Supply and Demand

[41]Mr. Russell's Letters in theTimesnewspaper (1854).

I grant all this, and much more, if you will;but, recollect, Athens was the home of the{15}intellectual and beautiful; not of low mechanicalcontrivances and material organization. Whystop within your lodgings counting the rents inyour wall or the holes in your tiling, when natureand art call you away? You must put up with{20}such a chamber, and a table, and a stool, and asleeping board, anywhere else in the threecontinents; one place does not differ from anotherindoors; your magalia in Africa, or your grottoesin Syria are not perfection. I suppose you did{25}not come to Athens to swarm up a ladder, or togrope about a closet: you came to see and tohear, what hear and see you could not elsewhere.What food for the intellect is it possible toprocure indoors, that you stay there looking about{30}you? do you think to read there? where are yourbooks? do you expect to purchase books atAthens—you are much out in your calculations.True it is, we at this day, who live in thenineteenth century, have the books of Greece as aperpetual memorial; and copies there have been,{5}since the time that they were written; but youneed not go to Athens to procure them, nor wouldyou find them in Athens. Strange to say, strangeto the nineteenth century, that in the age of Platoand Thucydides, there was not, it is said, a{10}bookshop in the whole place: nor was the book tradein existence till the very time of Augustus.Libraries, I suspect, were the bright invention ofAttalus or the Ptolemies;[42]I doubt whetherAthens had a library till the reign of Hadrian.{15}It was what the student gazed on, what he heard,what he caught by the magic of sympathy, notwhat he read, which was the education furnishedby Athens.

[42]I do not go into controversy on the subject, for which thereader must have recourse to Lipsius, Morhof, Boeckh, Bekker, etc.; andthis of course applies to whatever historical matter I introduce, orshall introduce.

He leaves his narrow lodging early in the{20}morning; and not till night, if even then, will hereturn. It is but a crib or kennel, in whichhe sleeps when the weather is inclement or theground damp; in no respect a home. And hegoes out of doors, not to read the day's{25}newspaper, or to buy the gay shilling volume, but toimbibe the invisible atmosphere of genius, andto learn by heart the oral traditions of taste.Out he goes; and, leaving the tumble-downtown behind him, he mounts the Acropolis tothe right, or he turns to the Areopagus on the left.He goes to the Parthenon to study the sculptures{5}of Phidias; to the temple of the Dioscuri to seethe paintings of Polygnotus. We indeed takeour Sophocles or Æschylus out of our coat pocket;but, if our sojourner at Athens would understandhow a tragic poet can write, he must betake{10}himself to the theater on the south, and see andhear the drama literally in action. Or let him gowestward to the Agora, and there he will hearLysias or Andocides pleading, or Demosthenesharanguing. He goes farther west still, along the{15}shade of those noble planes, which Cimon hasplanted there; and he looks around him at thestatues and porticoes and vestibules, each byitself a work of genius and skill, enough to be themaking of another city. He passes through the{20}city gate, and then he is at the famous Ceramicus;here are the tombs of the mighty dead; and here,we will suppose, is Pericles himself, the mostelevated, the most thrilling of orators, converting afuneral oration over the slain into a philosophical{25}panegyric of the living.

Onwards he proceeds still; and now he hascome to that still more celebrated Academe,which has bestowed its own name on Universitiesdown to this day; and there he sees a sight which{30}will be graven on his memory till he dies. Manyare the beauties of the place, the groves, and thestatues, and the temple, and the stream of theCephissus flowing by; many are the lessonswhich will be taught him day after day by teacheror by companion; but his eye is just now arrested{5}by one object; it is the very presence of Plato.He does not hear a word that he says; he doesnot care to hear; he asks neither for discoursenor disputation; what he sees is a whole,complete in itself, not to be increased by addition, and{10}greater than anything else. It will be a point inthe history of his life; a stay for his memory torest on, a burning thought in his heart, a bond ofunion with men of like mind, ever afterwards.Such is the spell which the living man exerts on{15}his fellows, for good or for evil. How natureimpels us to lean upon others, making virtue, orgenius, or name, the qualification for our doingso! A Spaniard is said to have traveled to Italy,simply to see Livy; he had his fill of gazing, and{20}then went back again home. Had our youngstranger got nothing by his voyage but the sightof the breathing and moving Plato, had heentered no lecture room to hear, no gymnasium toconverse, he had got some measure of education,{25}and something to tell of to his grandchildren.

