An Enquiry into the Present State of Polite Learning in Europe/Chapter 2
CHAP. II.
Of the decline of ancient learning.
If we consider the revolutions which have happened in the common wealth of letters, survey the rapid progress of learning in one period of antiquity, or its amazing decline in another, we shall be almost induc'd to accuse nature of partiality, as if she had exhausted all her efforts in adorning one age, while she left the succeeding entirely neglected. It is not to nature, however, but to ourselves alone that this partiality must be ascrib'd; the seeds of excellence are sown in every age, and it is wholly owing to a wrong direction in the passions or pursuits of mankind that they have not received the proper cultivation. It is not nature that is fatigued with producing her wonders so much as we that are satiated with admiration.
As in the best regulated societies, the very laws which at first give the government solidity, may in the end contribute to its dissolution, so the efforts which might have promoted learning in its feeble commencement may, if continued, retard its progress. The paths of science which were at first intricate because untrodden, may at last grow toilsome because too much frequented. As learning advances, the candidates for its honours may become more numerous, and the acquisition of fame more uncertain; the modest may despair of attaining it, and the opulent think it too precarious to pursue; thus the task of supporting the honour of the times may at last devolve on indigence and effrontery, and learning partake the contempt of its professors.
To illustrate these assertions it may be proper to take a slight review of the decline of ancient learning; to consider how far its depravation was owing to the impossibility of supporting continued perfection; in what respects it proceeded from voluntary corruption; and how far it was hastened on by accidental event. If Modern learning be compared with Ancient in these different lights, a parallel between both, which has hitherto produced only vain dispute, may contribute to amusement, perhaps, instruction. We shall thus be enabled to perceive what period of antiquity the present age most resembles, whether we are making advances towards excellence or retiring again to primeval obscurity; we shall, by their example, be taught to acquiesce in those defects which it is impossible to prevent; and reject all faulty innovations tho' offered under the specious titles of improvement.
In early ages when man was employed in acquiring necessary subsistance, or in defending his acquisitions, when without laws or society he led a precarious life, while even the savage rivalled him in the dominion of the forest; in such times of fatigue and darkness we must not look for the origin of arts or learning, which are the offspring of security, opulence and ease. When experience taught the advantages of society, when native freedom was exchanged for social security, when man began to feel the benefit of laws, and the mind had leisure for the contemplation of nature and itself, then, probably, the sciences might have been cultivated to add strength to the rising community, and the polite arts introduced to promote its enjoyments.
Learning, when planted in any country, is transient and fading, nor does it flourish till slow gradations of improvement have naturalized it to the soil. It makes feeble advances, begins among the vulgar, and rises into reputation among the great. It cannot be established in a state at once, by introducing the learned of other countries; these may grace a court, but seldom enlighten a kingdom. Ptolemy Philadelphus, Constantine Porphyriogeneta, Alfred, or Charlemagne, might have invited learned foreigners into their dominions, but could not establish learning. While in the radiance of royal favour, every art and science seemed to flourish, but when that was withdrawn, they quickly felt the rigours of a strange climate, and with exotic constitutions perished by neglect.
As the arts and sciences are slow in coming to maturity, it is requisite in order to their perfection, that the state should be permanent, which gives them reception. There are numberless attempts without success, and experiments without conclusion, between the first rudiments of an art, and its utmost perfection, between the outlines of a shadow, and the picture of an Apelles. Leisure is required to go through the tedious interval, to join the experience of predecessors to our own, or enlarge our views, by building on the ruined attempts of former adventurers. All this may be performed in a society of long continuance; but if the kingdom be but of short duration, as was the case of Arabia, learning seems coeval, sympathizes with its political struggles, and is annihilated in its dissolution.
But permanence in a state, is not alone sufficient, it is requisite also for this end that it should be free. Naturalists assure us, that all animals are sagacious in proportion as they are removed from the tyranny of others; in native liberty, the elephant is a citizen, and the beaver, an architect; but whenever the tyrant man intrudes upon their community, their spirit is broken, they seem anxious only for safety, and their intellects suffer an equal diminution with their prosperity. The parallel will hold with regard to mankind; fear naturally represses invention, benevolence, ambition; for in a nation of slaves, as in the despotic governments of the east, to labour after fame is to be a candidate for danger.
For a state to attain literary excellence, besides, it is requisite, that the soil and climate should, as much as possible, conduce to happiness. The earth must supply man with the necessaries of life, before he has leisure, or inclination, to pursue its more refined enjoyments. The climate also must be equally indulgent, for, in too warm a region, the mind is relaxed into languors, and by the opposite excess, is chilled into torpid inactivity.
