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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026929798 
 
THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 IN ITS 
 
 HISTORICAL SETTING 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNE ELIZABETH ^URLINGAME 
 Assistant Professor of History, Hunter College 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY, 
 
 JAMES HARVEY ROBINSON 
 
 ^ Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements 
 for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 
 in the Faculty of Political Science, 
 Columbia University 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 B. W. HUEBSCH, INC. 
 
 1920 
 
COPTEIGHT, 1920, BY B. W. HUEBSOH, INO. 
 PRINTED IN U. S. A. 
 
 
 f\A^54\2» 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The little book here presented is the outgrowth of 
 a design to trace through the writings of certain 
 formative thinkers the development of a critical atti- 
 tude toward classical authors in the seventeenth and 
 early eighteenth centuries. At first interested in 
 the more formal side of her topic, the writer became 
 increasingly impressed with the contrasting attitudes 
 of spirit manifested by attackers and defenders of 
 ancient authority. This differing quality of spirit 
 became at length the absorbing theme of her study, 
 and gave to her conclusions their final form. 
 
 The writer wishes to express her abiding gratitude 
 to Professor James Harvey Robinson, through 
 whose inspiration and encouragement the work has 
 alone been made possible. She feels deep obligation 
 also to Professor William A. Dunning of Columbia 
 University, whose kindly interest and scholarly crit- 
 icism of her manuscript were of invaluable assistance. 
 Her thanks are likewise due to President George 
 Samler Davis of Hunter College, whose high de- 
 votion to cultural ideals has opened the Way for 
 her undertaking. 
 
 Anne Elizabeth Burlingame. 
 October, 1920. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 This little volume is the story of an escape — the 
 escape of the mind from an ancient prejudice. It 
 seems to me both a fascinating and illuminating tale. 
 It is not a series of literary reminiscences but an ac- 
 count of a fundamental emancipation with which 
 the reader may profitably acquaint himself as a strik- 
 ing illustration of the manner in which the human 
 mind grows, through the Old giving place to the 
 New. This is a vital process to which we find it 
 painful to reconcile ourselves at times. But Samuel 
 Butler reminds us that " All our lives long, every 
 day and every hour, we are engaged in a process of 
 accommodating our changed d,nd unchanged selves to 
 changed and unchanged surroundings ; living, in fact, 
 is nothing else than this process of accommodation." 
 This is a hard saying, for by nature we are for the 
 most part and most of the time seeking our ease in 
 comfortable routine; and accommodation requires 
 thought and thought is likely to be laborious if it is 
 good, for to accept hew things we must wrench our- 
 selves away from what we have hitherto approved 
 and from what our fellows still approve. The his- 
 tory of man is the story of his reluctant and as yet 
 highly imperfect accommodation to new knowledge 
 
Vi INTRODUCTION 
 
 and new conditions produced by this knowledge — 
 the age-long struggle between the Ancients and the 
 Moderns. 
 
 During nearly the whole of man's career on the 
 earth the Old and the True have been regarded as 
 one and the same thing. Only a great revolution in 
 his affairs could convince him that the New is likely 
 to be the True. This revolution has been in prog- 
 ress for three hundred years at least. It is due to 
 the application of new knowledge to human activity, 
 — to the palpable alteration which we see going on 
 about us of human aims and methods, and of the 
 relations of men to one another. We live in the 
 most flagrantly changeful age the world has ever 
 seen, and the current innovations seem to be but 
 harbingers of far greater and more bewildering 
 novelties still ahead. Thus accommodation has be- 
 come our very particular obligation, and in order to 
 meet this obligation we must cultivate a flexibility 
 of mind and mental agility and suppleness of an alto- 
 gether different order from that of our predecessors. 
 
 The Greeks under peculiarly favorable circum- 
 stances first freed the mind from primitive accept- 
 ances and purely mythical explanations, and set 
 unprecedented standards of philosophic freedom and 
 scientific criticism. The work they did was so 
 impressive, especially as it took form in Plato's Dia- 
 logues and in the all-embracing works of Aristotle, 
 that later generations might well be forgiven for 
 feeling that Plato had reached truths which no feeble 
 
INTRODUCTION vii 
 
 successor was likely to transcend, and that Aristotle 
 had set down with inspired cogency pretty much all 
 that it was within man's power to discover. So it 
 came about that in the very beginning of critical and 
 progressive intellectual life two supreme geniuses 
 emerged whose findings appeared to those who were 
 drawn to the one or the other to be final. In short, 
 Plato and Aristotle became authorities. The 
 Roman writers of all kinds were emulators and imi- 
 tators of the Greeks, and so the Classical Heritage 
 was built up and transmitted to posterity. The 
 Christians were ready to forgive the stately Ancients 
 for their religious blindness. It was not difficult to 
 reconcile Plato with Christian theology — which 
 indeed proves to have been largely determined by 
 him. Aristotle's beliefs fell in readily enough with 
 the anthropocentric scheme of things accepted by 
 the mediaeval philosophers. He dominated the 
 mediaeval universities, to be supplanted somewhat 
 later among the Italian Humanists by Plato. 
 
 So long as the majestic classical literature was held 
 to be authoritative it might forward thinking, but it 
 surely hampered and confined it. Men had ' to 
 escape from its thraldom before they could make the 
 best use of it. This escape is the theme of the 
 present little volume. The issue may seem remote 
 and irrelevant to us now, but it is typical, and there- 
 fore of really vital and present importance. It was 
 the first great conscious conflict between the Old and 
 the New; the preliminary to successive emancipa- 
 
Vlll INTRODUCTION 
 
 tions; the instructive beginning of a process which 
 must in the nature of things go on for a long time 
 to come, until, at last, men's minds may grow 
 really free to accommodate themselves readily and 
 joyfully to the Ever-new. 
 
 The first distinguished thinker to win full detach- 
 ment in the enjoyment of the classical Greek and 
 Roman writers was Montaigne. He did not per- 
 mit the Ancients to impose upon him. He was free 
 to admit that Plato seemed infinitely futile to him 
 at times, and that Cicero, like the herald in a court 
 of law, cried " attention, attention " so vociferously 
 that the reader was likely to be disappointed in the 
 further proceedings. But he loved Plutarch and 
 Seneca for their simple and varied good sense, as he 
 would have esteemed the good judgment of a con- 
 temporary. He did not feel bound to respect a 
 Greek or Roman writer as an authority or classic, 
 but claimed the privilege of consorting with those 
 he found companionable and avoiding those who 
 bored him. 
 
 Lord Bacon was troubled by the feeble scientific 
 and historical attainments of the Ancients and fore- 
 saw great things to come from freely looking about 
 and thinking for ourselves. Descartes urged that it 
 was best to begin all over again ; and Galileo found 
 it very easy to show, when he set to work, that the 
 real operations of Nature had little in common with 
 the teachings of the Aristotelians. So it came about 
 that the New Science and the New Philosophy were 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 the first to fall afoul of the Ancients. Then Hobbes 
 decried what seemed to him the perverse teachings 
 of the Ancients in regard to the State and impeached 
 their authority in Politics. Finally at the end of the 
 seventeenth century the last stronghold of classical 
 dominion was attacked, the supremacy of the 
 Ancients in poesy and oratory, and the Battle of the 
 Books was waged. 
 
 The reader will find in this volume a first hand 
 account of the long conflict for liberty sketched 
 above. Miss Burlingame has carefully brought 
 together and skilfully arranged the vivid reports of 
 the protagonists. Some readers will have looked at 
 Bacon's Advancement of Learning and Descartes' 
 Essay and Hobbes' Leviathan. More will probably 
 be familiar with The Tale of a Tub. Very few are 
 likely to have read a line of Wotton or Bentley, or 
 made the familiar acquaintance of the inimitable 
 Fontenelle. And even if one knows these writers he 
 will not, in all probability, have studied them from 
 the standpoint here represented. 
 
 The volume in hand depicts, as has been said, a 
 cardinal emancipation. So long as the impressive 
 heritage derived from the Greeks and Romans was 
 in trust it could not be freely enjoyed. There had 
 to be a great freeing of the scholar's spirit before 
 we could have a Zeller, a Gilbert Murray, or an 
 Alfred Croiset. 
 
 There is something within us that tends to rigidity 
 and stratification, and this in the kind of a world in 
 
X INTRODUCTION 
 
 which we live, makes for misery and disappointment, 
 unless we consciously and tirelessly offset it. As 
 Dreiser points out: "The caution sprung from 
 somewhere, to keep an open mind is well grounded 
 in Nature's tendency to change. Not to cling too 
 pathetically to a religion or system of government 
 or a theory of morals or a method of living, but to 
 be ready to abandon at a moment's notice is the 
 apparent teaching of the ages — to be able to step 
 out free and willing to accept new and radically dif- 
 ferent conditions. This apparently is the ideal state 
 for the human mind." Never was open-mindedness 
 so essential as it is today. In no way can we acquire 
 it so readily and naturally as by reviewing the strug- 
 gles of earlier emandpators of the mind. Intellec- 
 tual history strikes off the shackles of the past so 
 gently that we find ourselves freed scarcely realizing 
 how our change of heart has come about. 
 
 The very fact that this volume does not deal 
 directly with the problems of the day makes it a 
 refreshing relief. It is however no merely literary 
 or antiquarian study, but a work of edification in the 
 best sense of the word. As we read of the earlier 
 struggles for intellectual freedom we should find 
 ourselves heartened to play our part in that which is 
 now in progress. 
 
 James Harvey Robinson. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Intooduction V 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I Introdctory Chapter 3 
 
 1. The Attitude Toward the Classical Au- 
 
 thors During the Mediaeval Period . 3 
 
 2. Italian Humanism < 17 
 
 3. Humanism Beyond the Alps .... 21 
 
 4. Montaigne 28 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 II The Scientific Phase 43 
 
 5. Francis Bacon 43 
 
 6. Galileo 61 
 
 7. Descartes 71 
 
 8. Thomas Hobbes 86 
 
 III The Literary Phase 103 
 
 9. Contrast Between the Thought Environ- 
 
 ment of the Seventeenth Century and 
 Our Own 103 
 
 10. Sir William Temple's Essay Upon Ancient 
 
 and Modern Learning 106 
 
 11. William Wotton's iJ?;?^criow .... 109 
 
 • 12. Richard Bentley's Dissertation . . .122 
 
 13. Jonathan Swift's Tale of a Tub ani The 
 
 Battle of the Books 132 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER ■ PAGE 
 
 IV The Literary Phase (continued) .... 155 
 
 14. The French Point of View as Compared 
 
 with the English 155 
 
 15. Charles Perrault 156 
 
 16. Fontenelle 177 
 
 17. Conclusion 194 
 
1 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
Long did the mighty Stagirite retain 
 
 The universal intellectual reign, 
 
 Saw his own countries short-liv'd leopard slain; 
 
 The stronger Roman eagle did out-fly, 
 
 Oftener renew'd his age and saw that dy. 
 
 Mecha itself in spite of Mahumet possesst, 
 
 And chas'd by a wild deluge from the east. 
 
 His monarchy new planted in the west. 
 
 But as in time each great imperial race 
 
 Degenerates and gives some new one place — 
 
 So did this noble empire wast, 
 
 Sunk by degrees from glories past. 
 
 And, in the Schoolmen's hands it perisht quite at last. 
 
 Then naught but words it grew, 
 
 And those all barbrous too. 
 
 It perisht, and it vanisht there — 
 
 The life and soul breath'd out became but empty air. 
 
 Abraham Cowley (1618-1667) 
 
I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 
 
 THE ATTITUDE TOWARD THE CLASSICAL AUTHORS 
 DURING THE MEDIAEVAL PERIOD 
 
 To the Student of the history of thought it some- 
 times appears that the story of the human race is 
 one long account of the attainment of mental con- 
 ceptions, and their subsequent relinquishment. Man 
 masters a new intellectual world, and thereby enters 
 a period of progress. But this is inevitably followed 
 by an era in which he slowly grows out of \he very 
 acquisition he has so laboured to attain. An intel- 
 lectual ideal is developed, or is rediscovered from 
 the past. It prevails for a time, and is rapturously 
 applauded for the inspiration it brings. By its 
 measure standards are erected, and a tradition 
 grows. Then, as time goes on, man, always the vic- 
 tim of his own illusions, loses the spirit of the ideal 
 In its form. Of this he makes a fetish; and out of 
 his early experiment he establishes a law. Mental 
 retardation and ultimate stagnation follow. At 
 last. In the fulness of time, some eager spirit less 
 handicapped than his contemporaries, striving for an 
 expression of his individual life, throws down the 
 
4 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 gauntlet to custom. More timid souls follow, until 
 a " movement " begins, and a life and death struggle 
 between the old and the new ensues. History seems 
 after all but the story of the war between the gods 
 and the giants repeated over and over again. 
 
 The loss, rediscovery, and exploitation of the 
 classical heritage of mankind is an instance of this 
 truth. Lost, or lapsed into vague tradition during 
 the Dark Ages; restored suddenly in Aristotelian 
 form in the Century of Thomas Aquinas ; welcomed 
 by the awakening mind of Europe for its content of 
 new Information, the classical heritage speedily be- 
 came to the Schoolmen a law, the violation of which 
 was a cardinal Intellectual sin. At that stage, just as 
 learning In the universities was hardening into for- 
 mulas, rebellious Roger Bacon and the irrepressible 
 Petrarch challenged the whole scholastic system. 
 War between the gods and the giants once more 
 began. The struggle which followed prolonged 
 itself until the seventeenth century, when a conscious 
 and persistent attack upon the classical tradition 
 developed. Extending from Francis Bacon to Fon- 
 tenelle. It has reached almost into our own day. 
 
 To trace the growth of this critical attitude toward 
 the classical writers during the seventeenth and 
 early eighteenth centuries will be the chief purpose 
 of this study. For the sake of clarity, we shall first 
 briefly review those events in the mediaeval and 
 earl5f modern periods which form the background of 
 the movement; in the later period we shall limit 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 5 
 
 ourselves to an interpretation of those personalities 
 who gave the process its final form. 
 
 Throughout the mediaeval period the attitude of 
 men toward the classical authors was one of well-nigh 
 absolute acceptance. Scholars looked to the ancient 
 writers as a reservoir of culture, and an authority in 
 all forms of knowledge. They knew no other body 
 of secular lore with which to compare it. There was 
 therefore an absence^fJnteUectual^gnflidJifitween 
 ^he classic literature and^anyi_wQrld of thought out- 
 side of Tt. Such conflict as existed~Tay within, and 
 grew out of differences between the spiritual ideals 
 of Pagan and Christian readers. From the time of 
 Augustine there developed a sense of disparity be- 
 tween the Pagan writings which dealt with the World 
 of Satan, and the Christian writings which dealt 
 with the World of the Spirit — " The City of God." 
 Augustine's misgivings, Jerome's self-reproach, Isi- 
 dore of Seville's restrictions upon the reading of his 
 monks, are examples of this mood. But the attitude 
 varied with the Individual. At no time was it uni- 
 versal; and Its existence did not prevent the use of 
 the Pagan classics as a training for the students of 
 the day. It is therefore by a study of this training 
 that we may trace the effects of the Pagan authors 
 upon mediaeval thought. 
 
 ' The two principal ways In which the classical writ- 
 ings influenced the mediaeval period were through 
 their study as models of literary form, and their use 
 as a source of philosophic thought. They were prag- 
 
6 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 tically the only secular books of the early Middle 
 Ages. The Latin language and literature predomi- 
 nated, Greek being almost unknown. The Latin 
 writers, largely in the form of compendia, summaries 
 and grammars, formed almost the only text-books of 
 the day. During the early Dark Ages, the true un- 
 derstanding of literary content was lost, and emphasis 
 was placed upon syntax and form. But in so far as 
 the mediaeval scholar understood Pagan authors, 
 they were his absolute authority in knowledge and 
 good taste. A passing revival of appreciation for 
 the content of classical literature occurred at the 
 time of Otto the Great. A more vital one can be 
 observed in France in the twelfth century. Chartres 
 was the leader in the later movement, and became 
 the center of so sympathetic a study of Latin liter- 
 ature that even English students were drawn thither. 
 Thence the enthusiasm passed to Orleans and Paris. 
 But from 1200 to 1250, the universities were taking 
 shape, and in their curricula the study of classical 
 literature was from the first crowded out. During 
 the fourteenth century not a single Latin classic was 
 prestribed in the universities of Europe ; and of the 
 whole period, the generation preceding Petrarch was 
 the most barren In classical knowledge.^ The causes 
 of this indifference lie outside the province of our 
 study. Yet it is not without reason that Petrarch 
 laments the neglect of classical authors In his day. 
 
 The second principal channel through which the 
 classical writers influenced the Mediaeval period was 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 7 
 
 philosophy. Classical literature was the source ofp 
 most philosophic thought from Augustine to Des- 
 cartes. All known philosophic theories filtered into 
 the mediaeval mind from this great reservoir of 
 ideas. All philosophic, issues lay directly or indi- 
 rectly within the classic complex. Other sources 
 there were none. At the extreme close of the 
 Classic Age, philosophic interest was eager but mys- 
 tical, and Neo-Platonism prevailed. Plato, though 
 but vaguely known by Augustine and Boethius, was 
 believed by them to have been more spiritual than 
 Aristotle, and therefore more Christian. At about 
 500 A. D. Boethius translated directly from the Greek 
 the First Division of Aristotle's Organon, and The 
 Isagoge of Porphyry. The discussion of universals 
 in the latter work originated the mediaeval contest 
 between Realism and Nominalism. Boethius thus 
 became an authority upon Aristotle, and continued 
 so throughout the Middle Ages. But in spirit he 
 himself was wholly Platonic.^ During the period 
 from Boethius to Charlemagne philosophic interest 
 died out. Christianity and ignorance alike made 
 men indifferent to intellectual issues, and apprecia- 
 tion of classic learning was at its lowest ebb. 
 
 In the ninth century the translation into Latin of 
 The Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopag- 
 ite,* by John Scotus Erigena occasioned a slight 
 revival of the issue between Plato and Aristotle. 
 But philosophic interest was still too feeble to create 
 a real enthusiasm ; while the knowledge of Plato was 
 
8 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 limited to a Latin translation of the Timaeus, to- 
 gether with extracts to be found in Augustine and 
 Cicero. We may therefore say that from the sixth 
 to the twelfth century almost no works of the great 
 philosophic writers were available. Thie Greek 
 language was practically unknown; philosophic! 
 thought but slightly rippled the surface of a life 
 devoted to Christian asceticism and the preparation 
 for an assured existence beyond the grave. 
 
 Such was the general condition of classical knowl- 
 edge in Europe at the opening of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, when there occurred one of the most important 
 ( intellectual events of the later Middle Ages. This 
 1 was the recovery of the nearly complete works of 
 /Aristotle from the Greek. A new mentality had 
 manifested itself from the twelfth century on. The 
 fervour of realism as expressed through William of 
 Champeaux gave evidence of new vigour in the old 
 order of thought, while a nascent critical spirit re- 
 vealed itself in Abelard. In the latter part of the 
 twelfth century, the entire logical Organon of Aris- 
 totle in Boethius' translation was recovered by 
 scholars in the West.* 
 
 But it was from an infidel source that Aristotle] 
 was finally projected upon the Christian world. The 
 Arabian scholars had for four hundred years pos- 
 sessed knowledge of Greek. Translations of Euclid, 
 Galen, and Aristotle had been made, sometimes from 
 the original Greek, sometimes from Syriac versions 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 9 
 
 handed down to them by Nestorian Christians of an 
 earlier date. This Arabic-Greek learning had been 
 carried by the Moslems into Spain where an Islam- 
 itic Aristotelian system of philosophy had grown up.* 
 There Averroes, the intellectual successor of Avi- 
 cenna,^ had worked out his famous commentaries 
 upon Aristotle. By the year 1200 Latin versions of 
 some of Aristotle's works hitherto unknown in the 
 west, began to appear in Paris. These were accomr 
 panied by the commentaries of Averroes. Within 
 the following half century a great part of Aristotle's 
 books were translated either from Arabic versions, 
 or directly from Greek copies found in Constanti- 
 nople.'^ The inaccuracy of the translations caused 
 discontent, even at the time; and a desire for im- 
 provement led to the monumental efforts of Albertus 
 Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 In the early stages of his advent the church had 
 objected to Aristotle; but as it saw his growing 
 power its objection weakened, and by the time of 
 Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle had become the supreme 
 authority in theology and science — " the Master of 
 those that know." By 1 255 many of his works were 
 prescribed in the University of Paris; while the 
 Summa Theologiae of Aquinas is the effort of a re- 
 markable intellect to prove Christian theology and 
 Aristotelian philosophy in essential harmony. 
 
 The modern thinker, as he looks back upon this 
 obsession, is amazed. Yet its explanation is evi- 
 dent : to the uninformed thirteenth century mind, the 
 
10 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 wrirings of Aristotle were a revelation of knowledge 
 in logic, dialectics, metaphysics, and natural science. 
 He opened to men's Imaginations whole new fields of 
 thought. Moreover he was without a rival ; for the 
 knowledge of Plato was slight, and there existed no 
 other body of culture outside of the classical ,to take 
 its place. Vernacular literature was as yet for the 
 most part unwritten. Moreover, Aristotle coin- 
 cided with the mood of the age. The School- 
 men clamoring for absolute authority found it in the 
 prince of dogmatists. Yet however natural, the 
 sovereignty of Aristotle was disastrous to learning. 
 All progress looked backward to the ancient, not 
 forward to new truth. A distorted conception of 
 the philosopher, a hybrid of Averroistic ideas and 
 unapprehended Greek terms, became the symbol of 
 the classical tradition and an authority in Europe.* 
 Its entrenchment in Church and University rendered 
 it well nigh invincible; while the persecution of all 
 efforts to break down its tenets, caused an almost 
 complete paralysis of creative thought. 
 
 The same century, however, which saw the con- 
 summation of classical authority in Aristotle, saw 
 also the beginnings of revolt. The thirteenth cen- 
 tury was the border ground between two great 
 periods of thought. While it witnessed the com- 
 plete victory of Aristotle in Church and University, 
 and gave final expression to the mediaeval mood 
 through Thomas Aquinas and Dante, it also saw the 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER II 
 
 beginnings of the growth of that spirit of activity 
 and revolt which was ultimately to produce the scien- 
 tific attitude and the modern world. This beginning 
 of a critical and scientific spirit, coupled with an idea 
 of progress, was the most vital and far reaching 
 event in the intellectual life of the later Middle 
 Ages. It is also intimately bound up with the his- 
 tory of a critical attitude towards the classiics; for 
 to it may be traced the origins of that revolt against 
 the classical tradition and authority per se, which 
 prolonged through a struggle of five hundred years 
 was at length to free European thought from the 
 sovereignty of Aristotle, and to release it from its 
 bondage to the past. This revolt in its earlier 
 phases from 1300 to 1500 expressed itself in three 
 different ways. 
 
 Earliest of all, it took the form of a rebellion 
 against the authority of Aristotle in all fields of 
 knowledge, followed by a search for truth in nature 
 and in independent thought. This phase was the 
 embryonic beginnings of modern science; its early 
 progress was obscure, intermittent, and abortive, and 
 was marked by the travail and suffering of the pro- 
 jectors. Friar Roger Bacon and Peter of Mari- 
 court, whom he has immojrtalized, are its most con- 
 spicuous examples. The former, a member of the 
 Franciscan Order, combined in his nature a rebellion 
 against the stereotyped and a devotion to truth which 
 would in any age have predetermined for him a 
 tragic life. Moreover, a prejudice against the Dom- 
 
12 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 inicans — the most voluminous theological writers 
 of the time — may have added to his zeal. How- 
 ever this may be, it is in his writings that we find for 
 the first time the new note of unlimited progress. 
 He was to some extent a man of science in revolt 
 against accepted law. He believed that progress 
 was impeded by a servile adherence to the authority 
 of Aristotle as established by the Schoolmen, and 
 that only by breaking from his tenets and turning to 
 observation and experiment in nature could man 
 advance. Men saw blindly as " bats in the twi- 
 light." He argues that : 
 
 I The study of wisdom may always increase in this life, 
 because nothing is perfect in human discoveries. Therefore 
 we later men ought to supplement the defects of the an- 
 cients, since we have entered into their labours, through 
 which, unless we be asses, we may be incited to improve upon 
 them. It is most wretched to be using what has been at- 
 tained, and never look to that which is to be attained.* 
 
 It is when Bacon deplores " The infinite vices that 
 proceed from pure ignorance," that he touches most 
 intimately the classical question. " Men are igno- 
 rant of Greek and Hebrew and Arabic; and there- 
 fore ignorant of all the sciences contained in these 
 tongues; and they have relied upon . . . others as 
 ignorant as themselves." Aristotle's texts and 
 translations are corrupt; Aquinas' interpretation h 
 misleading. 
 
 The sciences in general are so badly translated that no 
 piortal can really understand them, as I myself have learned 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 3 
 
 by sad experience. . . . Therefore, it would be better for 
 the Latins if the wisdom of Aristotle had not been translated 
 at all than translated so obscurely and corruptly.^" . . . Had 
 I the power of disposing of these works, I would have them 
 all burnt; it is a waste of time to study them; a source of 
 error and of diffusion of ignorance greater than can be 
 described.^^ 
 
 The text of the Scriptures also is shockingly cor- 
 rupt in the Vulgate copy at Paris. We are ignorant 
 of the literal sense because of poor translation. To 
 remedy all this, the study of the ancient languages, 
 " the first door of Wisdom," must be pursued. 
 Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew, must be learned. 
 Texts must be amended and accurate translations 
 made. The translator must know his subject as 
 well as the language. With regard to the classics, 
 we discern in the above three objective points: in the 
 place of ancient authority must be substituted science 
 through experiment ; in the place of secondary manu- 
 scripts must be substituted sources; in the place of 
 mutilated translations, accurate ones must be made. 
 While out beyond it all in Bacon's mind lay the 
 moral advance of humanity through intelligence. 
 
 Bacon was unappreciated in his day; he saw his 
 labor pass without fruition. In some aspects of his 
 nature, he had the limitations of his age. Yet, dy- 
 ing alone, obscure, in poverty, he left to the posterity 
 of thought his immortal child — the book whose 
 spirit of air and fire cannot die. 
 
 As Friar Bacon passed in France, there wrought 
 
14 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 in Italy the man who first voiced the issue between 
 vernactilar and Latin speech. Hitherto men, dis- 
 daining the " vulgar " tongue, had respected only 
 Latin as a literary language. But the supreme 
 genius of Dante divined in the Italian an instrument 
 adequate to express his noblest thought. Weighing 
 Italian wich Latin, Dante deliberately chose the 
 former for his work. The Divine Comedy, The 
 New Life, The Odes, and The Convivio, all were 
 written in Tuscan ; and in The Convivio and De VuU 
 gari Eloquio he defends its cause. He concedes the 
 superior dignity and fixedness of Latin form, but 
 declares that his " burning love " for Italian makes 
 him " exult " to make clear " the excellence which it 
 possesses in potentiality and in secret." Not only 
 is it able to " manifest the thought concerned," but 
 it is beautiful. Its detractors are those who " lack 
 ability to handle it," and so " find fault with the 
 material of their art " ; or those who through abject^ 
 ness of mind " affect an admiration of some tongue 
 not their own." ^^ Such are they who 
 
 Make up the detestable wretches of Italy who hold cheap 
 that costly vernacular which, if it be vile in aught, it is only 
 in so far as it sounds upon prostitutes' lips. . . . Not only 
 love, but most perfect love of it abides in me. . . . For its 
 excellence makes me its friend. 
 
 " Now we see that in all matters of speech, rightly 
 to manifest its conception is the most loved and com- 
 mended. This then is its most prime excellence." 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 5 
 
 Moreover, since language is the bond of human 
 society, bringing men of the same race into relation- 
 ship, the language of a country is a binding influ- 
 ence upon its people. Wherefore community of 
 interest binds Dante to Italian; and " all his pas- 
 sion " is, to give to it " stability and glory " ; in which 
 unless he succeeds, his life work, fails.^^ Last of all, 
 women, and those " who know not Latin," may 
 be reached through it. The mother tongue then, 
 " Shall be the oaten bread whereby thousands shall 
 be sated. . . . This shall be the new light, the new 
 sun, which shall rise when the wonted sun shall set, 
 and shall give light to them who are in darkness and 
 in shadow as to the wonted sun, which shines not for 
 them." " 
 
 In his attitude Dante had no conspicuous contem- 
 porary sympathizer. Petrarch, a generation later, 
 while he saw the issue, turned with disdain from the 
 Italian sonnets of his youth to an exclusive use of 
 Latin in mature life. During the century following 
 the whole problem was temporarily submerged by 
 Italian Humanism and the renewed enthusiasm for 
 the classical tongues. 
 
 The intellectual class of the early Middle Ages, 
 imbued with asceticism or restrained by Christian 
 authority, had done what it could to deprecate and 
 suppress those individual emotions which give life 
 color, and render it at once an adventure and an 
 enterprise. The later Middle Ages, restive under 
 restraint, gave expression to its emotion in deeds 
 
1 6 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 rather than words. Petrarch is the first dis* 
 tinguished scholar who makes articulate the new 
 mood of reaction against inhibition and restramt. 
 Petrarch was an expression of the modern spirit of 
 individuality and emotion in conflict with the mediae- 
 val ideal. His mind pushing out for escape saw but 
 one road to self expression — the road to the vivid, 
 classic past. He therefore turned to the Pagan 
 authors as his only source of a more abundant life. 
 Looking out upon the world about him Petrarch 
 saw stretching far and wide a huge structure of 
 scholasticism. Under this lay buried the lost treas- 
 ures of Roman life. Deeper still, Petrarch knew, 
 lay the richer deposits of Hellenism. To restore 
 this treasure became his ideal. Although he 
 never was able to read Greek, and although his 
 grasp of the Latin was limited by a mediaeval pre- 
 dilection for allegory and rhetoric, yet the classical 
 writers were to him alive. The outcome of his 
 labour was to usher in a widespread movement 
 toward the recovery of classic thought.^' This en- 
 thusiasm extending from Petrarch through the early 
 sixteenth century assumed in Italy primarily a liter* 
 ary form. Beyond the Alps it manifested a more 
 religious phase. It was, as we have shown, a move- 
 ment not causative but resultant, growing out of the 
 effort of awakening Europe to find new life. 
 
 The generations following Petrarch saw the re- 
 covery and accumulation of those materials which 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 7 
 
 were to form the basis of humanistic culture. One 
 by one precious manuscripts of lost Latin and Greek 
 authors were recovered, copied, and preserved. 
 Petrarch died in 1374, " leaning over a book as if 
 sleeping." One hundred years later Aldus Manu- 
 tius, whose service to the history of thought cannot 
 be too highly commended, was planning his great en- 
 terprise, the Aldine Press. Between 1494 and 15 15 
 all extant Greek authors were carefully edited and 
 printed, their preservation being thus assured." 
 
 Meantime an enthusiasm for Greek thought had 
 been developed, and academies for its study estab- 
 lished. Among these, the Florentine Academy 
 founded by Cosmo de' Medici, and attaining its zen- 
 ith under Lorenzo the Magnificent, is most impor- 
 tant. Owing its inspiration to Gemistos Plethon, 
 the Greek teacher whose long white beard and liquid 
 accents gave his utterances a charm and dignity be- 
 yond human, the Academy developed into a center 
 of Renaissance life. Born at Constantinople, 
 trained at Brusa in the mystic lore of Mohammedan, 
 Pagan and Jew, Gemistos became a judge at Mistra 
 in the Peloponnese. Saddened by the corruption in 
 Greek religion and politics, he built up an individual 
 philosophy with which to restore mankind. It was 
 made up of Pagan myth and Neo-Platonic ideas, in- 
 cluding a slight element of Judaism. To the critical 
 intellect, it was incredible ; but to the mystic emotion, 
 unsatisfied by reason, it made poignant appeal. In 
 1438 Gemistos visited Florence as a delegate of the 
 
1 8 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 Eastern Church, and remained as a teacher of Greek. 
 Florence, just reacting from scholasticism, with heart 
 awaiting some new explanation of life's mystery, 
 eagerly drank in his transcendental lore. Around 
 Gemistos at the Court of Cosmo de' Medici, a Neo- 
 Platonic Cult developed which reached full fruition 
 under Lorenzo the Magnificent. Gemistos' Treatise 
 on Plato and Aristotle ^^ originated the bitter con- 
 troversy over the two philosophers with which Card- 
 inal Bessarion is associated. Among Neo-Platon- 
 ists at Florence, Marsillus Ficinus and Giovanni Pico 
 MIrandola are most significant. The former, 
 trained from boyhood for the work of translating 
 Plato, grew up devoted to a reconciliation of the 
 Platonic and Christian ideal. Before his death he 
 had translated all of Plato's writings, Plotinus, and 
 The Hierarchies of Dionyslus the Areopagite. But 
 in spite of this zeal, Ficinus suffered from the limita- 
 tion of his time. He did not understand Plato, and 
 construed him only through Gemistos and Plotinus; 
 while Plato's poetic myths — purely a by-product of 
 his ideas — became to Ficinus the essence of his 
 thought. This credulous and uncritical spirit is the 
 keynote of the time. Its explanation is that the 
 meaning. of Greek philosophic terms was unknown 
 to the Italians, and no substitute for them existed In 
 their language. Yet Ficinus served a purpose in the 
 history of thought. For through his work Platonic 
 study was fostered, and the break with Aristotle 
 made.^* 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 1 9 
 
 . A second example of the mixture of culture and 
 credulity in the period is found in Giovanni Pico 
 Mirandola. Possessed of splendid presence knd 
 personality, he became the idol of Florence, while 
 even today he appeals to us as the flower of the 
 humanistic Renaissance. Pico believed that back of 
 all warring systems — Pagan, Hebrew, Arabic, 
 Christian, Scholastic — lay one fundamental Truth. 
 To find that truth and through it to bring into har- 
 mony the Pagan and Christian tradition, became his 
 aspiration. But with all his mental acumen, he saw 
 but through a glass darkly; and the Jewish Caballa 
 led him astray. Believing that it held the key to 
 Greek science and Christian faith, he became en- 
 snared in its endless mystic cipher. Dying at thirty- 
 one, he left the dream of a great work unrealized. 
 But he remains to the mind of the student the in- 
 carnation of all that was loveliest and most absurd 
 in humanistic thought. 
 
 The classical Revival at Florence had thus trans- 
 muted into Neo-Platonism. In other parts of Italy, 
 developing into a worship of finished Latin form, it 
 again fell short of actuality. The fifteenth century 
 was destined to close without the attainment of a 
 real comprehension of Plato, or a decided under- 
 standing of Greek drama or prose. Hellenism with 
 its freedom, its restraint, its sanity and beauty, still 
 lay far beyond. But by the close of the fifteenth 
 century, the Classical Renaissance in Italy, about to 
 enter the harrowing period of the Italian Wars, had 
 
20 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 reached its zenith, and the early sixteenth centuryi 
 saw it wane. 
 