But Plato is not the only sage, nor the sight ofhim the only lesson to be learned in thiswonderful suburb. It is the region and the realmof philosophy. Colleges were the inventions of{30}many centuries later; and they imply a sort ofcloistered life, or at least a life of rule, scarcelynatural to an Athenian. It was the boast of thephilosophic statesman of Athens, that hiscountrymen achieved by the mere force of nature andthe love of the noble and the great, what other{5}people aimed at by laborious discipline; and allwho came among them were submitted to thesame method of education. We have traced ourstudent on his wanderings from the Acropolis tothe Sacred Way; and now he is in the region of{10}the schools. No awful arch, no window ofmany-colored lights marks the seats of learning thereor elsewhere; philosophy lives out of doors. Noclose atmosphere oppresses the brain or inflamesthe eyelid; no long session stiffens the limbs.{15}Epicurus is reclining in his garden; Zeno lookslike a divinity in his porch; the restless Aristotle,on the other side of the city, as if in antagonismto Plato, is walking his pupils off their legs in hisLyceum by the Ilyssus. Our student has{20}determined on entering himself as a disciple ofTheophrastus, a teacher of marvelous popularity, whohas brought together two thousand pupils fromall parts of the world. He himself is of Lesbos;for masters, as well as students, come hither from{25}all regions of the earth—as befits a University.How could Athens have collected hearers in suchnumbers, unless she had selected teachers of suchpower? it was the range of territory, which thenotion of a University implies, which furnished{30}both the quantity of the one and the quality ofthe other. Anaxagoras was from Ionia, Carneadesfrom Africa, Zeno from Cyprus, Protagoras fromThrace, and Gorgias from Sicily. Andromachuswas a Syrian, Proæresius an Armenian, Hilariusa Bithynian, Philiscus a Thessalian, Hadrian a{5}Syrian. Rome is celebrated for her liberality incivil matters; Athens was as liberal inintellectual. There was no narrow jealousy, directedagainst a Professor, because he was not anAthenian; genius and talent were the qualifications;{10}and to bring them to Athens, was to do homageto it as a University. There was a brotherhoodand a citizenship of mind.

Mind came first, and was the foundation of theacademical polity; but it soon brought along with{15}it, and gathered round itself, the gifts of fortuneand the prizes of life. As time went on, wisdomwas not always sentenced to the bare cloak ofCleanthes; but, beginning in rags, it ended infine linen. The Professors became honorable{20}and rich; and the students ranged themselvesunder their names, and were proud of callingthemselves their countrymen. The Universitywas divided into four great nations, as themediæval antiquarian would style them; and in the{25}middle of the fourth century, Proæresius was theleader or proctor of the Attic, Hephæstion ofthe Oriental, Epiphanius of the Arabic, andDiophantus of the Pontic. Thus the Professorswere both patrons of clients, and hosts and{30}proxeniof strangers and visitors, as well as mastersof the schools: and the Cappadocian, Syrian,or Sicilian youth who came to one or other ofthem, would be encouraged to study by hisprotection, and to aspire by his example.

Even Plato, when the schools of Athens were{5}not a hundred years old, was in circumstancesto enjoy theotium cum dignitate. He had a villaout at Heraclea; and he left his patrimony tohis school, in whose hands it remained, not onlysafe, but fructifying, a marvelous phenomenon in{10}tumultuous Greece, for the long space of eighthundred years. Epicurus too had the propertyof the Gardens where he lectured; and these toobecame the property of his sect. But in Romantimes the chairs of grammar, rhetoric, politics,{15}and the four philosophies were handsomelyendowed by the State; some of the Professorswere themselves statesmen or high functionaries,and brought to their favorite study senatorialrank or Asiatic opulence.{20}

Patrons such as these can compensate to thefreshman, in whom we have interested ourselves,for the poorness of his lodging and the turbulenceof his companions. In everything there is abetter side and a worse; in every place a{25}disreputable set and a respectable, and the one ishardly known at all to the other. Men comeaway from the same University at this day, withcontradictory impressions and contradictorystatements, according to the society they have found{30}there; if you believe the one, nothing goes onthere as it should be: if you believe the other,nothing goes on as it shouldnot. Virtue,however, and decency are at least in the minorityeverywhere, and under some sort of a cloud ordisadvantage; and this being the case, it is so{5}much gain whenever an Herodes Atticus is found,to throw the influence of wealth and station onthe side even of a decorous philosophy. Aconsular man, and the heir of an ample fortune, thisHerod was content to devote his life to a{10}professorship, and his fortune to the patronage ofliterature. He gave the sophist Polemo abouteight thousand pounds, as the sum is calculated,for three declamations. He built at Athens astadium six hundred feet long, entirely of white{15}marble, and capable of admitting the wholepopulation. His theater, erected to the memory ofhis wife, was made of cedar wood curiously carved.He had two villas, one at Marathon, the place ofhis birth, about ten miles from Athens, the other{20}at Cephissia, at the distance of six; and thitherhe drew to him theèlite, and at times the wholebody of the students. Long arcades, groves oftrees, clear pools for the bath, delighted andrecruited the summer visitor. Never was so{25}brilliant a lecture room as his eveningbanqueting hall; highly connected students from Romemixed with the sharp-witted provincial of Greeceor Asia Minor; and the flippant sciolist, and thenondescript visitor, half philosopher, half tramp,{30}met with a reception, courteous always, but suitableto his deserts. Herod was noted for hisrepartees; and we have instances on record ofhis setting down, according to the emergency,both the one and the other.