These are the principal advantages which tend to the improvement of learning. Encouragement from the Great is useful in preventing its decline.
Those who behold the phænomena of nature, and content themselves with the view without enquiring into their causes, are perhaps wiser than is generally imagined. In this manner our rude ancestors were acquainted with facts, and Poetry, which helped the imagination, and the memory was thought the most proper vehicle for conveying their knowledge to posterity. It was the poet, who harmonized the ungrateful accents of his native dialect, who lifted it above common conversation, and shaped its rude combinations into order. From him the orator formed a stile, and though poetry first rose out of prose, in turn, it gave birth to every prosaic excellence. Musical period, concise expression, and delicacy of sentiment, were all excellencies derived from the poet; in short, he not only preceded, but formed the orator, philosopher, and historian.
When the observations of past ages were collected, philosophy began to examine their causes. She had numberless facts from which to draw proper inferences, and poetry had taught her the strongest expression to enforce them. The Greeks, (for we know little of the Egyptian learning) now exerted all their happy talents in the investigation of truth, and the production of beauty. Before this, the works of art were remarkable only for the vastness of design, and seemed the productions of giants, not of ordinary men; learning was another name for magic, or to give it its real appellation, imposture. But those improvers saw there was more excellence in captivating the judgment, than in raising a momentary astonishment: in their arts they imitated only such parts of nature, as might please in the representation; in the sciences, they cultivated such parts of knowlege, as it was every man's duty to be acquainted with. Unity, variety, and proportion, charmed in all their designs; liberty, patriotism, and a subjection to the laws were, what all their true philosophers strove to inculcate. Thus learning was encouraged, protected, honoured, and in its turn, it adorned, strengthened and harmonized the community.
From being the disciple of Greece, Rome soon became its rival, and was as much esteemed for its improvements in the arts of peace, as feared for its atchievements in those of war. The Romans understood, perhaps, better than their masters, the manner of blending art and science for their mutual improvement. By this means their philosophy acquired more grace, and their poetry more sentiment. They entirely banished that magical obscurity, which the Greeks first borrowed from other nations, and some part of which, their most admired writers thought proper still to retain. The learning of the Romans might justly be stiled, the truest refinement on common sense, it was therefore, a proper instrument in the hands of ambition. Their most powerful men, not only encouraged, but became themselves, the finest models of literary perfection. Thus the arts and sciences went on together, and reasoning proceeded no farther, than where experiment pointed out the way.
But as the operations of body are slow, those of the mind vigorous and active, as experiment is dilatory and painful, speculation quick and amusing, the spirit of philosophy being excited, the reasoner, when destitute of experiment, had recourse to theory, and gave up what was useful for refinement.
Critics, sophists, grammarians, rhetoricians, and commentators, now began to figure in the literary commonwealth. In the dawn of science, such are generally modest, and not entirely useless; their performances serve to mark the progress of learning, tho' they seldom contribute to its improvement. But as nothing but labour is required in making proficients, in their respective departments; so neither the satyr, nor the contempt of the wise, though Socrates was of the number, nor the laws levelled at them by the state, though Cato was in the legislature, could prevent their approaches. Possessed of all the advantages of unfeeling dullness, laborious, insensible, shameless and persevering, they still proceeded mending, and mending every work of genius, or to speak without irony, undermining all that was polite and useful. Libraries were crammed, but not enriched with their labours, while the fatigues of reading their explanatory comments was ten-fold that which might suffice for understanding the original. Their works effectually encreased our application, by professing to remove it.
Against so obstinate and irrefragable an enemy, what could avail the unsupported sallies of genius, or the opposition of transitory resentment? In short, they conquered by persevering, claimed the right of dictating upon every work of taste, sentiment, or genius, and at last, when destitute of other employment, like the supernumerary domestics of the great, made work for each other.
They now took upon them to teach poetry, to those who wanted genius, and the power of disputing, to those who knew nothing of the subject in debate. It was observed, how some of the most admired poets had copied nature. From these, they collected dry rules, dignified with long names, and such were obtruded upon the public for their improvement. Common sense would be apt to suggest, that the art might be studied to more advantage, rather by imitation than precept. It might suggest, that those rules were collected, not from nature, but a copy of nature, and would consequently give us still fainter resemblances of original beauty. It might still suggest, that explained wit, makes but a feeble impression, that the observations of others, are soon forgotten, those, made by ourselves, are permanent and useful. But, it seems, understandings of every size were to be mechanically instructed in poetry. If the reader was too dull to relish the beauties of Virgil, the comment of Servius was ready to brighten his imagination; if Terence could not raise him to a smile, Evantius was at hand, with a long-winded scholium to encrease his titillation. Such rules are calculated to make blockheads talk, but all the lemmata of the Lyceum are unable to give him feeling.