 The Italian classical revival was in essence a look- 
 ing backward, and at its best embodied a recovery of 
 the past and its reunion with the present. It thus 
 lacked any vital idea of progress to something better 
 than the past. Despite the production of the fin- 
 ished type of scholar in individuals like Politian 
 and embryonic critics like Valla, the movement in its 
 later stages became sterile through a worship of 
 classical Latin form, while the craze for the 
 Latin language retarded the development of 
 Italian begun by Dante. Owing to its devotion to 
 form, its absorption in Neo-Platonism, and its inap- 
 prehension of many Greek terms, it failed utterly to 
 recover the content of Greek philosophy as a whole. 
 Although Greek literature was in part recovered and 
 printed, intellectual interest centered in the post- 
 classic philosophers and the church fathers.^* 
 Little intimate contact with Greek poetry and Hter- 
 ary prose resulted. Although the influence of Gem- 
 istos Plethon brought about the vogue of Plato and 
 loosened Italy from the dogma of Aristotle, never- 
 theless the latter's entrenchment in Church and Uni- 
 versity left humanism a powerful enemy with which 
 to cope, and one which later retarded or stamped out 
 its most enlightened thought.^" Thus the movement 
 in the end became reactionary and abortive. 
 
 Nevertheless the Classical Revival in Italy served 
 a purpose in the advancement of thought. It re- 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 21 
 
 Stored to Europe a knowledge of the Greek lan- 
 guage. It recovered, edited, and printed with accu- 
 racy and care the greater part of the Greek manu- 
 scripts, thus preserving them, and furnishing to later 
 thinkers the tools with which to advance. It evolved 
 and passed on to Northern Europe the design of a 
 more liberal humanistic education, which eventually 
 supplanted the cramped scholastic course.*^ It 
 handed down to posterity the conception of a freer 
 life derived from Pagan culture. This idea served 
 as a healthful antidote to the ascetic mediaeval atti- 
 tude. In all of the above ways the Classical Revival 
 in Italy furnished a foundation on which scholars 
 beyond the Alps could build. 
 
 The opening of the sixteenth century which wit- 
 nessed the decline of enthusiasm for classical liter- 
 ature in Italy, saw the further development of 
 Humanism pass to leaders beyond the Alps. While 
 the issues involved and the materials used were much 
 the same, the spirit of approach and the purposes to 
 which the men of Northern Europe applied their 
 knowledge of the classics, were different. The 
 humanists of the North, while varying individually, 
 turned their faces from the past and even beyond the 
 present, to the application of a knowledge of the 
 classics to some future good. Their attitude in- 
 volved a deep seriousness, and the thought of prog- 
 ress. But the source of this progress was to lie in 
 the past. Their universal effort was to recover an 
 
22 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 accurate knowledge of the language and literature 
 of Roman, Greek, and Hebrew; but unlike the Ital- 
 ians who played with their knowledge, each thinker 
 of the North had some especial ideal which he sought 
 to further with this new instrument. In Germany 
 the movement became largely submerged in theology! 
 and the Protestant Revolt. In France it empha- 
 sized classic form, and finally produced the literary 
 era of Louis the Fourteenth. In England it trans- 
 formed itself into an interest in religion and govern- 
 ment, and lost sight of its original goal. In all of 
 these countries, the throes of religious revolt caused 
 the Church, aiming at her own self preservation and 
 using the universities as agents, to oppose alike the 
 " New Learning " and the nascent spirit of science. 
 Moreover, the Protestant doctrines of Faith and 
 Predestination with the dogmas involved, failed to 
 produce an open attitude of mind. 
 
 The result was that in the conflict of ideas which 
 followed, the subject matter and method of Aristo- 
 telian scholasticism remained entrenched in the uni- 
 versities and educational systems. A critical atti- 
 tude toward the classical authors and the growing 
 spirit of science projecting new theories of the uni- 
 verse, were alike looked upon with suspicion. The 
 ensuing struggle prolonged itself throughout the six- 
 teenth century, its first stage only, being completed 
 then. As a result, the spirit of science and the con- 
 current recovery of an accurate knowledge of Greek 
 literature and life, were hampered and deferred. 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 23 
 
 But the issue between Latin and Vernacular became 
 more pronounced ; for in Germany and England men 
 appealed to the people in their native tongues. Nev- 
 ertheless, leading Northern humanists of the six- 
 teenth century achieved fair results, and the period 
 1^ a whole saw advance. This fact may best be 
 appreciated by a study of thinkers like Erasmus and 
 Montaigne. 
 
 We have noted earlier, that the great difference 
 between the classical revival in Italy and in Northern 
 Europe was that south of the Alps men looked back- 
 *?ard, while north of them they looked ahead. No 
 ban of his age so fully embodies the Northern 
 i^iewpoint as Erasmus. No man to such a 
 degree foreshadows modern ideas. Erasmus 
 Wished to utilize and to apply the classics 
 ks an approach to life, and thence to progress. His 
 :onception of progress differed from the modern, 
 however, in that its source lay wholly in the ancient 
 bast, while its goal combined equally sound religion 
 ^nd sound reason. Erasmus' mission thus became 
 'lot that of a religious teacher, but of a humanist 
 Scholar. Looking out beyond the turmoil and ignor- 
 ance of his day, he discerned the possibility of a 
 Wner, more intelligent life, where narrow prejudice 
 hi sect and state should pass, and men should unite 
 ifor common ends of good. It was not without rea- 
 son that Erasmus termed himself " a citizen of the 
 ivorld " ; for it was through the development of an 
 dntemational Republic of Letters — an Intellectual 
 
24 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 World League — that he foresaw the fruition of his 
 hopes. The assimilation of Greek- and Latin liter- 
 ature, and through them the whole content of class- 
 ical civilization, was to be the wonderful instrument, 
 the harmonizing medium, of his plan. Sane clas* 
 ical culture, free from taint of sectionalism, must bl 
 conjoined with modern life. Men came into bettei 
 ways of living, he believed, through intelligence, 
 Therefore men must be educated. Aristotelian 
 scholastics and Ciceronian eloquence must be put 
 away, and Latin must be made a living tongue, 
 Greek, likewise must be learned ; for in the Greek laf 
 the ultimate sources of knowledge.^^ Along with 
 the emancipation of man from secular ignorance, the 
 Bible must be set free.** M^n must go back of 
 secondary manuscripts to originals ; back of formula 
 to spirit; back of the Church Fathers to Christ. A 
 critical use of Greek was to be the shining weapra 
 of progress ; and Erasmus' edition of the New Testa- 
 ment was to aid in its forging. Reform would come 
 in gradual and peaceful evolution, If only men could 
 grow In intelligence. 
 
 We note that Erasmus was In a measure limited 
 by the views of his day. He failed to grasp the 
 significance of science, or to realize that in the frest 
 observation of nature lay the key to growth. He 
 did not glimpse the creation of another Thought 
 World as good as the ancient, framed from scienci 
 and vernacular literature. We know that he person 
 ally took little Interest In the native speech of thj 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 25 
 
 countries in which he lived. Yet he advocated that 
 the Holy Scriptures be put into the languages of the 
 people, and his application of a scientific spirit to 
 classical manuscripts reveals an appreciation of the 
 very method whose full bearing he could not see. 
 Erasmus was lacking in poetic feeling also; and por- 
 tions of the loveliest of Greek thought were lost to 
 him. Terence was his favorite poet; Jerome his 
 favorite Father. Yet limited though it was, his 
 vision was a glorious one; and Europe and England 
 seemed buoyantly advancing toward his goal, when 
 right across the path there thrust itself the German 
 Protestant Revolt. It was with Erasmus as with 
 some seer and scholar at the dawn of the twentieth 
 century, who holding glowing vision of world union 
 and limitless progress through science, saw slowly 
 rising before his eyes the vapours of that discord, 
 which steadily increasing, became the dark tempest of 
 European War; which first obscured, and then swal- 
 lowed up the whole bright vision — obliterating his 
 dearest hope. 
 
 It was in the person of Martin Luther, the miner's 
 son of Eisleben, that those forces were gathering 
 which were to turn the current of European thought. 
 Luther, although not a humanist, was intimately con- 
 nected with the cause of humanistic reform. For 
 in all the early struggle of his mind for light his 
 revolt against Aristotle and the Schoolmen had been 
 strong. This hostility later became the conviction 
 of his life. It was the revolt of the theologian 
 
26 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 against an obstacle in his search for truth. Thut 
 involuntarily and from individual motive, he became 
 identified with a leading humanistic issue of his day. 
 Luther's feeling toward the classical writers was 
 mainly a by-product of his religion. What to 
 scholars was an essential to him was an incident; and 
 the interest he had felt for the classics in his youth, 
 had been an interest in their content as an expression 
 of life. He had never known that glowing enthus- 
 iasm which characterized the advocates of the " New 
 Learning"; indeed as he grew older and became 
 imbued with the zeal for religious reform, the class- 
 ical authors lost significance to him, and became 
 merely a means to an end. At Wittenberg he dis- 
 carded Aristotle, Peter Lombard, and the Schoolmen, 
 in order to make a direct approach to the sources. 
 The Bible and the Church Fathers alone were to be 
 authority, and all distorting media must be swept 
 aside. But since the Bible and the Fathers had 
 come down in Latin and Greek, a knowledge of these 
 languages was essential in order to correct corrupted 
 texts. Therefore Greek, Latin, and Hebrew should 
 be studied in the universities. But only as a means 
 to an end. They were " The sheaths which enclose 
 the sword of the spirit, the shrine in which this treaS' 
 ure is carried, the vessel which contains this drink." ^ 
 Far from being a humanist, Luther loved the Ger- 
 man tongue. He despised " that pretty harlot, 
 Reason." He chided " that little Greek," Melanc- 
 thon, for being swept into an ardor for classical 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 27 
 
 thought. He grew increasingly cold toward Eras- 
 mus. Reuchlin did not command his sympathies, 
 and The Letters of Obscure Men seemed to him 
 trivial and slightly shocking in view of the extreme 
 seriousness of life. 
 ' Fortune, however, makes strange bedfellows ; and 
 on the eve of the Protestant revolt, men of widely 
 diverse views allied themselves. Humanism was the 
 central eddy around which the currents of unrest 
 converged. A united and independent German na- 
 tion was the common denominator of their ideal. 
 Von Hutten, the wandering scholar and patriot, fa- 
 vored Luther because Luther's reform signified inde- 
 pendence of Rome and the hope of a united German 
 state. But Hutten was not religious. Germany was 
 his heart's love; and of them all he alone fully felt 
 the possibilities of the German tongue. All the sins 
 of the Roman Curia were recounted to the people in 
 German verse.^® " I wrote Latin formerly, which 
 not everyone understands; now I call upon my Fa- 
 therland ! " *® Poignant and tragic as were Hut- 
 ten's efforts toward a national state, his sufferings 
 and obscure death — more significant still to the 
 student of intellectual history is his growth beyond 
 a dependence upon classical knowledge to a bold use 
 of his mother tongue. 
 
 The English humanists were perhaps of all most 
 able to make a happy adjustment between classical 
 literature and life. Colet and Thomas More stand 
 out as men who sweetly embody this condition. But 
 
28 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 inevitably even here, the movement was deflected! 
 into theology and the pressing problems of the day. 
 Classical culture assimilated by Colet transmuted^ 
 into religion; while the same process opened to 
 Thomas More a new political and social world. 
 The Utopia contains utterances upon labour as pene- 
 trating as any since ; but toward a more critical atti- 
 tude with regard to the classics More did not ad- 
 vance. The troubles of Henry the Eighth's reign 
 darkened the succeeding years and retarded the 
 thought of the brilliant group of English humanists. 
 Erasmus' most dismal forebodings came true. 
 Before his death, the religious conflict which he so 
 shrinkingly apprehended had come. The emancipa- 
 tion from the classical tradition was thus deferred. 
 But it may be by the law of compensation that the 
 very breaking up of ordered things formed a stimu- 
 lus to vivid ideas. Certain it is that the New Science 
 found followers ; and it was in a country most torn 
 of all by dissension, whose sufferings seemed never 
 to cease, that there appeared the first noteworthy 
 spokesman of an utterly transformed view. 
 
 As one slips into the pages of Michael de Mon- 
 taigne, one has a sense of coming home. We may 
 walk happily with the earlier thinkers, and find com- 
 radeship. But withal a strangeness clings about 
 their garments, and their utterances are mediaeval 
 still. But Montaigne is no more mediaeval than 
 are we, ourselves. His universe is one of indepen- 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 29 
 
 dent thought and variation; he is detached and he is 
 free. "Not to establish Truth, but to seek it." 
 " Among the Liberal Sciences let us begin with 
 those that make us free ! " 
 
 It is this buoyant freedom which forms the key- 
 note of Montaigne's attitude toward classical litera- 
 ture and renders him its first modern reader. The 
 Italians had adopted a theory of continuity, and had 
 bridged over a break with the past; Erasmus had 
 labored to restore the knowledge of a lost ancient 
 life. But the efforts of both had been self conscious. 
 Montaigne is unlike either. He loves antiquity, and 
 in a way reveres it. But he accepts it lightly, as he 
 accepts himself. He is released from mediaeval 
 worship of authority, from Petrarch's love of rheto- 
 ric, and the later Italian venom of attack. He is 
 innocent of a desire to apply the classics to religion 
 or reform. Save for a slightly increased glamour 
 over Rome, his classic world is ours of today. 
 There is no isolated Past; there is no chasm to be 
 bridged. These men are ourselves. We judge 
 them as we judge ourselves. 
 
 Is it by nature, or through error of fancy, that the sight 
 of the places which we know have been frequented and 
 inhabited by persons whose memories are recommended in 
 story in some sort works upon us? 
 
 Finding myself of no use in this age,'''' I throw myself 
 back upon that other, and am so enamoured of it that the 
 free, just, and flourishing state of that Ancient Rome . . . 
 interests me to a degree of passion.^* 
 
30 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 I have been bred up from infancy with these dead. I had 
 knowledge of the affairs of Rome long before I had any of 
 those of my own house; I knew the Capitol and its plan^ 
 before I knew the Louvre ; and the Tiber before I knew the 
 Seine. The qualities and fortunes of LucuUus, Metellns, I 
 and Scipio have ever run more in my head than those of my 
 own country. ... I have had a hundred quarrels in defend- 
 ing Pompey, and for the cause of Brutus: this acquaintance! 
 yet continues betwixt us.^* 
 
 They are all dead; so is my father as absolutely dead' as 
 they, and is removed as far from me and life in eighteen 
 years as they are in sixteen hundred; whose memory, never- 
 theless, friendship and society, I do not cease to hug and 
 embrace with a perfect and lively union. 
 
 Again, " this very Rome that we now see," " who 
 yet in her very tomb retains the marks and images 
 of Empire," deserves to be beloved; for "the An- 
 cient Times were the better times," and men of those 
 days more able to judge than we. 
 
 Yet despite this affection, Montaigne's attitude is 
 unbiased; it is free. He loves the classical writers 
 in liberty, not servitude ; and while his mind constantly 
 reverts to them as to an exhaustless well of life he 
 is severed from all bondage to their claim. He de- 
 plores the imitation of the Ancients, and the worship 
 of ancient literature; he scorns subserviency to 
 Aristotle, and the misprisal of the " vulgar tongue." 
 He lets his " frolic fancy play." 
 
 This modem viewpoint of Montaigne's may be 
 best appreciated by reading his essays upon classical 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 3 1 
 
 subjects. We note first that his very approach to 
 these books is unique. He reads to please himself. 
 " I do nothing without gayety." " If one book does 
 riot please me, I take another, and never meddle with 
 any but at such times as I am weary of doing noth- 
 ing." " I could wish to have a more perfect know- 
 ledge of things, but will not buy it so dear as it 
 costs." He frankly admits, " I am not much for 
 the new ones, because the old ones seem fuller and 
 stronger; neither do I converse much with Greek 
 authors, because my judgment cannot do its work 
 with imperfect knowledge of the material." 
 
 Poetry, History and Philosophy are his favour- 
 ite subjects. He loves poetry because it refines and 
 elevates the emotion. " Poetry has ever had that 
 power over me from a child to transpierce and trans- 
 port me." *' The true supreme and divine poetry 
 is above all rule and reason." Virgil, Lucretius, 
 Catullus, and Horace excel all the others. The 
 Georgics are best of their kind. To the Aeneids, 
 " the author might have given a little more of the 
 file." Lucan and Terence also merit praise; the 
 latter being " liquid and like a crystal stream." 
 We note here that Montaigne seems unfamiliar with 
 Greek verse, to which he alludes rarely and usually 
 through Latin citations. The Italian poets, in par- 
 ticular Ariosto, do not please him. " They mount 
 on horseback because they are not able to stand on 
 their own legs." Whereas, " The best of ancient 
 poets have avoided affectation, and hunting after 
 
32 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 . . . fantastic Spanish and Petrarchal elevations." 
 In simplicity lies beauty to Montaigne, 
 
 In Prose, " that mixes a little more profit with 
 pleasure," history and philosophy are his favourite 
 subjects. Each is to him a well of life. He draws 
 no line between ancient and modern books, but 
 sweeps all into one wide grasp. There is no issue 
 between Latin and vernacular literature; each are 
 selected from at will. His criticism is modern and 
 free. He has reached the wide horizon where, inde- 
 pendent of time and language, a great thought is a 
 great thought still. " The historians are my right 
 ball ; for they are pleasant and easy, and where man 
 in general, the knowledge of whom I hunt after, 
 appears more vividly and entire than anywhere else." 
 Plutarch, Diogenes Laertius, and Caesar rank 
 highest of the Ancients; while Einhardt, "Honest 
 Froissart," and De Comines excel among Moderns. 
 Thucydides and Xenophon are unmentioned as his- 
 torians,'" and Tacitus was read only late in life. His 
 comments upon history show keen critical faculty and 
 a modern point of view. He enjoins a discriminat- 
 ing spirit. " The more excellent sort of historians 
 have judgment to pick out what is worthy to be 
 known." He demands a technical knowledge of the 
 matter to be written. " What can a man expect 
 from a physician who writes of war, or from a mere 
 scholar treating of the designs of princes ? " More- 
 over, Montaigne scores the efforts of literary his- 
 torians : " as if we were to learn Grammar from 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 33 
 
 them "; and requires first hand knowledge. " The 
 only good histories are those that have been written 
 by the persons themselves, who held command in the 
 affairs whereof they write." He disparages 
 Guicciardini who " leaves nothing unsaid," and Mon- 
 sieur du Bellay, who suppresses the truth. He re- 
 grets that Tacitus omitted so much of the human in 
 his lives of the Emperors. " 'Tis rather a judgment 
 than a deduction of History; 'tis a nursery of ethics 
 and politic discourse. , , . 'Tis full of sententious 
 opinions right or wrong." 
 
 In all of the above comments, we discern traces of 
 the modern critical spirit. This likewise is trye of 
 his attitude with regard to the classics in education. 
 History, Poetry, and Philosophy are alike invalu- 
 able ; but the method of- teaching them in his day is 
 wrong. The classics should be used not to exercise 
 the memory, but to train the mind. " The advan- 
 tages of our study is to become better and more 
 wise." Let the schoolmaster sweep away the princi- 
 ples of Aristotle, and appeal to the individual mind. 
 " Truth and reason are common to everyone." 
 " Who follows another, follows nothing, finds noth- 
 ing, nay is inquisitive after nothihg," " Let him at 
 least know that he knows." " Who ever asked his 
 pupil what he thought of Grammar and Rhetoric, or 
 of such and such a sentence in Cicero ? Our masters 
 stick them full feathered in our memories, and there 
 establish them like oracles." " To know by rote is 
 no knowledge." History should be used, therefore. 
 
34 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 to train the judgment, to enrich the thought, and to 
 give one true perspective. 
 
 This great world ... is the mirror wherein we are to 
 behold ourselves, to be able to know ourselves as we ought 
 to do in the true bias. ... So many great names, so many 
 famous victories and conquests drowned and swallowed up 
 in oblivion render our hopes ridiculous of eternising our 
 names by the taking of half a score of light horse, or a hen- 
 roost which only derives its memory from its ruin.'^ 
 
 As history should train the judgment, ancient phil- 
 osophy should " instruct us how to live." " She has 
 virtue for her end." She is not as the Schoolmen 
 say, " placed upon a rock apart, amongst thorns and 
 brambles ... a hobgoblin to affright people"; 
 but she is " seated in a fair, fruitful and flourishing 
 plain, from whence she easily discerns all things 
 below." ** " Away, then, with the thorny subtleties 
 of dialectics; they are abuses; things by which our 
 lives can never be mended: . . . Take the plain 
 philosophical discourses; learn how rightly to 
 choose.^' . . . 'Tis not a soul, 'tis not a body we are 
 training up, but a man." ^* 
 
 Unlike most men of his age, Montaigne advocates 
 in education the Modern languages before the 
 Ancient. " I would first understand my own lan- 
 guage and that of my neighbours, with whom most 
 of my business and conversation lies." " Words are 
 to serve and to follow a man's purpose; and let 
 Gascon come in play where French will not do." . . . 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 35 
 
 " No doubt Greek and Latin are very great orna- 
 ments, but we buy them too dear." He approves 
 the translation of classical works into vernacular, 
 and especially commends Jacques Amyot for render- 
 ing Plutarch into French. " We dunces had been 
 lost, had not this book raised us out of the dirt." 
 He regrets that the same author did not also trans- 
 late Xenophon. Montaigne, however, makes the 
 Bible one great exception to his rule. Unlike Eras- 
 mus, he believes that it should be kept apart. 
 
 We ought not to mix God in our actions, but with the 
 highest reverence and caution; that poesy is too holy to be 
 put to no other uses than to exercise the lungs and to delight 
 our ears. ... It is not fit that a printer in his shop, amongst 
 his vain and frivolous thoughts should be permitted to pass 
 away his time and divert himself with such sacred things. 
 'Neither *is it decent to see the Holy Book of the Holy Mys- 
 teries of our belief tumbled up and down a kitchen. . . . 
 Neither is it a book for every one to fist, but the study of 
 select men, set apart. . . . Are they not then pleasant men 
 who think they have rendered this fit for the people's 
 handling by translating it into the vulgar tongue? Does 
 the understanding of all therein contained only stick at 
 words? ... A pure and simple ignorance was far more 
 learned and salutary than all this verbal knowledge, which 
 has only proved the nurse of temerity and presumption. . . . 
 The very women and children nowadays take upon them- 
 selves to lecture the oldest and most experienced men.^° 
 
 Montaigne, then, in education recommends the 
 classics as a key to Reason. But having reached the 
 
36 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 farthest bound of thought, he points to the closed 
 door. The Bible and religion lie beyond. 
 
 Montaigne turned to the ancient philosophers for 
 an explanation of the universe as a man today turns 
 to science. In this he was of his age. Yet nowhere 
 does he show greater independence of spirit and a 
 more open mind. In his scepticism of authority, he 
 is the precursor of Descartes. The theories of the 
 great philosophers are pebbles on a sunny shore. 
 He plays with them and tosses them all away. 
 Cicero is " too long winded " ; good enough " for 
 children and common people, to whom a man must 
 say all, and see what comes of it." ..." We can 
 say, Cicero says this; these were the manners of 
 Plato; these are the very words of Aristotle, but 
 •what do we say ourselves? A parrot would say as 
 much." ^* Of Cicero's remarks upon Letters — 
 " Hear this poor calamitous animal huff. . . . Does 
 not this man seem to speak of the condition of the 
 everliving almighty God? Yet as to the effect, a 
 thousand little country women have lived lives more 
 equal, more sweet, and more constant than his." ^' 
 
 As to " the Divine Plato "—" Will the license of 
 the time excuse my sacrilegious boldness if I censure 
 the dialogism of Plato himself as also dull and 
 heavy, too much stifling the matter." And again: 
 " The beginning and the end of knowledge are equal- 
 ly foolish : observe to what a pitch Plato flies in his 
 poetic clouds ; do but take notice of the gibberish of 
 the gods." *« Likewise, — "And what of the Ejfl- 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 37 
 
 cureans? . . . who fain added a fortuitous and 
 lateral motion, and furnished their atoms with 
 hooked tails, by which they might unite and cling 
 to one another! " As for Aristotle, " the God of 
 scholastic Theology," " the Prince of Dogmatists," 
 " he may be false as another." " Authority has 
 alone power to work upon common understandings, 
 and it is of more weight in a foreign tongue." ^* 
 Why are not Plato's ideas, or Epicurus' atoms . . . 
 or Leucippus' vacuum just as good? ..." Or any 
 opinion of the infinite confusion of opinions and 
 determinations which this fine human reason pro- 
 duces?"*" Moreover, the " Cannibals . . . enjoy 
 the happiness of a long, quiet, and peaceable life 
 without Aristotle's precepts, and without the knowl- 
 edge of the name of Physics." *^ 
 
 Among all the philosophers, Socrates was truest 
 in his life ; while Plutarch and Seneca are most sane. 
 " Their instruction is the very cream of philosophy." 
 But even they are fallible ; Seneca labors too hard to 
 avoid evil, while Plutarch is sometimes absurd.** 
 
 Having " with frohc forwardness " tossed all 
 ancient theories aside, Montaigne propounds one of 
 his own. 
 
 Let us see if we have a little more light in the knowledge 
 of human and natural things.*^ ... I accept kindly and 
 with gratitude what Nature has done for me: am well 
 pleased withiit, and proud of it. A man does wrong to the 
 great omnipotent Give« of all things to refuse, annul, or 
 disfigure His gift; all goodness Himself, He has made 
 
38 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 everything good.** . . . 'Tis an absolute, and as it were, a 
 divine perfection, for a man to know how loyally to enjoy i 
 his being. We seek other conditions by reason we do not 
 understand the use of our own; and go out of ourselves, 
 because we know not how there to reside.*'^ . . . The fairest 
 lives in my opinion are those which regularly accommodates 
 themselves to the common and human model; without 
 miracle, without extravagance. 
 
 After this declaration of intellectual convictioi^ 
 Montaigne settles back comfortably into the bosom 
 of the Church. In this action, there is no sense of 
 conflict or hypocrisy. For he approaches philosophy 
 with his intellect ; but he takes his religion as a man 
 takes a wife — on faith. 
 
 To Montaigne, science is a phase of philosophy. 
 It is not a reality, but a theory and a by-product. 
 From his point of view to that of Francis Bacon's is a 
 far cry. Gregory the Thirteenth's reform of the 
 calendar is an irritation;*® inventions, are a bore. 
 " We make a mighty business of the invention of 
 artillery and printing, which other men at the other 
 end of the world in China had a thousand yean 
 ago." Copernicus' theory of the solar system is 
 not really new.*'' 
 
 The heavens and the stars had been three thousand years 
 in motion; all the world were of that belief, till Cleanthis 
 the Samian . . . bethought him to maintain that it was the 
 earth that moved. . . . And in our time Copernicus has so 
 grounded the doctrine that it very regularly serves to all 
 astrological consequences; what use can we make of this 
 
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER 39 
 
 except that we do not much care which is the true opinion? 
 And who knows but that a third a thousand years hence may 
 overthrow the two former? . . . Before the principles that 
 Aristotle introduced were in _ reputation, other principles 
 contented human reason, as these satisfy us now. They, too, 
 may be thrust out of doors.** 
 
 It is with this sweeping sense of diversity through 
 Time and Change, that Montaigne leaves us at the 
 last. Janus-faced, he looks two ways. Into one 
 gaze he draws the glory of the Ancient Past he loves ; 
 with the other, intellect escaping finite limitation, 
 blithely pushes out through the Open Door. 
 
II 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 
 
II 
 
 THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 
 
 In the visions of each dynamic thinker of the seven- 
 teenth century, there is a constructive and a destruc- 
 tive aspect. In almost each case his constructive 
 purpose involves the advancement of knowledge 
 through science, while his destructive attitude is con- 
 nected with a critical approach to the classical writers 
 who had in earlier days been accepted at face value. 
 The fundamental question was always presenting 
 itself, whether or not the _ajicientjearning a.nd the 
 ancient writer s should continue to furnish th e final 
 authority in hum an progress; or jwhether there ex- 
 iffted some be tter method, some mpre advanced truth 
 awa iting to be discove£ed_and_appliedjtoJife. 
 
 In 1592, with undaunted spirit, yet in sadness, 
 despairing for humanity and war-torn France, Mon- 
 taigne closed his career. But one generation later, 
 as Francis Bacon at the opening of the seventeenth 
 century entered into the service of young King 
 James the First of England, a new spirit was abroad. 
 War for the time had ceased. Science and geogra- 
 phy were makinggreat discoveries. And as one dips 
 into the high iriipassioned thoughts of Bacon, the 
 
 43 
 
44 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 sense of change, of transition to new worlds, is im- 
 minent. As one follows Bacon's glowing passages, 
 one has vision of a horseman standing on a moun- 
 tain peak — his trumpet poised — a roseate hue of 
 dawn along" the line of sky, and a far limitless 
 country stretching off beyond. " Sum Buccinator I " 
 Bacon exclaims. And such to succeeding ages, with 
 his clear, clarion call to progress — a herald of the 
 modera era of thought he has become. 
 
 The time was ripe for the messenger of this great 
 change. The scientific achievements of Copernicus, 
 of Galileo, of Bruno, of Harvey and Kepler,^ had 
 stirred men's blood and given promise of new mast- 
 ery of physical law. The great geographical discov- 
 eries had quickened their imaginations, and opened 
 up whole new worlds of material conquest and ad- 
 vance. Although the full significance of science had 
 not yet impressed men's minds, its ferment was stim- 
 ulating their thought ; while they felt the same glow- 
 ing hope for the future stirred by geographical dis- 
 covery, that men at the dawn of the twentieth cen- 
 tury before the Great War felt for the achievements 
 of science. One hundred years later that hope had 
 seen discouragement and semi-defeat.* But for the 
 moment, to men of high thought, the curtain seemed 
 lifted from the finitude of life, and no enterprise 
 appeared impossible to the lofty of heart. 
 
 It is Francis Bacon of a truth who becomes the 
 trumpeter of this change; for it is he who first 
 renders articulate the sense of the continuity of life 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 45 
 
 and progress through science, and of man's capacity 
 for advance step by step, and on and on.' In all 
 mental growth, it is the attitude of spirit which 
 xounts. For while a man's opinions may be deter- ( 
 mined by the age in which he lives, the vital ques- 
 tion remains, is his spirit flexible and open? Does I 
 he seek truth, and is he untrammeled to receive? 
 This high attitude was Francis Bacon's to the full. 
 To summon mankind to advance through science, to 
 proceed step by step, to apply each gain to the better- 
 ment of " man's estate," became the unfaltering 
 purpose of his life. His plan aimed at no dogmatic 
 finality. Over and over he tells us that he is but a 
 beginner ; that later generations must complete what 
 he has inaugurated. 
 
 For I am but a trumpeter, not a combatant. . . . Nor is 
 mine a trumpet which summons and excites men to cut 
 each other to pieces with mutual contradictions ; or to quar- 
 rel and fight with one another: but rather to make peace 
 between themselves, and turning with united forces against 
 the nature of things, to storm and occupy her castles and 
 strongholds, and extend the bounds, of human empire.* 
 
 Again : 
 
 My purpose ... is to try whether I cannot in very fact, 
 lay more firmly the foundations, and extend more widely 
 the limits of the power and greatness of man. . . . Yet I 
 have no entire or universal theory to propound. For it does 
 not seem that the time is come for such an attempt. . . . 
 But hold it enough if in the intermediate business, I bear 
 
46 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 myself soberly and profitably, sowing in the meantime forj 
 future ages the seeds of a purer truth, and performing my 
 part towards the commencement of the great undertaking,! 
 
 Bacon realizes that the goal proposed lies far 
 beyond his personal reach.® He realizes, too, the 
 hopelessness of its immediate attainment. He 
 knows, likewise, that only steadfastness of spirit 
 can live down the animosity his undertaking will 
 entail. Yet he chooses deliberately to break from 
 the intellectual fetters of his age; he consecrates 
 himself to his task ; he calls upon contemporary 
 workers to assist; he foresees emancipation — far 
 off — at the end. " Then shall we no longer be 
 kept dancing in little rings like persons bewitched, 
 but our range and circuit will be as wide as the 
 compass of the World." '^ 
 
 For my own part at least in obedience to the everlasting 
 love of Truth, I have committed myself to the uncertainties 
 and difficulties and solitudes of the ways, and relying on the 
 divine assistance, have upheld my mind both against the 
 shocks and embattled ranks of opinion, and against my own 
 private and inward hesitations and scruples, and against 
 the fogs and clouds of Nature, and the phantoms flitting 
 about on every side, in the hope of providing at last for the 
 present and future generations guidance more faithful and 
 secure.' 
 
 Of myself I say nothing; but in behalf of the business 
 which is in hand, I entreat men that it is not an opinion to 
 be held but a work to be done ; and to be well assured that 
 I am labouring to lay the foundation not of any sect or doc- 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 47 
 
 trine, but of human utility and power. Next I ask them 
 to deal fairly by their own interests, and laying aside all 
 emulations and prejudices ... to join in the consultation 
 for the common good.' 
 
 Having thus declared his purpose and called 
 humanity to be his helper, Bacon propounds his plan 
 and method of advance. I have illustrated at some 
 length the spirit of his work, because it is in this that 
 we find the key-note to the whole seventeenth cen- 
 tury transformation. Moreover, it is this new atti-'* 
 tude towards knowledge which is intimately bound 
 up with the development of a critical attitude toward 
 the classical writers. For both Bacon's ideal of in- 
 tellectual reform and the concrete method he pro- 
 jects, involve an indirect attack upon the whole 
 foundation of classical thought and learning as con- 
 ceived by the scholars of his day. 
 
 If we turn back for a moment to Montaigne and 
 the writers before him, we shall perceive the contrast 
 and discern the new issue. Montaigne's interest 
 centered in the individual; in humanity; in the 
 sources of its joys and woes. His approach towards 
 life was philosophic; and most often he drew his 
 matter from the great storehouse of classical liter- 
 ature. While his criticism of the classics was free, 
 yet the issue made by him was always the uses to 
 which they were put, and the method in which they 
 were treated. There had not apparently entered 
 into his mind a conception of any thought-world 
 equally good or better, nor of its possible substitu- 
 
48 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 tion for the world of the past. But with Bacon, the 
 transformation has come. It is upon nature, upon 
 inductive science, and the progress of humanity in 
 general that Bacon builds. And although he speaks 
 with moderation, proposing " to ground a sociable 
 intercourse between Antiquity and Proficience," yet 
 time and again he reveals the prescience that his plan 
 of reform will entail the sweeping away of old 
 established things connected with the ancient writ- 
 ers.^" For the sake of " God's first creature, which 
 was Light : to have Light," and for the furthering of 
 " The Kingdom of Man," he worked. And 
 throughout his writings the substitution of a new 
 regime of thought in place of the old is frankly 
 suggested and discussed. 
 