A higher line, though a rarer one, was that{5}allotted to the youthful Basil. He was one ofthose men who seem by a sort of fascination todraw others around them even without wishingit. One might have deemed that his gravity andhis reserve would have kept them at a distance;{10}but, almost in spite of himself, he was the centerof a knot of youths, who, pagans as most of themwere, used Athens honestly for the purpose forwhich they professed to seek it; and, disappointedand displeased with the place himself, he seems{15}nevertheless to have been the means of theirprofiting by its advantages. One of these wasSophronius, who afterwards held a high office inthe State: Eusebius was another, at that timethe bosom friend of Sophronius, and afterwards{20}a Bishop. Celsus too is named, who afterwardswas raised to the government of Cilicia by theEmperor Julian. Julian himself, in the sequel ofunhappy memory, was then at Athens, and knownat least to St. Gregory. Another Julian is also{25}mentioned, who was afterwards commissioner ofthe land tax. Here we have a glimpse of the betterkind of society among the students of Athens; andit is to the credit of the parties composing it,that such young men as Gregory and Basil, men{30}as intimately connected with Christianity, as theywere well known in the world, should hold so higha place in their esteem and love. When the twosaints were departing, their companions camearound them with the hope of changing theirpurpose. Basil persevered; but Gregory relented,{5}and turned back to Athens for a season.

THE SCHOOLMEN

It is most interesting to observe how thefoundations of the present intellectual greatnessof Europe were laid, and most wonderful to thinkthat they were ever laid at all. Let us consider{10}how wide and how high is the platform of ourknowledge at this day, and what openings inevery direction are in progress—openings ofsuch promise, that, unless some convulsion ofsociety takes place, even what we have attained,{15}will in future times be nothing better than a poorbeginning; and then on the other hand, let usrecollect that, seven centuries ago, putting asiderevealed truths, Europe had little more than thatpoor knowledge, partial and uncertain, and at{20}best only practical, which is conveyed to us by thesenses. Even our first principles now are beyondthe most daring conjectures then; and what hasbeen said so touchingly of Christian ideas ascompared with pagan, is true in its way and degree{25}of the progress of secular knowledge also in theseven centuries I have named.

"What sages would have died to learn,[Is] taught by cottage dames."

Nor is this the only point in which therevelations of science may be compared to thesupernatural revelations of Christianity. Though{5}sacred truth was delivered once for all, andscientific discoveries are progressive, yet there isa great resemblance in the respective histories ofChristianity and of Science. We are accustomedto point to the rise and spread of Christianity as{10}a miraculous fact, and rightly so, on account ofthe weakness of its instruments, and the appallingweight and multiplicity of the obstacles whichconfronted it. To clear away those obstacleswas to move mountains; yet this was done by{15}a few poor, obscure, unbefriended men, andtheir poor, obscure, unbefriended followers. Nosocial movement can come up to this marvel,which is singular and archetypical, certainly;it is a Divine work, and we soon cease to admire{20}it in order to adore. But there is more in itthan its own greatness to contemplate; it is sogreat as to be prolific of greatness. Those whomit has created, its children who have become suchby a supernatural power, have imitated, in their{25}own acts, the dispensation which made themwhat they were; and, though they have notcarried out works simply miraculous, yet they havedone exploits sufficient to bespeak their ownunearthly origin, and the new powers which had{30}come into the world. The revival of letters bythe energy of Christian ecclesiastics and laymen,when everything had to be done, reminds us ofthe birth of Christianity itself, as far as a work ofman can resemble a work of God.

Two characteristics, as I have already had{5}occasion to say, are generally found to attend thehistory of Science: first, its instruments havean innate force, and can dispense with foreignassistance in their work; and secondly, theseinstruments must exist and must begin to act,{10}before subjects are found who are to profit bytheir action. In plainer language, the teacher isstrong, not in the patronage of great men, butin the intrinsic value and attraction of what hehas to communicate; and next, he must come{15}forward and advertise himself, before he can gainhearers. This I have expressed before, in sayingthat a great school of learning lived in demand andsupply, and that the supply must be before thedemand. Now, what is this but the very history{20}of the preaching of the Gospel? who but theApostles and Evangelists went out to the endsof the earth without patron, or friend, or otherexternal advantage which could insure theirsuccess? and again, who among the multitude they{25}enlightened would have called for their aid unlessthey had gone to that multitude first, and offeredto it blessings which up to that moment it hadnot heard of? They had no commission, theyhad no invitation, from man; their strength lay{30}neither in their being sent, nor in their being sentfor; but in the circumstances that they had thatwith them, a Divine message, which they knewwould at once, when it was uttered, thrill throughthe hearts of those to whom they spoke, andmake for themselves friends in any place,{5}strangers and outcasts as they were when they firstcame. They appealed to the secret wants andaspirations of human nature, to its ladenconscience, its weariness, its desolateness, and itssense of the true and the Divine; nor did they{10}long wait for listeners and disciples, when theyannounced the remedy of evils which were so real.

