1. The Historic Background of Humanistic Study.
—It is noteworthy that classic Greek philosophy does not present
the problem in its modern form. Socrates indeed appears to have thought
that science of nature was not attainable and not very important. The
chief thing to know is the nature and end of man. Upon that knowledge
hangs all that is of deep significance—all moral and social
achievement. Plato, however, makes right knowledge of man and society
depend upon knowledge of the essential features of nature. His chief
treatise, entitled the Republic, is at once a treatise on morals, on
social organization, and on the metaphysics and science of nature.
Since he accepts the Socratic doctrine that right achievement in the
former depends upon rational knowledge, he is compelled to discuss the
nature of knowledge. Since he accepts the idea that the ultimate object
of knowledge is the discovery of the good or end of man, and is
discontented with the Socratic conviction that all we know is our own
ignorance, he connects the discussion of the good of man with
consideration of the essential good or end of nature itself. To attempt
to determine the end of man apart from a knowledge of the ruling end
which gives law and unity to nature is impossible. It is thus quite
consistent with his philosophy that he subordinates literary studies
(under the name of music) to mathematics and to physics as well as to
logic and metaphysics. But on the other hand, knowledge of nature is
not an end in itself; it is a necessary stage in bringing the mind to a
realization of the supreme purpose of existence as the law of human
action, corporate and individual. To use the modern phraseology,
naturalistic studies are indispensable, but they are in the interests of
humanistic and ideal ends.
Aristotle goes even farther, if anything, in the direction of
naturalistic studies. He subordinates
(Ante, p. 298)
civic relations to the purely cognitive life. The highest end of man
is not human but divine—participation in pure knowing which
constitutes the divine life. Such knowing deals with what is universal
and necessary, and finds, therefore, a more adequate subject matter in
nature at its best than in the transient things of man. If we take what
the philosophers stood for in Greek life, rather than the details of what
they say, we might summarize by saying that the Greeks were too much
interested in free inquiry into natural fact and in the æsthetic
enjoyment of nature, and were too deeply conscious of the extent in which
society is rooted in nature and subject to its laws, to think of bringing
man and nature into conflict. Two factors conspire in the later period of
ancient life, however, to exalt literary and humanistic studies. One is
the increasingly reminiscent and borrowed character of culture; the other
is the political and rhetorical bent of Roman life.
Greek achievement in civilization was native; the civilization of the
Alexandrians and Romans was inherited from alien sources. Consequently
it looked back to the records upon which it drew, instead of looking out
directly upon nature and society, for material and inspiration. We
cannot do better than quote the words of Hatch to indicate the
consequences for educational theory and practice. "Greece on one hand
had lost political power, and on the other possessed in her splendid
literature an inalienable heritage.... It was natural that she should
turn to letters. It was natural also that the study of letters should
be reflected upon speech.... The mass of men in the Greek world tended
to lay stress on that acquaintance with the literature of bygone
generations, and that habit of cultivated speech, which has ever since
been commonly spoken of as education.... Our own comes by direct
tradition from it. It set a fashion which until recently has uniformly
prevailed over the entire civilized world. We study literature rather
than nature because the Greeks did so, and because when the Romans and
the Roman provincials resolved to educate their sons, they employed
Greek teachers and followed in Greek paths."
[13]
The so-called practical bent of the Romans worked in the same direction.
In falling back upon the recorded ideas of the Greeks, they not only
took the short path to attaining a cultural development, but they
procured just the kind of material and method suited to their
administrative talents. For their practical genius was not directed to
the conquest and control of nature but to the conquest and control of
men.
Mr. Hatch, in the passage quoted, takes a good deal of history for
granted in saying that we have studied literature rather than nature
because the Greeks, and the Romans whom they taught, did so. What is
the link that spans the intervening centuries? The question suggests
that barbarian Europe but repeated on a larger scale and with increased
intensity the Roman situation. It had to go to school to Greco-Roman
civilization; it also borrowed rather than evolved its culture. Not
merely for its general ideas and their artistic presentation but for its
models of law it went to the records of alien peoples. And its
dependence upon tradition was increased by the dominant theological
interests of the period. For the authorities to which the Church
appealed were literatures composed in foreign tongues. Everything
converged to identify learning with linguistic training and to make the
language of the learned a literary language instead of the mother
speech.
The full scope of this fact escapes us, moreover, until we recognize
that this subject matter compelled recourse to a dialectical method.
Scholasticism frequently has been used since the time of the revival of
learning as a term of reproach. But all that it means is the method of
The Schools, or of the School Men. In its essence, it is nothing but a
highly effective systematization of the methods of teaching and learning
which are appropriate to transmit an authoritative body of truths.
Where literature rather than contemporary nature and society furnishes
material of study, methods must be adapted to defining, expounding, and
interpreting the received material, rather than to inquiry, discovery,
and invention. And at bottom what is called Scholasticism is the
whole-hearted and consistent formulation and application of the methods
which are suited to instruction when the material of instruction is
taken ready-made, rather than as something which students are to find
out for themselves. So far as schools still teach from textbooks and
rely upon the principle of authority and acquisition rather than upon
that of discovery and inquiry, their methods are Scholastic—minus
the logical accuracy and system of Scholasticism at its best. Aside
from laxity of method and statement, the only difference is that
geographies and histories and botanies and astronomies are now part of
the authoritative literature which is to be mastered.
As a consequence, the Greek tradition was lost in which a humanistic
interest was used as a basis of interest in nature, and a knowledge of
nature used to support the distinctively human aims of man. Life found
its support in authority, not in nature. The latter was moreover an
object of considerable suspicion. Contemplation of it was dangerous,
for it tended to draw man away from reliance upon the documents in which
the rules of living were already contained. Moreover nature could be
known only through observation; it appealed to the senses—which
were merely material as opposed to a purely immaterial mind.
Furthermore, the utilities of a knowledge of nature were purely physical
and secular; they connected with the bodily and temporal welfare of man,
while the literary tradition concerned his spiritual and eternal
well-being.