 It is Bacon in the full flush of enthusiasm attack- 
 ing the old, that we encounter in The Advancement 
 of Learning, 1605. It appeared well for the inter- 
 ests of Bacon that Elizabeth was gone ; for, " Tho 
 she cheered him much with the bounty of her counte- 
 nance, yet she never cheered him with the bounty of 
 her hand." ^^ James the devotee of learning had 
 ascended the throne. Bacon backed by excellent 
 family might hope for better days.^" The Advance' 
 ment of Learning, published two years after James' 
 accession, is its author's Declaration of Faith and his 
 Apostles' Creed. Never again did he issue state- 
 ments quite so colorful and vivid; never again was 
 his spirit quite so bold. Yet the view there given its 
 mature expression hud its origin in his youth. For 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 49 
 
 " At the age of about sixteen while still in the Uni- 
 versity," Rawley explains, he " first fell into the dis- 
 like of the philosophy of Aristotle ; not for the 
 worthlessness of the author to whom he would ever 
 ascribe all highest attributes, but for the unfruitful- 
 ness of the way; being a philosophy (as his Lordship 
 used to say) , only strong for disputations and con- 
 tentions, but barren of the production of works for 
 the benefit of man. In which mind he continued to 
 his dying day." ^* 
 
 It is this early critical attitude developed and aug- 
 mented by mature life, which we find in The 
 Advancement of Learning. In Book I Bacon is 
 concerned chiefly with the fallacies of learning. All 
 of these are intimately connected with the tradition 
 which had resulted from the mediaeval mind react- 
 ing upon'the Classics. Bacon approaches this tradi- 
 tion not with the sentiment and reverence of earlier 
 writers, but in a questioning spirit. We hear cen- 
 sured the devotion to ancient knowledge; the wor- 
 ship of its authority; the use of Aristotelian dialectic; 
 the adherence to accepted books instead of observa- 
 tion; the reluctance to concede advance upon the 
 past. In short Bacon sweepingly arraigns the whole 
 classical tradition as conceived and practised by the 
 schools of his time. 
 
 The Second Book of the Advancement and The 
 Organon explain the substitute which our author 
 proffers in place of the old. Although the present 
 study admits only a discussion of those phases con- 
 
50 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 nected with classical authorities, even in this respec^ 
 Bacon's ideas are revolutionary. He does not 
 scruple to state boldly his objections to all previous 
 and present conditions of knowledge; nor does he 
 hesitate to declare his absolute faith that the " Third 
 Great Period " of learning which he aspires to usher 
 in, will far excel that of any earlier time. 
 
 In discussing this topic Bacon lays stress upon the 
 faulty courses of study in the colleges of his day, and 
 upon defects in our system of J cno3s].pdgp. as inherited 
 from the G reeks . , Under the former caption he de- 
 clares that " Governors in the Universities have 
 neglected to consider whether the readings, exercises, 
 and other customs appertaining unto learning 
 anciently begun ... be well instituted or no." As 
 a result, " Princes find a solitude in regard to able 
 men because there is no education Collegiate which 
 is free, where sudh as were so disposed might ^ve 
 themselves to histories, modern languages, books of 
 policies, and civil discourses, and other like emolu- 
 ment in the service of the state." " ^ 
 
 Moreover a reverence for antiquity prevents ac- 
 curacy of research. " For ^s things now are^f^aii 
 unt ruth in _jia^ture be ,onc_eon foot, what-hy. reason 
 of the jie^ect_ of examination and xountenan£s_^f 
 antiquity . . . it is never called down." ^^ 
 
 It is, however, in estimating the defects in our 
 heritage of knowledge from the Ancients that Bacon 
 becomes most original and interesting. Here he 
 dwells almost wholly upon the Greeks, referring but 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 5 1 
 
 rarely to the Latins. We note how unlike was his 
 intellectual temper to the theological fervor of the 
 Mediaeval scholiasts, or the rhetorical zest of the 
 Italians. Neither does he strike the personal note 
 of Montaigne. Bacon takes small cognizance of 
 the Greeks as to their literary value, or the human 
 content of their writings. Greek poetry does not 
 enthrall him, although he occasionally quotes Pindar 
 or Homer, the latter of whom he seems to reverence. 
 Greek drama he rarely mentions. Plato as a poet 
 he admires. " For it is a most beautiful emblem, 
 that of Plato's cave." And the Greek myths he 
 loves. ^® But here again, it is the allegory which 
 allures him; while his only lengthy discussion of 
 verse is devoted to form and meter. Although he 
 refers approvingly to Thucydides, the Greek histor- 
 ians do not hold his attention. His interest in the 
 characters depicted is not warm and human like 
 Montaigne's, but he is drawn to them as a scientist 
 interested in a study of nature or ethics. In short, 
 " Hellenism," that essence of liberty and beauty as 
 we today conceive the term, had not entered into his 
 soul. Classical literature is to Bacon a work shop 
 of science, a laboratory of ideas, an impersonal place. 
 It is therefore as one might expect, that his com- 
 ments upon classical writers arei almost wholly de- 
 voted to philosophy, while his investigation is 
 directed to an estimate of their contribution to 
 human knowledge.^^ Even his approach is scientific 
 and modern; for he speaks critically and guardedly. 
 
52 THE BATTLE OF THE BCX)KS 
 
 " The Ancients are to be received cautiously and ; 
 with proper selection. For the lapse of time makes 
 many alterations, so that what in respect of time 
 appears ancient is by reason of the confusion which 
 it makes, and its inconf ormity to the present state of 
 things, really new." ^^ Moreover, Bacon censures 
 the ancient philosophers for retiring from active life 
 and its " perturbations " in order to philosophize. 
 " Their honour," he protests, should be " of stouter ' 
 web." This statement reveals the modern prefer- 
 ence for an active rather than a contemplative Ufe.^' 
 Bacon's reflections upon Greek philosophical 
 knowledge dwell upon the many fallacies in tenet and 
 method; its lack of productivity; and the overwhelm^ 
 ing ignorance of the Greeks about many facts of 
 J common information at a later day. His discussion 
 reveals an amazingly wide range of reading and a 
 familiarity with philosophical writers both early and 
 late. Yet his voluminous reading has but impressed 
 him with the profusion of books and the sterility of 
 matter. Likewise he censures the static nature of 
 the knowledge contained therein. 
 
 For let a man look carefully into all that variety of books 
 with which the arts and sciences abound ; he will find every- 
 where endless repetitions of the same thing, varying in the 
 method of treatment, but not new in substance, insomuch^ 
 that the whole stock, numerous as it appears at first view, 
 proves on examination to be but scanty. And for its value; 
 and utility it must be plainly avowed that that wisdoml 
 which we have derived principally from the Greeks is but 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 53 
 
 like the boyhood of knowledge, and has the characteristic 
 property of boys : it can talk, but it cannot generate ; for it is 
 fruitful of controversies but barren of works. . . . For in 
 like manner the sciences to which we are accustomed have 
 certain general positions which are specious and flattering; 
 but as soon as they come to particulars, . . . when they 
 should produce fruit and works, then arise contentions and 
 barking disputations, which are the end of the matter and 
 all the issue they can yield. Observe also that if sciences 
 of this kind had any life in them, that could never have come 
 to pass which has been the case for many ages — that they 
 stand almost at a stay, without receiving any augmentations 
 worthy of the human race; insomuch that many times not 
 only what was asserted once is asserted still; but what was 
 a -question once is a question still, and instead of being 
 resolved by discussion, is only fixed and fed; and all the 
 tradition and succession of schools is still a succession of 
 masters and scholars, not of inventors and those who bring 
 to further perfection the things invented.^" 
 
 Among the G reek philoso phers, Bacon ho lf^y thei 
 ear liest to be ^e best . For they adhered most 
 closely to nature, and se t out to discover truth 
 jKrough experim ent! But they appir eg~no rule to 
 t heir tentative induction, and were soon be^iled 
 from experim enTto ''.hardthinking and perpetual 
 ex CTcising of th emind." This class did not, so far 
 as we know, open schools but betook- themselves 
 " more silently, severely and simply to the inquisition 
 of truth." " Still even they were not altogether 
 free from the failing of their nation ; but leaned too 
 much to the ambition and vanity of founding a sect 
 
54 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 and of catching popular applause." ^^ Of them all, 
 Democ ritus was mostj yoTthy-; for he wandered least 
 fi^m'" the path of Nature " ; "did not suppose a 
 mind or reason in the frame of things," and adhered 
 most closely to " the particularities of physical 
 causes." Of the later philosophers all are falla- 
 cious; Plato, Aristotle, and Galen seek for final 
 'causes in Nature instead of in Metaphysics, while 
 they confuse and mingle this subject with Natural 
 Science. 
 
 In connection with the above comment, one notes 
 that for the first time, consciously or unconsciou sly, 
 a decisive line is drawn be tween Philosophy and Nat - 
 ural Science. Forj he first time attention is direc ted 
 to the "funHam ental difference,_ and thelssuejnade 
 clear. In^mphasizing this distinct ion Bacon m akes 
 the transition iromtii^ mediaeval_g hilosophic to th e 
 modern scientific method. On the on e side he places 
 intellectual theory; on the other, assure d know ledge 
 through experimfint_wiiKHS^H?er^ 
 
 We have as yet no natural philosophy that is pure ; all is 
 tainted and corrupted: In Aristotle's School by logic, in 
 Plato's by natural theology, in the second school of Platon- 
 ists, such as Proclus and others, by mathematics, which sought 
 only to give definitions to natural philosophy, not to generate 
 or give it birth. . . . From a natural philosophy pure and 
 simple, better things are to be expected.^" 
 
 " Nothing duly investigated is to be found in 
 natural history." Aristotle's History of Animak 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 55 
 
 was collected " to supply the understanding with in- 
 formation for the building up of philosophy." 
 
 23 
 
 The induction which is to be available for the discovery 
 and demonstration of sciences and arts, must analyse 
 nature by proper rejections and exclusions; and then, after . 
 a sufficient number of negatives come to a conclusion on the 
 affirmative instances. ... In order to furnish this induc- 
 tion or demonstration well and duly for its work, very many 
 things are to be provided which no mortal has yet thought of ; 
 insomuch that greater labor will have to be spent in it than 
 has hitherto been spent on the syllogism. . . . And it is in 
 this induction that our chief hope lies.^* 
 
 N ot only did the material and method of Greek 
 sci ence lack clarity and romplet enei^s, but Greek 
 Ignorance of facts common to mo dern knowledge 
 was^ cnlnssaL B acon ^rows eloquent i n giving ^x- 
 pression to this defect : 
 
 Nor does the character of the time and age yield much 
 better signs than the character of the country and nation. 
 For at that period there was but a narrow and meager 
 knowledge either of time or place; which is the worst thing 
 that can be, especially for those who rest all on experience. 
 For they had no history worthy to be called history that 
 went back a thousand years ; but only fables and rumours of 
 antiquity. And of the regions and districts of the World, 
 they knew but a small portion ; giving indiscriminatingly the 
 name of Scythians to all in the North, of Celts to all in the 
 West; knowing nothing of Africa beyond the hither side of 
 Ethiopia, of Asia beyond the Ganges; much less were they 
 acquainted with the provinces of the New World, even by 
 
56 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 hearsay or any well founded rumour; nay a multitude of 
 climates and zones wherein innumerable nations breathe and 
 live, were pronounced by them to be uninhabitable; and the 
 travels of Democritus, Plato and Pythagoras, which were 
 rather suburban excursions than distant journeys, were talked 
 of as something great. In our times, on the other hand, 
 both many parts of the New World and the limits on every 
 side of the Old World are known, and our stock of experi- 
 ence has increased to an infinite amount. Wherefore, if 
 (like astrologers) we draw signs from the seasons of their 
 nativity or birth, nothing great can be predicted of those 
 systems of philosophy.^^ 
 
 Again : 
 
 It is well to observe the force and virtue and conse- 
 quences of discoveries; and these are to be seen nowhere 
 more conspicuously than in these three which were unknown 
 to the Ancients, and of which the origin, tha recent, is 
 obscure and inglorious; namely, printing, gunpowder, and 
 the magnet. For these have changed the whole face and 
 state of things throughout the world; the first in literature, 
 the second in warfare; the third in navigation; whence have 
 followed innumerable changes; insomuch that no empire, no 
 sect, no star, seems to have exerted greater power and influ- 
 ence in human affairs than these three mechanical discov- 
 
 The final defect of Greek sc ienc e. Bacon consi ders^ 
 to b e_ its sterility : it has been unproductive of works. 
 
 Now the true and lawful Goal of the sciences is none 
 other than this: that human life be endowed with new dis- 
 coveries and powers.^^ 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 57 
 
 Of all signs there is none more certain or more noble than 
 that taken from fruits. . . . Now from all these systems of 
 the Greeks, and their ramifications . . . there can hardly 
 after the lapse of so many years be adduced a single experi- 
 ment which tends to relieve and to benefit the condition of ^ 
 man.^* 
 
 Since the signs of truth both in fruit and progress 
 are wanting in the Old Learning, Bacon challenges 
 that some great New World of knowledge must be 
 entered into and mastered for the human race. As 
 he surveys the manifold defects of the old system, it 
 is not strange that he feels amazement that humanity 
 has borne with it so long; or that he marvels that 
 some earlier thinker has not originated a straighter 
 road to .truth. 
 
 And an astonishing thing it is to one who rightly considers 
 the matter, that no mortal should have seriously applied him- 
 self to the opening and laying out of a road to human 
 understanding direct from the sense by a course of experi- 
 ment orderly conducted and well built up; but that all has 
 been left either to the mist of tradition, or the whirl and 
 eddy of argument, or the fluctuations and mazes of chance 
 and of vague and ill digested exercise.^' 
 
 Since preceding thinkers have failed of this under- 
 taking, 
 
 There was but one course left, therefore, to try the whole 
 thing anew, upon a better plan, and to commence a total 
 reconstruction of sciences, arts, and all human knowledge 
 raised upon the proper foundations. And this though in the 
 
58 THE BATTLE OF THE BCXDKS 
 
 project and undertaking it may seem a thing infinite and,' 
 beyond the powers of man, yet when it comes to be dealt* 
 with, will be found sound and sober, more so than what* 
 has been done hitherto. For of this there is some issue; 
 whereas in what is now done . . . there is only a whirling 
 roundabout, and perpetual agitation ending where it began. 
 And although he [the writer] was well aware how solitary 
 an enterprise it is, and how hard a thing to win faith and 
 credit for, nevertheless he was resolved not to abandon either' 
 it or himself; Nor to be deterred from trying and entering 
 upon that one path which is alone open to the human mind.'" 
 And certainly it may be objected to me with a truth that 
 my words require an Age; a whole age perhaps, to prove 
 them, and many ages to perfect them. But yet as even the 
 greatest things are owing to their beginnings, it will be 
 enough for me to have sown a seed for posterity, and for the 
 Immortal God.'^ 
 
 Nor does Bacon lack assurance ; but with prescient 
 vision, he beholds rising before him man's future 
 estate. 
 
 And surely when I set before me the condition of these 
 times in which learning seems to have now made her third 
 visitation to men; and when at the same time I attentively 
 behold with what helps and assistance she is provided; as 
 the vivacity of and sublimity of the many wits of this age; 
 the noble monuments of Ancient writers, which shine like so 
 many lights before us ; the art of printing which brings books 
 within reach of men of all fortunes ; the opened bosom of the 
 ocean and the world traveled over in every pkrt, whereby? 
 multitudes of experiments unknown to the Ancients have 
 been disclosed and an immense mass added to Natural 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 59 
 
 History; the leisure time which the greatest wits in the 
 kingdoms and states of Europe have everywhere at their 
 disposal, not being so much employed in civil business as were 
 the Greeks in respect of their popular governments and the 
 Romans in respect of the greatness of their monarchy; the 
 peace which Britain, Spain, Italy, France too at last, and 
 many other countries now enjoy; the consumption and 
 •ejfhaustion of all that can be thought or said on religious 
 (questions, which have so long diverted men's minds from the 
 study of other arts . . . and lastly the inseparable property 
 of time, ever more and more to disclose the Truth ; I cannot, 
 I say, when I reflect on these things, but be raised to this 
 hope, that th is thir d period will surpass the Greek and 
 Roman Learning; ifon^Tnen will'wisely and honestly know 
 their ovm strength and their own weakness; and take from 
 one another the light of invention afld not the fire of contra- 
 diction, and esteem the inquisition of truth a noble enterprise 
 and not a pleasure or ornament; and employ wealth and 
 magnificence on things of worth and excellence, not on 
 things vulgar and of popular estimation.'* 
 
 The Classical Man looked to a solution" of the 
 problems of the universe through the divinity with- 
 in himself; the Mediaeval Man sought it at the 
 hands of his anthropomorphic God; Francis Bacon 
 followed it on the path of Science. Science was to 
 him^t he secr et of power; experiment ^prasTEe^open 
 road to its attammentV aiid~iFwas~the structure of 
 classicaL tradition which was challenged" to make 
 'way_farJthe_grogression. Bacon speaks always as a 
 scientist: he claims the right of criticising ancient 
 knowledge ; *^ he disdains a reference back to its 
 
6o THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 authority to justify himself.** He enjoins observa- 
 tion of nature, and censures scorn of common things. 
 Even his conception of a new and universal language 
 " the most beautiful of all," is scientific.^^ More- 
 over, Bacon is scientific in retaining the useful in the 
 old while he aspires to the new. He therefore does 
 not discard deduction, but retains it for secondary 
 work.3® Last of all, he is scientific in his goal. For 
 " jvjpro gressive stagres of certainty," he propos gsjQ 
 arrive out beyond meticulous experiment at a uni- 
 versal system of Truth. Nor can the objections 
 often made against him hold, that he " discovered 
 new scientific worlds, but did not conquer them"; 
 and that while pointing the way to new knowledge, 
 he was oblivious to the advance of the Old. The 
 first criticism is but to blame him for failure to ac- 
 complish in a lifetime what it required a century to 
 complete. One mighf^as well censure Columbus for 
 not circumnavigating the globe. Indeed Bacon him- 
 self foresaw this comment: " And a like judgment I 
 suppose niay be passed on me in future ages that I 
 did no great things, but simply made less account of 
 things that were accounted great." *^ 
 
 The second criticism is but to imply that Bacon 
 was human, suffering the limitation of a finite mind. 
 Although he did not grasp the significance of Coper- 
 nicus' solar theory or Harvey's circulation of the 
 blood; although Galileo's law of acceleration" 
 and Napier's logarithms seem to have been un- 
 known to him, nevertheless his absorption in his own 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 6 1 
 
 work explains this astigmia. We know that other 
 thinkers equally great have been as blind.'^ Indeed 
 it seems to be by man's engrossment in a single field 
 that truth advances. 
 
 Not because of these limitations, but in spite of 
 them, Bacon stands as the forerunner of that proud 
 group of master scientists whose brilliant achieve- 
 ments seemed before the Great War to justify 
 their confidence in material science as the key to 
 progress. But in an estimate of their work, it 
 must be remembered that it was the clarion call of 
 Bacon which shook to its foundation the dark 
 tower of Tradition, and made free the way. It 
 was not without significance that this great leader 
 died in the early morning*" of Easter day; and 
 our thoughts revert to him at that last moment as 
 at the beginning of his career, standing with bugle 
 poised, and prescient eyes, about to welcome in the 
 dawn. 
 
 Unless the student of classical iconoclasm adhere 
 rigidly to his path, he is drawn into the history of 
 Science. For hand in hand with revolt against 
 ancient dogma went the investigation of natural law. 
 Amo ng scientists whose influe nce, :t^.oug]l..iajdi]:££t, 
 was vital to the growth of classic criticism, Galileo 
 s tands su preme! Since his work was constructive 
 and experimental rather than critical, it may not be 
 recounted fully here. Yet two phases of it are 
 closely related to classical tradition and are an essen- 
 
62 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 tial part of its story. Indeed had a knight-errant of 
 inductive reasoning arisen at the call of Bacon, Gal- 
 ileo might have been he ; for in hi m we find the exper- 
 imenter par excellence. Since his goal was the ascer-| 
 tainment of truth in~Nature, classical literature to 
 him as to Luther became a by-product; and as Luther 
 in his search for a true theology, encountered Author- 
 ity, so Galileo came upon it in his investigation of 
 natural law. Working at Pisa under the patron- 
 age of Cosmo II, he grew convinced tha t Aristotle's 
 theory of the law of falling Bodies was erroneous. 
 Experimenting on the Leaning "TowerTand later at 
 Padua, he completely controverted the old hypoth- 
 esis of acceleratipn~and^ ^eight?^ ~~TErs work in-' 
 directly weakened the whole Aristotelian system ^f~ 
 mechanics, thus injuring classi cal prestiger Continu- 
 ing his investigation while Professor of Mathematics 
 at Padua, Galileo constructed the famous telescope 
 with which he discovered the sa tellites of Ju piter. 
 In a little book, Siderius Nuntius, published at 
 Venice in 1 6 1 o, h e joyfully annou nced the tidixigs_and 
 pointed out their significan ce in relatiaQ_-to— the 
 Copernican theory.*^ 
 
 In all of the above work Galileo's criticism of 
 classical literature had been incidental to his observa- 
 tion and experiment. In 1632, however, he gave to 
 the public a discourse in Italian which directly chal- 
 lenged the Schoolman's deference to Aristotle and 
 the ancient written Wordv*^ ^ It pi tilessly, though 
 g ood humoured ly, exposed the fatuity of those stupid 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 63 
 
 but well-intentioned persons who think to controvert 
 attested phenomena in Nature with a quotation from 
 a book. It proclaimed the reign of Words as 
 passed, and an era of Reality as ushered in. So 
 vivid and so modern is this emphasis that one won- 
 ders if in Galileo Fontenelle found inspiration.** 
 Moreover, Galileo goes farther and challenges the 
 sixteenth century interpretation of the Stagirite's 
 ideas.*^ He declares that were Aristotle himself 
 alive, he would exhibit more good sense than his 
 commentators, and would not fail to accept the testi- 
 mony of his own eyesight. He intimates that it js 
 notJ\.ri stotle' s writings^ but their-absurd jjiiscoiLStruc^ 
 don b y admirers th at ha,ndicaps,progr ess. He satir- 
 izes the blind reverence and deference to Authority 
 olaatefcinrihe: Written Word. He pictures the 
 Peripatetic's dismay when robbed of his " Guide." 
 Last of all with consummate skill hejlays bare the 
 fatuous, habit by which the unintelligent sweep all 
 newjoginions into the fold of intellectual anarchy. 
 Ttis interesting and somewhat surprising to note 
 that although these feelings must have generally 
 prevailed at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, no critical philosopher had given them incisive 
 expression.** Even on the title page of his book, 
 Galileo proclaims his mood. For after the proud 
 designation, " Galileus Galileus Linceus, A Gentle- 
 man of Florence," there runs the legend, "Inter 
 nullos magis quam inter philosophos esse debet 
 aequa libertas." 
 
64 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 No more sympathetic interpretation of Galileo 
 could be given than that in the quaint old English 
 translation by Thomas Salusbury, (1661)/^ So 
 vivid is it, and so replete with collateral information, 
 that one feels a sense of personal loss in reaHzing 
 that nearly all the copies of Tome the Second 
 (1665) were destroyed in the great London fire. 
 So full of sturdy vigor is the atmosphere which pene- 
 trates this dusty old volume, that one pauses to won- 
 der if with the passing of illusion something beautiful 
 has not perished from the earth. 
 
 Salusbury explains that at the request of " several 
 of my noble and learned friends . . . who rather 
 wan,t time or patience to look into the vulgar and 
 unstudied languages, I did adventure upon this 
 work." 
 
 Galileo, Kepler and those other worthies in learning are 
 now brought before you in English, having changed their 
 Latine, Italian and French, whereby they were almost 
 strangers to our nation. . . . The flegm that is predominant 
 in my Constitution joyned with a nine-years' conversence in 
 these Languages, . . . has promoted the work. The book 
 being for subject and design intended chiefly for gentlemen, 
 I have been as careless of using a studied pedantry in my 
 style as careful in contriving a pleasant and beautiful impres- 
 sion.*' . . . These profound Dialogues have been found so 
 uneasy to Translate that neither affectation of novelty could 
 induce the French, nor translating humour persuade the Ger- 
 mans to undertake them.*" 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 65 
 
 One may fittingly introduce Galileo's brilliant Dia- 
 logue with Salusbury's account of its inception and 
 fate: 
 
 The first Book which offers itself to your view in this 
 Tome is that singular and unimitable piece of reason and 
 demonstration, The Systeme of Galileo. The subject of it 
 is a new ainA. noble part of Astronomy, to wit, the doctrine 
 and hypothesis of the mobility of the earth and the stability 
 of the sun ; the history whereof I shall hereafter give you at 
 large in the life of that famous man. Only this by the by: 
 that the reader may not wonder why these Dialogues found 
 so various entertainment in Italy (for the reader cannot but 
 have heard that though they have been with all veneration 
 valued, read, and applauded by the judicious, yet they were 
 with much detestation persecuted, suppressed, and exploded 
 by the superstitious) I am to tell him that our author having 
 assigned his intimate friends Salviati and Sagredo the more 
 successful Parts of the Challenger and Moderator; he made 
 the famous Commentator Simplicius to personate the Peri- 
 patetic. The Book coming out, and Pope Urban VIII tak- 
 ing his honour to be concerned as in his private capacity 
 being very positive in declaring against the Samian Philos- 
 ophy, and now (as he supposed) being ill-dealt with by 
 Galileo who had summed up all his arguments and put them 
 into the mouth of Simplicius; his holiness thereupon con- 
 ceived an implacable displeasure against our author, and 
 thinking no other revenge sufficient he employed his apostol- 
 ical authority, and deals with the Consistory to condemn him 
 and prescribe his book as heretical; thus prostituting the 
 censure of the Church to his private revenge.^" 
 
66 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 In an introduction to " Judicious Readers " pref- 
 acing his Sy Sterne, Galileo declares his purpose : 
 
 To this end I have personated the Copernican in this 
 Discourse, proceeding by an hypothesis purely Mathematical} 
 striving by all artificial ways to represent it superior, not to 
 that of the immobility of the earth absolutely, but according 
 as it is mentioned by some that retain no more but the name 
 of Peripatetics, and are content, without going further to 
 adore Shadows.^^ 
 
 After the Dialogue has opened, and Salviati has 
 spoken jestingly of Peripatetic ideas, Simplicius pro- 
 tests. 
 
 Pray Salviatus, speak with more respect of Aristotle: for 
 who can you ever persuade that he who was the first, only, 
 and admirable explainer of the syllogistic forms of demonstra" 
 tion . . . should afterwards so notoriously equivocate in im- 
 posing that for Icnown which is in question."^ 
 
 Again, when Salviati attempts to show Simplicius 
 that the differences assigned to " Coelestial and Ele- 
 mentary " bodies are not natural, but Aristotelian, 
 Simplicius exclaims: 
 
 This manner of argumentation tends to the subversion of 
 Heaven and Earth, and the whole Universe; but I believe 
 the fundamentals of the Peripatetics are such that we need 
 not fear that New Sciences can be erected from their ruins, 
 
 Whereupon Salviati retorts: 
 
 Take no thought in this place for Heaven or the Eartii, 
 neither fear their subversion, or the ruins of philosophy. . . 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 67 
 
 As for ^t he Earth, we strive to enno ble and perfect it, 
 whils t we make it like to the Coelestial Bodies, an cL^s^it 
 were, place it in Heav en, whence you philosophers have 
 exiled it. Philosophy itself cannot" but "receive benefit from 
 our disputes, for if our conceptions prove true, new discov- 
 eries will be made. . . . For as to the Science itself, it cannot 
 but improve.°^ 
 
 Unconvinced, Simplicius reveals the same blind 
 reverence for authority in his reply: 
 
 I cannot suffer my ears to hear it questioned whether 
 generation and corruption be in rerum nature, it being a 
 thing which we have continually before our eyes, and whereof 
 Aristotle hath written two whole Books. 
 
 To this attitude of adulation for Aristotle's 
 "Ipse Dixit," Salvi ati answ ers that men have now 
 co me to an era when new~ facts controvert old opin^, 
 ionsj 
 
 I affirm that we have in our age new accidents and 
 observations, and such that I question not in the least but 
 if Aristotle w ere now alive, they would make~Tum cHahge 
 his op inion. ... If Aristotle ha^ seen spots [on the sun] 
 that far excel not only the Mediterranean streight but all 
 Africa and Asia, also, what think you he would have said 
 and done, Simplicius? . . . Hold a little, good Simplicius, 
 this modern author what saith he to the new stars Anno 1572 
 and 1604, and to the solar spots? . . . And you, Simplicius, 
 what answer could you give to these importunate spots ? °* 
 
 Salviati next 'points out that if the dispute were 
 over some point of law or other part of the " studies 
 
68 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 called Humanity," " wherein there is no truth or 
 falsehood," acuteness of wit and citation of words 
 might prove the argument. But here language does 
 not avail. For 
 
 In Natural Sciences . . . one is to be more cautious, how 
 he goetfi about to maintain anything that is false; for a man 
 of an ordinary intellect if it be his good fortune to be on 
 i the right side, may lay a thousand Demosthenes and a thou- 
 sand Aristotles at his feet.°° . . . Now we by the help of 
 the telescope are brought thirty or forty times nearer to the 
 Heavens than ever Aristotle came ; so that we may discover 
 in them an hundred things which he could not see.°* 
 
 At this stage of the discussion Sagredius the Mod- 
 erator interposes, and with delicious sarcasm illum- 
 inatingly sums up Simplicius' bewilderment : 
 
 But on the other side, when he considers the great author- 
 ity which Aristotle hath won with all men, and remembereth 
 the great number of famous interpreters which have made it 
 their business to explain his sense, and seeth other Sciences 
 so necessary and profitable to the public, to build a great part 
 of their esteem and reputation to the credit of Aristotle, he 
 is much perplexed; and methinks I hear him say: To whom 
 then should we repair for the decision of our controversies, 
 if Aristotle were removed from the chair? What other 
 author should we follow in the Schools, Academies and 
 Studies? What Philosopher hath writ all the parts of 
 Natural Philosophy and that so methodical without omitting 
 so much as a single conclusion? Shall we then overthrow 
 that fabric under which so many passengers find shelter? 
 Shall we destroy that asylum, that prytaneum, where in so 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 69 
 
 many students meet with commodious harbours, where with- 
 out exposing ourselves to the injuries of the air, with the 
 onely turning over of a few leaves, one may learn all the^ 
 secrets of Nature? Shall we dismantle that fort in which 
 we are saved from all hostile assaults ? °^ 
 
 Salviati in reply scores one more point against 
 the mediocre mind : 
 
 There is no danger that so great a multitude of subtle and 
 wise philosophers should suffer themselves to be hectored by 
 one or two who make a little blustering; nay they will 
 rather, without ever turning the points of their pens against 
 them, by their silence only render them the objects of uni- 
 versal scorn and contempt. It is a fond conceit for anyone 
 to think to introduce a new philosophy by reproving this or 
 that author: it will be first necessary to new-mold the brains 
 of men, and make them apt to distinguish truth from false- 
 hood, a thing which only God can do.°^ 
 
 Indeed, Salviati declares, some of the Peripatetics 
 go so far as to assert that the invention of the tele- 
 scope was taken from Aristotle; while Sagredius 
 asserts that the chemists constantly read into ancient 
 poetry the way to make gold.®® When Simplicius 
 reproaches them for speaking with too little respect 
 of the great Philosopher, Salviatus at length losing 
 patience, retorts by asking him if he is so simple 
 as not to realize that Aristotle would have been more 
 displeased with the doctor who made him author of 
 the telescope than with those who laughed at that 
 folly. 
 
70 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 Do you question whether Aristotle, had he but seen the 
 novelties discovered in Heaven, would not have changed his 
 opinion, amended his books, and embraced the more sensible 
 doctrine; rejecting those silly gulls which too scrupulously 
 go about to defend whatever he hath said, not considering 
 that if Aristotle were such a one as they fancy him — he 
 would be a man of intractable wit, an obstinate mind, a bar- 
 barous soul, a stubborn will, that accounting all men else 
 but as silly sheep, would have his oracles preferred before 
 the Senses, Experience, and Nature herself ? °" , j 
 
 Sagredius then caps Simplicius' discomfiture with 
 the exclamation: t. 
 
 Ah, unheard of sordidness of servile souls to make them- 
 selves willing slaves to other men's opinions ; to receive them 
 for inviolable decrees, — what is this but to make an Oracle 
 out of a Log and to run to that for answers, to fear that, 
 to reverence and adore that ? *'■ i 
 
 When poor, subdued Simplicius mildly questions^ 
 whom then they should take as guide, Salviati 
 adjures: 
 
 We need a guide in unknown and uncouth ways, but in 
 champion places and open plains, the blind only stand in need 
 of a leader; and for such it is better that he stay at home, 
 But he that hath eyes in his head and in his mind, him should 
 a man choose for his guide. And what is more shameful 
 than in the middest of publick disputes whilst one person is 
 treating of demonstrable conclusions, to hear another inter- 
 pose with a passage of Aristotle, and not seldom writ to quite 
 another purpose, and with that to stop the mouth of his 
 opponent? . . . Therefore Simplicius . . . bring us no 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 7 1 
 
 more Texts and naked authorities; for our disputes are of 
 the Sensible World, and not on paper.''' 
 
 Despite the verve of the discussion, Dialogues 
 three and four conclude rather hopelessly. Sat 
 viati believes that prejudice is difficult to dislodge; 
 that the confidence people have in their own appre- 
 hensions is sublime; that men are not open to reasort, 
 but in argument fix in mind the favored conclusion, 
 and then argue toward that.*^ He concludes that 
 the " pure Peripatetics " will not relinquish their 
 obsessions, but laughing at the sunspots and their 
 phenomena, will remain intrenched in their present 
 views.®^ 
 
 Although episodal in relation to Galileo's funda- 
 mental field of service, T he Syste me of Two Worlds 
 m ust be counted an important influence injK^gJCOwtli 
 of classical criticism. To one only who has traced 
 the whole movement can its significance be fully 
 apparent. For by its use of the vernacular and its 
 attack upon the Authority of Words, it gives bold 
 expression to those opinions which one has discov- 
 ered lurking unspoken in the minds of kindred but 
 more timid thinkers. Moreover, the work undoubt- 
 edly had strong influence upon Descartes, the logical 
 successor of Francis Bacon. 
 
 There exists no more fascinating occupation than 
 the study of the history of thought. It appeared 
 after the glowing passages of Bacon that nothing 
 more concerning Classical Learning remained to be 
 
72 THE BATTLE OF THE BCX)KS 
 
 said. Yet as we turn a generation later in France 
 to the cold, colourless pages of Descartes, the same 
 old problem confronts us — the same Castle Terri- 
 ble awaits to be destroyed. While to the reader of 
 Bacon, Descartes seems a foregone conclusion, never- 
 theless there is in the French philosopher's approach 
 to his subject much which marks a different stage of 
 thought, and renders his ideas interesting and new. 
 In Descartes we find for the first time a writer whose 
 approach to the classics d oes not merely app rfflt- 
 imate, but is, essentiall y, the modern . Bacon's spirit 
 had been scientific; but mingled with pure criticism 
 was a reverence for the past, and a desire to do it 
 justice. His tone toward classical literature was as 
 towards a heritage in his father's house. Moreover, 
 he built upon it as a foundation. With Descartes on 
 the other hand, we find an impersona l^objectiye at^:4-:: 
 tude, Without reverence, wit hout em otion. saye_ 
 apprehension of the Jesuit Order and the Church, 
 he stands aloof and estim ates the va lue of classical^ 
 study,- The test which he applies to it is pure rea^ 
 son ; failing to meet which it must go- 
 
 We find also in Descartes a different set of empha* 
 ses and values from the old. With him, th fireno 
 longer exists the earlier feeling that ancient learn- 
 ing is the great storehouse of culture, and that un- 
 limited time devoted to it is well spent. Whjle as 
 with Bacon, nature has supplanted the cl assics a sj. 
 source of physical knowledge, there has in addition 
 formed in Descartes' mind the idea of a New World 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 73 
 
 of intellectual activity as a (^Vg^[j he Old. This 
 latter is made up of contemporary TTFe, language, 
 and literature, and a participation in actual affairs. 
 There comes into view through Descartes that long 
 succession of later thinkers who believe that for 
 every moment spent upon the classics we lose some 
 portion of the Present, — the question being which 
 is the better worth while. 
 