Something like this were the first stages of theprocess by which in mediæval Christendom thestructure of our present intellectual elevation{15}was carried forward. From Rome as from acenter, as the Apostles from Jerusalem, wentforth the missionaries of knowledge, passing toand fro all over Europe; and, as Metropolitansees were the record of the presence of Apostles,{20}so did Paris, Pavia, and Bologna, and Padua,and Ferrara, Pisa and Naples, Vienna, Louvain,and Oxford, rise into Universities at the voice ofthe theologian or the philosopher. Moreover, asthe Apostles went through labors untold, by{25}sea and land, in their charity to souls; so, ifrobbers, shipwrecks, bad lodging, and scanty fareare trials of zeal, such trials were encounteredwithout hesitation by the martyrs and confessorsof science. And as Evangelists had grounded{30}their teaching upon the longing for happinessnatural to man, so did these securely rest theircause on the natural thirst for knowledge: andagain as the preachers of Gospel peace had oftento bewail the ruin which persecution ordissension had brought upon their nourishing colonies,{5}so also did the professors of science often find orflee the ravages of sword or pestilence in thoseplaces, which they themselves perhaps in formertimes had made the seats of religious, honorable,and useful learning. And lastly, as kings and{10}nobles have fortified and advanced the interestsof the Christian faith without being necessaryto it, so in like manner we may enumerate withhonor Charlemagne, Alfred, Henry the First ofEngland, Joan of Navarre, and many others, as{15}patrons of the schools of learning, without beingobliged to allow that those schools could not haveprogressed without such countenance.

These are some of the points of resemblancebetween the propagation of Christian truth and{20}the revival of letters; and, to return to the twopoints, to which I have particularly drawnattention, the University Professor's confidence in hisown powers, and his taking the initiative in theexercise of them, I find both these distinctly{25}recognized by Mr. Hallam in his history of Literature.As to the latter point, he says, "The schools ofCharlemagne were designed to lay the basis of alearned education,for which there was at that timeno sufficient desire"—that is, the supply was{30}prior to the demand. As to the former: "Inthe twelfth century," he says, "theimpetuositywith which menrushedto that source of whatthey deemed wisdom, the great University ofParis,did not depend upon academical privilegesor eleemosynary stipends, though these were{5}undoubtedly very effectual in keeping it up. TheUniversitycreated patrons, and was not createdby them"—that is, demand and supply were allin all....

Bec, a poor monastery of Normandy, set up in{10}the eleventh century by an illiterate soldier, whosought the cloister, soon attracted scholars to itsdreary clime from Italy, and transmitted themto England. Lanfranc, afterwards Archbishop ofCanterbury, was one of these, and he found the{15}simple monks so necessitous, that he opened aschool of logic to all comers, in order, says Williamof Malmesbury, "that he might support his needymonastery by the pay of the students." Thesame author adds, that "his reputation went into{20}the most remote parts of the Latin world, andBec became a great and famous Academy ofletters." Here is an instance of acommencement without support, without scholars, in orderto attract scholars, and in them to find support.{25}William of Jumièges, too, bears witness to theeffect, powerful, sudden, wide spreading, andvarious, of Lanfranc's advertisement of himself.The fame of Bec and Lanfranc, he says, quicklypenetrated through the whole world; and "clerks,{30}the sons of dukes, the most esteemed masters ofthe Latin schools, powerful laymen, high nobles,flocked to him." What words can more strikinglyattest the enthusiastic character of the movementwhich he began, than to say that it carried awaywith it all classes; rich as well as poor, laymen as{5}well as ecclesiastics, those who were in that dayin the habit of despising letters, as well as thosewho might wish to live by them?...

ABELARD

We can have few more apposite illustrationsof at once the strength and weakness of what{10}may be called the University principle, of whatit can do and what it cannot, of its power tocollect students, and its impotence to preserve andedify them, than the history of the celebratedAbelard. His name is closely associated with{15}the commencement of the University of Paris;and in his popularity and in his reverses, in thecriticisms of John of Salisbury on his method,and the protest of St. Bernard against histeaching, we read, as in a pattern specimen, what a{20}University professes in its essence, and what itneeds for its "integrity." It is not to be supposed,that I am prepared to show this here, as fully asit might be shown; but it is a subject sopertinent to the general object of these Essays, that it{25}may be useful to devote even a few pages to it.