Their logical disputations seemed even to be the apotheosis of folly. In these the opponent had a right to affirm, whatever absurdity he thought proper. The defendant, though he saw the falshood almost by intuition, was not allowed to use his reason, but his art, in the debate. It was his business only to measure the assertion by one of his artificial instruments, and as it happened to accord, or disagree, he found himself qualified to support, or obliged to discontinue, his defence; which seldom, however, happened, till fatigue or anger terminated the enquiry.
But it would be endless to recount all the insect-like absurdities, which were hatched in the schools of those specious idlers; be it sufficient to say, that they encreased as learning improved, but swarmed on its decline. It was then, that every work of taste was buried in long comments, every useful subject in morals, was distinguished away into casuistry, and doubt and subtilty characterized the learning of the age. Metrodorus, Valerius Probus, Aulus Gellius, Pedianus, Boethius, and an hundred others, to be acquainted with whom, might shew much reading, and but little judgment; these, I say, made choice each of an author, and delivered all their load of learning on his back; shame to our ancestors, many of their works have reached our times entire, while Tacitus himself has suffered mutilation.
In a word, the commonwealth of literature, was at last wholly overrun by these studious triflers. Men of real genius, were lost in the multitude, or, as in a world of fools, it were folly to aim at being an only exception, obliged to conform to every prevailing absurdity of the times. Original productions seldom appeared, and learning, as if grown superanuated, bestowed all its panegyric upon the vigour of its youth, and turned encomiast upon its former atchievements.
It is to these, then, that the depravation of ancient polite learning, is principally to be ascribed. By them it was separated from common sense, and made the proper employment of speculative idlers. Men bred up among books, and seeing nature only by reflection, could do little, except hunt after perplexity and confusion. The public, therefore, with reason rejected learning, when thus rendered barren, though voluminous, for we may be assured, that the generality of mankind never lose a passion for letters, while they continue to be either amusing or useful.
It was such writers as these, that rendered learning unfit for uniting and strengthening civil society, or for promoting the views of ambition. True philosophy had kept the Græcian states cemented into one effective body, more than any law for that purpose; and the Etrurian philosophy, which prevailed in the first ages of Rome, inspired those patriot virtues, which paved the way to universal empire. But by the labours of commentators, when philosophy became abstruse, or triflingly minute, when doubt was presented instead of knowledge, when the orator was taught to charm the multitude with the music of his periods, and pronounced a declamation, that might be sung as well as spoken, and often upon subjects wholly fictitious; in such circumstances, learning was entirely unsuited to all the purposes of government, or the designs of the ambitious. As long as the sciences could influence the state, and its politics were strengthened by them, so long did the community give them countenance and protection. But the wiser part of mankind would not be imposed upon by unintelligible jargon, nor, like the knight in Pantagruel, swallow a chimera for a breakfast, though even cooked by Aristotle. As the philosopher grew useless in the state, he also became contemptible. In the times of Lucian, he was chiefly remarkable for his avarice, his impudence, and his beard.
Under the auspicious influence of genius, arts and sciences grew up together, and mutually illustrated each other. But when once Pedants became lawgivers, the sciences began to want grace, and the polite arts solidity; these grew crabbed and sowre, those meretricious and gawdy; the philosopher became disgustingly precise, and the poet, ever straining after grace, caught only finery.
These men also contributed to obstruct the progress of wisdom, by addicting their readers to one particular sect, or some favourite science. They generally carried on a petty traffic in some little creek; within that they busily plied about, and drove an insignificant trade; but never ventured out into the great ocean of knowlege, nor went beyond the bounds that chance, conceit, or laziness had first prescribed their enquiries. Their disciples, instead of aiming at being originals themselves, became imitators of that merit alone, which was constantly proposed for their admiration. In exercises of this kind, the most stupid are generally most successful; for there is not in nature, a more imitative animal than a dunce.
From hence ancient learning may be distinguished into three periods. Its commencement, or the age of poets; its maturity, or the age of philosophers; and its decline, or the age of critics. In the commencement of learning, commentators were very few, but might have, in some respects, been useful. In its maturity, their assistance must necessarily become obnoxious, yet, as if the nearer we approached perfection, the more we stood in need of their directions, in this period they began to grow numerous. But when polite learning was no more, then it was those literary lawgivers made the most formidable appearance. Corruptissima republica, plurimæ leges. Tacit.