 Indeed Descar tes has reached that moment in the 
 history_of thought where all acquTsIFion ^rom the 
 Past is regarded merely as a training, a process, a 
 means to an ehd !^] The tesf~applied to it, is its con- 
 tribution to judgment, the elimination of prejudice, 
 and the use of reason. But the question has also 
 presented itself to him whethe r or not a study of 
 the classi cs is the surest method by which to attain 
 to reason. This he is inclined to answer in the nega- 
 tive; but in the end, leaving the problem unsolved, 
 he affirms a conviction that by whatever process a 
 man arrive, the time must come iji mental maturity 
 when he swee^ aside his scaffolding, and rest s lii£_ 
 structureupon reason alone. 
 
 ~ In justification "of classical study, yet aware of its 
 dangers, he remarks, 
 
 To study the writings of the ancients is right because it is 
 a great boon for us to be able to make use of the labours of 
 so many men, and we should do so both in order to discover 
 what they have correctly made out in previous ages, and also 
 that we may inform ourselves as to what in the various 
 sciences 15 gtiU kft for investigation. But yet there is great 
 
74 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 dangerjestjnatoo absorbed jt udy of thes e workss we sho uld,: 
 become infected with their errors ^g-aa^^g^^J^^^^^^^ we 
 
 To reveal his appreciation of ancient culture, while 
 at the same time pointing out that it may lead to a 
 neglect of modern thought, he says: 
 
 I did not omit, however, always to hold in esteem those 
 exercises which are the occupations of the Schools. I knew 
 that the languages which one learns are essential for the 
 understanding of all ancient literature ; that fables with their 
 charm stimulate the mind, and histories .... exalt it; and 
 that when read with discretion, these books assist in forming 
 a sound judgment. I was aware that the reading of all 
 good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest 
 men of past centuries . . . nay, a carefully studied con- 
 versation in which they reveal to us none but the best of 
 their thoughts. . . . But I considered that I had already 
 given sufficient time to languages, and likewise even to the 
 reading of the literature of the Ancients. . . . For to con- 
 verse with those of other centuries is almost the same as to 
 travel. It is good to know something of the customs of dif- 
 ferent people in order to judge more soundly our own. . . . 
 ' But when one employs too much time in traveling one he- 
 comes a stranger in one's own country; and when one is too 
 curious about things which were practised in past centuries,^ 
 one is usually very ignorant about those which are practised 
 in one's own time.^'' 
 
 To make clear his conviction that a knowledge of 
 the classical writers is not essential to a full intellect- 
 ual life, he declares: 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 75 
 
 \' A good man has no need to have read every book, nor to 
 have carefully learned all that which is taught in the Schools ; 
 it would even be a defect in his education were he to have 
 
 j devoted too much of his time to the study of letters. There 
 
 . are many other things to do in life, and he has to direct that 
 life in such a manner that the greater part of it shall remain 
 to him for the performance of good actions which his own 
 
 j rqason ought to teach him, even supposing that he were to 
 
 I receive his lessons from it alone." 
 
 ; A little later to show that he regards classical 
 training as unessential to good reasoning, he writes, 
 " A man with a healthy mind, had he been brought 
 up in the desert and never received more than the"^ 
 light of Nature to illumine him, could not if he care-/ 
 fully weighed all the same reasons, adopt an opinion 
 different from ours." ®* Indeed, Descartes says re- 
 geatedlyj hat the training of the Schools may even 
 be a handicap : " It may easiry~be observed in those 
 who are known as pedants, that it renders them less 
 capable of reasoning than they would have been had 
 they never learned at all." . . .'"' " Of those who 
 commenced with the Ancient Philosophy, the more 
 theyliave^tugO Sdlt rtKe les "gfi^^Y 
 
 to apprehend the truth." '^ 
 
 At length the moment arrives when the French 
 philosopher places before us the possibility of the 
 attainment of a body of knowledge accurate and 
 full, yet independent and devoid of any contribution 
 from the Past : 
 
76 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 It is now some years since I detected how many were the 
 false beliefs that I had from my earliest youth admitted 
 as true, and how doubtful was everything I had since con- 
 structed on this basis; and from that time I was convinced 
 that I must once for all seriously undertake to rid myself 
 of all opinions which I had formerly accepted, dnd commence 
 to build anew from the foundation.'^ 
 
 In order to examine into the truth, it is necessary once in 
 one's life to doubt of all things so far as this is possible/' 
 
 He answers the question as to whence the new 
 body of knowledge may come : 
 
 Intuition is the undoubting conception of an unclouded and 
 attentive mind, and springs from the light of reason alone.'* 
 .... The first principles themselves are given by intuition 
 alone, while on the contrary, the remote conclusions are fur- 
 nished only by deduction.'^ . . . For how often do we not 
 see that those who have never taken to letters give a sounder 
 and clearer decision about obvious matters than those who 
 have spent time in the Schools ? '* 
 
 Nothing can be added to the pure Light of Reason that 
 does not in some way obscure it." 
 
 A third phase of Descartes' thought which differs 
 from earlier philosophers, is with regard to the 
 public to whom he makes his appeal. We recall 
 that the summons of Bacon was sent to scholars 
 everywhere. In order that he might reach Catholic 
 and Protestant alike, he translated his earlier works 
 into Latin and eliminated all references to disturb- 
 ing religious topics. Thus he showed that in the 
 World of Scholars lay his hope. Descartes on the 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE J-J 
 
 other hand avowedly issues his plea to the Public 
 at Large. For this reason, Hke Bruno and Galileo 
 in Italy, he wrote in his native tongue; and he re- 
 ferred judgment not to the scholastic recluse, but to 
 the intelligent thinker everywhere. Thus he 
 widened the boundaries of the intellectual world. 
 
 " And if I write in French which is the language of 
 my country," he says at the close of his Discourse on 
 Method, " rather than in Latin which is that of my 
 teachers, that is because I hope that those who avail 
 themselves only of their natural reason in its purity 
 may be better judges of my opinions than those who 
 believe only in the writings of the Ancients; and as 
 to those who unite good sense with study, whom 
 alone I crave for my judges, they will not, I feel 
 sure, be so partial to Latin as to refuse to follow 
 my reasoning because I expound it in a vulgar 
 tongue." ''^ 
 
 Last of all, Descartes' personal reaction upon 
 classical learning - — the angle at which he regarded 
 it through his own particular " Idol of the Cave " — 
 differentiates him from his predecessors. For the 
 fundamentaLcausfi of „Descartes' d efe ction from the | 
 Past_was^jtsjfaiIure_to produce accurate knowledge. 
 Since Descartej^^as a m athem adcim, his:,.mlndjde- 
 mainded accuracy . Repeatedly he criticised the 
 classical sci ences for vagueness and obscurity; re- 
 peatedly he reproached them for offering abstractions 
 in the_piace, of definite thought.'^^ And when finally 
 he declared open revolt and swept aside the whole' 
 
78 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 ancient accumulation, his first step thereafter was to 
 search out and establish a method by which td 
 arrive at accurate conclusions. His next effort 
 •v^ras — using this method as an instrument — to 
 build up a System of Systems of assured truth.*" 
 In this revolt from vagueness and insistence upon 
 exactness, Descartes strikes the keynote of modern 
 scientific scholarship as distinguished from the 
 classical and mediaeval. 
 
 As we read the tranquil utterances of the French 
 writer, and then contemplate the bold and limitless 
 change those utterances Involve, we are astonished 
 at the point to which he has conducted us. For that 
 structure of Classical Tradition which Bacon's 
 weapons had pierced through and through, Descartes 
 with a gentle motion of his hand has swept utterly 
 aside. Not a stone is left, and the builder must 
 begin anew. 
 
 The edifice which Descartes constructed in place of 
 the ancient, his Discourse on Method reveals. And 
 since no more lucid account of the growth of thought 
 than the author's own could be given; and since it 
 relates how step by step he evolved a substitute for 
 the ancient theories of learning, we may summarize 
 it here. Descartes divides his Discourse into six 
 portions, and in each presents some phase of the 
 process through which he came to examine and dis- 
 card old beliefs. In part the first, setting out to 
 tell us how he became dissatisfied with the sciences, 
 he declares, 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 79 
 
 I shall be very happy to show the paths I have followed, 
 and to set forth my life as in a picture, so that everyone may 
 judge it for himself.*^ 
 
 I had been nourished on letters from my childhood, and 
 since I was given to believe that by their means a clear and 
 certain knowledge could be obtained of all that was useful 
 in life, I had an extreme desire to acquire instruction. But 
 so soon as I had achieved the entire course of study at the 
 close of which one is usually received into the ranks of the 
 learned, I entirely changed my opinion. For I found myself 
 embarrassed with so many doubts and errors that it seemed 
 to me that the effort to instruct myself had no effect other 
 than an increasing discovery of my own ignorance. And yet 
 I was studying at one of the most celebrated schools in 
 Europe, where I thought that there must be men of learning 
 if they were to be found anywhere in the world. I learned 
 there all that others learned ; and not being satisfied with the 
 sciences that we were taught, I even read through all the 
 books which fell into my hands treating of what is considered 
 most curious and rare. . . . This made me take the liberty of 
 judging all others by myself, and of coming to the conclusion 
 that there was no learning in the world such as I was 
 formerly led to believe it to be.*^ 
 
 Notwithstanding this conviction, Descartes tells 
 us, he continued to hold in esteem the exercises of 
 the Schools. He gave appreciative consideration to 
 Languages, Fables, Histories, Eloquence, Poesy; 
 Mathematics, Morals, Theology, Philosophy, Juris- 
 prudence, and Medicine. But despite some merit in 
 each, he found defects which outweighed its value. 
 He felt that although fables charm and stimulate, 
 
8o THE BATTLE OF THE BCX)KS 
 
 they cause one to imagine the impossible as real ; and 
 while histories exalt the spirit they exaggerate 
 facts, and lead to the extravagance of knight er- 
 rantry and romance. 
 
 Of kindred subjects, Descartes continues : 
 
 I esteemed Eloquence most highly, and I was enamoured 
 of Poesy. But I thought that both were gifts of the mind 
 rather than fruits of study. Those who have the strongest 
 power of reasoning and who most skilfully arrange their 
 thoughts in order to render them clear and intelligible, have 
 the best power of persuasion, even if they can but speak the 
 language of Lower Brittany, and have never learned Rhet- 
 oric. And those who have the most delightful and original 
 ideas, and who know how to express them with the maximum 
 of style and suavity would not fail to be the best poets even 
 if the art of Poesy were unknown to them.^^ 
 
 Mathematics delighted him because of its " cer- 
 tainty " ; yet he was astonished that it had advanced 
 so little in the past. Likewise ancient morals 
 seemed to fall short of fruition. 
 
 I compared the works of the Ancient pagans which deal 
 with Morals, to palaces most superb and magnificent which 
 are yet built on sand and mud alone. They praise the virtues 
 most highly, and show them to be more worthy of being 
 prized than anything else in the world; but they do not 
 suflSciently teach us to become acquainted with them; and 
 often that which is called by a fine name is nothing but 
 insensibility, or pride, or despair, or parricide. 
 
 I shall not say anything about Philosophy, [he continues] 
 hut that seeing that it has been cultivated for many centuries 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 8 1 
 
 by the best minds that ever lived, and that nevertheless no 
 single thing is to be found in it w^hich is not subject to dis- 
 pute, and in consequence which is not dubious, I had not 
 enough presumption to hope to fare better than other men 
 had done. And also considering how many conflicting opin- 
 ions there may be regarding the selfsame matter all supported 
 by learned people ... I esteemed as well-nigh false all that 
 only went as far as being probable. 
 
 As to the other Sciences, inasmuch as they derive their 
 principles from Philosophy, I judged that one could have 
 built nothing solid on foundations so far from firm. 
 
 That is why, Descartes asserts, " As soon as age 
 permitted me to emerge from the control of my 
 tutors, I entirely quitted the study of letters." 
 
 Our adventurer then turned for knowledge to 
 The Great Book of the World. For it seemed to 
 him that he might " meet with much more truth in 
 the reasonings that each man makes on the matter 
 that specially concerns him, and the issue of which 
 would very soon punish him if he made a wrong 
 judgment, than in the case of those made by a man 
 of letters in his study touching speculations that lead 
 to no result." But after he had employed several 
 years in observing the manners of other men, and 
 had found in them " nothing to give him settled con- 
 victions," he at length resolved to set them aside, and 
 to make himself an object of study, employing " all 
 the strength of his mind in choosing the road " he 
 should go. 
 
 Descartes was in Germany when he formed this 
 
82 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 resolution ; and he relates how he remained one whole 
 day alone, shut up in a stove-heated room, seeking 
 for light. At length, " As regards all the opinions 
 he had up to this time embraced, he resolved to 
 sweep them completely away." " But like one who 
 walks alone in the twilight," he determined " to go 
 slowly " ; and before substituting a new foundation 
 for the old, to seek out a " True Method " by which 
 to advance. In his search, he turned first to Logic 
 and Mathematics. But he found that the former 
 had mingled with it too many superfluous and hurtful 
 precepts; while the latter was so " restricted to the 
 consideration of symbols " that it could not " exer- 
 cise the understanding without greatly fatiguing the 
 imagination." Dissatisfied with all he found, Des- 
 cartes at length formed his famous Four Rules, 
 through which he established Reason as a guide. 
 
 When the philosopher has reached this stage of 
 thought the elimination of classical authority is com- 
 plete. The whole ancient structure is swept away, 
 and the new building begins. Parts three and four 
 of The Discourse show us the foundation of intuitive 
 knowledge placed by Descartes where the Old had 
 been. In this construction, the transference of God 
 from the realm of Faith to the realm of Reason, 
 was an epoch-making step. But since not intimately 
 connected with the question of the classical writers, it 
 must be eliminated here. I n the ensuing sectio n, 
 Descartes advances to Physics; an d in plar ^ of ± ^ 
 time-honoured universe^ of classical philosoBbyi-hej 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 83 
 
 creates a mecha nical.-selftr~-sy&taii.-ajid a mechaniral 
 man. Although this theory ultimately passed or 
 was revised, and although Descartes cautiously pre- 
 sented it as a hypothesis, nevertheless its influence 
 was far-reaching. For by the fascination it exerted 
 upon the imagination, more than any contemporary 
 speculation, itjoosencdthe^ond ofjndent ideas and 
 pi-epared the jvay for the acceptance of the Coper- 
 nican view.** 
 
 Continuing his physical research, Descartes en- 
 tered the field of Physiology and Medicine. By a 
 careful exposition, he set aside Aristotle's conception 
 of arterial functioning, and substituted Harvey's 
 circulation of the blood.*^ While here as in the 
 Vortex Theory, erroneous conclusion often mingles 
 with correct observation, the significance was none 
 the less great. For in the early seventeenth century 
 it was the destruction of outgrown thought that 
 was needed; and as an iconoclast, Descartes served. 
 
 As one concludes the survey of The Discourse on 
 Method, one feels that the turning point has indeed 
 come. Whatever later works may contain, they can 
 be only elaborations of these fundamental repudia- 
 tions. B y his " M eth od " he has^wept away Aris- 
 totglian Logic; by h is vorte x theory, hejhas elim- 
 inated Aristotle's^ conception of^ the earth and 
 ^^starry splieres." * ° By^Jiis m ech anica l body a nd 
 rational soul,_ he has negatived the Greekjdiia— of 
 vegetative and aninial souls. By his^dvqcacy of^ 
 Harvey he ha s advanced a new physiology; while 
 
84 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 hh view of geometry outdist anced all that classic al 
 writers had conceived. Through these various as- 
 sertions, Ancient Authority along all lines, both in 
 subject matter and terms, is swept from position, and 
 in its place stands the slender shaft of Pure Reason 
 alone. 
 
 Moreover, with this fundamental break go certain 
 changed attitudes of mind which mark the entrance 
 into a new era. Descartes' tone toward Greek and 
 Latin is bolder aiiJ~more outspoken than that of 
 writers hitherto. We noted at the begmnm^Tiis 
 u^e of French, and his conviction that native abili ty 
 rather than a mastery of the " art of ancient hn- 
 guages" creates"" Poesy """anH"^" Eloquence." We 
 find farther on an open avowal that the classical 
 tongues are unessential to culture. 
 
 I am ready to grant that the life of a man would not 
 suffice to acquire a knowledge of all that the world contains ;;:1 
 but I am also persuaded that it would be folly to desire 
 that it should be so; and that it is no longer the duty of an 
 ordinary well-disposed man to know Greek and Latin any 
 more than it is to know the languages of Switzerland and 
 Brittany; or that the History of the Empire should be known 
 any more than that of the smallest states of Europe. And I 
 consider that such a one should consecrate his leisure to good 
 and useful things alone, and occupy his memory only with 
 those that are most necessary.*' 
 
 4 
 
 Again in a letter to his early instructor, Fathei;| 
 Dinet,** Descartes in criticism of Bourdin, speaks ,. 
 with unusual asperity of that priest's " desiring to 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 85 
 
 place in the category of knowledge an acquaintance 
 y^ the Latin tongue such as the riff-raff of Rome 
 had in olden days." 
 
 And whether or not the story is true told of him 
 and Queen Christina of Sweden, that when he saw 
 her studying Greek, pointing to a skeleton he ex- 
 claimed, " There is my book! " ** the anecdote is in 
 character. For De scartes jwas^amo ng the earl i est 
 to ^oclai m thgt intellectual salvatimt-lay not in a 
 study of dead Janguages, but in- th# application of 
 i ntelligin ce^to li f e. 
 
 Again it is signtficant to the history of thought 
 that in_his_seaf ch for accura^ he threw into clear 
 emphasis-thfi-distinctiaaJbetween knowleSgelittained 
 t hrough J xitellfct-and-thatjderived froni sense, imag- 
 i nation, o r memx)ry. By this differentiation, he clar- 
 ified the ancient vagueness and advanced one degree 
 further the outposts of the science of thought.®" 
 Last of all, the application of Descartes' method to 
 many phases of contemporary Invest igation rnarkeJ" 
 th g beginnin g ofthe end of the tyrann y of University 
 and^hurch over academic research. Thus the prin- 
 ciple he inaugurated transcended his personal beliefs. 
 
 To the student of classic tradition as to the student 
 of science, it seems surprising that a man of such 
 bold intellect should have been so timid. As on 
 page after page we read the author's repudiation of 
 any intent to suggest practical changes, he shrinks in 
 our imagination; and when at length we arrive at 
 the hypothesis of God's creation through natural law. 
 
86 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 his dissimulation assumes a comic cast. Yet as we 
 continue to the end, and gather in the philosophfej's 
 yearning for peace, we can believe in his sincerity. 
 Moreover, those living in pur own tragic times may 
 well appreciate his conflict ; and can understand how 
 affection for an older and more conservative genera^ 
 tion stayed on his lips avowals which woijld have 
 seemed disloyal.®^ And others who themselves en- 
 tering the valley of persecution, have' felt their brains 
 fag and nerves fail, may well comprehend the 
 scholar's prayer for quiet in which to do his work. 
 
 The clear call of high endeavor on the lips of 
 Bacon does not sound from Descartes. The dry 
 colorless light of intellect lies upon his page. The 
 only emotion which reaches us is fear of discomfort 
 through the advancement of views which his master- 
 ful mind did not fail to perceive were sure to arouse 
 hostility. Our hearts do not warm at the thought ] 
 of his genius, nor vibrate to his aspiration as with 
 Bacon. Nor does the goal of his labor seem so 
 humanly social. Yet his motive no doubt was as 
 exalted ; and his influence upon the disintegration of 
 classical authority was epochal. 
 
 When in 1651 Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury 
 published his Leviathan, Bacon's Advancement 0/ 
 Learning was already nearly half a century old. 
 Great changes had taken place in the Intellectual 
 World of Europe since those terrible days of 1588 
 when, as all England shrank before the Spanish 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 87 
 
 Armada, a trembling mother awaited the birth of 
 her son. In_i^88_the old regime of the Univers- 
 ities persisted intact; Copernicus' solar theory was 
 undemonstrated ; the laws of motion had not been 
 discovered, nor the circulation of the blood made 
 known. The_aji£ient_phik!snph5L_was-.sti^ 
 there_was. By 1651 a new Intellectual world had 
 been^_boni. Galileo, Bacon, Kepler, Harvey, Des- 
 cartes, — each had performed his task. Ancient 
 philosophy had been pronounced erroneous. Aris- 
 totle's scientific assumptions had been proved fallac- 
 ious, and his Anatomy out of keeping with demon- 
 strated facts. Ptolemy's System of the heavens, by 
 the help of the telescope lay revealed as a huge 
 mirage. The University of Oxford had Initiated 
 epoch-making changes in her time honoured rout- 
 ; ine,^^ while already the Royal Scientific Society had 
 begun to develop. On the continent new and tenta- 
 tive philosophies were forming In the wake of Des- 
 cartes.®^ 
 
 Sustained by these facts one might be led to 
 infer that by 1650 classical dominance over Europe 
 was destroyed. One might fancy fragments of Its 
 demolition scattered all the way from Giordano 
 Bruno to Hobbes. But despite surface Indications 
 such an inference Is premature. For although culti- 
 vated men of the world from Montaigne onward had 
 turned from formal Latlnity and " Arlstotelity " to 
 the heart of classical literature ; and although scien- 
 tists had openly discarded ancient law, yet it must 
 
88 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 be borne in mind that these men were pariahs in the 
 conventional world of thought. Through fear, 
 Descartes left several works unpublished until his 
 death ; of all the scientists only Harvey received just 
 recognition during his lifetime; while at the very 
 close of the century, a Bentley was ostracised. Thus 
 it is that as the student penetrates below the surface, 
 he finds old thought paramount. To it clung Uni- 
 versity and Church — a striking example of the per- 
 sistence of habit in history. 
 
 As investigation forces one to conclude that even 
 in the mid-seventeenth century, old time reverence 
 for the classics prevailed, one notes also that bold as 
 had been the inroads of the scientists, classical influ- 
 ence in religion and government remained unat- 
 tacked. It was therefore inevitable that sooner or 
 late;- events should produce a critic to scrutinize 
 their worth in these realms. The Puritan Rebellion 
 in England, reacting upon the shrewd, penetrating 
 mind of Thomas Hobbes, became the occasion of this 
 inspection. Nowhere as in a study of ideas is there 
 so vividly borne home to one a sense of immortality. 
 As one reads Hobbes' sinewy sentences they seem 
 alive. As in the case of every thinker his approach 
 to the whole question of classical literature was 
 determined by his own " Idol of the Cave." His 
 shrewd commonsense, his keen mind and sturdy 
 courage, faced life as he saw It, and sought solutiofl 
 through those material remedies which to him were 
 the only existent ones. Since his aim was to cireate 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 89 
 
 a political science, whatever of the Past bore upon 
 the subject was swept within the range of examina- 
 tion. Because he was a materialist, it was in philos- 
 ophy applied to government that he saw a hope. 
 Likewise since religion was so vital an influence in 
 the stability of governments, it too was drawn within 
 his field of survey. As one might expect, it is upon 
 these topics that his criticism of classical literature 
 is most original. That toward this literature itself 
 he was not hostile, his translation of Homer attests ; 
 and although the essence of poetry — which is 
 Beauty — escaped him, like Pope, to Homeric versi- 
 fication he gave his heart. More akin to his mind, 
 however, was the terse, restrained spirit of Thucy- 
 dides; and in the style of this great historian he found 
 inspiration. Plato, too, he admired; although why 
 it would be difficult to say; since the other-worldli- 
 ness of that author seems farthest from his own 
 ideal.®* These personal tastes of Hobbes, how- 
 ever, are not significant in his most important work. 
 Aspiring to create a political science, he scanned his 
 classic forerunners to estimate their contribution to 
 this subject. He measured their accomplishment as 
 less than nothing. 
 
 There walked in old Greece a certain phantasy, for super- 
 ficial gravity, though full within of fraud and filth, a Ijttle 
 like philosophy; which unwary men, thinking to be it, 
 adhered to the professors of it, some to one, some to another, 
 though they disagreed among themselves, and with great 
 salary put their children to them to be taught instead of wis- 
 
90 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 dom, nothing but dispute, and neglecting the laws, to deter- 
 mine every question according to their own fancy.°° 
 
 Upon the ancient achievement in Science, he com- 
 ments : 
 
 I know that the hypothesis of the earth's diurnal motion 
 was the invention of the ancients ; but that both it and astron- 
 omy, that is celestial physics,-^ — were by succeeding philos- 
 ophers strangled with snares of words. . . . And therefore 
 the beginning of astronomy except observation, I think is not 
 to be derived from farther time than from Nicolaus Copern- 
 icus; who in the age next preceding the present revived tiie 
 opinion of Pythagorus, Aristarchus and P,hilolaus. Aftei 
 him, the doctrine of the motion of the earth being now 
 received . . . Galileus in our time . . . was the first that 
 opened to us the gate of natural philosophy universal, which 
 is the knowledge of the nature of motion. So that neither 
 can the age of natural philosophy be reckoned higher than to 
 him. Lastly, the science of man's body, the most profitable 
 part of natural science, was first discovered ... by our 
 countryman Dr. Harvey ... in his book of the Motion of 
 the Blood and the Generation of Living CreatureSj who is 
 the only man I know that conquering envy, hath established 
 a new doctrine in his lifetime." 
 
 Hobbes did not regard the Greeks as the creators 
 of a genuine political philosophy, and it was this 
 science which he himself aspired to generate. 
 " Natural Philosophy is therefore but young; but 
 Civil Philosophy yet much younger, as being no 
 older . . . than my own book, De Give." *'' 
 
 As Hobbes proceeds to his task of generation, 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 9 1 
 
 both in The Leviathan and in other works, he scath- 
 ingly arraigns the influence of the Greeks and Rom- 
 ans upon modem ideas of Government. Since his 
 ideal was one of absolute sovereignty, he condemns 
 ancient theories of liberty. Particularly does Aris- 
 totle receive censure. " Fools value their words by 
 the authority of an Aristotle." "^ The foundation 
 of his political theory, th'at some men are born to 
 pmmand, others to serve, is against both reason and 
 experience, and hath weakened the whole frame of 
 politics.^" His doctrine that only in Democracy is 
 there Liberty, is pernicious. " As if no men were 
 free out of this state." ^ He seldom speaks of kings, 
 but as wolves and ravenous beasts ; ^ and from his 
 civil philosophy the Schools have learned to call 
 all commonwealths tyranny; while his doctrines that 
 tyrannicide is worthy of the greatest praise, and that 
 the sovereign is bound by Civil Law, both foster 
 sedition.^ His ideas are derived not from Nature 
 but from his own particular State.* In short, noth- 
 ing can be more repugnant to government than much 
 of Aristotle's Politics.^ Yet his opinions at this day, 
 and in these parts, are of greater authority than 
 other human writings; * and " Men in the Western 
 parts of the World " have received their opinions 
 concerning the rights of commonwealths from him.'^ 
 His doctrine taught in the Universities, has become 
 the origin of seditious opinions among young 
 men. ..." For the doctrines of Aristotle have 
 delivered nothing concerning morality and policy 
 
92 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 demonstratively . . . but have insinuated their 
 opinions by eloquent sophistry." ® 
 
 Such a situation outrages intelligence. Young 
 men could as well be taught the contrary ; and " It is 
 absurd that men make no pretense to more knowl- 
 edge now than was delivered two thousand years 
 ago by Aristotle." ® Moreover, similar " seditious 
 doctrines " were held by Plato, Cicero, Seneca, 
 Plutarch and the rest of those maintainers of " The 
 Greek and Roman Anarchies." ^° " In short, noth- 
 ing was ever so dearly bought as the Learning of 
 the Greek and Latin tongue by these Western 
 parts." " 
 
 Not only has the influence of ancient politics been 
 pernicious, but " The reading of the books of policies 
 and history of the Greeks is one of the most fre- 
 quent causes of rebellion against monarchy." In 
 the same works, the killing of kings is made laudable, 
 and the opinion promoted that subjects in a popular 
 commonwealth enjoy liberty, but in a monarchy are 
 all slaves. The use of such writings ought not to be 
 permitted unless the " venime " is removed by dis- 
 creet masters.^* The remedy for these conditions 
 would be a sweeping reform in the subject matter 
 and the method of teaching in the Universities, 
 Mathematics and the Sciences should be introduced 
 and Aristotelian Logic banished. ^^ Moreover, in 
 the creation of a better philosophy, there should 
 first be established a new and accurate set of defini- 
 tions to supplant the ancient. 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 93 
 
 For seeing the Universities are the Fountain of Civil and 
 Morall Doctrine, from whence the Preachers, and the Gentry, 
 drawing such water as they find, use to sprinkle the same 
 (both from the pulpit and their Conversation) upon the 
 People, there ought certainly to be great care taken, to have 
 it pure, both from the Venime of Heathen Politicians, and 
 from the Incantation of Deceiving Spirits.^* 
 
 As to the genuine merit of Greek government, 
 their commonwealths were no greater than those 
 of Lucca or Venice. They had never peace nor 
 leisure for philosophy.^® Moreover they built the 
 doctrine of civil society upon the fact that " Man 
 is a creature born fit for society " ; whereas this 
 axiom is false. ^® For " the beginning of mutual so- 
 ciety is fear and a desire to profit thereby." The 
 merit of Roman government has also been much 
 exaggerated. Despite.boasted greatness the Roman 
 People was " a beast of prey." 
 
 Whilst with its conquering eagles it erected its proud 
 trophies so far and wide over the world, bringing the Afri- 
 cans, the Asiatics, the Macedonians, and the Achaeans with 
 many other despoiled nations into a spacious bondage, with 
 the pretense of preferring them to be denizens of Rome! " 
 
 To Antiquity, itself, therefore, nothing is due; 
 and the praise of ancient authors proceedeth not 
 from reverence for the dead but from the competi- 
 tion and mutual envy of the living. 
 
 Since in Hobbes' mind stabihty of Government 
 was intimately allied with religion, he turned his 
 
94 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 investigation to the history of classical influence upon 
 Christianity : 
 
 The first doctors of the Church, next the Apostles, born 
 in those times, whilst they endeavored to defend the Christian 
 faith against the Gentiles by natural reason, began also to 
 make use of philosophy, and with the decrees of Holy Scrip- 
 ture to mingle the sentences of heathen philosophers; and 
 first some harmless ones of Plato, but afterwards, also many 
 foolish and false ones out of the physics and metaphysics of 
 Aristotle; and bringing in the enemies, betrayed unto them 
 the citadel of Christianity. From that time, instead of the 
 worship of God, there entered a thing called school divinity, 
 walking on one foot firmly, which is the Holy Scripture, but 
 halted on the other rotten foot, which the Apostle Paul 
 called vain, and might have called pernicious philosophy. . . . 
 It is like that Empusa in the Athenian comic poet, which 
 was taken in Athens for a ghost that changed shapes, having 
 one brazen leg, but the other was the leg of an ass, and was 
 sent, as was believed by Hecate, as a sign of some approaching 
 evil fortune.^* 
 
 In the Middle Ages, Aristotle's philosophy was 
 called in to the assistance of the popes. It was 
 taught in the Universities by the Schoolmen who 
 wrote " Books of School divinity which no man 
 else, nor they themselves, were able to under- 
 stand." ^^ By this method these divines maintained 
 the papal authority over both kings and their sub- 
 jects. In the past century Elizabeth freed the Eng- 
 lish Church from the popes, and in our own genera- 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 95 
 
 tion the Civil Wars have released it from episco- 
 pacy.*" 
 
 Nevertheless, we are still in the Night. 
 
 Whence comes it that in Christendom there has been al- 
 most from the time of the Apostles such jostling of one an- 
 other out of their places both by forraign and Civil War, 
 such stumbling after every little Asperity of their own fortune 
 and every little eminence of that of other men ? — And such 
 diversity of ways in running to the same Mark, Felicity, if it 
 be not Night amongst us — or at least a Mist? 
 
 The causes of this failure of the Church lie at the 
 door of Pagan influence. Daemonology — origi- 
 nating in Greek ignorance of Optics and extending 
 back to the Poetry of Hesiod — handed on to Christ- 
 ianity a belief in good and evil spirits.*^ Through 
 this, entered purgatory,** incantations, " Dead men's 
 ghosts, fairies, and other matter of Old Wives' 
 Tales." *^ The worship of images owes its origin 
 to the desire of converted pagans to retain lovely 
 heathen statues in their homes ; the canonizing of 
 saints dates back to Romulus ; and the pope is direct 
 heir of the Pontifex Maximus.^ The bearing of 
 images in processions, holy water, holy-days, torches 
 and lighted candles before the shrines, all come 
 through the Pagans. The Romans had their Bac- 
 chanalia ; the. Church has its Wakes ; the Heathens 
 the procession of Priapus, the Christians their danc- 
 ing about may-poles. 
 
96 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 And if a man would well observe that which is delivered 
 in Histories concerning the religious rites of the Greeks and 
 Romans, I doubt not but he might find many more of their 
 old empty bottles of Gentilisme which the Doctors of the 
 Roman Church either by negligence or ambition have filled 
 up again with the new wine of Christianity that will not 
 fail in time to break them.^* 
 
 This Darkness is increased by the influence of the 
 " vain and fabulouse Philosophie " of the Greeks. 
 Their Schools were of no profit : 
 
 After the Athenians by the overthrow of the Persian 
 armies had gotten the dominion of the Sea; . . . and were 
 grown wealthy; they that had no employment, neither at 
 home, nor abroad, had little else to employ themselves- in, 
 but either ... in telling or hearing news, or in discoursing 
 of Philosophy, publiquely to the youth of the city. Every 
 Master took some place for this purpose.^' 
 
 Their meeting places were called Scholae, signify- 
 ing " Leasure," and "their disputations, Diatribe, 
 that is to say, a Passing of the Time." And there 
 they, with the young men, met often " to prate and 
 loyter." " 
 
 " But what has been the utility of these Schools? 
 What science is there at this day acquired by their 
 readings and disputings?" They had iittle Geom- 
 etry; their Natural Philosophy was a " dream." 
 Their Ethics consisted in a description of their own 
 passions; their Logic was merely " Captions of 
 Words." The mingling of their Metaphysiques 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 97 
 
 with Scripture has led to the absurdity of " Abstract 
 Essences," which doctrine seduces men from " The 
 Sovraign Power of th.e Country " to submission to a 
 priest.^* To conclude, " There is nothing so absurd 
 that the old Philosophers have not some of them 
 sustained." Yet this philosophy is now taught in 
 the Universities as the " Hand-maid of the Roman 
 Religion " ; and a misunderstanding of Aristotle's 
 terminology has closed to reconstruction the Science 
 of Definition as a " supernatural " subject! ^® 
 
 As Divinity teaching is dominated by classical 
 influence, so are the writings upon it.: 
 
 The writings of the School Divines are nothing else for 
 the most part but insignificant trains of strange and barbar- 
 ous words, or words otherwise used than in conimon use of 
 the Latin tongue; such as would pose Cicero and Varro, 
 and all the Grammarians of Ancient Rome. . . . Which if 
 any man would see proved let him see whether he can trans- 
 late any Schoole Divine into any of the Modern Tongues, as 
 French, English, or any other copious language; for that 
 which cannot in most of these be made intelligible, is not 
 intelligible in the Latine.'" ... Which insignificance of 
 Language . . . hath a quality not only to hide the Truth,, 
 but also to make Men think they have it, and desist from 
 further search. 
 