The oracles of Divine Truth, as time goes on,do but repeat the one message from above whichthey have ever uttered, since the tongues of fireattested the coming of the Paraclete; still, astime goes on, they utter it with greater force and{5}precision, under diverse forms, with fullerluminousness, and a richer ministration of thoughtstatement, and argument. They meet thevarying wants, and encounter the special resistanceof each successive age; and, though prescient of{10}coming errors and their remedy long before, theycautiously reserve their new enunciation of theold Truth, till it is imperatively demanded. And,as it happens in kings' cabinets, that surmisesarise, and rumors spread, of what is said in{15}council, and is in course of preparation, and secretsperhaps get wind, true in substance or in direction,though distorted in detail; so too, before theChurch speaks, one or other of her forwardchildren speaks for her, and, while he does anticipate{20}to a certain point what she is about to say orenjoin, he states it incorrectly, makes it errorinstead of truth, and risks his own faith in theprocess. Indeed, this is actually one source, orrather concomitant, of heresy, the presence of{25}some misshapen, huge, and grotesque foreshadowof true statements which are to come. Speakingunder correction, I would apply this remark tothe heresy of Tertullian or of Sabellius, which maybe considered a reaction from existing errors, and{30}an attempt, presumptuous, and therefore unsuccessful,to meet them with those divinelyappointed correctives which the Church alone canapply, and which she will actually apply, whenthe proper moment comes. The Gnostics boastedof their intellectual proficiency before the time{5}of St. Irenæus, St. Athanasius, and St.Augustine; yet, when these doctors made theirappearance, I suppose they were examples of thatknowledge, true and deep, which the Gnosticsprofessed. Apollinaris anticipated the work of{10}St. Cyril and the Ephesine Council, and becamea heresiarch in consequence; and, to come downto the present times, we may conceive thatwriters, who have impatiently fallen away fromthe Church, because she would not adopt their{15}views, would have found, had they but trustedher, and waited, that she knew how to profit bythem, though she never could have need toborrow her enunciations from them; for theirwritings contained, so to speak, truthin the ore, truth{20}which they themselves had not the gift todisengage from its foreign concomitants, and safelyuse, which she alone could use, which she woulduse in her destined hour, and which became theirstone of stumbling simply because she did not{25}use it faster. Now, applying this principle tothe subject before us, I observe, that, supposingAbelard to be the first master of scholasticphilosophy, as many seem to hold, we shall have stillno difficulty in condemning the author, while we{30}honor the work. To him is only the glory ofspoiling by his own self-will what would havebeen done well and surely under the teachingand guidance of Infallible Authority.

Nothing is more certain than that some ideasare consistent with one another, and others{5}inconsistent; and, again, that every truth must beconsistent with every other truth—hence, thatall truths of whatever kind form into one largebody of Truth, by virtue of the consistencybetween one truth and another, which is a{10}connecting link running through them all. The sciencewhich discovers this connection is logic; and,as it discovers the connection when the truths aregiven, so, having one truth given and theconnecting principle, it is able to go on to ascertain{15}the other. Though all this is obvious, it wasrealized and acted on in the middle age witha distinctness unknown before; all subjects ofknowledge were viewed as parts of one vastsystem, each with its own place in it, and from{20}knowing one, another was inferred. Not indeedalways rightly inferred, because the art mightbe less perfect than the science, the instrumentthan the theory and aim; but I am speaking ofthe principle of the scholastic method, of which{25}Saints and Doctors were the teachers—suchI conceive it to be, and Abelard was the ill-fatedlogician who had a principal share in bringing itinto operation.

Others will consider the great St. Anselm and{30}the school of Bec, as the proper source of Scholasticism;I am not going to discuss the question;anyhow, Abelard, and not St. Anselm, was theProfessor at the University of Paris, and it isof Universities that I am speaking; anyhow,Abelard illustrates the strength and the{5}weakness of the principle of advertising andcommunicating knowledge for its own sake, which I havecalled the University principle, whether he is,or is not, the first of scholastic philosophers orscholastic theologians. And, though I could not{10}speak of him at all without mentioning thesubject of his teaching, yet, after all, it is of him andof his teaching itself, that I am going to speak,whatever that might be which he actually taught.

Since Charlemagne's time the schools of Paris{15}had continued, with various fortunes, faithful, asfar as the age admitted, to the old learning, asother schools elsewhere, when, in the eleventhcentury, the famous school of Bec began todevelop the powers of logic in forming a new{20}philosophy. As the inductive method rose inBacon, so did the logical in the mediævalschoolmen; and Aristotle, the most comprehensiveintellect of Antiquity, as the one who hadconceived the sublime idea of mapping the whole{25}field of knowledge, and subjecting all things toone profound analysis, became the presidingmaster in their lecture halls. It was at the endof the eleventh century that William ofChampeaux founded the celebrated Abbey of St.{30}Victor under the shadow of St, Geneviève, and bythe dialectic methods which he introduced into histeaching, has a claim to have commenced thework of forming the University out of the Schoolsof Paris. For one at least, out of the twocharacteristics of a University, he prepared the way;{5}for, though the schools were not public till afterhis day, so as to admit laymen as well as clerks,and foreigners as well as natives of the place, yetthe logical principle of constructing all sciencesinto one system, implied of course a recognition{10}of all the sciences that are comprehended in it.Of this William of Champeaux, or de Campellis,Abelard was the pupil; he had studied thedialectic art elsewhere, before he offered himself forhis instructions; and, in the course of two years,{15}when as yet he had only reached the age oftwenty-two, he made such progress, as to becapable of quarreling with his master, andsetting up a school for himself.

