the conditions of life under the new despotism had become far more agreeable than in previous ages, and it was in a spirit of optimism that they devoted themselves to the enjoyment of luxury and elegance. The experience of what the royal authority could achieve encouraged men to imagine that one enlightened will, with a centralised administration at its command, might accomplish endless improvements in civilisation. There was no age had ever been more glorious, no age more agreeable to live in.
The world had begun to abandon the theory of corruption, degeneration, and decay.
Some years later the optimistic theory of the perfection of the universe found an abler exponent in Leibnitz, whom Diderot calls the father of optimism. [Footnote: See particularly Monadologie, ad fin. published posthumously in German 1720, in Latin 1728; Theodicee, Section 341 (1710); and the paper, De rerum originatione radicali, written in 1697, but not published till 1840 (Opera philosophica, ed. Erdmann, p. 147 sqq).] The Creator, before He acted, had considered all possible worlds, and had chosen the best. He might have chosen one in which humanity would have been better and happier, but that would not have been the best possible, for He had to consider the interests of the whole universe, of which the earth with humanity is only an insignificant part. The evils and imperfections of our small world are negligible in comparison with the happiness and perfection of the whole cosmos.
Leibnitz, whose theory is deduced from the abstract proposition that the Creator is perfect, does not say that now or at any given moment the universe is as perfect as it could be; its merit lies in its potentialities; it will develop towards perfection throughout infinite time.
The optimism of Leibnitz therefore concerns the universe as a whole, not the earth, and would obviously be quite consistent with a pessimistic view of the destinies of humanity. He does indeed believe that it would be impossible to improve the universal order, ”not only for the whole, but for ourselves in particular,” and incidentally he notes the possibility that ”in the course of time the human race may reach a greater perfection than we can imagine at present.” But the significance of his speculation and that of Malebranche lies in the fact that the old theories of degeneration are definitely abandoned.
CHAPTER IV. THE DOCTRINE OF DEGENERATION: THE ANCIENTS AND MODERNS
1.
Outside the circle of systematic thinkers the prevalent theory of degeneration was being challenged early in the seventeenth century. The challenge led to a literary war, which was waged for about a hundred years in France and England; over the comparative merits of the ancients and the moderns. It was in the matter of literature, and especially poetry, that the quarrel was most acrimonious, and that the interest of the public was most keenly aroused, but the ablest disputants extended the debate to the general field of knowledge. The quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns used commonly to be dismissed as a curious and rather ridiculous episode in the history of literature. [Footnote: The best and fullest work on the subject is Rigault's ”Histoire de la querelle des Anciens et des Modernes” (1856).] Auguste Comte was, I think, one of the first to call attention to some of its wider bearings.
The quarrel, indeed, has considerable significance in the history of ideas. It was part of the rebellion against the intellectual yoke of the Renaissance; the cause of the Moderns, who were the aggressors, represented the liberation of criticism from the authority of the dead; and, notwithstanding the perversities of taste of which they were guilty, their polemic, even on the purely literary side, was distinctly important, as M. Brunetiere has convincingly shown, [Footnote: See his ”L'evolution des genres dans l'histoire de la litterature.”] in the development of French criticism. But the form in which the critical questions were raised forced the debate to touch upon a problem of greater moment. The question, Can the men of to-day contend on equal terms with the ill.u.s.trious ancients, or are they intellectually inferior? implied the larger issue, Has nature exhausted her powers; is she no longer capable of producing men equal in brains and vigour to those whom she once produced; is humanity played out, or are her forces permanent and inexhaustible?
The a.s.sertion of the permanence of the powers of nature by the champions of the Moderns was the direct contradiction of the theory of degeneration, and they undoubtedly contributed much towards bringing that theory into discredit. When we grasp this it will not be surprising to find that the first clear a.s.sertions of a doctrine of progress in knowledge were provoked by the controversy about the Ancients and Moderns.
Although the great scene of the controversy was France, the question had been expressly raised by an Italian, no less a person than Alessandro Ta.s.soni, the accomplished author of that famous ironical poem, ”La Secchia rapita,” which caricatured the epic poets of his day. He was bent on exposing the prejudices of his time and uttering new doctrine, and he created great scandal in Italy by his attacks on Petrarch, as well as on Homer and Aristotle. The earliest comparison of the merits of the ancients and the moderns will be found in a volume of Miscellaneous Thoughts which he published in 1620. [Footnote: Dieci libri di pensieri diversi (Carpi, 1620). The first nine books had appeared in 1612. The tenth contains the comparison. Rigault was the first to connect this work with the history of the controversy.] He speaks of the question as a matter of current dispute, [Footnote: It was incidental to the controversy which arose over the merits of Ta.s.so's Jerusalem Delivered.
That the subject had been discussed long before may be inferred from a remark of Estienne in his Apology for Herodotus, that while some of his contemporaries carry their admiration of antiquity to the point of superst.i.tion, others depreciate and trample it underfoot.] on which he proposes to give an impartial decision by inst.i.tuting a comprehensive comparison in all fields, theoretical, imaginative, and practical.
He begins by criticising the a priori argument that, as arts are brought to perfection by experience and long labour, the modern age must necessarily have the advantage. This reasoning, he says, is unsound, because the same arts and studies are not always uninterruptedly pursued by the most powerful intellects, but pa.s.s into inferior hands, and so decline or are even extinguished, as was the case in Italy in the decrepitude of the Roman Empire, when for many centuries the arts fell below mediocrity. Or, to phrase it otherwise, the argument would be admissible only if there were no breaches of continuity. [Footnote: Ta.s.soni argues that a decline in all pursuits is inevitable when a certain point of excellence has been reached, quoting Velleius Paterculus (i. 17): difficilisque in perfecto mora est naturaliterque quod procedere non potest recedit.]