 This obscure language and the barbarous terms 
 are a relic of the past: 
 
 The Papacy is no other than the Ghost of the deceased 
 Roman Empire sitting crowned upon the grave thereof. . . . 
 The language also which they use both in the Churches and 
 
98 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 in Publique Acts being Latine, which is not commonly used 
 by any nation now in the World, what is it but the Ghost 
 of the Old Roman Language ? ^^ 
 
 Since Greek and Latin are so intimately bound 
 up with the Roman Religion, they too should go: 
 
 As for the Latin, Greek and Hebrew tongues, it was 
 once, to the detection of the Roman fraud, and the ejection 
 of the Romish power very profitable, or rather, necessary; 
 but now that is done, and we have the Scripture in English, 
 I can see no great need of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I 
 should think myself better qualified by understanding well 
 the languages of our neighbours, French, Dutch, Italian." 
 
 Gondibert ^* to Hobbes is as beauti.ful as Homer: 
 
 And but for the clamour of the multitude that hide their 
 envy of the present under a reverence for Antiquity, I should 
 say further that it would last as long as either the Aeneid 
 or Iliad, but for one disadvantage; and the disadvantage is 
 this: the languages of the Greeks and Romans . . . have 
 put off flesh and blood and are become immutable, which 
 none of the modern tongues are like to be.'* 
 
 Nor does Hobbes approve of the use of Greek 
 or Latin quotations to adorn his text : 
 
 There is nothing I distrust more than my Elocution, which 
 nevertheless I am confident ... is not obscure. That I 
 have neglected the ornament of quoting Ancient Poets, 
 Orators, and Philosophers, contrary to the custome of late 
 time, proceedeth from my judgment grounded on many 
 reasons. For first of all, Truth of Doctrine dependeth either 
 
THE SCIENTIFIC PHASE 99 
 
 upon Reason or Scripture; both which give credit to many, 
 but, never receive it from any writer. Secondly, the matters 
 in question are not of Fact, but of Right, wherein there is 
 ho place for witnesses. There is scarce any of those old 
 writers that contradicteth not sometimes both himself and 
 others ; . . . Fourthly, such opinions as are taken onely upon 
 credit of Antiquity, are not intrinsically the judgment of 
 those that cite them, but words that pass (like gaping) from 
 mouth to mouth. Fifthly, it is many times with a fraud- 
 ulent design that men stick their corrupt doctrine with the 
 cloves of other men's wits. Sixthly, I find not that the 
 Ancients they cite took it for an Ornament to doe the like 
 with those that went before them. Seventhly, it is an argu- 
 ment of Indigestion; when Greek and Latin Sentences 
 unchewed come up again, as they used to do, unchanged. 
 Lastly, though I reverence those men of Ancient time, that 
 either have written Truth perspicuously or set us in a better 
 way to find it out ourselves; yet to the Antiquity itself I 
 think nothing is due; for if we will reverence the Age, the 
 Present is the Oldest. . . . But if it be well considered, the 
 praise of Ancient Authors proceeds not from the reverence 
 of the Dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of 
 the Living.*" 
 
 The Seventeenth Century was passing into all but 
 its final decade when Hobbes at ninety-one ordered 
 " a warm great coat which must last him three years, 
 and then he would have such another." A little 
 later he laid aside his pen. Forty years had elapsed 
 since Leviathan first stirred the minds of Europe. 
 During that period the victory of the scientists had 
 been won; the Universities, inaugurating new 
 
lOO THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 courses, were at last becoiiiing emancipated from 
 scholasticism. A modern terminology in philos- 
 ophy had become assured; and already thought was 
 tending toward that Deistic movement which the 
 Eighteenth Century ushered in. Thus one might 
 say that by the close of the seventeenth century 
 classical dominance in the old sense was gone. No 
 longer did the word of Aristotle silence disputation, 
 or a quotation from Plato put a quietus upon 
 thought. Yet one phase of classical literature re- 
 mained intact; one group of writers still bore the 
 charmed insignia of perfection. Poesy and Oratory 
 still reigned; with the words of Homer and Cicero 
 men could conjure as of old. The last great struggle 
 with those ancient gods in shining armor was 
 to continue on for fifty years, centering round the 
 names of Temple and Fontenelle. Upon the posi- 
 tion of the classics as literature Hobbes' influence 
 was slight; yet his spirit of incisive criticism, and his 
 approach to a subject however sacred, through real- 
 ity and not illusion, became the index of a future 
 mood. And it was in this same intellectual temper 
 that at the opening of the eighteenth century Bent- 
 ley and Fontenelle, inspired by different motives and 
 attaining widely divergent results, approached the 
 last high redoubts of Poesy and Oratory and sub- 
 jected them to the test. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE LITERARY PHASE 
 
Ill 
 
 THE LITERARY PHASE 
 
 Viewed in the perspective of the history of thought, 
 the quarrel between the Ancients and Moderns 
 was a conflict resulting from the attempt of the New 
 Philosophy to extend to the criticism of classical 
 literature those scientific methods' so successfully 
 applied in other fields of investigation. Beginning 
 in England with the more general discussion of 
 Glanvll and Stubb, it culminated in the famous Battle 
 of the Books between Bentley and Boyle. In France 
 taking the form of a revolt agaiinst the canons of 
 taste established by the French Academy, the contest 
 raged around Perrault and Fontenelle. Its history 
 is the last exciting chapter in the development of a 
 critical attitude toward classical authors before that 
 interest merges into the issues of a wholly modern 
 age. 
 
 The reader of the twentieth century is freed from 
 certain intellectual problems which confronted the 
 man of the eighteenth. Living now, in an era where 
 neither faith in classicism nor even in material law 
 prevails, no possession of the Past or Present how- 
 ever precious, holds him wholly, and his hope lies 
 
 103 
 
I04 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 in the Beyond. Hence it is that without sense of in- 
 harmony or of invidious comparison, he gathers into 
 one treasure house of thought the productions of 
 every age and country. And in taking inventory of 
 his wealth, he places side by side the dawn words of 
 Homer with their " Light that never was on sea or 
 land," the poignant spiritual aspiration of Dante's 
 noonday struggle, and the twilight restraint of love- 
 liness in Dover Beach. All are to him expressions 
 of that form of Beauty called great Literature, 
 which consisting of high thought conveyed through 
 peerless words, lies outside the limits of time and 
 place, and existsVith^the verities, like a star. 
 
 That the reader of the late seventeenth century 
 felt otherwise is not surprising. Born at a period 
 when literary classicisiri had been his fathers' faith, 
 and preference for the vernacular a kind of heresy; 
 living in an era of political and religious transition, 
 he faced a conflict between traditional ideas and a 
 newly acquired intelligence. As science ruthlessly 
 destroyed one tenet after another of earlier beliefs 
 about the material world, and free thinkers attacked 
 the fabric of religion. It Is not astonishing that the 
 lover of settled society turned back to Poesy and 
 Oratory as to a refuge immune from the ravages of 
 time. 
 
 At the same moment less conservative thinkers 
 moved by different motives went searching back to 
 Hellenism. In addition to aesthetic pleasure and 
 light upon the problems of life, they sought liberty 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 105 
 
 of ideas. With unprecedented eagerness, interest 
 in Greek literature revived. In England the move- 
 ment was informal and extended out beyond the 
 borders of the universities. Although stimulating, 
 it lacked almost wholly the spirit of scientific criti- 
 cism. But the extension of this new spirit to 
 Poesy and Oratory was inevitable, and a- strug- 
 gle seems foreordained. Therefore the quarrel be- 
 tween the Ancients and Moderns became a conflict 
 between scholars who insisted upon submitting class- 
 ical writings to the test of scientific criticism, and 
 conservative thinkers who clung to the old unques- 
 tioning faith in their traditional value. 
 
 In France the movement, although fundamentally 
 the same, had a different surface aspect. The arti- 
 ficial period of Louis XIV was at its zenith. Class- 
 ical standards were absolute, and men thought and 
 wrote according to established rule. Thus the re- 
 volt of the coterie about Fontenelle seems a natural 
 reaction against the tyranny of form. But at the 
 heart of things, here too lay rebellion against ancient 
 law, and an adventure of spirit into liberty. 
 
 The war between lovers of the Classics and 
 devotees of the New Philosophy took the form of a 
 conflict of words. As the smoke of battle clears, 
 and multitudinous details are swept aside, there 
 emerge into clear perspective five vivid personalities 
 each expressive of a different intellectual temper in 
 relation to the famous controversy. Temple, Wot- 
 ton, Bentley, Swift, and Fontenelle are these com^ 
 
I06 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 batants. To interpret through his writings the 
 spirit of each will be the effort of this study. 
 
 In Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learn- 
 ing, by William Wotton, we find the origin of our 
 story. To have missed reading this author is to 
 have failed in a liberal education. lit is a pleasure 
 to have known the upright gentleman ; while only he 
 of all the universe has been able to render fascinating 
 the barometer and pendulum block. Wotton may 
 be said to have been an old-fashioned controver- 
 sialist of the finest type. Pugnaciously, j'et with a 
 certain sweetness withal, he rolls up his sleeves and 
 strides valiantly into the fray. He would have us 
 know that the dispute is none of his making, and that 
 he aims to be a pacificator. In order that circum- 
 stances and issues may be clearly understood, he 
 summarizes the origin of the strife. 
 
 The present of the designs and studies of mankind is so 
 very different from what it was one hundred and fifty years 
 ago, that it is no wonder if men's notions concerning them 
 vary as much as the things themselves. The great differ- 
 ence arises from the desire which every man has who helieves 
 that he can do greater things than his neighbors, of letting 
 them see how much he does excel them : this will oblige him 
 to omit no opportunity that offers itself to do it, and after- 
 wards to express his satisfaction that he has done it. . . . 
 
 If this way of reasoning will hold it may be asked how it 
 comes to pass that the learned men of the last age did not 
 pretend that they outdid the Ancients, as well as some do 
 now? They would, without quegtjoii, could they have had 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 107 
 
 any colour for it: it was the work of one age to remove 
 the rubbish, and to clear the way for the future inventors. 
 Men seldom strive for mastery, where the superiority is 
 not in some sort disputable; . . . accordingly, as soon as 
 there was a fair pretense for such a dispute, there were not 
 wanting those who soon made the most of it, both by exalt- 
 ing their own performances, and disparaging everything that 
 had been done of that kind by their predecessors. Till the 
 new Philosophy had gotten ground in the world, this was 
 done very sparingly ; which is but within the compass of forty 
 or fifty years. There were but few before who would have 
 been thought to have exceeded the Ancients, unless it were 
 some few physicians who set up chymical methods ... in 
 opposition to the Galenical. . . . 
 
 Soon after the Restoration of King Charles II, upon the 
 institution of the Royal Society, the comparative excellency 
 of the old and new philosophy, was eagerly debated in Eng- 
 land. But the disputes then managed between Stubbs and 
 Glanville were rather personal relating to the Royal Society, 
 than general, relating to knowledge in its utmost extent. In 
 France this controversy has been taken up more at large: 
 The French were not satisfied to argue the point in Philos- 
 ophy and Mathematics, but even in Poetry and Oratory too ; 
 where the Ancients had the general prejudice of the learned 
 on their side. Monsieur Fontenelle, the celebrated author 
 of a book concerning The Plurality of Worlds, begun the 
 dispute about six years ago, in a little discourse annexed to 
 his Pastorals.^ He is something shy in declaring his mind; 
 at least in arraigning the Ancients, whose reputations were 
 already established ; though it is plain he would be understood 
 to give the Moderns the preference in Poetry and Oratory, 
 as well as in Philosophy and Mathematics. His book being 
 
Io8 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 received with great applause it was opposed in England by 
 Sir William Temple, who in the Second Part of his Mis- 
 cellanea, has printed an essay upon this very subject. Had 
 Monsieur de Fontenelle's Discourse passed unquestioned, it 
 would have been very strange, since there was never a new 
 notion started in the world, but some were found who did 
 as eagerly contradict it.^ 
 
 Two Essays of Temple's Miscellanea are devoted 
 to a refutation of Fontenelle's ideas.^ In the first 
 he tells us that " Whoever converses much among 
 the Old Books will be something hard to please 
 among the New." Yet these also have their value; 
 and two works by modern authors recently read 
 charmed him.* In the end, however, they became a 
 disappointment. For the first closed with a " Pan- 
 egyric of Modern Learning"; while the author of 
 the second in a later work fell " grossly into the cen- 
 sure of Old Poetry and preference of the New." 
 These " strains " moved Temple to indignation, and 
 he therefore decided to look into the question of 
 how far either Reason or Experience might deter- 
 mine in their favour. " The force of all that I have 
 met with upon this subject," he concludes, " is, first 
 as to knowledge, that we must have more than the 
 Ancients, because we have the advantage both of 
 theirs and our own. . . . Next, as to wit or genius, 
 that nature being still the same these must be much 
 at a rate in all ages." ^ 
 
 Temple's refutation of this view is epitomized by 
 Wotton : 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 109 
 
 The general proposition, which Sir WiUiam Temple 
 endeavours to prove. ... is this, That if we reflect upon 
 the advantages which the ancient Greeks- and Romans had to 
 improve themselves in Arts and Sciences, above what the 
 Moderns can pretend to; and upon that natural force of 
 genius so discernible in the earliest writers whose books are 
 still extant, which have not been equaled by any person that 
 have set up for promoters of knowledge in the latter ages, 
 and compare the actual performances of them, ... we ought 
 in justice to conclude that the learning of the present age 
 is only a faint and imperfect copy from the knowledge of 
 former time, such as could be taken from the scattered frag- 
 ments, which were saved out of the general shipwreck.* 
 
 To substantiate his statement Temple points out 
 that printing has increased copies rather than the 
 quality or number of great books; that the earliest 
 philosophers were the best; and despite the claims 
 of Descartes and Hobbes no modern ones have ex- 
 celled Plato and Aristotle. Ancient prowess in 
 Grammar and Rhetoric is beyond dispute ; while the 
 title of classical poetry to supremacy Is denied only 
 by Fontenelle, whose Poesies Pastorales is his most 
 convincing refutation.^ Science has produced noth- 
 ing to vie with the ancients, unless it be Copernicus' 
 Theory, or Harvey's circulation of the blood. But 
 since these hypotheses have not changed the conclu- 
 sions of Astronomy or Medicine, they are of little 
 use. Moreover, the earlier age was superior In 
 music, rhyming, magic and architecture. In fact, 
 the only great discovery of modern times is the 
 
no THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 loadstone, whence has come navigation and geo- 
 graphical knowledge. But even here we have fallen 
 short. Exploration has become tainted with com- 
 merce, and has lost sight of the improvement of man. 
 " Many great and more noble uses would have been 
 made of such conquests " had they fallen to the 
 Greeks and Romans.* Moreover, the New Learn- 
 ing is not advancing; our " First flights were our 
 best." " The modern scholars because they have 
 for a hundred years past learned their lessons 
 pretty well, are much more knowing than the 
 Ancients, their masters." 
 
 But let it be so, and proved by good reasons, is it so by 
 Experience too? Have the studies, the writings, the pro- 
 ductions of Gresham College, or the late Academic of Paris, 
 outshined ... the Lyceum of Plato, the Academy of Aris- 
 totle, the Stoa of Zeno, the Garden of Epicurus? Has 
 Harvey outdone Hippocrates, or Wilkins, Archimedes? Are 
 Davila's and Strada's Histories beyond those of Herodotus 
 and Livy? Are Sleyden's Commentaries beyond those of 
 Caesar? The flights of Boileau above those of Virgil? If 
 all these must be allowed, I will then yield Grondibert to 
 have excelled Homer . . . and modern French poetry all 
 that of the Ancients.' 
 
 The claim that modern literature' is equail to 
 ancient is absurd. But even were it true, the mod- 
 ern compositions could not last. The vernacular 
 languages are hybrid and passing, whereas Latin is 
 the Noble Language of the noblest nation that ever 
 lived. " The oldest books are still in their kind 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE III 
 
 the best." Aesop's Fahles and The Letters of 
 Phalaris have no peers; while among modern au- 
 thors only a few are worthy even of comparison with 
 the classical. Boccaccio, Polo, Rabelais, Montaigne, 
 Cervantes, and Sydney rank first. But modern 
 French has been so refined as to lose force and be- 
 come inferior to that of an earlier age. 
 
 So with a sigh for " Old Wine to drink and Old 
 Books to read," Temple closes his reflections. 
 
 The fourth essay of the Miscellanea, Part II, 
 gives exact expression to the pre-modern opinion of 
 classical poetry : 
 
 I think no man has been so bold among those that remain 
 to question the title of Homer and Virgil not only to the 
 first rank, but to the supreme dominion in this State, and 
 from whom as the great law givers as well as princes, all the 
 laws and orders of it are or may be derived. Homer was 
 without dispute the most universal Genius that has been 
 known in the world, and Virgil the most accomplished. . . . 
 Upon the whole, I think that Homer was . . . the vastest, 
 sublimest, and the most wonderful Genius; and that he has 
 been generally so esteemed, there cannot be a greater testi- 
 mony given than what has been by some observed, that not 
 only the Great Masters have found in his works the truest 
 principles of all their Sciences, or Arts, but that the noblest 
 nations have derived from them the original of their several 
 races. ... In short those two immortal Poets must be al- 
 lowed to have so much excelled in their kinds as to have 
 exceeded all comparisons, to have even extinguished emula- 
 tion, and in a manner confined true Poetry not only to their 
 two languages, but to their very persons.^" 
 
112 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 As to recent laws of verse : 
 
 The modern French wits (or Pretenders) have been very 
 severe in their censures and exact in their rules, I think to 
 very little purpose ; for I know not why they might not have 
 contented themselves with those given by Aristotle and 
 Horace, and have translated them rather than have com- 
 mented upon them, for all they have done has been no 
 more , . . rather to have valued themselves than improved 
 any body else.^^ 
 
 The above quotations exactly express the view of 
 the old-school man who held classical poetry as a 
 kind of religion, and who regarded it with the same 
 veneration that the mediaeval man did the Bible. 
 Its content was beyond criticism and must not be 
 impugned. To approach it lightly was sacrilege; 
 In its mysterious depths one found the fountain of 
 " races " and " the sciences " of all succeeding ages. 
 This two-fold attitude — worship and credulity, and 
 the sweeping of opinion into large waves of emotion 
 without accuracy of thought — completely repre- 
 sents the temper of the intellectual era that was 
 passing. Temple gracefully sings its swan song. 
 
 Two interesting results came from the above es- 
 says: they were the innocent excitant of a storm of 
 controversial pamphlets which flooded England for 
 twenty years ; and they became the occasion of a new 
 edition of Phalaris which originated the quarrel be- 
 tween Bentley and Boyle.^^ 
 
 Of polemical writings, Wotton's Essay earlier re- 
 ferred to is the most noteworthy; since it is a com- 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE II3 
 
 plete embodiment of the attitude and method of the 
 New Philosophy in contrast with the old. As Tem- 
 ple voiced love of the Past, Wotton expresses hope 
 in the Future. Where Temple argued through 
 vague sentiment, Wotton speaks in the specific and 
 concrete. He tells us plainly that in any convincing 
 proof of such a question, one must offer facts. 
 Using the historical and scientific method, he sets out 
 to examine the products of classical civilization as 
 compared with our own. In twenty-nine long chap- 
 ters he enters into exhaustive investigation of ancient 
 and modern achievement. At each step, he offers 
 proof and cites authority. He does not aim to 
 argue syllogistically ; he aims to produce facts.^* 
 Strange to say, the work never fails to interest the 
 reader; for it is charged with a vivid personality and 
 replete with stimulating ideas. Likewise, however 
 foolish such an investigation may appear at the pres- 
 ent day, the erudition and method of the author 
 command our respect, and the book remains an inter- 
 esting evidence that the era of science in literary 
 disputation had been ushered in. 
 
 Wotton's conclusion is that in Politics, Ethics, 
 Poetry and Oratory, the ancients may claim super- 
 iority. This does not extend to History, however, 
 in which Comines and Father Paul equal any writer 
 of the past. On the other hand Perrault's assertion 
 that modern French poets and orators excel the 
 ancients is absurd." His foundation argument that 
 Cicero excelled Demosthenes because he lived two 
 
114 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 hundred years later, and that by sequence of reason- 
 ing the French Academy outdoes them both, is a 
 fallacy; for it fails to allow for that decay of Elo- 
 quence which " after ages " often suffer. His con- 
 tention that the ancients were unskilled in depicting 
 Love is equally groundless.^^ 
 
 " Ovid and TibuUus knew what Love was in its 
 tenderest motions; they described its anxieties and 
 disappointments in a manner that raises too many 
 passions even in unconcerned hearts." ... As to 
 French love-writers, " One can as soon believe Var- 
 illas and Maimbourg wrote the Histories of Great 
 Actions just as they were done, as that men ever 
 made love in such a way as these Love-and-Honour 
 Men describe." ^® Perrault seems to have had his 
 head possessed of the French Romances which " to 
 be sure, must never fail to end in a general wed- 
 ding! " Moreover, the French habit of translating 
 classical literature into the vernacular and then com- 
 paring it with native verse is misleading. The 
 French language " wants strength for the nobler 
 parts of Poesy." So that, 
 
 Tho Sense is Sense in every Tongue, yet all languages 
 have a peculiar way of expressing the same things, which is 
 lost in translation. . . . Besides, the beauty of an author's 
 composition is in all translations entirely lost. ... So that 
 a man can have but half an idea of ancient eloquence and 
 that not always faithful, who judges it without such skill 
 in Greek and Latin as can enable him to read Histories, 
 Orations, and Poems in those languages.^^ 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE II5 
 
 On the other hand, Temple's assertion that " No 
 man ever disputed Grammar with the Ancients " is 
 unfounded. In nicety of words, the French Acad- 
 emy equals Isocrates, while no ancient work upon 
 Grammar compares with Locke's Chapter in The 
 Human Understanding.^^ likewise the Moderns 
 excel in Architecture, Painting and Sculpture. They 
 are outdone only by " the naked bodies of the 
 Ancients," which " show something extremely noble 
 which one wants words for." It is possible, how- 
 ever, that " If some of the most excellent of the mod- 
 ern pieces should be preserved 1500 or 2000 years, or 
 tinged with some chymical water that could in a 
 short time make them appear antique," they might 
 be viewed with the same veneration as the old.^® 
 
 Having settled the claims of the Ancients in 
 Poesy, Oratory, and the Fine Arts, Wotton turns 
 next to " The Mathematical and Physical Sciences in 
 their largest extent." ^^ Before starting, our 
 leader warns us that 
 
 These are things which have no dependence upon the 
 opinions of men; they will admit of fixed and undisputed 
 mediums of comparison and judgment; so that tho it may 
 always be debated who have been the best orators or the best 
 poets; yet it cannot always be a matter of controversie who 
 have been the greatest geometers, arithmeticians, astronomers, 
 musicians, anatomists, chymists, botanists, or the like ; because 
 a fair comparison between the inventions, observations, experi- 
 ments, and collections of the contending parties must cer- 
 tainly put an end to the dispute. ^^ 
 
Il6 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 Going back to Sir William Temple's statement 
 that " There were vast Lakes of Learning in Egypt, 
 Chaldea, India, and China, where it stagnated for 
 many ages, till the Greeks brought buckets and drew 
 it out," Wotton proceeds to examine the whole field 
 of ancient achievement: "The question which is 
 first to be asked here is, Where are the Books and 
 Monuments wherein these Treasures were deposited 
 for so many Ages?" We are to judge Natural 
 History from Pliny; Medicine from Galen; Astron- 
 omy from Ptolemy ; Mathematics from Pappus' Col- 
 lections ; Philosophy from the Treatises. In twenty 
 chapters the interest of which never flags, Wotton 
 then demonstrates that the moderns are incompar- 
 ably superior. He declares that even if all Temple 
 said were true that is no reason why the ancients 
 should not have outstripped their teachers, and we 
 have surpassed them both. He emphasizes that 
 matters in which the ancients only divined the 
 truth have been proved by modern scientists. 
 Moreover, 
 
 We cannot judge of the characters of things and persons 
 at a great distance when given second hand, unless we know 
 how capable those persons from whom such characters were 
 first taken were to pass a right judgment upon such sub- 
 jects.^^ . . . Excessive commendations of any art or science 
 whatsoever, as also of the learning of any particular men or 
 nation, only proves that the persons who give such characters, 
 never heard of any thing or person that was more excellent! 
 in that way; and therefore that admiration may be as well- 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE II7 
 
 supposed to proceed from their own ignorance as from the 
 real excellency of the persons or things.^^ 
 
 If now we examine into the actual achievement of 
 the Ancient Wonders, it appears far inferior to the 
 claim. All that we learn of Pythagoras from his 
 most ancient biographer ^^ is, that very little about 
 him is known. He seems to have been a law-giver 
 rather than a promoter of learning; for the only 
 record of a real intellectual feat by him is his inven- 
 tion of the 47 th Proposition by Euclid. He in- 
 creased his reputation by veiling his personality and 
 making a mystery of himself. But if we compare 
 his explication of generation with Harvey's we shall 
 see the absurdity of his reasoning. Equally ridicul- 
 ous are the stories of magic wrought by Empedocles, 
 and of Democritus' ability to tell virgins at sight. 
 ■ " These are instances very seriously recorded by 
 grave authors of the Magical Wisdom ... as Sir 
 William Temple defines it." ^^ 
 
 If next we turn to Logic and Metaphysics, we find 
 the Discourses of Descartes, Locke, and Tschirn- 
 haus beyond anything the Greeks have written. To 
 Bacon and Descartes belong credit for demonstrating 
 that the Common Logic of the Schools is insufficient : 
 
 Lord Bacon and Descartes were the two great men who 
 both found fault with the Logic of the Schools as insufficient 
 of itself for the great design of Logic, which is the Advance- 
 ment of Real Learning; and got authority enough to per- 
 suade the world in a very great degree that other methods 
 ('must be taken besides making syllogisms ... by those who 
 
Il8 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 would go much farther than their predecessors went before 
 them. The true use of the Common Logic being rather to 
 explain what we know already and to detect the fallacies of 
 our adversaries, than to find that out of which we are ignor- 
 ant. So that the Moderns have enlarged its bottom and 
 ... if not made it perfect, have yet put it into such a 
 posture as that future industry may . . . complete it.^° 
 
 In Metaphysics also the Cartesians discourse more 
 intelligently than any of the Ancients. And al- 
 though " Very many of their particular notions . . . 
 are justly liable to exception, -yet the main founda- 
 tions upon which they reason are for the most part 
 real; and so by consequence, the superstructures are 
 not entirely fantastical." Likewise if we compare 
 the writings of Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke, 
 with Plato and his commentators, we shall find them 
 as excellent. Again, Newton, Leibnitz, and Des- 
 cartes, far excel the Ancients in Gfeometry, while our 
 Arithmetic and Algebra also surpass theirs.*^ 
 
 It is in discussing the comparative excellence of 
 ancient and modern books of Philosophy that our 
 author states his Magna Charta of the new Intellect^ 
 ual Regime. 
 
 As for modern methods of philosophising as compared with 
 the ancient, I shall only observe the following particulars^ 
 ( I ) No arguments are received as cogent, no principals are 
 allowed as current amongst the celebrated philosophers -^of 
 the present Age, but what are in themselves intelligible ; that 
 so a man may frame an idea of them of one sort or other. 
 Matters and motion with their several qualities are only 
 
' THE LITERARY PHASE II9 
 
 considered in modern solutions of physical problems. Sub- 
 stantial Forms, Occult Qualities, Intentional Species, 
 Idiosyncrasies, Sympathies, and Antipathies of things, are 
 exploded; not because they are terms used by the Ancients, 
 but because they are only empty sounds, words whereof no 
 man can form a certain and determinate idea. (2) Forming 
 of sects and parties in philosophy that shall take their 
 denominations from, and think themselves obliged to stand 
 by the opinions of any particular philosophers is, in a manner, 
 wholly laid aside. Descartes is not more believed upon his 
 own word than Aristotle. Matter of Fact is the only thing 
 appealed to; and Systems are little further regarded than as 
 they are proper to instruct young beginners who must 
 have a general notion of the whole work before they can 
 sufficiently comprehend any particular part of it. . . . (4) 
 The New Philosophers . . . avoid making general conclu- 
 sions till they have collected a great number of experiments 
 or observations upon the Thing in Hand; and as new light 
 comes in, the old hypotheses fall without any noise or stir. 
 So that the inferences that are made from enquiries into Nat- 
 ural Things . . . are . . . received with this tacit reserve, 
 As far as the experiments or observations already made will 
 warrant?'^ 
 
 I do not say that none of these things were anciently done ; 
 but only that they were not so general. . . . The whole 
 Ancient Philosophy looks like a thing of ostentation and 
 pomp; . . . The old Philosophers seemed still to be afraid 
 that the common people should despise their Arts if com- 
 monly understood.^' 
 
 Last of all, the Moderns are the masters of the 
 early writers in Philological Learning and Divinity. 
 The classical man knew his own time well; but 
 
120 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 owing to poor commumcation and infrequency of 
 literary commerce his information regarding events 
 outside his own generation was inaccurate. Like- 
 wise owing to geographical separation, the Greek 
 and Latin Worlds at contemporary periods were 
 ignorant of each other. For this reason, it will 
 not seem ridiculous to say that Joseph Scaliger, Isaac 
 Causabon, . . . and other philologers of their 
 stamp, may have had a much more comprehensive 
 view of Antiquity than the Ancients themselves had, 
 In part because of this limitation, the Ancient Divine 
 was inferior to the modern: he was ignorant of 
 Hebrew and the Oriental languages and custom; he 
 rdasoned badly, indulging in " Homilies," " Flights 
 of Rhetorick," and " Allegorical Interpretations." 
 His sermons consisted of " a loose, paraphrastical 
 Explication of a large Portion of Scripture," which 
 ended " at last in a general Ethical Harangue." '" 
 To the student of thought, Wotton's Essay is a 
 most interesting work. It stands saliently as the 
 first attempt to make a comprehensive investigation 
 of classical literature by scientific method. More- 
 over, in extending his enquiry to the Church Fathers, 
 and in attempting to gauge the accuracy of the knowlJ 
 edge which the Ancients had of themselves, Wotton 
 enlarges the field of critical research. As his method 
 is modern, so is his spirit. Dispassionate and fair 
 minded, he realizes the value of varied contribu- 
 tions to culture, and credits each. While appreciat- 
 ing cultivated scholarship, he never confuses mastery 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 121 
 
 of meticulous details with genius. He «xtols those 
 Moderns " who have dared to believe their own 
 Reason, against the positive evidence of an old His- 
 torian." ^^ He gives voice to the opinion so many 
 have cherished since : 
 
 To pore in old MSS. ; to compare various Readings; to 
 turn over Glossaries and old Scholia upon Ancient Histor- 
 ians, Orators, and Poets; to be minutely critical in all the 
 little fashion of the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the mem- 
 ory whereof was in a manner lost within fifty or an hundred 
 years after they had been in use, may be good argument of a 
 man's industry and willingness to drudge, but seems to 
 signifie little to denominate him a great genius or one who 
 was able to do great things of himself.*^ 
 
 In estimating the uses of knowledge Wotton shows 
 discrimination and a sense of values. He distin- 
 guishes clearly between the ability to write beautiful 
 Latin and the art of being a critic. Believing that 
 learning should be made free to the common people 
 and utilized for their advancement, he stigmatizes 
 the mystery and seclusion in which the Ancients 
 enveloped it. He rebukes Sir William Temple for 
 deploring the use of navigation for commerce and the 
 accumulation of wealth. " Knowledge not reduced 
 to practice when that is possible, is so far imperfect, 
 that it loses its principal use." In his Conclusion, 
 he acknowledges the service of each great age, but 
 looks to the future for intellectual consummation: 
 
 By joining Ancient and Modern Learning together, and 
 by studying each as Originals in those things wherein they 
 
122 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 severally do most excel; by that means ... the world will 
 soon see what remains unfinish'd, and men will furnish them- 
 selves with fitting methods to complete it; ... So some 
 future Age though, perhaps, not the next, and in a country 
 now possibly little thought of, may do that which our great 
 men would be glad to see done; that is to say, they may raise 
 real knowledge upon the foundations laid in this our age, to 
 the utmost possible perfection to which it can be brought by 
 mortal men in this imperfect state.'' 
 
 The second interesting episode in the " Battle of 
 the Books " is the Phalaris controversy between Dr. 
 Thomas Bentley of Cambridge and Charles Boyle 
 of Oxford. This dispute is significant in the present 
 study because it produced the famous Dissertation 
 upon Phalaris — the first literary work in which the 
 historical and scientific method are relentlessly ap- 
 plied to an alleged classical document. It came 
 about through the fact that Dean Aldrich of Christ 
 Church, Oxford, stimulated by Temple's praise of 
 The Phalaris Letters, decided to issue a new edition, 
 copies of which were to be presented as New Year's 
 gifts to his students. Charles Boyle, an amiable 
 young person of seventeen, was honoured with the 
 request to prepare it.^* Desiring to consult a manu- 
 script in the Royal Library at St. James, Boyle com- 
 missioned his London bookseller to procure and copy 
 the same. Through negligence, the latter failed to 
 complete the collation, but represented to Boyle that 
 the deficiency was due to the discourtesy of Bentley, 
 who had withdrawn the manuscript before the copy 
 
THE LITERARY PH^SE 1 23 
 
 could be finished. As a result, Boyle included in 
 his new edition of The Phalaris Letters an announce- 
 ment hostile to Bentley. The latter, expecting that 
 the offensive reference would be withdrawn at once, 
 wrote Boyle the true circumstances; but for some 
 reason his reply was only the cold statement that it 
 was now too late to change the publication ; and that 
 Bentley might take what reparation he saw fit. The 
 famous Dissertation was the result. 
 