This school of Abelard was first situated in{20}the royal castle of Melun; then at Corbeil, whichwas nearer to Paris, and where he attracted tohimself a considerable number of hearers. Hislabors had an injurious effect upon his health;and at length he withdrew for two years to his{25}native Britanny. Whether other causes coöperatedin this withdrawal, I think, is not known;but, at the end of the two years, we find himreturning to Paris, and renewing his attendanceon the lectures of William, who was by this time{30}a monk. Rhetoric was the subject of the lectureshe now heard; and after a while the pupilrepeated with greater force and success hisformer treatment of his teacher. He held apublic disputation with him, got the victory,and reduced him to silence. The school of{5}William was deserted, and its master himself becamean instance of the vicissitudes incident to thatgladiatorial wisdom (as I may style it) which wasthen eclipsing the old Benedictine method of theSeven Arts. After a time, Abelard found his{10}reputation sufficient to warrant him in settingup a school himself on Mount St. Geneviève;whence he waged incessant war against theunwearied logician, who by this time had ralliedhis forces to repel the young and ungrateful{15}adventurer who had raised his hand against him.

Great things are done by devotion to one idea;there is one class of geniuses, who would neverbe what they are, could they grasp a second.The calm philosophical mind, which{20}contemplates parts without denying the whole, and thewhole without confusing the parts, is notoriouslyindisposed to action; whereas single and simpleviews arrest the mind, and hurry it on to carrythem out. Thus, men of one idea and nothing{25}more, whatever their merit, must be to a certainextent narrow-minded; and it is not wonderfulthat Abelard's devotion to the new philosophymade him undervalue the Seven Arts out of whichit had grown. He felt it impossible so to honor{30}what was now to be added, as not to dishonorwhat existed before. He would not suffer theArts to have their own use, since he had found anew instrument for a new purpose. So heopposed the reading of the Classics. The monkshad opposed them before him; but this is little{5}to our present purpose; it was the duty of men,who abjured the gifts of this world on theprinciple of mortification, to deny themselvesliterature just as they would deny themselvesparticular friendships or figured music. The doctrine{10}which Abelard introduced and represents wasfounded on a different basis. He did notrecognize in the poets of antiquity any other meritthan that of furnishing an assemblage of elegantphrases and figures; and accordingly he asks{15}why they should not be banished from the cityof God, since Plato banished them from his owncommonwealth. Theanimusof this language isclear, when we turn to the pages of John ofSalisbury and Peter of Blois, who were champions of{20}the ancient learning. We find them complainingthat the careful "getting up," as we now call it,"of books," was growing out of fashion. Youthsonce studied critically the text of poets orphilosophers; they got them by heart; they analyzed{25}their arguments; they noted down their fallacies;they were closely examined in the matters whichhad been brought before them in lecture; theycomposed. But now, another teaching wascoming in; students were promised truth in a{30}nutshell; they intended to get possession of the sum-totalof philosophy in less than two or threeyears; and facts were apprehended, not in theirsubstance and details, by means of living and,as it were, personal documents, but in deadabstracts and tables. Such were the{5}reclamations to which the new Logic gave occasion.

These, however, are lesser matters; we havea graver quarrel with Abelard than that of hisundervaluing the Classics. As I have said, mymain object here is not what he taught, but why{10}and how, and how he lived. Now it is certainhis activity was stimulated by nothing very high,but something very earthly and sordid. I grantthere is nothing morally wrong in the mere desireto rise in the world, though Ambition and it are{15}twin sisters. I should not blame Abelard merelyfor wishing to distinguish himself at theUniversity; but when he makes the ecclesiasticalstate the instrument of his ambition, mixes upspiritual matters with temporal, and aims at a{20}bishopric through the medium of his logic, hejoins together things incompatible, and cannotcomplain of being censured. It is he himself,who tells us, unless my memory plays me false,that the circumstance of William of Champeaux{25}being promoted to the see of Chalons, was anincentive to him to pursue the same path with aneye to the same reward. Accordingly, we nexthear of his attending the theological lectures ofa certain master of William's, named Anselm, an{30}old man, whose school was situated at Laon. Thisperson had a great reputation in his day; Johnof Salisbury, speaking of him in the nextgeneration, calls him the doctor of doctors; he had beenattended by students from Italy and Germany;but the age had advanced since he was in his{5}prime, and Abelard was disappointed in a teacher,who had been good enough for William. He leftAnselm, and began to lecture on the prophetEzekiel on his own resources.

Now came the time of his great popularity,{10}which was more than his head could bear; whichdizzied him, took him off his legs, and whirledhim to his destruction. I spoke in my foregoingChapter of those three qualities of true wisdom,which a University, absolutely and nakedly{15}considered, apart from the safeguards whichconstitute its integrity, is sure to compromise.Wisdom, says the inspired writer, isdesursum, ispudica, ispacifica, "from above, chaste,peaceable." We have already seen enough of Abelard's{20}career to understand that his wisdom, instead ofbeing "pacifica," was ambitious and contentious.An Apostle speaks of the tongue both as a blessingand as a curse. It may be the beginning of a fire,he says, a "Universitas iniquitatis"; and alas!{25}such did it become in the mouth of the giftedAbelard. His eloquence was wonderful; hedazzled his contemporaries, says Fulco, "by thebrilliancy of his genius, the sweetness of hiseloquence, the ready flow of his language, and the{30}subtlety of his knowledge." People came tohim from all quarters—from Rome, in spite ofmountains and robbers; from England, in spiteof the sea; from Flanders and Germany; fromNormandy, and the remote districts of France;from Angers and Poitiers; from Navarre by the{5}Pyrenees, and from Spain, besides the studentsof Paris itself; and among those, who sought hisinstructions now or afterwards, were the greatluminaries of the schools in the next generation.Such were Peter of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, John{10}of Salisbury, Arnold of Brescia, Ivo, and Geoffreyof Auxerre. It was too much for a weak headand heart, weak in spite of intellectual power;for vanity will possess the head, and worldlinessthe heart, of the man, however gifted, whose{15}wisdom is not an effluence of the Eternal Light.