In drawing his comparison Ta.s.soni seeks to make good his claim that he is not an advocate. But while he awards superiority here and there to the ancients, the moderns on the whole have much the best of it. He takes a wide enough survey, including the material side of civilisation, even costume, in contrast with some of the later controversialists, who narrowed the field of debate to literature and art.
Ta.s.soni's Thoughts were translated into French, and the book was probably known to Boisrobert, a dramatist who is chiefly remembered for the part he took in founding the Academie francaise. He delivered a discourse before that body immediately after its inst.i.tution (February 26, 1635), in which he made a violent and apparently scurrilous attack on Homer. This discourse kindled the controversy in France, and even struck a characteristic note. Homer--already severely handled by Ta.s.soni--was to be the special target for the arrows of the Moderns, who felt that, if they could succeed in discrediting him, their cause would be won.
Thus the gauntlet was flung--and it is important to note this--before the appearance of the Discourse of Method (1637); but the influence of Descartes made itself felt throughout the controversy, and the most prominent moderns were men who had a.s.similated Cartesian ideas. This seems to be true even of Desmarets de Saint Sorlin, who, a good many years after the discourse of Boisrobert, opened the campaign. Saint Sorlin had become a fanatical Christian; that was one reason for hating the ancients. [Footnote: For the views of Saint Sorlin see the Preface to his Clovis and his Traite pour juger des poefes grecs, latins, et francais, chap. iv. (1670). Cp. Rigault, Hist. de la querelle, p. 106.
The polemic of Saint Sorlin extended over about five years (1669-73).]
He was also, like Boisrobert, a bad poet; that was another. His thesis was that the history of Christianity offered subjects far more inspiring to a poet than those which had been treated by Homer and Sophocles, and that Christian poetry must bear off the palm from pagan. His own Clovis and Mary Magdalene or the Triumph of Grace were the demonstration of Homer's defeat. Few have ever heard of these productions; how many have read them? Curiously, about the same time an epic was being composed in England which might have given to the foolish contentions of Saint Sorlin some illusory plausibility.
But the literary dispute does not concern us here. What does concern us is that Saint Sorlin was aware of the wider aspects of the question, though he was not seriously interested in them. Antiquity, he says, was not so happy or so learned or so rich or so stately as the modern age, which is really the mature old age, and as it were the autumn of the world, possessing the fruits and the spoils of all the past centuries, with the power to judge of the inventions, experiences, and errors of predecessors, and to profit by all that. The ancient world was a spring which had only a few flowers. Nature indeed, in all ages, produces perfect works but it is not so with the creations of man, which require correction; and the men who live latest must excel in happiness and knowledge. Here we have both the a.s.sertion of the permanence of the forces of nature and the idea, already expressed by Bacon and others, that the modern age has advantages over antiquity comparable to those of old age over childhood.
2.
How seriously the question between the Moderns and the Ancients--on whose behalf Boileau had come forward and crossed swords with Saint Sorlin--was taken is shown by the fact that Saint Sorlin, before his death, solemnly bequeathed the champions.h.i.+p of the Moderns to a younger man, Charles Perrault. We shall see how he fulfilled the trust. It is ill.u.s.trated too by a book which appeared in the seventies, Les Entretiens d'Ariste et Eugene, by Bouhours, a mundane and popular Jesuit Father. In one of these dialogues the question is raised, but with a curious caution and evasiveness, which suggests that the author was afraid to commit himself; he did not wish to make enemies. [Footnote: Rigault notes that he makes one contribution to the subject, the idea that the torch of civilisation has pa.s.sed from country to country, in different ages, e.g. from Greece to Rome, and recently from Italy to France. In the last century the Italians were first in doctrine and politesse. The present century is for France what the last was for Italy: ”We have all the esprit and all the science, all other countries are barbarous in comparison” (p. 239, ed. 1782, Amsterdam). But, as we shall see, he had been antic.i.p.ated by Hakewill, whose work was unknown to Rigault.]
The general atmosphere in France, in the reign of Louis XIV., was propitious to the cause of the Moderns. Men felt that it was a great age, comparable to the age of Augustus, and few would have preferred to have lived at any other time. Their literary artists, Corneille, and then Racine and Moliere, appealed so strongly to their taste that they could not a.s.sign to them any rank but the first. They were impatient of the claims to unattainable excellence advanced for the Greeks and Romans. ”The ancients,” said Moliere, ”are the ancients, we are the people of to-day.” This might be the motto of Descartes, and it probably expressed a very general feeling.
It was in 1687 that Charles Perrault--who is better remembered for his collection of fairy-tales than for the leading role which he played in this controversy--published his poem on ”The Age of Louis the Great.”
The enlightenment of the present age surpa.s.ses that of antiquity,--this is the theme.
La docte Antiquite dans toute sa duree A l'egal de nos jours ne fut point eclairee.
Perrault adopts a more polite att.i.tude to ”la belle antiquite” than Saint Sorlin, but his criticism is more insidious. Greek and Roman men of genius, he suggests, were all very well in their own times, and might be considered divine by our ancestors. But nowadays Plato is rather tiresome; and the ”inimitable Homer” would have written a much better epic if he had lived in the reign of Louis the Great. The important pa.s.sage, however, in the poem is that in which the permanent power of nature to produce men of equal talent in every age is affirmed.
A former les esprits comme a former les corps La Nature en tout temps fait les mesmes efforts; Son etre est immuable, et cette force aisee Dont elle produit tout ne s'est point epuisee; ..... De cette mesme main les forces infinies Produisent en tout temps de semblables genies.