 One year earlier, William Wotton when publish- 
 ing his Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learn- 
 ing, had requested Bentley to prepare as addenda 
 to it, articles upon the spurious nature of The Phal- 
 aris Letters, A-esop's Fables, and other popular class- 
 ical works. Too busy at that time to execute the 
 task, Bentley coniplied in the second edition, 1697. 
 Introductory to his essay was a statement concerning 
 the Oxford Phalaris and Boyle's conduct. The at- 
 tack upon Phalaris, coupled with the declaration 
 against Boyle produced a sensation in Christ Church 
 Society, and led to the immediate preparation of a 
 counter-charge entitled Dr. Bentley's Dissertations 
 on the Epistles of Phalaris, and the Fables of Aesop, 
 Examined by the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esq.^^ 
 
 Although the work was a somewhat vulgar and 
 personal attack, rather than a scholarly refutation 
 of Bentley's view, it was received with the applause 
 of polite society and was supposed to settle the con- 
 test. But in 1699 appeared the masterly Disserta- 
 tion,^^ which stands as the foundation of modem 
 
124 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 classical criticism, and points the way to the later 
 work of Niebuhr and Wolf. Using the historical 
 and scientific method, Dr. Bentley sets out to prove 
 from internal evidence that The Epistles of Phakris 
 are a forgery.^ ^ The Dissertation is " a remorse- 
 less syllogism." But in addition to its main theme 
 it is from start to finish filled with interesting side 
 comments upon every conceivable phase of classical 
 material. The Preface is sturdy and dignified, and 
 is in itself sufficient refutation of the charge made by 
 Bentley's enemies that he was " dull " and a " ped- 
 ant." Moreover, he reveals intellectual perspect- 
 ive and a sense of values. In regard to his quarrel 
 with Boyle he avers : "I do not love the unmanly 
 work of making long complaints of injuries; which 
 I think is the next fault to deserving them." ** In 
 answer to Boyle's charge that he had wasted three 
 years in disproving " a very inconsiderable point, 
 which a wise man would grudge the throwing away 
 of a week's thought upon," Bentley says: 
 
 I doubt not but many others whose designs and studies are 
 remote from this kind of learning will follow this censure. 
 To all such men as these, I must answer, that if the dispute 
 be quite out of their way, they have liberty to let it alone; it 
 was not designed for them, but for others that know how to 
 value it; who if the principal point about Phalaris were 
 quite dropt, will think the other heads that are here occasion- 
 ally handled not unworthy of a scholar. But that the single 
 point whether Phalaris be genuine or no, is of no small 
 importance to learning. ... To undervalue this dispute 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 25 
 
 . . . because it does not suit to one's studies, is to quarrel 
 with a circle because it is not square. If the question be 
 not of vulgar use, it was writ therefore for a few ; for even 
 the greatest performances upon the most important subjects 
 are no entertainment at all to the many of the world.^° 
 
 In denying the charge of having spent three years 
 upon Phalaris, he avows : " But suppose this accusa- 
 tion true; I had rather have spent all that time in 
 discerning truth than have spent three days in main- 
 taining an error." *" 
 
 The argumentation proper opens with a brief his- 
 tory of literary forgery in which this pastime is 
 shown to have been common with the sophists. The 
 time element h then carefully investigated by a 
 comparison of source materials, and Phalaris is 
 proved to have lived circa 485 B.c.*^ Reasoning 
 on this basis, the author demonstrates that Phal- 
 aris in his last Epistle to Enna wrote of himself as 
 borrowing money from Phnitia, three hundred years 
 before that city was built.*'' He shows that in 
 Epistle XCII, Phalaris accuses Stesichorus of raising 
 money and soldiers at Alaesa one hundred and forty 
 years before it existed.*' He proves that the tyrant 
 made his Messenian physician Polyclitus a present 
 of " ten couple of Thericlean cups " one hundred 
 and twenty years before Thericles was born.** 
 Moreover in Epistle XCII, Phalaris in threatening 
 to cut down the Himereans " like a pine-tree," uses 
 an expression first uttered by Croesus who did not 
 reign until six years after the Sicilian tyrant's death. 
 
126 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 He reveals the tyrant also as boasting of a victory 
 over the Tauromenites before their city was founded; 
 while in Epistle LXIII, the incorrigible old fraud 
 rages against Aristolochus for " writing tragedies 
 against him " years before a tragedy had ever been 
 presented.*^ 
 
 Turning next to the language element, Dr. Bent- 
 ley points out the absurdity of a ruler in the heart of 
 Sicily writing to adjoining cities in an Atticised 
 vocabulary.*® 
 
 Triumphantly passing on to a discussion of coin- 
 age, he shows that the tyrant used Attic instead of 
 native money, and concludes his remarkable work 
 with a further demonstration that the subject matter 
 of the Epistles is out of harmony with its environ- 
 ment and time : 
 
 'T would be endless to prosecute this part, and shew all 
 the silliness and impertinency in the matter of The Epistles. 
 For take them in the whole bulk, they are a fardle of com- 
 monplaces, without any life or spirit from action and cir- 
 cumstance. Do but cast your eye upon Cicero's letters, or 
 any statesman's as Phalaris was. . . . When you return to 
 these again, you feel by the emptiness and deadness of them, 
 that you converse with some dreaming pedant with his elbow 
 on his desk. . . . All that takes you or effects you is a 
 stiffness and stateliness, and operoseness of style.*^ 
 
 The Dissertation was not an isolated phenomenon 
 in Dr. Bentley's career, but a logical offshoot of the 
 whole tenor of his thought. In full sympathy with 
 the desire of his generation to reach truth of content 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 27 
 
 rather than form in classical literature, he saw that 
 only by a comparison and emendation of early manu- 
 scripts could the real meaning of an author be ascer- 
 tained. He therefore worked for restored and 
 accurately interpreted texts as a foundation, and thus 
 indirectly became the advancer in a movement lead- 
 ing away from Rhetoric toward a study of Greek 
 life and thought. His editions of Terence, Aris- 
 tophanes, and other Greek comedies were invaluable 
 contributions to classical scholarship, while his never 
 completed edition of the New Testament aimed at 
 a goal reached only one hundred years later.** 
 
 The same instinct for truth led him to abjure senti- 
 ment concerning the great epic poets, and approach 
 them with common sense. In his Remarks upon a 
 Discourse of Free Thinking, by Anthony Collins, he 
 assails that liberal minded gentleman with the most 
 enlightened and historic interpretation of Homer 
 yet uttered: 
 
 Homer's Iliad he [Collins] admires as the epitome of all 
 arts and sciences. . . . Well, where are the footsteps of this 
 vast knowledge in Homer? . . . 
 
 To prove Homer's universal knowledge, a priori, our 
 author says he designed his poems for Eternity, to please and 
 instruct mankind: nothing less than all ages and all 
 nations were in the poet's foresight. Though our author 
 vouches that he thinks every day de quolibet ante; give me 
 leave to accept Homer; for he never thought of him or his 
 history. Take my word for it, poor Homer in those circum- 
 stances and early times, had never such aspiring thoughts. 
 
128 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 He wrote a sequel of songs and rhapsodies, to be sung by 
 himself for small earnings and good cheer at festivals and 
 other days of merriment; the Ilias he made for men; and 
 the Odysseis for the other sex. These loose songs were not 
 collected together in the form of an epic poem till Pisistratus' 
 time above five hundred years after. Nor is there one word 
 in Homer that presages or promises immortality to his 
 work. . . . He no more thought at that time that his 
 poems would be immortal, than our free thinkers now believe 
 their souls will; and the proof of each will be a parte post, 
 in the evetjt, but not in the expectation.*" 
 
 Bentley's masterly criticism of the classics did not 
 revolutionize a public always slow to see new light. 
 While a few Moderns adopted his views, the great 
 majority of conservative scholars remained inert. 
 Fifty years from the date of the Dissertation, the 
 authenticity of The Epistles of Phalaris still had de- 
 fenders; ^^ while as late as 1804, Richard Cumber- 
 land in publishing the Memoirs of his grandfather 
 half apologizes for maintaining his view. Indeed 
 not until the time of Wolf and Niebuhr did Bent- 
 ley's scientific attitude prevail. This fact reveals 
 him even more saliently as a pioneer; and while like 
 his great predecessors in allied fields, he sometimes 
 drew false conclusions, his principle remained as the 
 foundation of future criticism of classical literature. 
 
 Most of all, in our estimate of him in perspective, 
 we are impressed with the spirit of the man. Bold, 
 slashing, free — Greek — he seems some great ex- 
 plorer in. the wilderness of seventeenth century Hel- 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 29 
 
 lenism. With a breadth of view equal to his energy, 
 he never lost vision of the whole, although basing his 
 work upon detail. Jebb sagely doubts that Bentley 
 had a temperament adapted to fishing, and this his 
 admirers may well concede. But whatever the per- 
 sonality so assailed by Tory opponents, his work 
 remains as the first great monument of the science 
 of Criticism applied to Classical Literature, while 
 that " Search after truth " so valiantly announced in 
 the Preface to his Dissertation continued his guiding 
 motive throughout life. 
 
 It is a paradox of life that the quarrel between 
 the Ancients and Moderns has been rendered im- 
 mortal not by the erudition of Bentley, but by the 
 genius of Swift. The writings of the Great Dean 
 upon this subject are an abiding evidence that an 
 onlopker sees more clearly and in better perspective 
 than a combatant. Although ostensibly supporting 
 the Ancients, Swift is on neither side ; but like a super- 
 man, seated far above the fray, smiles down upon 
 the petty vanities of earth. No greater contrast of 
 spirit and approach exists than that of Bentley and 
 Swift. The Master of Trinity heart and soul in the 
 moment, looms in attack clear, concrete, scientific. 
 The Dean of Dublin aloof, disdainful, wields the 
 weapon of genius — Satire. So far does genius 
 transcend mere learning, that in the perspective of 
 time it is not the erudite Bentley around whom the 
 controversy grows salient; but it is Swift who be- 
 
130 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 comes the logical nucleus of thought. As one looks 
 back across the centuries, two works only shine lum- 
 inous from the dust, — The Battle of The Books 
 and The Tale of a Tub. So true is this that many 
 a man who has never heard of Wotton or little 
 Boyle, and who associates Fontenelle only with the 
 French Academy, visualizes the whole combat of 
 the Ancients and Moderns through the matchless 
 satire of Swift. 
 
 The Dean's interest in the subject, felt early in 
 life, was only a by-product of more vivid occupations. 
 It will be remembered that the discussion over 
 Temple's Essay upon Ancient and Modern Learning 
 was at its height from 1692 to 1699. Swift's writ- 
 ings penned in 1696 and 1697, resulted from a desire 
 to defend his noted patron ; but although in private 
 circulation earlier, they were not published until 
 1704,^^ when the heat of the dispute had somewhat 
 abated. While the work professes to favour the 
 Ancients, its spirit is in reality modem; for it cen- 
 sures the adherents of Bentley for the very errors 
 of which their antagonists were accused. 
 
 Sir William Temple had interspersed with his 
 Reflections certain statements which appear some- 
 what inconsistent with his general trend. He had 
 thrown off in passing the remark that books do not 
 advance science, and except as " The Registers of 
 •Time," are not an aid to Learning. He had 
 asserted that too much knowledge from the Ancients 
 weakens invention and impedes "Native Force"; 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 131 
 
 while " genius " rather than " derived strength or 
 power " advances civilization. "^ Uniting these ran- 
 dom ideas, Swift weaves them into a marvelous 
 fabric which reveals in full absurdity the mental 
 limitation of those petty pedants who would estimate 
 the merit of a book by reference to its age. Com- 
 bined with this, is scathing comment upon the modern 
 critic who conceives of his function as purely de- 
 structive, and the commentator who instead of his 
 author, interprets hiinself. In the same vein he 
 lashes those who seek short cuts to culture through 
 -indexes and summaries. As a whole Swift's work 
 defies analysis. One might as well attempt to dis- 
 sect a lightning flash. So far as he took sides at all, 
 his sympathy appears to be with Sir William Temple 
 and the great classical writers in whose defense he 
 wrote. We judge, too, from passing comments that 
 he had no conception of^the significance of the. phys- 
 ical discoveries of his age. They appear to be out- 
 side the range of his immediate interest. Thus he 
 good-naturedly satirizes Harvey, and consigns 
 Aldovandi of Bologna to the tomb of his own accum- 
 ulated researches in Natural History.^* Neither 
 does he offer serious refutation of the Modern claim, 
 nor like Wotton furnish data to justify his convic- 
 tions. He does not even take the question seriously. 
 But we do not criticise him for that. One does not 
 censure a darting, flashing airship above a cloud for 
 not being a tugboat on a lake. To him the whole 
 conflict is merely a game ; as if he played at battledore 
 
132 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 and shuttlecock — both factions deserving laughter 
 because so insignificant and ridiculous — - the Mod- 
 erns in addition meriting disdain for their crudity 
 and conceit.^* Under the sweep of his irresistible 
 satire, the whole puny question of the Ancients and 
 Moderns seems to dissolve in inextinguishable 
 laughter. And such was the historic effect. For 
 while in 1705, William Wotton pubhshed A 
 Defense of the Reflections with some Observations 
 upon The Tale of a Tub, and certain other dull 
 works bearing upon the subject appeared between 
 that time and 1732,^'' yet the zest of the conflict 
 ebbed with The Battle of the Books. Whether this 
 was due to amusement caused by the satires, or to 
 the increasing interest in scientific discovery and 
 Deism, we need not attempt to decide ; we may simply 
 reflect that Cervantes in Spain laughed Chivalry 
 away. 
 
 The Tale of a Tub, although ostensibly an alle- 
 gorical satire upon the Roman Church,^® contains 
 interspersed in the form of " Digressions " those 
 incisive criticisms of Modern Learning which bind 
 the book to the quarrel in hand. In the author's 
 Apology preceding the Dedication, he states his rea- 
 sons for writing : 
 
 By the assistance of some thinking and much conversation, 
 he [the author] had endeavoured to strip himself of as many 
 real prejudices as he could. I say real ones because under 
 the notion of prejudices, he knew to what dangerous heights 
 some men have proceeded. Thus prepared, he thought the 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 33 
 
 manners and gross corruptions in Religion and Learning 
 might furnish matter for a satire that would be useful and 
 diverting. He resolved to proceed in a manner that should 
 be altogether new. . . . The abuses in Religion, he proposed 
 to set forth in the Allegory of the Coats and the three 
 Brothers. . . . Those in Learning he chose to introduce by 
 way.of digressions."' 
 
 The assertion that the present age is altogether 
 unlearned and devoid of writers in any kind, Swift 
 declares is a statement " so bold and so false that 
 . . . the contrary may almost be proved by uncon- 
 trollable demonstration." ^* 
 
 There is a person styled Dr. B-tl-y, who has written near 
 a thousand pages of immense erudition, giving a full and true 
 account of a certain squabble of wonderful importance 
 between himself and a bookseller. He is a writer of 
 infinite wit and humour; no man rallies with a better 
 grace and in more sprightly turns. Further, I avow to 
 Your Highness, that with these eyes I have beheld the person 
 of William W-tt-n, B.D., who has written a good sizable 
 volume against a friend of your Governor,'" ... in a 
 most gentlemanly style, adorned with the utmost politeness 
 and civility; replete with discoveries equally valuable for 
 their novelty and use, and embellished with traits of wit so 
 poignant and so apposite that he is a worthy yokeman to his 
 aforementioned friend .•" 
 
 Why should I go upon farther particulars, which might 
 fill a volume with just eulogies of my contemporary brethren ? 
 I shall bequeath this piece of justice to a larger work, wherein 
 I intend to write a character of the present set of wits in 
 
134 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 our nation: their persons I shall describe particularly and at 
 length, their genius and understanding in miniature."^ 
 
 In his Preface, Swift continues : 
 
 The wits of the present age being so very numerous and 
 penetrating, it seems the grandees of Church and State begin 
 to fall under horrible apprehensions, lest these gentlemen, 
 during the intervals of a long peace, should find leisure to 
 pick holes in the weak sides of Religion and Government. 
 To prevent which, there has been much thought employed 
 . . . upon certain projects for taking off the force and edge 
 of those formidable enquirers, from canvassing and reasoning 
 upon such delicate points. ... It is intended that a large 
 Academy be erected capable of containing nine thousand 
 seven hundred forty and three persons; which by modest 
 computation is reckoned to be pretty near the number of 
 current wits in this island. These are to be disposed in 
 the several schools of this academy, and there pursue those 
 studies to which their genius most inclines them."^ 
 
 Meanwhile, until the perfecting of the above great 
 plan, Swift set himself to divert and keep from mis- 
 chief " those unquiet spirits " by recounting The 
 Tale of a Tub. In the execution of this task, he 
 stipulates : 
 
 There are certain common privileges of a writer, the 
 benefit whereof, I hope, there will be no reason to doubt; 
 particularly, that where I am not understood, it shall be 
 concluded that something very useful and profound is couched 
 underneath; and again, that what ever word or sentence is 
 printed in a different character, shall be judged to contain 
 something extraordinary either of wit or sublime.*^ 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 35 
 
 As for the liberty I have thought fit to take of praising 
 myself, ... I am sure it will need no excuse, if a multitude 
 of great examples be allowed sufficient authority. For it is 
 here to be noted, that praise was originally a pension paid 
 by the world; but the moderns, finding the trouble and 
 charge too great in collecting it, have lately bought out the 
 fecrsimple; since which time, the right of presentation is 
 wholly in ourselves."* 
 
 In introducing his three Oratorical machines, 
 erected " for the benefit of Aspiring Adventurers, 
 who desire to talk much without interruption," ®' 
 Swift explains that since many great moderns of 
 Grub Street ®® have been lost sight of and forgotten, 
 in order that the world may no longer suffer such 
 lapses, he has been prevailed upon after much im- 
 portunity " to travel in a complete and laborious 
 dissertation upon the prime productions " of that 
 society. He begs leave, therefore, to present. 
 
 The Hind and Panther. This is the masterpiece of a 
 famous writer now living, intended for a complete abstract 
 of sixteen thousand school-men from Scotus to Bellarmin. 
 
 Also 
 
 The Wise Men of Gotham, cum appendice. This is a 
 treatise of immense erudition, being the great original and 
 fountain of those arguments, bandied about both in France 
 and England,, for a just defense of the moderns' learning 
 and wit, against the presumption, pride, and ignorance of 
 the ancients. This unknown author has so exhausted" the 
 subject that a penetrating reader will easily discover what- 
 
136 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 ever has been written since upon that dispuf;e to be little 
 more than repetition.'' 
 
 ^ The story of the Three Brothers, beginning in 
 Section II, is so well known as to render a summary 
 unnecessary; moreover, the scope of the present 
 book admits only a discussion of the criticisms upon 
 modern learning. Almost at the beginning. Swift 
 mercilessly scores pedants and commentators : " But 
 about this time it fell out that the learned brothers 
 aforesaid had read Aristotle's Dialectica, and espe- 
 cially that wonderful piece De Interpretatione, 
 which has the faculty of teaching its readers to find 
 out a meaning in everything but itself, like Com- 
 mentators on the Revelations, who proceed prophets 
 without understanding a syllable of the text." *' 
 
 Swift then passes to a digression upon Critics in 
 which he satirizes intellectual pretense. Here as 
 always, piercing through veneer, his censure falls 
 upon shallow pretenders to criticism, rather than 
 upon the function itself. That his chief antagonists 
 could not be justly accused of the offenses which he 
 stigmatizes does not detract from the brilliancy of 
 his remarks. He points out that " a critic who sets 
 up to read only for an occasion of censure and 
 reproof is a creature as barbarous as a judge who 
 should take up a resolution to hang all men who 
 came before him upon trial." He declares that the 
 Modern is a direct descendant of the true ancient 
 Critic. " Every true critic is a hero born, descend- 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 37 
 
 ing in a direct line from a celestial stem by Momus 
 and Hybris, who begat Zoilus, who begat Tigellius, 
 who begat Etcaetera the Elder, who begat Bentley 
 and Rymer, and Wotton and Perrault and Dennis." 
 Swift next proceeds " to refute the objections of 
 those who argue — that the very art of criticism as 
 now exercised is wholly modern." 
 
 I confess to have for a long time borne a part in this 
 general errour: from which I should never have acquitted- 
 myself but through the assistance of our noble Moddrns! 
 whose most edifying volumes I turn indefatigably over night 
 and day, for the improvement of my mind and the good of my 
 country. These have with unwearied pains made many use- 
 ful searches into the weak sides of the Ancients, and given us 
 a comprehensive list of them. Besides they have proved be- 
 yond contradiction that the very finest things delivered of old, 
 have been long since invented, and brought to light by much 
 later pens ; and that the noblest discoveries those Ancients ever 
 made of art or nature, have all been produced by the trans- 
 cending genius of the present age. Which clearly shows 
 how little merit those ancients can justly pretend to; and 
 takes off the blind admiration paid them by men in a corner, 
 i who had the unhappiness of conversing too little with present 
 things. Reflecting maturely upon all this, and taking in the 
 ijvhole compass of human nature, I easily conclude that these 
 Ancients, highly sensible of their many imperfections, must 
 needs have endeavoured ... to obviate, soften, or divert 
 the censorious reader, by satire upon the critics, in imitation 
 of their masters, the Moderns. . . . 
 
 Here I found to my great surprise that although they all 
 entered . . . into particular descriptions of the true critic 
 
138 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 ... yet whatever they touched of that kind, was with 
 abundance of caution, adventuring no farther than mythol- 
 ogy and hieroglyphic. . . . Now the reason why those 
 ancient writers treated this subject only by types and figures, 
 was because they durst not make open attacks against a party 
 so potent and terrible . . . ; whose very voice was so dread- 
 ful that a legion of authors would tremble and drop their 
 pens at the sound; for so Herodotus tells us expressly in 
 another place, how a vast army of Scythians was put to 
 flight in a panic of terror by the braying of an ass."" 
 
 Turning to the pretensions made by modern writ- 
 ers of outdoing the ancients, Swift declares : 
 
 When I consider how exceedingly our illustrious Modems 
 have eclipsed the weak glimmering lights of the Ancients, and 
 turned them out of the road of all fashionable commerce to 
 a degree that our choice town wits of most required accom- 
 plishments are in grave dispute whether there have been 
 ever any Ancients or no: in which point we are likely to 
 receive wonderful satisfaction from (the most useful labors 
 and lucubrations of that worthy Modern, Dr. Bentley,) I 
 say, when I consider all this, I cannot but bewail that no 
 famous modern hath ever attempted a universal system in a 
 small portable volume, of all things that are to be known, or 
 believed, or imagined, or practised in life. 
 
 I must needs own that it was by the assistance of this 
 arcanum, that I . . . have adventured upon so daring an 
 attempt, never achieved or undertaken before but by a certain 
 author called Homer, in whom, though otherwise a person 
 not without some abilities, and for an Ancient, of a tolerable 
 genius, I have discovered many gross errours, which are not 
 to be forgiven his very ashes, if by chance there are any of * 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 39 
 
 them left. For whereas, we are assured he designed his 
 work for a complete body of all knowledge, human, divine, 
 political and mechanic, it is manifest he hath wholly neglected 
 some and been very imperfect in the rest. ... A defect in- 
 deed for which both he and all the ancients stand most justly 
 censured by^my worthy and ingenious friend Mr. Wotton, 
 Bachelor of Divinity, in his incomparable treatise on Ancient 
 and Modern Learning : a book never to be sufficiently valuecO 
 whether we consider the happy turns and flowings of the 
 author's wit, the great usefulness of his sublime discoveries 
 upon the subject of flies, or the laborious eloquence of his 
 style. And I cannot forbear doing that author the justice 
 of my public acknowledgments for the great helps and lift- 
 ings I had out of his incomparable piece while I was penning 
 this treatise. 
 
 But besides these omissions in Homer, already mentioned, 
 the curious reader will also observe several defects in that 
 author's writings for which he is not altogether accountable. 
 For whereas every branch of knowledge has received such 
 wonderful acquisitions since his age, especially within the 
 last three years, ... it is almost impossible he could be so 
 very perfect in modern discoveries as his advocates pretend. 
 We freely acknowledge him to be the inventor of the com- 
 pass, of gunpowder, and the circulation of the blood; but I 
 challenge any of his admirers to show me, in all his writings, 
 a complete account of .the spleen. Does he not also leave 
 us wholly to seek in the art of political wagering? What 
 can be more defective and unsatisfactory than his long dis- 
 sertation upon tea? . . . 
 
 After ridiculing those Moderns who boast of being 
 wiser than the Ancients because born at a later period 
 
140 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 of time, Swift passes rapidly to an assault upon shal- 
 low learning.^" 
 
 The whole course of things being thus entirely changed 
 between us and the Ancients, and the Moderns wisely sensible 
 of it, we of this age have discovered a shorter and more 
 prudent method to become scholars and wits, without the 
 fatigue of reading or thinking. The most accomplished way 
 of usiiig books at present is twofold; either first, to serve 
 them as some do lords, learn their titles exactly, and then 
 brag of their acquaintance. Or secondly, which is indeed the 
 choicer, the profounder, and politer method, to get a thor- 
 ough insight into the index, by which the whole book is gov- 
 erned and turned like fishes by the tail. For to enter the 
 palace of learning at the great gate requires an expense of 
 time and forms; therefore men of much haste and little 
 ceremony, are content to get in by the back door. . . . What 
 remains therefore but that one last recourse must be had to 
 large indexes and little compendiums? Quotations must be 
 plentifully gathered, and booked in alphabet; to this end, 
 though authors need be little consulted, yet critics and com- 
 mentators and lexicons carefully must. . . J^ 
 
 By these methods, in a few weeks, there starts up many a 
 writer capable of managing the profoundest and most uni- 
 versal subjects. For what though his head be empty pro- 
 vided his commonplace book be full; and if you will bate 
 him but the circumstances of method, and style, and gram- 
 mar, and invention ; allow him but the common privileges of 
 transcribing from others, and digressing from himself, . . . 
 he will desire no more ingredients towards fitting up a treatise 
 that shall make a very comely figure on a bookseller's shelf, 
 there to be preserved neat and clean for a long eternity.'" 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 141 
 
 ^ In his interesting Digression upon Madness, Swift 
 gives his view of philosophy. He declares that all 
 great innovators have been somewhat abnormal 
 mentally; and that the chief philosophers, both 
 ancient and njodern, "were usually mistaken by their 
 adversaries, and indeed by all except their own fol- 
 lowers, to have been persons crazed or out of their 
 wits. ... Of this kind were Epicurus, Diogenes, 
 Apollonius, Lucretius, Paracelsus, Descartes, who if 
 they were now in the world, tied fast, and separate 
 from their followers, would in this our undistin- 
 guishing age, incur manifest danger of phlebotomy, 
 and whips, and chains, and dark chambers, and 
 straw." ^3 
 
 Yet none of these great prescribers have ever 
 failed of providing themselves with implicit disciples ; 
 the reason for this being that " there is a peculiar 
 string in the harmony of human understanding," 
 which, struck in the presence of two individuals of 
 the same tuning, will respond in harmony ; but if one 
 chances to jar the string among those of different 
 pitch, " instead of subscribing to your doctrine they 
 will tie you fast, call you mad, and feed you with 
 bread and water. It is therefore a point of nicest 
 conduct, to distinguish and adapt this noble 
 talent with respect to the differences of persons and 
 times. . . . For ... it is a fatal miscarriage so ill 
 to order affairs, as to pass for a fool in one com- 
 pany, when in another, you might be treated as a 
 philosopher. . . ." 
 
142 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 This indeed was the fatal mistake of that worthy gentle- 
 man, my most ingenious friend, Mr. Wotton; a person in 
 appearance ordained for great designs, as well as perform- 
 ances; whether you will consider his notions or his looks. 
 Surely no man ever advanced into the public with fitter 
 qualifications of body and mind for the propagation of a new 
 religion. Oh, had those happy talents, misapplied to vain 
 philosophy, been turned into their proper channels of dreams 
 and visions. . . . The base detracting world would not then 
 have dared report that something is amiss, that his brain has 
 undergone an unlucky shake ; which even his brother modern- 
 ists themselves, like ingrates, do whisper so loud that it reaches 
 up to the very garret I am now writing in.'* 
 
 In " A farther Digression," foreseeing the attack 
 of " a certain paltry scribbler " upon his treatise, the 
 author flees " for justice and release into the hands 
 of that great rectifier of saddles, Dr. Bentley, beg- 
 ging that he will take this enormous grievance into 
 his most human consideration." '^^ He then returns 
 to The Tale of the Three Brothers. 
 
 This inimitable satire needs no interpretation; he 
 who runs may read. Its supreme genius lies in its 
 application to the spiritual Ancients and Moderns of 
 each succeeding age; while Its searching analysis of 
 the fallacy of any educational method which attempts 
 to build without foundation, is perennially apropos. 
 That the criticism did not justly apply to his two 
 noted opponents, is a negative factor. For Swift 
 and his readers are so swept on by the joy of his 
 wit, that they forget the reality of his contestants. 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 43 
 
 As we turn next to The Battle of the Books writ- 
 ten one year later, we seem to pass from the exceed- 
 ing bitterness of the earlier mood to some lighter 
 encore, staged to release us from contemplation of 
 too much woe of life. If intellectual reality is a 
 tragic thing, Swift can at least play with tragedy. 
 So pigmy man is ranged in mock heroic battle to try 
 out his petty question of prestige. 
 
 " The quarrel first began about a small spot of 
 ground lying . . . upon one of the two tops of the 
 Hill Parnassus, the highest and largest of which had, 
 it seems, been time out of mind in quiet possession 
 of certain tenants, called the Ancients, and the other 
 was held by the Moderns." 
 
 It came about in time that the Moderns demanded 
 of the Ancients that they level their summit, since 
 it obstructed the lower view. Upon the Ancients 
 steadfastly refusing to comply, a long and obstinate 
 war ensued. " Rivulets of ink " were exhausted, 
 and " the violence of both parties enormously aug- 
 mented." Now it must be understood that ink is the 
 great weapon in all battles of the learned. Into the 
 books he writes is wonderfully instilled the spirit of 
 each great warrior, and after death, his soyl trans- 
 migrates to his writings stored in some vast library, 
 there to inform them. Of recent times, a new 
 species of controversial work instinct with a more 
 malignant spirit, has entered into residence; and it 
 was due to this fact that the terrible fight occurred 
 between the Ancients and Moderns in the King's 
 
144 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 Library at St. James. The strife is believed to have 
 originated through spontaneous combustion caused 
 when Bentley was " so careless as to clap Descartes 
 next to Aristotle "; while poor Plato got inadver- 
 tently lodged between Hobbes and The Seven Wise 
 Masters, and " Virgil was hemmed in with Dryden 
 on the one side and Withers on the other." Both 
 infuriated factions began maneuvering in charges 
 and countercharges. Temple overhearing the dis- 
 turbance, irrimediately reported to the Ancients, he 
 himself " being their greatest favourite, and becom- 
 ing their greatest champion." 
 
 Battle appeared imminent; but for the moment 
 both sides halted, listening to an unexpected quarrel 
 between a spider and a bee.''® " For upon the high- 
 est corner of a large window of the library there 
 dwelt a certain spider swollen up to the first magni- 
 tude by the destruction of an infinite number of flies. 
 The avenues to his castle were guarded with turn- 
 pikes and palisades after the modern way of forti- 
 fications." 
 
 Thither it was the pleasure of fortune to conduct 
 a wandering bee, to whose curiosity a broken pane 
 in the glass had discovered itself, and in he went. 
 The bee having broken the spider's web, a vivid 
 altercation ensued. The spider, in whom one sees 
 the Modern Wit, assailed the bee, bidding him re- 
 spect his betters : 
 
 What art thou but a vagabond, without house or home, 
 without stock or inheritance? Born to no possession of 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 45 
 
 your own, but a pair of wings and a drone pipe. Your liveli- 
 hood is a universal plunder upon nature, a freebooter over 
 fields and gardens; and for the sake of stealing will rob a 
 nettle as easy as a violet. Whereas I am a domestic animal, 
 furnished with a native stock within myself. This large 
 Castle (to show my improvements in Mathematics) is all 
 built with my own hands, and the materials extracted alto- 
 gether out of my own person. 
 
 I am glad, answered the bee, to hear you grant at least 
 that I come honestly by my wings and my voice; for then, 
 it seems, I am obliged to heaven alone for my flights and my 
 music; and Providence would never have bestowed oii me 
 two such gifts, without designing them for the noblest ends. 
 I visit indeed all the flowers and blossoms of the field and 
 garden ; but whatever I collect there enriches myself without 
 the least injury to their beauty, their smell, or their taste. 
 Now for you, and your skill in architecture and the Math^ 
 ematics I have little to say : In that building of yours, there 
 might for aught I know, have been labour and method 
 enough; but by woful experience for us both, it is plain the 
 materials are naught, and I hope you will henceforth take 
 warning, and consider duration and matter, as well as method 
 and art. You boast indeed of being obliged to no other 
 creature, but of drawing and spinning out all from your- 
 self; that is to say, if we may judge of the liquor in the vessel 
 by what issues out, you possess a good plentiful store of dirt 
 and poison in your breast. ... So that in short the question 
 all comes to this: whether is the nobler being of the two, 
 that which by a lazy contemplation of four inches round, by 
 an over-weening pride, feeding and engendering on itself, 
 turns all into excrement and venom, producing nothing at 
 all but flybane and cobweb; or that which by a universal 
 
146 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 range, with long search, much study, true judgment, and dis- 
 tinction of things, brings home honey and wax. 
 
 The dispute assuming so interesting a nature, the 
 two armies of books stood in silent attention below, 
 until Aesop mightily pleased made application to 
 themselves : 
 
 Pray, gentlemen, was ever any thing so modern as the 
 spider in his air, his turns, and his paradoxes? He argues- 
 in behalf of you, his brethren, and himself, with many boast- 
 ings of his native stoeic and great genius; that he spins and 
 spits wholly for himself. . . . Yet if the material be nothing 
 but dirt spun out of your own entrails, . . . the edifice will 
 conclude at last in a cobweb, the duration of which, like 
 that of other spiders' webs, may be imputed to their being 
 forgotten ... or hid in a corner. ... As for us, the 
 Ancients, we are content, with the bee, to pretend to nothing 
 of our own but our wings and our voice, that is to say, our 
 flights and our language. For the rest, whatever we have 
 got has been by infinite labour and search, and ranging 
 through every corner of nature ; the difference is, that instead 
 of dirt and poison, we have rather chosen to fill our hives with 
 honey and wax, thus furnishing mankind with the two 
 noblest things, which are sweetness and light.'' 
 
 " 'Tis wonderful to conceive the tumult arisen 
 among the books upon . . . this long descant of 
 Aesop ; both parties took the hint " and prepared 
 for open battle. Tasso, Milton, Dryden and With- 
 ers lead the heavy horse, . and Cowley and Desper- 
 eaux the light.^* Then came the bowmen under 
 their valiant leader Descartes, whose strength was 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 47 
 
 such that they could shoot their arrows beyond the 
 atmosphere, never to fall down again, but turn, like 
 Evander, into meteors; or like cannon-balls, into 
 stars. 
 
 The army of the Ancients was much fewer In 
 number; Homer led the heavy horse, and Pindar the 
 light. Euclid was chief engineer, Plato and Aris- 
 totle commanded the bowmen; Herodotus and LIvy 
 the foot; Hippocrates the dragoons. The aUIes 
 led by Vosslus and Temple brought up the rear. 
 
 Meanwhile Fame, apprehensive of the coming 
 conflict, flew straight with the news to Jupiter; and 
 Momus, patron of the Moderns, hied him for aid to 
 the goddess Criticism. 
 
 She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova 
 Zambia ; there Momus found her extended in her den. . . . 
 At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, 
 blind with age; at her left, Pride her mother, dressing her 
 up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. There was 
 Opinion, her sister, light of foot, hoodwinked and headstrong, 
 yet giddy and perpetually turning. About her played her 
 children, Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Posi- 
 tiveness. Pedantry and Ill-Manners. The goddess herself 
 had eyes like a cat; . . . Her eyes turned inward as if she 
 looked on herself. 
 