True wisdom is not only "pacifica," it is"pudica"; chaste as well as peaceable. Alas forAbelard! a second disgrace, deeper thanambition, is his portion now. The strong man—the{20}Samson of the schools in the wildness of his course,the Solomon in the fascination of hisgenius—shivers and falls before the temptation whichovercame that mighty pair, the most excellingin body and in mind.{25}

In a time when Colleges were unknown, and theyoung scholar was commonly thrown upon thedubious hospitality of a great city, Abelard mighteven be thought careful of his honor, that hewent to lodge with an old ecclesiastic, had not{30}his host's niece Eloisa lived with him. A moresubtle snare was laid for him than beset theheroic champion or the all-accomplished monarch ofIsrael; for sensuality came upon him under theguise of intellect, and it was the high mentalendowments of Eloisa, who became his pupil,{5}speaking in her eyes, and thrilling on her tongue,which were the intoxication and the delirium ofAbelard....

He is judged, he is punished; but he is notreclaimed. True wisdom is not only "pacifica,"{10}not only "pudica;" it is "desursum" too. It isa revelation from above; it knows heresy aslittle as it knows strife or license. But Abelard,who had run the career of earthly wisdom in twoof its phases, now is destined to represent its{15}third.

It is at the famous Abbey of St. Denis that wefind him languidly rising from his dream of sin,and the suffering that followed. The bad dreamis cleared away; clerks come to him, and the{20}Abbot begging him to lecture still, for lovenow, as for gain before. Once more his school isthronged by the curious and the studious; butat length a rumor spreads, that Abelard isexploring the way to some novel view on the{25}subject of the Most Holy Trinity. Wherefore ishardly clear, but about the same time the monksdrive him away from the place of refuge he hadgained. He betakes himself to a cell, and thitherhis pupils follow him. "I betook myself to a{30}certain cell," he says, "wishing to give myself tothe schools, as was my custom. Thither so greata multitude of scholars flocked, that there wasneither room to house them, nor fruits of theearth to feed them," such was the enthusiasm ofthe student, such the attraction of the teacher,{5}when knowledge was advertised freely, and itsmarket opened.

Next he is in Champagne, in a delightfulsolitude near Nogent in the diocese of Troyes. Herethe same phenomenon presents itself, which is{10}so frequent in his history. "When the scholarsknew it," he says, "they began to crowd thitherfrom all parts; and, leaving other cities andstrongholds, they were content to dwell in thewilderness. For spacious houses they framed for{15}themselves small tabernacles, and for delicate food theyput up with wild herbs. Secretly did theywhisper among themselves: 'Behold, the wholeworld is gone out after him!' When, however,my Oratory could not hold even a moderate{20}portion of them, then they were forced to enlargeit, and to build it up with wood and stone."He called the place his Paraclete, because it hadbeen his consolation.

I do not know why I need follow his life further.{25}I have said enough to illustrate the course of one,who may be called the founder, or at least the firstgreat name, of the Parisian Schools. After theevents I have mentioned he is found in LowerBritanny; then, being about forty-eight years of{30}age, in the Abbey of St. Gildas; then with St.Geneviève again. He had to sustain the fieryeloquence of a Saint, directed against his novelties;he had to present himself before two Councils;he had to burn the book which had given offenseto pious ears. His last two years were spent at{5}Clugni on his way to Rome. The home of theweary, the hospital of the sick, the school of theerring, the tribunal of the penitent, is the cityof St. Peter. He did not reach it; but he issaid to have retracted what had given scandal in{10}his writings, and to have made an edifying end.He died at the age of sixty-two, in the year ofgrace 1142.

In reviewing his career, the career of so greatan intellect so miserably thrown away, we are{15}reminded of the famous words of the dyingscholar and jurist, which are a lesson to us all,"Heu, vitam perdidi, operosè nihil agendo." Ahappier lot be ours!