 Upon hearing Momus- message up rose the god- 
 dess in a rage : 
 
 'Tis I, said she, who give wisdom to infants and idiots; 
 by me children grow wiser than their parents; by me beaux 
 
148 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 become politicians, and school boys judges of philosophy; 
 by me sophisters debate and conclude upon depths of knowl- 
 edge; and coffee-house wits instructed by me can correct an 
 author's style, and display his minutest errors without under- 
 standing a syllable of his matter or his language. . . . 'Tis 
 I who have deposed wit and knowledge from their empire 
 over poetry, and advanced myself in their stead. And shall 
 a few upstart Ancients dare oppose me ? '" 
 
 " The destined hour of Fate being now arrived; 
 the fight began." Aristotle drew his bow at Bacon, 
 but missed the vahant Modern, and the arrow went 
 whizzing over his head. " But Descartes it hit; the 
 Steele point quickly found a defect in his headpiece, 
 . . . and went in at his right eye. The torture of 
 pain whirled the valiant bowman 'round 'til death 
 like a star of superior influence, drew him into his 
 own vortex." 
 
 Then at the head of the cavalry Homer appeared, 
 " on a furious horse, with difficulty managed by the 
 rider himself, but which no other mortal durst ap- 
 proach. He rode among the enemy's ranks, and 
 bore down all before him." ..." First Gondi- 
 bert " he overthrew, horse and man to the ground, 
 " there to be choked in the dirt." Then Denham, a 
 stout modern, " fell and bit the earth." Next 
 " Homer slew Wesley, with a kick of his horse's 
 heel; he took Perrault by mighty force out of his 
 saddle, then hurled him at Fontenelle, with the same 
 blow dashing out both their brains I " 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE 1 49 
 
 . . . Day being far spent, and the numerous forces of 
 the Moderns half inclining to a retreat, there issued forth 
 from ... a squadron, a captain whose name was Bentley, 
 the most deformed of all the Moderns; tall, but without 
 shape or comeliness, large, but without strength or propor- 
 tion. His armour was patched up (rf a thousand incoherent 
 pieces, and the sound of it as he marched, was loud and 
 dffy. . . . The generals made use of him for his talent of 
 raillery, whidi kept within government, proved frequently of 
 great service to their cause; but at other times did more 
 mischief than good ; for at the least touch of offense, ... he 
 would, like a wounded elephant, convert it against his leaders. 
 
 After a quarrel with Scaliger ^° over possession 
 of the spoils, Bentley " choked with spleen and 
 rage," withdrew in quest of great achievement. 
 With him for aid and companionship went his be- 
 loved Wotton. " So marched this lovely, loving, 
 pair of friends " till in the distance they beheld 
 " two shining suits of armour " hanging from an oak, 
 while near at hand their owners Phalaris and Aesop 
 lay fast asleep. As Bentley paused to steal those 
 glorious outfits,®* Wotton passed on to the fountain- 
 head of Helicon. There he discovered the two 
 noble champions Temple and Boyle ; and as the for- 
 mer " drank large draughts of inspired water," 
 the puny Modern timorously took aim. Away the 
 lance went, " hizzing at the belt of the averted 
 Ancient " whence it fell unheeded in impotence to the 
 ground. But the god Apollo, enraged that weapon 
 from so corrupt a hand should pollute his waters, 
 
150 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 commanded Temple's comrade, young Boyle, to take 
 immediate revenge. 
 
 Boyle, clad in a suit of armour which had been given him 
 by all the gods,*^ immediately advanced upon the trembling 
 foe, who now fled before him. As a young lion in the 
 Libyan plains or Araby desert, sent by his aged sire to hunt 
 for prey ... so Wotton fled, so Boyle pursued. But 
 Wotton, heavy armed and slow of foot, began to slack his 
 course, when his lover Bentley appeared, returning laden 
 with the spoils of the two sleeping Ancients. Boyle observed 
 him well, and soon discovering the helmet and shield of 
 Phalaris his friend, both . . . lately with his own hand new 
 polished and gilded; Rage sparkled in his eyes, and leaving 
 his pursuit of Wotton, he furiously rushed out against this 
 new approacher. Fain would he be revenged on both. . . . 
 So Boyle pursued, so fled the pair of friends. Finding at 
 length their flight was vain, they bravely joined and threw 
 themselves in phalanx. . . . Then Boyle, observing well his 
 time, took up a lance of wondrous length and sharpness; and 
 as this pair of friends compacted stood close side by side, he 
 wheeled him to the right, and with unusual force darted the 
 weapon. ... As when a skillful cook has trussed a brace 
 of woodcocks, he with iron skewer pierces the tender sides 
 of both, their legs and wings close pinioned to their ribs; so 
 was this pair of friends transfixed, till down they fell, joined 
 in their lives, joined in their deaths, so closely joined that 
 Charon would mistake them both for one, and waft them 
 over Styx for half his fare. Farewell beloved loving pair! 
 Few equals have you left behind; and happy and immortal 
 shall you be, if all my wit and eloquence can make you so. 
 
The literary phase t^i 
 
 The Battle of the Books was the last significant 
 work published in England upon the merits of the 
 Ancients and Moderns. It may well have appeared 
 to readers then as now, that nothing more remained 
 to be said. To measure the influence of Swift's 
 Satire upon the controversy, would be futile as well 
 as impossible. It flashes out at the culmination of 
 the conflict like a brilliant searchlight on the river 
 illuminating for the moment the solid substructure 
 of Bentley and Wotton ; and despite its partisan 
 nature, it remains as a contribution to the cause of 
 sane judgment and unbiased perspective in any age. 
 
IV 
 
 THE LITERARY PHASE (CONTINUED) 
 — FONTENELLE 
 
IV 
 
 THE LITERARY PHASE (CONTINUED) 
 — FONTENELLE 
 
 It will be recalled that in the writings of the great 
 Descartes half a century earlier, England's sister 
 kingdom had discovered those dynamic ideas which 
 broke the spell of the classics in Philosophy and 
 Science, and directed French thought into new un- 
 charted seas. It was by one of those paradoxes so 
 common in the history of the intellect, that at the 
 very moment when France was repudiating the old 
 authorities in Metaphysics and Physics, she was in 
 Poetry and Oratory placing herself under the dom- 
 inance of that literary regime designated later as the 
 Classical Era of Louis Fourteenth. The same pe- 
 riod which witnessed the foundation of the French 
 Academy of Sciences,^ saw also the culmination of 
 the work of Boileau, of Racine, of Moliere. Their 
 ideals of literary form were assumed to be modeled 
 upon the Classics, while very many of their themes 
 certainly were inspired by pagan literature. One 
 might even go so far as to state that the whole 
 scheme of Neo-Classicism was the result of a pushing 
 to the extreme those tenets of correct form derived 
 
 ISS 
 
156 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 from the Ancients, until the French out-classicized 
 the classics themselves. It will be recalled also that 
 it was Boileau and Racine who flew to the rescue 
 when the first light missiles of attack assailed the 
 armour of the ancient gods. Thus the student of 
 thought is safe in assuming that the influence of 
 classical standards upon French taste was at its 
 height when the famous revolt of Perrault and Fotl- 
 tenelle occurred. 
 
 Severed from petty detail and regarded in per- 
 spective, the criticism of clasisical authors entailed in 
 this insurrection, implied merely an extension of the 
 spirit and method of Descartes. The event was 
 inevitable, and the circumstances attending it al- 
 though interesting, are accidental. For the whole 
 episode was an outcome of that new spirit which 
 with the prescient vision of Bacon entered into the 
 history of thought. One Frenchman there was 
 among the contestants, whose long life and varied 
 personality covered and embodied the multiple ex- 
 pressions of the new attitude. That orientation of 
 ideas which in England produced a Bentley, in 
 France produced a Fontenelle. Therefore it is, that 
 a study of the life and writings of this author reveals 
 in miniature all important phases of thought con- 
 nected with the classical defection in France. 
 
 When the amiable Charles Perrault in January, 
 1687, read before the French Academy his little 
 poem upon the Ancients and Moderns, the nascent 
 hostility between the two factions leaped into life. 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 57 
 
 " La belle antiquite, fut toujours venerable, 
 
 [declaimed Perrault] 
 Mais je^ne cms jamais qu'elle fut adorable. 
 
 Je vois les anciens sans plier genoux ; 
 
 lis sont grand, il est vrai, mais hommes comme nous." 
 
 Perrault then compared the ages of Pericles and 
 Augustus with that of Louis Fourteenth, and extoll- 
 ing the vastness of modern discovery, pointed out 
 the gross errors under which the Ancients laboured, 
 and from which man had but recently recovered : 
 
 " Dans I'enclos incertain de ce vaste univers, 
 
 Mille mondes nouveaux ont ete decouverts, 
 
 Et de nouveaux soleils, quand la nuit tend ses voiles 
 
 figalent desormais le nombre des etoiles . . . 
 
 L'homme de mille erreurs autrefois prevenu, 
 
 Et malgre son savoir a lui-meme inconnu. . . ." 
 
 This composition, inciting to anger the devotees 
 of Ancient Poetry in the Academy, produced the 
 famous quarrel participated in by Racine, and ren- 
 dered piquant by the epigrams of Boileau. Passing 
 over the negligible events of that tempest in a tea- 
 pot, we may proceed to examine those vital ideas 
 which lay behind the skirmish, and which are signifi- 
 cant in relation to classical criticism. These ideas, 
 as previously stated, may best be apprehended 
 throligh the life and writings of Fontenelle. 
 
 As we turn to the works of that gifted stylist, we 
 discover an intellect embodying the scientific ideal. 
 It is in his labour for the French Academy of 
 
158 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 Sciences that this spirit shines preeminent; and in 
 the Preface to its memorable History are found the 
 grave and beautiful words which form the keynote 
 of his life : ^ 
 
 On a quitte une physique sterile, et qui depuis plusieurs 
 siecles en etait toujours au meme point; le regne des mots 
 et des termes est passe, on veut choses ; on etablit des principes 
 que Ton entend, on les suit; et de la vient qu'on avance. 
 L'autorite a cesse d'avoir plus de poids que la raison; ce qui 
 etait regu sans contradiction, parce qu'il 1' etait depuis long- 
 temps, est presentement examine et souvent rejete." 
 
 It was the above principle relentlessly applied in 
 all fields of thought, which became the motive force 
 of Fontenelle's activity. Through it, fearless and 
 devoid of reverence, he approached each hoary insti- 
 tution and subjected it to the test. Through it he 
 foresaw that infinite vista of progress which a gen- 
 eration later Inspired Condorcet. Through it he 
 tore the veil from religious mystery and exposed it 
 to the light. By an extension of this same prindple 
 he advanced to the domain of classic literature and 
 penetrated the nebulous englamoured atmosphere 
 which for centuries had enveloped it. This too must 
 be submitted to the test of science, and satisfy the 
 challenge of reason, of law, and of progress. Hence 
 approaching every heroic concept expressed In the 
 Greek and Roman language, he stripped it of mag^c 
 and subjected it to pitiless scrutiny. That to rob 
 life of illusion is to despoil it of verity, and that 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 159 
 
 everything human is what it is, plus its potential 
 something more, Fontenelle did not see. Nor did 
 he realize that a literature expressive of emotion can 
 no more be bound by inflexible rule than life can so be 
 bound. This astigmia, the reader comes to feel, was 
 Fontenelle's limitation; but his outlook was consist- 
 ent, and if impotent to discern the glamour of " Old 
 unhappy far-off things, and battles long ago," he yet 
 boldly visualized the progress of those ideas which 
 led to the Encyclopedists and intellectual emancipa- 
 tion at the end. ' 
 
 In Nouveaux Dialogues des Morts,^ 1683, we find 
 Fontenelle's earliest and most flippant examination 
 of ancient culture. The derision in this work is 
 directed not against any specific deficiency, but 
 against the whole content of classic myth and story. 
 Legends of the gods, achievements of heroes, the 
 charm of beauty half divine — all are swept into one 
 scathing fire of ridicule. Borne on by the spell of 
 his sprightly style, the reader laughs with the author 
 until a whole Wonder-World lies despoiled at his 
 feet. 
 
 The first dialogue opens with a conversation be- 
 tween Alexander the Great and Phryne in which they 
 compare the merits of their respective occupations 
 upon earth. At Alexander's somewhat scoffing 
 comment upon the great beauty's vocation she re- 
 torts that it was as good as his own, and far less 
 destructive; she declares that only beauty could re- 
 pair the desolation which his valour wrought: 
 
l6o THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 And you are mightily satisfied that you made a desert of 
 the best part of the Earth ? . . . I know what you are going 
 to say now ; Greece, Asia, Persia, The Indies, all these make a 
 fine show. But then let me only take from you what you 
 have a right to, and distribute fairly to your officers, your 
 common soldiers, and to fortune herself, their proper shares of 
 the Glory, and do you think this won't take you down a little, 
 and make you something more slender? Now a handsome 
 woman owes her conquests to herself, and nobody comes in 
 for a share with her. . . . But to run raving up and down 
 and not know whither, to fight and take towns and not know 
 why; and to be always in a hurry of action about nobody 
 knows what ; 'tis this has offended the men of sober sense. 
 
 " Sober Sense " again derides the pretense of great 
 conquerors, in the dialogue between Augustus and 
 Peter Aretin,* where the latter jeers at the " fustian 
 praises " heaped upon the Roman monarch, and de- 
 clares that in his day, instead of bestowing pane- 
 gyrics upon rulers, he lampooned them. In satire 
 one may respect the person attacked, but in flattery 
 " one cannot avoid having mean thoughts of the 
 persons they are put upon, and taking them in one's 
 heart for downright bubbles." 
 
 I wonder with what face Virgil could tell you it was a 
 matter of debate what place you would accept of among the 
 Gods ; whether you'd be pleased to take upon you the charge 
 of the Earth, or become a God of the Sea, by espousing one 
 of the daughters of Thetis who would willingly give all her 
 waters for the honour of your alliance? Or in fine, whether 
 you would take up your apartment in Heaven near the 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE l6l 
 
 Scorpion . . . who upon your approach would contract his 
 claws to make room for you? 
 
 Augustus sagely replies that " Alas I Vanity has 
 a thousand shifts." But that in one sense he has 
 suffered for his fame ; for later and mf erior princes 
 have often been compared with him. Peter rejoins 
 that he may take comfort. For " Louis XIV, now 
 reigning in France, . . . will be looked upon here- 
 after as the model of princes, and I foresee that in 
 future times the highest compliment that can be 
 made them will be to compare them to this mighty 
 prince." ^ 
 
 In the same spirit, reverence for Homer and the 
 lofty themes of the Trojan War are turned into con- 
 tempt. Aesop comments upon the fact that all the 
 virtuosos of his day asserted that Homer had im- 
 plied great mysteries in his works : 
 
 There was not a line in The Iliad nor the Odyssey but 
 they fitted it with the quaintest allegories in the World. 
 They maintained that there was no secret in Divinity, nat- 
 ural and moral Philosophy, and the Mathematics to boot, 
 but was fairly implied in your Writings. Some difficulty 
 there was in unraveling; and it may be where one sophister 
 had found a moral meaning, another discovered a natural one. 
 But they agreed in this, that you knew all things, and said 
 all things, to those of an enlightened understanding. 
 
 Homer replies: 
 
 Without lying, I always suspected some people would spy 
 out mysteries in my works that I never apprehended myself. 
 
1 62 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 . . . There's no way like uttering fables without design, and 
 leaving the Allegory to be made hereafter. 
 
 [Aesop] How! Pray what do you say for the brawls 
 of your Deities, that maim one another? Your thundering 
 Jupiter that in a full convocation of the Gods, threatens the 
 august Juno to curry her into better manners ; and that same 
 Bully Mars, who when he was wounded by Diomedes roared 
 out full as loud as nine thousand men, yet shew'd not the 
 courage of one. For instead of hewing all the Greeks into 
 shivers, his head's taken up about his wound, and making his 
 Misereres to Jupiter. Do you think all this could have 
 passed muster without allegory? 
 
 [Homer] Why not, I pray ? . . . Men, it seems, are well 
 enough pleased th|t their gods should be as great fools as 
 themselves ; but by no means that the beasts should be as wise. 
 
 Likewise the comments of Helen and Fulvia upon 
 the Trojan War are of a nature calculated to make 
 Sir William Temple gasp. The peerless heroine of 
 the Iliad, and the subject of Isocrates' Encomium, is 
 pictured in a bourgeois conversation with Fulvia in 
 which the latter expatiates: 
 
 In earnest, I think they were all out of their wits, both 
 Greeks and Trojans. The first were mad for demanding 
 you, and the others yet madder for keeping you. How in 
 the name of wonder could so many men of worth sacrifice 
 themselves to the pleasures of an inconsiderate young rake. 
 ... I could not forbear laughing when I read that passage 
 in Homer, where after nine years' war and a late battle in 
 which a world of men were lost, a council is held before 
 Priam's palace. There Antenor is for resigning you, and 
 there was nothing that I can see to be opposed to it. . . . 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 63 
 
 However Paris is pleased to signify that he does by no means 
 approve the proposal. And Priam, who (if you take 
 Homer's word for it) is a match for the Gods in wisdom, 
 being in a might perplexity . . . gives orders that they should 
 all adjourn and be gone to supper. . . . 
 
 'Tis very necessary for the honour of the most virtuous 
 events that the causes of them should be concealed. 
 
 As the characters of gods and heroes are rendered 
 ridiculous, so is the lofty tradition of virtue among 
 classic women. Lucretia is cynically criticised for 
 not committing suicide more promptly; Fulvia is por- 
 trayed as inciting Marc Antony to Civil War be- 
 cause Augustus " was too nice." ^ Dido in a con- 
 versation with Stratonice is in high dudgeon becaiise 
 Virgil has depicted her as in love with Aeneas, 
 whereas in real life she had burned herself alive in 
 order to avoid a second marriage : 
 
 A certain Poet named Virgil has been pleas'd to transform 
 me from a grave discreet person into ah arrant coquette that 
 lets herself run mad for the handsome mien of a stranger the 
 first day she sees him. All my History's turn'd topsie- 
 turvey. . . . 
 
 [Stratonice] For my part, you must excuse me if I would 
 not be bound to answer for you upon the credit of your 
 Wood-pile. Why so hasty? Has he buffooned you? or 
 made you talk like a Fool? 
 
 [Dido] Nay, far enough from that; it's the finest part of 
 the poem, where I make my appearance. ... I am very 
 handsome ... and I say the finest things in the world. 
 ■ [Stratonice] I'll not meddle with the controversy. . . . 
 
164 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 But I'm sure in common conversation, the first question 
 people ask about a woman ... is this ... is she hand- 
 some? The second — Has she wit? And it's very rare for 
 them to asl:: a third ! 
 
 The vanity of ancient philosophers and the sharp 
 contrast between their pretentious theory and actual 
 life is pointed out in Anacreon and Aristotle, where 
 the great Stagirite contemptuously sniffs at the 
 lyrist : 
 
 I could never have imagined that a little scribbler of 
 sonnets would have dared to rank himself with a philosopher 
 of my great reputation. And the poet retorts : — 
 
 You make a very lofty sound with that word philosopher 
 methinks; yet your humble servant, with his little sonnets, 
 made a shift to get the name of the Wise Anacreon. 
 
 Upon Aristotle's enquiring what he has ever done 
 to merit so great an honour, the poet replies : 
 
 Nothing but drink and be merry, sing songs, and make 
 love; and here's the wonder that at this price I purchased 
 the name of Wise, whereas it cost you a world of pains to 
 get only that of Philosopher: For how many whole nights 
 have you sat up beating your brains and winnowing dry 
 distinctions, and crabbed questions in Logic? How many 
 huge unwieldy volumes have you compared upon dark notions 
 that perhaps you yourself ne'er understood with all your 
 poring? . . . To be able to drink and sing like me, one must 
 have disengaged one's soul. 
 
 The Divine Plato likewise is pictured as having 
 undergone complete transformation in the Lower 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 165 
 
 World. In a tete-a-tete with Margaret of Scotland, 
 he confides to that purring idealist that he has utterly 
 changed his mind about Platonic love. Margaret 
 reproaches him : 
 
 You certainly meant some other than the common Love, 
 since you have so gloriously described the journeys made by 
 wing'd souls in chariots to the extreme Vault of Heaven 
 where they contemplate Beauty in its Essence ; their unhappy 
 fall from so vast an elevation to the distant earth occasion'd 
 by the unruliness of their horses ; the tearing of their wings ; 
 . . . The recovery of their wings which begin to shoot out 
 again, and with which they endeavour a flight toward what 
 they love. . . J 
 
 [Plato] Upon my honest word now, all this well under- 
 stood , . . signifies in plain speech no more than that hand- 
 some persons are apt to inspire a thousand transports. ... 
 
 [Margaret] How? Is this Plato? 
 
 [Plato] The very same. 
 
 [She] What, Plato? With his square shoulders, his 
 grave air, and all the Philosophy he carried in his head? 
 
 [He] Ay. 
 
 Even the martyr Socrates is included in the rail- 
 lery, and becomes a humorous illustration of the 
 adulation heaped upon Ancients by Moderns. Our 
 old favourite Montaigne but recently arrived in 
 Hades, and rejoicing in his opportunity to meet a 
 " genuine Ancient Philosopher . . . from such a 
 happy age," seeks out the Athenian. Socrates hos- 
 pitably welcoming the newcomer, enquires if the 
 world is not mightily improved since his day. Mon- 
 
1 66 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 taigne, astounded, declares that on the contrary it 
 has grown ten times more foolish and corrupt. 
 Socrates surprised inquires: 
 
 What! have not men by this time shaken off the follies 
 of Antiquity? 
 
 [Montaigne] You're an Ancient yourself, and for that 
 reason I suppose may make so bold with Antiquity. But be 
 assured that men's manners are at present a large subject of 
 lamentation, and that all things degenerate daily. 
 
 [Socrates] Is it possible? I thought in my time things 
 went as perversely as could be, and was in hopes that at 
 last they would fall into a more reasonable train — and that 
 men would have made their advantage of so many years' ex- 
 perience. 
 
 [Montaigne] Alas! What regard have they to exper- 
 ience? Like silly birds they suffer themselves to be taken 
 in the same nets that have caught a hundred thousand of their 
 kind already. 
 
 [Socrates] But what's the reason of this? I should 
 think that surely the world in its old age ought to become 
 wiser and more regular than 'twas in its youth. 
 
 Montaigne replies that men never learn, and that 
 reason has no power over inclination. Modern 
 times have produced no Aristides, no Phocion, no 
 Pericles, nor ... a Socrates. 
 
 [Socrates] Take care you are not deceived. Had you 
 known Aristides, Phocion, Pericles and myself . . . you 
 would certainly have found some to match us in your own 
 age. . . . Thus when we lived we esteemed our ancestors 
 more than they deserved, and in requital, our posterity esteem 
 us . . . more than we deserve. Yet our ancestors, and we. 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 67 
 
 and our posterity are all upon the level. . . . The heart, 
 which is the man himself, does not change at all. 
 
 In other discussions, Brutus is reproached for 
 murdering Caesar; Paracelsus is jeered at for assum- 
 ing a Latin name ; and Michael Angelo tricks Raph- 
 ael with the figure of Bacchus. " Here comes 
 prejudice to my aid, and tells me that a fine statue 
 must needs be an antique; this is a decision, and I 
 give judgment." Moliere in argument with Para- 
 celsus ridicules our innate love of mystery, and man's 
 pursuit of the Unknowable, when 
 
 There are real objects, which if it pleased, would find him 
 sufficient employment. . . . And I'm persuaded that if most 
 people saw the Order of the Universe such as it is without 
 observing the virtue of numbers, the properties of planets, and 
 fatalities link'd to certain Periods or certain Revolutions, 
 they would not be able to forbear saying of this admirable 
 Order, "What! Is this all? "« 
 
 In the final Dialogue between Cortez and Monte- 
 zuma, the haughty conqueror reproaches the Mex- 
 ican with the stupidity of the " Americans " who 
 " imagined the Spaniards were descended from the 
 Region of Fire because of their cannon," and 
 " thought their ships vast birds that flew upon the 
 sea." Montezuma replies that his countrymen 
 showed no greater credulity than the Athenians who 
 allowed Pisistratus to deceive them by dressing up 
 a woman as the goddess Minerva, at whose com- 
 mand they received him back into the city. Nor 
 
1 68 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 was their superstition worse than that of the Greeks 
 who believed the knowledge of futurity to be . in- 
 closed in a cave under ground; and that when the 
 moon was in eclipse she could be recovered " out of 
 her fits " " by a hideous noise." Montezuma then 
 clinches the argument by reminding Cortez of " the 
 Holy Chickens, whose appetite decided everything 
 in the Capital City of the whole Earth," and con- 
 cludes that for every " piece of American folly " 
 the Romans and Greeks had an equal. " 'Twas our 
 happiness not to have known there were Sciences 
 in the world; we should not perhaps else have had 
 prudence to forbear being learned." ® 
 
 Throughout the Dialogues, one recognizes that 
 Fontenelle's attack upon the sanctities of ancient 
 culture springs not from a spirit of malevolence, but 
 rather from an intellectual temper, keen, enquiring, 
 and analytical. The fact that the absurdities ex- 
 posed are not the essential element of classical con- 
 tent, does not diminish their impressiveness ; while 
 as a byjproduct of his investigation, there is thrown 
 into the limelight the tinsel of that ever-present 
 class who capitulate to prejudice and desert reason. 
 One feels, however, that the last-named result was 
 not a vital object of the work. The little book is, 
 rather, a natural fruit of Fontenelle's lively mind at 
 play upon a set of cut-and-dried concepts which lured 
 him to examination. 
 
 The same temper of enquiry directed toward other 
 Idols of the Tribe produced three years later his 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 69 
 
 Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes, (1686) the 
 Histoire des Oracles, (1687) znd De L'Ortgine des 
 Fables.^^ The first of these works seeks to pene- 
 trate the nature of the universe by the' light of new 
 discoveries in the place of ancient preconceptions. 
 The dominant note of the book is that of a limitless 
 opening out of human possibilities and a limitless 
 progress, conceived through the liberation of the 
 intellect by the revolutionizing knowledge recently 
 attained.^^ To Fbntenelle's perception, the en- 
 cramping fetters which man's mind had burst asunder 
 were the time-honoured dogmas of classical civiliza- 
 tion; and one object of the Entretiens is to make 
 clear to ordinary thinkers the obsoleteness of these 
 fallacies, and to induce . the substitution of New 
 Science in their stead.^^ Thus the book conjoins 
 with the development of classical criticism. 
 
 In his sprightly conversations with the charming 
 brunette, solicitude for whose instruction inspires the 
 work, Fontenelle ranges at large over the absurdity 
 of those theories so many centuries cherished as final. 
 He ridicules ancient philosophical explanations re- 
 garding the mechanism of the universe ; he deplores 
 that infatuation for the mysterious and remote which 
 led men to obscure simple truth ; he exposes to laugh- 
 ter those fatuous inventions of Greek scientists con- 
 cerning the appearance of new phenomena in the sky. 
 He emphasizes the intellectual limitation of a people 
 so grossly ignorant of Geography as the Romans, 
 and comments upon the egotism of an attitude which 
 
170 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 regarded the whole universe subjectively, while con- 
 ceiving no idea of change, or transformation and 
 growth to something better than itself. Good- 
 humouredly jesting at the complacency of the Mod- 
 erns who still offer incense at the shrine of the 
 Ancients, he infuses into the work an ideal of infinite 
 Progress through infinite reaches of time.*' The 
 vitality of his comments may best be appreciated by 
 direct quotations. 
 
 With regard to the efforts of Greek sages to ex- 
 plain natural phenomena, he notes : 
 
 In thinking on this subject, nature always appears to me 
 from the same point of view as theatrical representations. . . . 
 Figure to yourself as spectators of an opera, the Pytha- 
 go rases, the Platos, the Aristotles ; all these men whose names 
 are now so celebrated. Let us suppose them viewing the 
 flight of Phaeton, rising on the wind ; ignorant at the same 
 time of the construction of the theatre and the cords by which 
 the figure is put in motion. One, to explain the phenomenon 
 says, " It is some hidden virtue in Phaeton which causes him 
 to rise " ; another replies, " Phaeton is composed of certain 
 numbers which produce his elevation." A third says " Phae- 
 ton has a love for the top of the stage; he is uneasy at any 
 other part." The fourth thinks, " It is not essential to the 
 nature of Phaeton to rise in the air, but he prefers flying up 
 to leaving a vacuum at the top of the stage." Such were 
 the ridiculous notions of ancient philosophers, which to my 
 astonishment, have not ruined the reputation of antiquity.^* 
 
 In criticising the facility with which they invented 
 astronomical theories, he remarks: 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 171 
 
 The philosophers to explain some particular motion of the 
 jbeavenly bodies, placed beyond the heaven that bounds our 
 view a sky of crystal which communicated this motion to the 
 ||ower sky. Was a new movement discovered? They had 
 nothing to do but form a second crystal firmament. In short 
 skies of crystal were made without any trouble. ... It was 
 necessary to have a substance at once transparent and solid, 
 for it was Aristotle's opinion that solidity was essential to the 
 tligjnity of their nature, and as this vras believed by a great 
 man, nobody thought of doubting it.*' 
 
 Of their absurd beliefs concerning the heavenly 
 bodies, he writes: 
 
 A great philosopher of- ancient times had informed us that 
 the moon was the dwelling of souls who had on earth ren- 
 dered themselves worthy of very exalted happiness. He sup- 
 poses that their felicity consists in listening to the music of 
 the spheres ; but that when the moon comes under the shadow 
 of the earth, they are no longer able to hear die celestial har- 
 mony, at which time they utter the most piercing cries, and 
 the moon hastens on as fast as possible to relieve them from 
 this agonizing situation.** 
 
 A certain author who believes that the moon is inhabited 
 tells us very seriously that it was impossible for Aristotle 
 to avoid receiving so rational an opinion, (could Aristotle 
 be ignorant of any truth?) but that he never disclosed it for 
 fear of displeasing Alexander who would have been miserable 
 to hear of a world that he could not subjugate.'' 
 
 The epoch-long superstition and credulity of the 
 Moderns with regard to classical lore is arraigned 
 as follows: 
 
172 THE BATTLE OF THE BCX)K8 
 
 The generality are allectcd only by the obicurc and mar- 
 velous. They admire Nature merely because they consider 
 it a sort of Magic, something too occult for the understand- 
 ing to reach: to them a thing appears contemptible as uxm 
 as they find the possibility of explaining its nature,'* 
 
 Again, 
 
 The Chinese are gainers by being at so great a distance 
 from us, as the Greeks and RcXnans were by bf ing separated 
 by a long space of time ; whatever is remote assume* the right 
 of imposing on us. 
 
 Fontenelle'* comments upon the geographical 
 limitation of the Ancients may have had their inspira- 
 tion from Bacon: 
 
 Remember the earth has been made icnown to us by little 
 and little. The ancients positively asserted that the torrid 
 and frozen zones were uninhabitable from the excessive heat 
 of the one, and cold of the other; and in the time of the 
 Romans the general chart of the world was made little larger 
 than that of their own empire ; this at once showed the grand 
 idea they had of themselves and their extreme ignorance of 
 the earth. ... At one time, it was believed that the ocean 
 covered every part of the earth except what was then kn«wn. 
 Antipodes had never been heard of, and who could imagin*: 
 that men would be able to walk with their heads downwards? 
 Yet after all, the antipodes were found out. Now the map 
 must be altered ; a new half added to the earth ! . . , These 
 antipodes so unexpectedly disclosed should teadi us to 
 think modestly of our own attainments: we may yet know 
 much of our own world, and then become acquainted with the 
 new moon ; till that time, we must not expect it, because our 
 knowledge is progressive.'* 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 173 
 
 No quality of ancient learning so moved our 
 Academician to impatience as its static nature, and 
 conception of the unalterability of the universe. He 
 declares : 
 
 The Ancients were so vastly wise as to imagine the heav- 
 enly bodies were of such a nature as never to alter because 
 they had not observed any alteration in them. Had they 
 leisure to assure themselves of this by experience? Com- 
 pared with us the Ancients were young; if flowers that last 
 but a day were to transmit their histories to each other, the 
 first would draw the resemblance of their gardener in a 
 certain way; after fifteen thousand ages of these flowers had 
 elapsed, others would still describe him in the same manner. 
 They would say, " We have always had the same gardener ; 
 the memoirs composed by our ancestors prove this to be the 
 case; all their representations exactly apply to him; surely 
 he is not mortal lilce us; no change will ever take place in 
 him." Would the reasoning of these flowers be conclusive? 
 It would have better foundation than that of the ancients 
 respecting the celestial bodies; and had there never to this 
 day been observed any change in the heavens, ... I would 
 not yet decide upon them; I should think more experience 
 necessary. Should the term of our existence, which is but 
 a moment, be the measure for other durations? Ought we 
 to assert that what has lasted a hundred thousand times 
 longer than we, must last for ever? No, ages on ages of 
 our duration would scarcely be any indication of immor- 
 tality.'"' 
 
 Over against this static conception is placed the 
 vision of limitless human progress unfolding through 
 the evolution of the worlds: 
 
174 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 The Europeans ... did not find their way to America 
 till six thousand years had elapsed ; they were all that time in 
 learning the art of navigation so completely as to pass over 
 the ocean. . . . 
 