Poetry, according to Aristotle, is arepresentation of the ideal. Biography and historyrepresent individual characters and actual facts;poetry, on the contrary, generalizing from thephenomenon of nature and life, supplies us with{5}pictures drawn, not after an existing pattern,but after a creation of the mind. Fidelity is theprimary merit of biography and history; theessence of poetry is fiction. "Poesis nihil aliudest," says Bacon, "quam historiæ imitatio ad{10}placitum." It delineates that perfection whichthe imagination suggests, and to which as alimit the present system of Divine Providenceactually tends. Moreover, by confining the attentionto one series of events and scene of action, it{15}bounds and finishes off the confused luxurianceof real nature; while, by a skillful adjustment ofcircumstances, it brings into sight the connectionof cause and effect, completes the dependence ofthe parts one on another, and harmonizes the{20}proportions of the whole. It is then but the typeand model of history or biography, if we may beallowed the comparison, bearing some resemblanceto the abstract mathematical formulæ of physics,before they are modified by the contingencies ofatmosphere and friction. Hence, while it recreatesthe imagination by the superhuman loveliness ofits views, it provides a solace for the mind broken{5}by the disappointments and sufferings of actuallife; and becomes, moreover, the utterance ofthe inward emotions of a right moral feeling,seeking a purity and a truth which this worldwill not give.{10}

It follows that the poetical mind is one full ofthe eternal forms of beauty and perfection; theseare its material of thought, its instrument andmedium of observation; these color eachobject to which it directs its view. It is called{15}imaginative, or creative, from the originality andindependence of its modes of thinking, comparedwith the commonplace and matter-of-factconceptions of ordinary minds which are fettereddown to the particular and individual. At the{20}same time it feels a natural sympathy witheverything great and splendid in the physical andmoral world; and selecting such from the massof common phenomena, incorporates them, as itwere, into the substance of its own creations.{25}From living thus in a world of its own, it speaksthe language of dignity, emotion, and refinement.Figure is its necessary medium of communicationwith man; for in the feebleness of ordinary wordsto express its ideas, and in the absence of terms of{30}abstract perfection, the adoption of metaphoricallanguage is the only poor means allowed it forimparting to others its intense feelings. A metricalgarb has, in all languages, been appropriated topoetry—it is but the outward development ofthe music and harmony within. The verse, far{5}from being a restraint on the true poet, is thesuitable index of his sense, and is adopted by hisfree and deliberate choice. We shall presentlyshow the applicability of our doctrine to thevarious departments of poetical composition;{10}first, however, it will be right to volunteer anexplanation which may save it from muchmisconception and objection. Let not our notionbe thought arbitrarily to limit the number ofpoets, generally considered such. It will be{15}found to lower particular works, or parts ofworks, rather than the authors themselves;sometimes to disparage only the vehicle in whichthe poetry is conveyed. There is an ambiguityin the word "poetry," which is taken to signify{20}both the gift itself, and the written compositionwhich is the result of it. Thus there is anapparent, but no real, contradiction in saying a poemmay be but partially poetical; in some passagesmore so than in others; and sometimes not{25}poetical at all. We only maintain, not that thewriters forfeit the name of poet who fail at timesto answer to our requisitions, but that they arepoets only so far forth, and inasmuch as they doanswer to them. We may grant, for instance,{30}that the vulgarities of old Phœnix in the ninthIliad, or of the nurse of Orestes in theChoëphoræ,are in themselves unworthy of their respectiveauthors, and refer them to the wantonness ofexuberant genius; and yet maintain that thescenes in question contain much incidental poetry.{5}Now and then the luster of the true metal catchesthe eye, redeeming whatever is unseemly andworthless in the rude ore; still the ore is not themetal. Nay, sometimes, and not unfrequently inShakspeare, the introduction of unpoetical{10}matter may be necessary for the sake of relief, or asa vivid expression of recondite conceptions, and,as it were, to make friends with the reader'simagination. This necessity, however, cannotmake the additions in themselves beautiful and{15}pleasing. Sometimes, on the other hand, whilewe do not deny the incidental beauty of a poem,we are ashamed and indignant on witnessing theunworthy substance in which that beauty isembedded. This remark applies strongly to the{20}immoral compositions to which Lord Byrondevoted his last years.

Now to proceed with our proposed investigation.

1. We will noticedescriptive poetryfirst.{25}Empedocles wrote his physics in verse, andOppian his history of animals. Neither werepoets—the one was an historian of nature, theother a sort of biographer of brutes. Yet a poetmay make natural history or philosophy the{30}material of his composition. But under his handsthey are no longer a bare collection of facts orprinciples, but are painted with a meaning,beauty, and harmonious order not their own.Thomson has sometimes been commended forthe novelty and minuteness of his remarks upon{5}nature. This is not the praise of a poet, whoseoffice rather is to represent known phenomena ina new connection or medium. InL'AllegroandIl Penserosothe poetical magician invests thecommonest scenes of a country life with the hues,{10}first of a cheerful, then of a pensive imagination.It is the charm of the descriptive poetry of areligious mind, that nature is viewed in a moralconnection. Ordinary writers, for instance,compare aged men to trees in autumn—a gifted{15}poet will in the fading trees discern the fadingmen.[43]Pastoral poetry is a description ofrustics, agriculture, and cattle, softened off andcorrected from the rude health of nature. Virgil,and much more Pope and others, have run into{20}the fault of coloring too highly; instead ofdrawing generalized and ideal forms of shepherds, theyhave given us pictures of gentlemen and beaux.

Their composition may be poetry, but it is notpastoral poetry.{25}

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