 We do more than conjecture the probability of rising in 
 the air. . . . We have actually begun to fly. Several per- 
 sons have discovered a method of fixing on wings . . . and 
 by their assistance flying over rivers; these new fashioned 
 birds did not to be sure soar like the eagles; . . . but how- 
 ever, these attempts answer to the first piece of wood launched 
 into the water, and served for the commencement of naviga- 
 tion. . . . The art of flying is but in its infancy; in due time 
 it will be brought to perfection, and some day or other we 
 shall get to the moon. Can we pretend to know everything? 
 to have made every possible discovery? Pray let us give 
 posterity leave to make some improvements as well as our- 
 selves.^^ 
 
 As one concludes a survey of the material in the 
 Conversations, one suddenly realizes that Sir Wil- 
 liam Temple's criticism ^* that the work contains no 
 original ideas, is justifiable, and that one has en- 
 countered only a new presentation of earlier discov- 
 ered truths. Yet the book doubtless served a more 
 important function in the history of thought than 
 many more original compositions. For its special 
 mission was to popularize the discoveries of the New 
 Astronomy, and by so doing weaken the tenacious 
 grasp of the public upon that older Ptolemaic body 
 of ideas, which prejudice and habit of thought ren- 
 dered so precious. That the Conversations affected 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 75 
 
 this work the testimony of contemporary English 
 and French writers bears abundant witness.''^ 
 
 In the following year there appeared the little 
 book whose grave and dignified style is in such strik- 
 ■;ing contrast to the earlier flippancy of Dialogues des 
 'Morts.'^* Viewed from the angle of classical crit- 
 icism the Histoire des Oracles is an extension of 
 Fontenelle's scientific investigation into the field of 
 pagan superstitions.*' Dispelling the halo of poetry 
 and religion, he subjects oracular legends to critical 
 historic research. Going back to the time of Homer 
 and Hesiod, he traces the evolution of the use of 
 oracles through Greek and Roman life until their 
 transposition into the mechanism of the Christian 
 Church. His conclusion is that Oracles were at no 
 time under the inspiration of supernatural agency, 
 but that from the beginning, pagan priests using 
 them as an instrumentality, made men the dupes of 
 their own credulity and ignorance. The significance 
 of the work lies in its effort to draw into popular 
 cognizance and to weaken the hold of, one more set 
 of " prejudices " derived from the Classics. The 
 author's own words best reveal this purpose : 
 
 " It is not my design to treat of the history of 
 Oracles directly; I propose only to refute the com- 
 mon opinion which attributes them to demons, and 
 holds that they ceased to exist with the advent of 
 Jesus Christ. But in refuting this belief, it will be 
 necessary to write the entire history of Oracles, and 
 to explain their origin, their progress, the different 
 
176 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 forms which they have assumed, and finally their 
 decadence, with the same exactness as if I were treatr 
 ing of these topics in a natural and historical 
 order." *« 
 
 As a companion to this dissertation should be 
 placed the little treatise, De VOrigine de Fables, in 
 which, stripping from these tales the cloak of 
 mystery and imagination, he endeavours to prove 
 them the outcome of sheer primordial barbarism. 
 That man has later read into them allegory and 
 moral, is due to his own superstition and credulity 
 of the past. Here again the author's keynote is 
 struck — the elimination of prejudice and the duty of 
 man to free his mind from these ancient fetters of 
 fear which have robbed him of intellectual liberty. 
 In establishing his conviction, he asserts : 
 
 On attribue ordinairment I'origine des fables a ['imag- 
 ination vive des Orientaux; pour moi, je I'attribue a I'ignor- 
 ance des premiers hommes.^' 
 
 Toutes les metamorphoses sont la physique de ces premier 
 temps. Les mures sont rouges, parce qu'elles sont teintes 
 du sang d'un amant et d'une amante ; la perdrix vole toujours 
 terre a terre, parce que Dedale, qui fut change en perdrix, se 
 souvenait du malheur de son fils qui avait vole trop haut ; et 
 ainsi du reste^* 
 
 La second principe qui sert beaucoup a nos erreurs, est le 
 respect aveugle de I'antiquite. Nos peres I'ont cru; pre- 
 tendrions-hous etre plus sages qu'eux ? ^° 
 
 Mais que ne peuvent point les esprits follement amoureux 
 de I'antiquite? On va s'imaginer que sous ces fables sont 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 77 
 
 caches les secrets de la physique et de la morale. . . . Le nom 
 des.anciens impose toujours: mais assurement ceux qui ont 
 fait les fables n'etaient pas gens a savoir de la morale ou de la 
 physique, ni a trouver I'art de les deguiser sous des images 
 empruntees.'" « 
 
 Ne cherchons done autre chose dans les fables, que I'his- 
 toire des erreurs de I'esprit humain. II en es moins capable, 
 des qu'il sait a quel point il Test. . . . Tous les hommes, 
 se riessemblent si fort, qu'il n'y a point de peuple dont les 
 sottises ne nous doivent faire trembler.'^ 
 
 It was in 1788 that there appeared from Fonten- 
 elle's pen the little volume which contained the crys- 
 tallization of his conviction regarding classical liter- 
 ature.*^ In his Digression sur les Anciens et les 
 Modernes we find clarified and condensed the im- 
 pressions of the author upon this subject which were 
 scattered at large in earlier writings. Likewise the 
 Discourse, brief though it is, embodies in miniature 
 almost all of the important views upon the same 
 topic held by the writer's contemporary Moderns in 
 France. Hence the Digression may be fittingly used 
 as the culmination of our review of the era of Louis 
 XIV. 
 
 As the reader dips into the pages of this little 
 pamphlet, there is again borne home to him the 
 conviction that it is not so much the originality of 
 the material as the author's felicitous and compre- 
 hensive expression, coupled with his sweeping out- 
 look upon the future, which gives the work signifi- 
 cance. One would be tempted to declare that Font- 
 
178 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 enelle's immortality lay in his style, did not one 
 pause to reflect that the ability to synthesize, to clar- 
 ify, and to hit the nail of expression exactly on the 
 head, is one quality of genius. 
 
 We are led happily into the topic by a comparison 
 of the successive stages of history with nature. The 
 author first establishes the hypothesis that nature 
 does not retrograde in any of her material processes, 
 and therefore not in the production of men. Upon 
 this foundation the theory is advanced that in 
 intellectual attainment, each epoch of history pro- 
 gresses beyond the preceding epoch because man has 
 inherited the whole experience of the past, plus an 
 emancipation from many of its errors. Application 
 of this theory of Progress is then made to the fields 
 of ancient poetry, oratory, miscellaneous literature, 
 and science. 
 
 In setting forth his first hypothesis, the author 
 tells us that since Nature has not exhausted her 
 power to produce trees equal to those of earlier ages, 
 it is absurd to reason that she has drained herself of 
 the energy to engender peerless men. Those Mod- 
 erns who maintain that all great Originals were the 
 fruit of ancient days, and regard their thinkers as 
 almost of another species, should be upon their 
 guard. For science does not justify these attractive 
 phrases. It holds rather that Nature has within 
 herself a certain constitution which is always the 
 same, and which ceaselessly fashions and refashions 
 into a thousand forms, men, animals, and plants; 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 79 
 
 thus we may be assured that Plato, Demosthenes and 
 Homer were not formed of finer or better clay than 
 philosophers, orators, and poets of the present time.** 
 In making this statement one does not deny that 
 there are differences in the intellects of men, as there 
 are dissimilarities in plants. The soil of France may 
 not be adapted to the Egyptian method of reasoning 
 any more than to the cultivation of her palms. Just 
 as the oranges of Italy are peculiar to herself, so is 
 her native type of genius. It may be true also that 
 through the interdependence of all parts of the 
 material world, climate as it affects plants, affects the 
 brain of man. This influence is less pronounced, 
 however, because mental qualities are more open to 
 cultivation than an intractable soil; and since ideas 
 are more easily assimilated than vegetation, the 
 French could grasp Italian genius more easily than 
 produce her fruits. The facility with which one 
 mind fashions itself from another causes each people 
 to lose something of the spirit of its original environ- 
 ment; so that in the reading of Greek books, one 
 becomes Greek in proportion as one embraces the 
 Greek spirit. Moreover, in the present discussion 
 it is a fallacy to assert that certain countries are more 
 fitted by nature to produce mental attainment than 
 others, since as a rule each has advantages and disad- 
 vantages which offset others. While some give vi- 
 vacity, others give equity; so that in the case of 
 equally cultivated minds a difference of climate is a 
 negligible quantity. Perhaps there should be men- 
 
l8o THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 tioned as an exception to this rule, the Torrid and 
 two Arctic zones, which hitherto have never pro- 
 duced the Sciences, these latter having been limited 
 to an area between Mt. Atlas and the Baltic Sea. 
 
 Viewed with this geographical and historic baclc- 
 ground, the great question of the Ancients and Mod- 
 erns becomes clear. The lapse of the ages does not 
 make any natural difference between men. "The 
 climates of Greece, Italy, and France are too adja- 
 cent to create any sensible difference between the 
 Greeks, Latins, and ourselves. Moreover did such 
 differences exist, they would be easily effaced, and 
 would be no more to the advantage of the Adriatic 
 countries than to our own. We, therefore, are all 
 perfectly equal — Ancients and Modems — Greeks, 
 Latins, and French.^* 
 
 " I do not assert that this reasoning will appear 
 convincing to everyone. If I had used lofty detours 
 of eloquence; had compared some features of history 
 creditable to the Moderns with others honorable to 
 the Ancients, and had set up in opposition passages 
 favorable to either side, — if I had called those 
 scholars coxcombs who term us ignorant and super- 
 ficial in spirit; and according to established law 
 among men of letters, had rendered abuse for abuse, 
 my arguments might have proved of better relish. 
 But it seemed to me that if I took up the contest in 
 that manner, it would never come to an end; and 
 that after much beautiful declaiming on either side, 
 we should be astonished to find ourselves no whit 
 
THE LITERARY PHASfi — f OMfiNELLE I^I 
 
 advanced. I believe that a more direct course would 
 be to look into the physical side of the question — 
 which method possesses the secret of cutting short 
 disputes which rhetoric renders endless." *' 
 
 Having indulged in this slight digression in favor 
 of science as opposed to rhetoric, Fontenelle resumes 
 the main theme: If once we recognize the natural 
 equality between the Ancients and ourselves, the 
 whole problem vanishes, and one clearly sees that 
 all the dissimilarities, whatever they are, may have 
 been caused by different circumstances, such as the 
 times, the government, and the state of general 
 affairs. The claim so insistently advanced by part- 
 isans of the Ancients that they had so much more 
 inventive power and spirit than we, holds only in 
 that they were our predecessors in time. One might 
 as well extol them for having drunk the first waters 
 of our rivers, and abuse us because we imbibed only 
 what was left. Had we lived in their time, we 
 should have been inventors; had they lived in ours, 
 they would have rejoiced at that which they found 
 already invented : there is no great niystery in that. 
 . . . Archimedes placed in the infancy of the world 
 would have been able to invent only the plough; but 
 born in another age, he burned the vessels of the 
 Romans with his mirrors. — If indeed that report is 
 not all a fable. One might add to the glory of the 
 moderns that early discoveries are more easily made 
 than later, because that which remains for investiga- 
 tion after each achievement, is worn more thread- 
 
1 82 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 bare, and its secrets are more hidden from the eye. 
 To offset this, it might be suggested that while mod- 
 ern research requires a greater effort of mind, yet 
 one finds increased facility for the task, and a mental 
 outlook clarified through work already accom- 
 plished. Thus it is that if we of today surpass the 
 first inventor, it is he who has aided us to go beyond 
 him, and he has always his share in our glory. 
 
 One might even push the justice of this point so 
 far as to compute to the ancients an infinite number 
 of false views which they have held, of bad reason- 
 ings which they have made, and of foolish things 
 which they have uttered. Such is the intellectual 
 condition of man that it does not permit him to ar- 
 rive at once at a reasonable opinion of any question 
 whatever. It is necessary beforehand, that he wan- 
 der about a long time and pass through diverse kinds 
 of errors and diverse stages of foolishness. It 
 should always have been easy, so it seems, for man to 
 perceive that the whole game of Nature consists in 
 the forms and movements of matter. Nevertheless 
 before attaining that he had to try out the Ideas of 
 Plato, the Numbers of Pythagoras, and the Cate-, 
 gories of Aristotle. ... In short we are under ob- 
 ligation to the Ancients for having exhausted a great 
 part of the false ideas possible to be conceived. It 
 was absolutely necessary to pay to error and ignor- 
 ance the debt which they paid, and we ought not to 
 fail in recognition of those who have acquitted us. 
 Thus with minds clarified through the views of the 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 83 
 
 Ancients, and even through their mistakes, it is not 
 surprising that we should surpass them. For merely 
 to equal them would be to imply that we were of a 
 nature far inferior to theirs, and almost that we were 
 not men as well as they.*® 
 
 Nevertheless in order that the Moderns should 
 always improve upon the Ancients, there are needed 
 circumstances of a kind to permit it. Eloquence and 
 poetry require only a certain number of data delim- 
 ited by contact with the other arts, and dependent 
 principally upon vivacity of imagination. Now men 
 should have been able in a few ages to amass those 
 few necessary opinions, while vivacity of imagination 
 does not require long experience nor a great number 
 of rules to perfect itself. But Physics, Medicine 
 and Mathematics are made up of an infinite number 
 of acquired facts and are dependent upon an exact- 
 ness of reasoning which perfects itself with extreme 
 slowness, but approaches nearer perfection always. 
 Moreover this often needs to be aided by experience 
 to which chance alone gives birth, and which was not 
 sought at the instant made. Therefore the last 
 physician or mathematician is naturally the more 
 skillful, and in consequence — the vital principle in 
 philosophy which influences everything — the 
 method of reasoning is most perfected in the present 
 century. 
 
 I doubt, Fontenelle continues, if the majority of 
 people will concede to the remark I am going to 
 make ; yet for the benefit of those who understand 
 
184 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 reasoning I will make it ; and I can boast that for the 
 sake of truth I have courage to expose myself to a 
 not indepracable number of critics. Upon whatever 
 subject It may be, the Ancients are not given to per- 
 fected reasoning. Often there passes among them 
 for proof, feeble expedients, petty analogies, a shal- 
 low play of mind coupled with vague and confused 
 discussion. Thus it costs them nothing to furnish a 
 seeming proof. And what pain do they not cause 
 the poor Modern ? We long that they be intelligi- 
 ble, exact, and come to a conclusion. Before the 
 time of Descartes, men reasoned more comfortably. 
 Past ages were happy in not possessing such a man; 
 for it is he who has introduced the new method of 
 reasoning — more admirable than his philosophy, 
 which has often proved fallacious. As a conse- 
 quence there reigns not only in our best books in 
 Physics and Metaphysics, but in Religion, Morals, 
 and Criticism, a preciseness and balance hitherto 
 little known. Moreover, I am persuaded that this 
 will go farther. We shall some day be Ancients; 
 and will it not be proper that posterity shall In turn 
 correct and surpass us? Especially in the matter 
 of reasoning, which is a science in itself, and that the 
 most difficult and least cultivated of all? 
 
 In regard to eloquence and poesy which are the 
 principal objects of contention — although not in 
 themselves highly important — I believe that the 
 Ancients might perhaps have attained perfection, 
 because as I have said, those subjects require only 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 185 
 
 a few centuries for consummation — precisely how 
 long I do not know. I stated that the Greeks and 
 Latins ought to have been excellent poets and ora- 
 tors; but were they? To clear up that point it 
 would be necessary to go into an infinite discussion, 
 which however just and exact, would never satisfy 
 the partisans of Antiquity; for they are resolved to 
 pardon everything in the ancients and to admire them 
 unres:ervedly. This is particularly the spirit of the 
 commentators, a class the most superstitious of all 
 the ancient cult. What passion so tender and vivid 
 as a Greek or Latin inspires in his respeqtful inter- 
 preter? 
 
 Nevertheless I shall speak a little more definitely 
 on the subject of oratory and poetry: I find that in 
 these the ancients excelled, and that Cicero and 
 Demosthenes are more perfect in their kind than 
 Homer and Vergil in theirs. The reason is natural 
 enough : Rhetoric led in the republics of Greece and 
 among the Romans; it was then as much an advan-, 
 tage to be born with a talent for eloquence as it 
 would be today to be born with an immense income. 
 Poetry on the contrary was worth nothing ; and this is 
 always the case in that kind of a governmenti 
 Again, it appears to me that with the exception of 
 tragedy, the Greeks yield in Poetry and Oratory to 
 the Latins. According to my particular taste Cicero 
 surpassed Demosthenes; Vergil, Theocritus and 
 Homer; Horace improved upon Pindar, and Livy 
 and Tacitus upon the historians of Greece. In the 
 
1 86 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 system which we have established, this was the nat- 
 ural order; the Latins were the Moderns in respect 
 to the Greeks. But since Eloquence and Poesy are 
 sufficiently circumscribed, there should come a time 
 when they reach final perfection ; and I hold that for 
 oratory and history this was the age of Augustus. 
 One can imagine nothing superior to Tacitus and 
 Livy. It is not that they have no faults, but that 
 one cannot conceive of fewer defects with so large a 
 proportion of great qualities. 
 
 The most beautiful versification in the world is 
 that of Vergil. Perhaps, however, it would not 
 have been a bad thing if he had had the leisure to re- 
 touch it. There are some great bits in the Aeneid of 
 a perfect beauty which I do not believe has ever been 
 surpassed. As for the general order of the poem — 
 I should not be much surprised if Vergil were out- 
 done. Our romances, which are poems in prose, 
 have already shown us the possibility. 
 - My design is not to push the criticism farther; I 
 wish merely to make it clear that since the Ancients 
 might have attained perfection in certain things, but 
 did not, we ought in seeking to discover whether they 
 reached perfection, to harbor no blind respect for 
 their great names, and have no indulgence for their 
 faults, but to treat them exactly as Moderns. 
 
 II faut etre capable de dire ou d'entendre dire, sans 
 adoucissement, qu'il y a une impertinence dans Homere ou ; 
 dans Pindare ; il faut avoid la hardiesse de croire que des yeux 
 mortels peuvent apercevoir des defauts dans ces grands : 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 87 
 
 genies ; il f aut pouvoir digerer que Ton compare Demosthene 
 et Ciceron a un homme, qui aura un nom franqais, et peut- 
 ^tre bas: grand et prodigieux effort de raison! " 
 
 ' Upon that subject I cannot restrain a smile at the 
 caprices of men. Prejudice for prejudice, it would 
 be more reasonable to maintain the advantage for 
 our Modems. They ought naturally to have gone 
 beyond the Ancients. That favorable presumption 
 should be the foundation. On the contrary, what 
 are the foundations which men build for the 
 Ancients ? — Their names — tvhich sound greater in 
 our ears for being Greek or Latin; the reputations 
 which they had of being the first men of their age; 
 the number of their admirers which has had time to 
 increase through the long succession of years. All 
 that considered, we ought still more to be prepos- 
 sessed for the Moderns ; but men, not satisfied to give 
 the preference to prejudice over reason, go on to 
 choose the most unreasonable prejudices of all. 
 
 The claim made by partisans of the Ancients that 
 the reading of classical authors dispelled the ignor- 
 ance following the barbarian invasions, I well con- 
 cede. It restored to us all at once those ideas of 
 truth and beauty which we should have been a long 
 time recovering, but which in the end, had we 
 searched well, we should have recovered without the 
 aid of the Greeks and Latins. They themselves 
 groped long before they apprehended these ideas, 
 and we should have found them as did they. The 
 piind-life of the ages may be compared to that of a 
 
1 88 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 single man: it has Its infancy where it is occupied 
 only with the pressing needs of life ; its youth when 
 it succeeds to things of the imagination, such as 
 poesy and eloquence, and where it even begins to 
 reason, but with less soundness than fire. It is now 
 in the age of virility where it reasons with more 
 power and brilliancy than ever before ; but it would 
 have advanced still farther had not the passion for 
 war occupied man so long and given him a scorn 
 for the sciences, from which he has at length recov- 
 ered. That is to say, — to abandon the allegory — 
 man should never degenerate, and the sane views of 
 all good minds, as they succeed each other, should 
 ever augment the knowledge of preceding ones. 
 
 That incessantly enlarging mass of opinions which 
 must be followed and of rules which must be prac- 
 tised, increases continually the difficulty of all classes 
 of sciences and arts. But on the other hand, new 
 facilities spring up to compensate for these diffi- 
 culties. To illustrate : in the time of Homer it was 
 a great marvel for a man to be able to adjust his 
 discourse to measure, to long and short syllables, and 
 at the same time make something rational. Poets 
 were given infinite license, and men considered them- 
 selves happy to have verse. Homer used in a single 
 line five different dialects; that is to say, he. spoke 
 Picard, Gascon, Norman, Breton and commoa 
 French. He shortened and lengthened syllables a^ 
 will; no one thought of censuring him. That 
 gtr^nge gonfqsion ol tongues, that bizarre ^s§em^ 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 189 
 
 Wage of words wholly disfigured was the language 
 of the gods. 
 
 Little by little men came to recognize the ridic- 
 ulousness of the licenses accorded to poets. One 
 after another they were retrenched, and today, de- 
 spoiled of their ancient privileges, poets are reduced 
 to speaking in a natural manner. It would appear 
 that the meter would now be greatly impaired and 
 the difficulty of making verses very great. No ; for 
 our minds are enriched by an infinite number of 
 poetic ideas furnished us by the ancients, and we are 
 guided by a great quantity of rules and reflections 
 made upon that art. As Homer lacked all those aids 
 he was justly compensated by the license which he 
 was allowed to take. I suspect, however, to speak! 
 the truth, that his situation was more enviable than 
 ours ; this kind of compensation is not very exact. 
 
 Mathematics and Physics are the sciences whose 
 yoke lies always upon the scholar. The same spirit 
 which perfects things furnishes new means of em- 
 bracing new attitudes of mind, and these produce 
 new sciences. A scholar of the present century 
 knows ten times more than one in the Age of 
 Augustus ; but he has ten times the facility for acquir- 
 ing knowledge. 
 
 In virtue of these compensations and to requite 
 us for the esteem which we have paid our prede- 
 cessprs, we may hope that excessive admiration will 
 be accorded us in ages to come. Men will study to 
 find in our works beauties which we did not at all 
 
190 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 claim to put there. Those indefensible defects 
 which the author freely acknowledges today will find 
 some champions of a courage invincible. And God 
 knows with what scorn they will point out in con- 
 trast with us the beautiful minds of that time, which 
 perhaps may well be Americans. Thus it is that the 
 same prejudice abases us in one age in order to 
 exalt us in another; thus one becomes first the victim 
 and then the divinity. 
 
 It would be possible to push the prediction even 
 farther, and state that there was a time when the 
 Latins were the Moderns and complained of the 
 infatuation felt by their contemporaries for the 
 Greeks. Owing to the lapse of ages both have be- 
 come ancients and we worship both without discrim- 
 ination. But as between Ancients and Moderns, it 
 would be out of order for the latter to excel. We 
 need only to have patience until through the long 
 process of centuries we become contemporaries of 
 the Greeks and Romans ; then, it is easy to see, men 
 will not scruple in many instances boldly to prefer us. 
 The best works of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aris- 
 tophanes confer little more enjoyment than Cinna, 
 Horace, Ariane, the Misanthrope, and a great num- 
 ber of other tragedies and comedies. I do not 
 believe that Theagenes and Chariclea, Cleitophon 
 and Leucippe, were ever comparable to Cyrus, 
 Astree,Zaide, or the Princess of Cleves. 
 
 There are also some new forms of literature such 
 as letters of gallantry, fairy tales and operais, of 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 191 
 
 which each has furnished an excellent author with 
 whom antiquity has nothing to compare, and whom 
 : apparently posterity will not surpass. Nor can the 
 more evanescent songs to which we pay little atten- 
 tion be outclassed. Of these we have a prodigious 
 quantity all full of fire and spirit; and I insist that 
 if Anacreon had known them, he would have sung 
 them in preference to many of his own. Through 
 various works of poetry we see that versification 
 today may have as much nobleness, but at the same 
 time more correctness and exactitude than ever be- 
 fore. I purpose to avoid details and parade our 
 riches no farther. But I am persuaded that we are 
 like the grand seigneurs who do not always take 
 pains to hold to exactitude in the register of their 
 goods, and who are ignorant of a part of their 
 wealth. 
 
 If the great men of this present century had some 
 charitable sentiment for posterity, they would cau- 
 tion it against admiring the past, and inspire it 
 always to at least equal its predecessor. Nothing 
 has so arrested progress and limited the mind as our 
 excessive admiration of the Ancients. Because men 
 have bowed to the authority of Aristotle and have 
 sought for truth in his enigmatic writings and never 
 in nature, not only has philosophy been retarded, but 
 she has fallen into an abyss of nonsensical and unin- 
 telli^ble ideas from which it required every effort 
 in the world to extract her. 
 
 Aristotle never made a true philosopher, but he 
 
192 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 has stifled many a one who might have become such, 
 had he been permitted. 
 
 " Et le mal est qu'une fantaisie de cette espece 
 une fois etablie parmi les hommes, en voila pour 
 longtemps: on sera des siecles entiers a en revenir, 
 meme apres qu'on en aura reconnu la ridicule." ** 
 
 Yet if we hope for the praise of posterity, it must 
 be acknowledged that there is no certainty that 
 future generations will compute as merit in us the 
 two or three thousand years which will intervene 
 between their time and ours. There is every indica- 
 tion that reason is perfecting herself, and that men 
 will become universally disabused of their gross 
 prejudice for antiquity. Perhaps it will not persist 
 much longer; perhaps at the present hour we admire 
 the ancients in vain, and without creating for poster- 
 ity the obligation to accord us adulation in return. 
 And that would be a little sad." 
 
 Should we distil into a single sentence the essence 
 of The Digression, one might term it an exposition 
 of Fontenelle's theory of Progress, including a spe- 
 cial application to classical literature. Under the 
 latter topic are found his most vivid utterances, while 
 as a by-product, there is presented in miniature the 
 claim of that body of Vernacular prose and verse 
 to which Descartes had alluded, and at which earlier 
 writers had cast a passing glance. It is character* 
 istic of Fontenelle that in a few short pages we find 
 epitomised the sum total of the principles advanced 
 by literary Moderns in France. With whatever 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 93 
 
 ieservation the reader follows his comments upon 
 classical writers, he feels that here at least the topic 
 finds significant and final expression; while deeper 
 than language, there speaks that aspiration toward 
 perfect liberty which was its author's passion. Re- 
 flecting upon this Digression, one perceives the entire 
 literary revolt in France as a phase of a greater 
 revolt. One recognizes that the classical contro- 
 versy was — in Fontenelle's own words — " not so 
 highly important," but an emanation from that 
 larger movement poignant with possibility and 
 fraught with revolution in the end. The rebellion in 
 France against Hellenistic writers emerges suddenly 
 as a repudiation of that Spirit of the Past which had 
 held man supine — in eternal negation of his will to 
 be free. 
 
 One hundred years of profitable living had elapsed 
 since the birth of Fontenelle when in 1757 he van- 
 ished into that background of predecessors whose 
 veneration he had so disdained. During that cen- 
 tury what changes- the Europe of Galileo's old age 
 had known. One by one there had been cast from 
 her intellect the fetters of subserviency in physics, 
 logic, science, philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, 
 and literature. Already the petty quarrel of the 
 French Academy had dissolved into those larger 
 issues of which it was but an ephemeral expression. 
 Voltaire was at his zenith, and three volumes of 
 Diderot's Encyclopedia had been given to the press. 
 Already native languages in other countries were 
 
194 THE BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 
 
 being considered feasible for works of learned and 
 permanent value. Authority in the old sense was a 
 thing of the past. 
 
 While the classical yoke in letters still lay upon 
 England, below the surface there steadily increased 
 in volume a newer, less articulate mood. Many an 
 obscure university student entering into his heritage 
 of Hellenism, found there emancipation from human- 
 ism and form; while already Ramsay and Collins 
 had sounded the knell of the era of Pope.*" Pushed 
 to its relentless conclusion, the spirit of science react- 
 ing upon the literary tradition in England produced 
 the Romantic School ; but History demonstrates that 
 it rediscovered the beauty and freedom of Hellenism 
 on the way. And it is not without significance that 
 the last young god of the new Olympus has rendered 
 immortal a faithful but dull translation, while his 
 loveliest ode is dedicated to the beauty of a Grecian 
 Urn. 
 
 Until we can do without a thing we do not possess 
 it. Looking back over the slow process of emanci- 
 pation from classical formula, it would appear that 
 not until men had disavowed servitude to the dogma 
 of Hellenism, did the spirit of Hellas reappear. It 
 was the special prerogative of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury thinkers to divide the waters of bondage and 
 lead toward a vision of the promised land. It 
 seems not too much to say that not only an apprecia- 
 tion of Vernacular literature, but the whole brilliant 
 
THE LITERARY PHASE — FONTENELLE 1 95 
 
 thought-world of constructive criticism from Nieb- 
 uhr to Murray, lay nascent in the travail of those 
 earlier prophets — in Bacon, Galileo, Descartes, 
 Bentley, Swift and Fontenelle. 
 
NOTES 
 
NOTES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 1 Paetow, Louis John, The Arts Course at Mediaeval Universities, 
 University of Pennsylvania, 1910, p. 12. 
 
 "Schultze, Fritz, Geschichte der Philosophic der Renaissance, 
 Bd. I, Jena, 1874, p. 11, et seq. 
 
 ' The work ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, originated 
 probably in the fourth or fifth century; the writer was a trans- 
 cendental pantheist; he combined Christianity and Neo-Platonism, 
 and drew from Plotinus and lamblichus. 
 
 ^Schultze, Fritz, op. cit., p. 11. 
 
 ^ Rashdall, Universities of Europe, vol. i, p. 351-7. 
 
 ^ Died in Caliphate of Bagdad, 1036 A. D. 
 
 ^ Schultze, Fritz, op. cit., pp. 11-12. 
 
 * Schultze, Fritz, op. cit., p. 13. 
 
 ^ Opus Majus, Part II, (Bridges ed.), iii, pp. 69-70. 
 
 1** Compendium Studii, Brewer, p. 469. 
 
 " Ibid. 
 
 ^^11 Convivio, Treatise I, ch. x, xi. The Provengal was being 
 praised by some Italians. 
 
 13// Convivio, ch. xii, Wicksteed's ed., pp. 55-60. 
 
 ^ Ibid., ch. xii, p. 60. 
 
 1^ See Robinson, J. H., and Rolfe, H. W., Francesco Petrarca, 
 The First Modern Scholar (and ed.), Putnams, 1914. 
 
 18 Before Aldus only two Greek Classics — Homer and Theocri- 
 tus — had been printed. Aldus issued 33 first editions, including 
 Aristophanes, Sophocles, Herodotus, Demosthenes, Pindar, and 
 others. 
 
 IT Schultze, Fritz, op. cit., p. 80. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., pp. 76-77. 
 
 1' See Vespasiano's lists of the manuscripts contained in famous 
 libraries, as given in his Lives. 
 
 199 
 
200 NOTES 
 
 2" Examples of its victims are Giordano Bruno, Reuchlin, Galileo. 
 
 ^1 See Castiglione, // Cortegiano, and W. H. Woodward, Vittorino 
 da Feltre. 
 
 22 De Ratione Studii, 522 A-E. " For I affirm that with slight 
 qualification, the whole of attainable knowledge lies enclosed within 
 the literary monuments of Ancient Greece. This great inheritance 
 I will compare to a limpid spring of whose undefiled waters it 
 behooves all who truly thirst to drink and be restored." 
 
 "2 In a Faracelsis, or Exhortation to a Study of the Christian Phil- 
 osophy, prefixed to the first edition of the Novum Instrumentum, 
 1516. 
 
 " For I utterly dissent from those who are unwilling that the 
 sacred Scriptures should be read by the unlearned, translated into 
 the vulgar tongue; as though Christ had taught such subtleties 
 that they can scarcely be understood even by a few theologians, 
 or as though the strength of the Christian religion consisted in 
 men's ignorance of it. The mysteries of kings it may be safer to 
 conceal, but Christ wished his mysteries to be published as openly 
 as possible. I wish that even the weakest woman should read 
 the Gospel — should read the Epistles of Paul — and I wish that 
 they were translated into all languages, so that they might be 
 read and understood, not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by 
 Turks and Saracens. To make them understood is surely the first 
 step. ... I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them 
 to himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum 
 them to the time of his shuttle, that the traveller should beguile 
 with their stories the tedium of his journey. . . . This kind of 
 philosophy lies rather in the affections than in syllogism; it is a. life 
 rather than a disputation, an inspiration rather than an argument." 
 
 (I have used Mr. Seebohm's rendering in The Oxford Reformers.) 
 
 2* To Councillors of all the States of Germany, 1524. 
 
 25 Fluge und Vermahung gegen die Ungeistlichen Geistlichen. 
 See also Die Anschauenden. 
 
 28 Quoted in Ranke, Leopold, History of the Reformation in Ger- 
 many, London, 1845-47, vol. iii, p. 492. 
 
 27 Montaigne lived during the Religious Wars in France. He 
 was saddened and made hopeless by the cruelty and intolerance on 
 each side. He died just as the wars of the Three Henrys were 
 about to come to an end. (1592 A. D.) 
 
NOTES 20 1 
 
 28 Montaigne, Essays, vol. iii, p. 343, London, 1913, The Cotton 
 Translation. 
 
 2» Ibid. 
 
 In his infancy Montaigne heard only the Latin language spoken 
 by an attendant especially chosen for the purpose. Montaigne thus 
 literally knew Latin several years before he spoke French. See his 
 essay on The Education of Children. 
 
 so He does, hovyever, allude to Xenophon's Cyropaedia in his 
 essay. The Education of Children. 
 
 31: Montaigne, Essays, vol. i, p. i6i. 
 
 82 Montaigne, Essays, vol. i, pp. 165-6, Cotton Translation. 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. 168. 
 
 ^* Ibid., pp. 170, 175. 
 
 85 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 366-7. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., vol. i, p. 134. 
 
 8T Ibid., vol. ii, p. 179. 
 
 S8 Ibid., vol. Ji, p. 248. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., vol. iii, p. 379. 
 
 *" Ibid., vol. ii, p. 242. 
 
 *i Ibid., vol. ii, p. 243. 
 
 *2 Ibid., vol. ii, p. 262. 
 
 *' Ibid., vol. ii, p. 231. 
 
 ** Ibid., vol. iii, p. 378. 
 
 *^ Ibid., vol. iii, p 381. 
 
 *" Ibid., Montaigne's attitude about the Calendar was similar 
 to that of some farmers with regard to the " Daylight saving law," 
 but with less justification on the ground of practical inconvenience. 
 
 *'' Ibid., vol. ii, p. 279. 
 
 *' Ibid., vol. ii, p. 280. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 1 Copernicus' theory appeared in its final form in 1543. Gali- 
 leo's discovery of the laws of falling bodies was made in 1596. 
 Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600. Kepler's Dioptrics ap- 
 peared in 1611. 
 
 2 For the contrast in the general attitude, see Montaigne, Essays, 
 and Bacon, Advancement of Learning, as compared with Sir Wil- 
 
202 NOTES 
 
 Ham Temple, Essays, and William Wotton, Re/lections upon /In- 
 dent and Modern Learning. 
 
 3 " I propose to establish progressive stages of certainty." Novum 
 Organum, Author's Preface, Philosophical Works of Bacon, 
 (Robertson's ed.) London, 1905, p. 256. 
 
 * De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book IV, ibid., p. 478. 
 
 ^ Novum Organum, cxvi, ibid., p. 294. 
 
 •"The human understanding is unquiet; it cannot stop or rest; 
 and still presses onward, but in vain. Therefore it is that we 
 cannot conceive of any end or limit of the world; but always of 
 necessity it occurs to us that there is something beyond." Novum 
 Organum, xlviii, ibid., p. 266. 
 
 ' Parasceve, ibid., p. 405. 
 
 ' Author's Preface to The Great Insiauration, ibid., p. 246. 
 
 ^ Ibid., p. 247. 
 
 w The Advancement of Learning, ibid., p. go; p. 96; The Great 
 Instauration; Proemium, p. 241 ; Novum Organum, p. 262, xxxi ; p. 
 286, xc; Parasceve, p. 403. 
 
 "Rawley, W., The Life of The Right Honourable Francis 
 Bacon, 1667, p. 3. 
 
 12 Ibid., p. — . His father had been counsellor of Elizabeth. His 
 mother was a daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, " A choice Lady and 
 eminent for piety and learning." 
 
 13 Ibid., p. 2. 
 
 ^^Advancement of Learning, Book II, op. cit., p. 76. We find 
 here for the first time frankly suggested a more modern course 
 of study in the colleges, to take the place of the mediaeval one 
 based upon the Trivium and Quadrivium. 
 
 -IS Ibid., p. So. 
 
 i« fl^ Aug^JScien., ibid., p. 441, xxvi. " I take them to be a kind 
 of breath from more ancient traditions, which fell into the pipes 
 of the Greeks." 
 
 1^ De Aug. Scien., ibid., pp. 600-604. 
 
 ^ Dt Aug. Scien., Book viii, ibid., p. 616. 
 
 18 De Aug. Scien., Book viii, ibid., p. 566. 
 
 ="> The Author's Preface to the Great Instauration, ibid., p. 243. 
 
 21 Novum Organum, ibid., xxi, p. 276. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 288. 
 
 ^' Ibid., xcvii, p. 289. 
 
NOTES 203 
 
 ^^Ibid., xcv, p. 291. 
 =>= tbid., Ixii, p. 271. 
 ^'Jbid., cxxviii, p. 300. 
 "Ibid., p. 280. 
 
 28 Ibid., p. 276. 
 
 29 Ibid., Ixxxii, p. 280. 
 
 ^^ Proemium, Magna Instauratio, ibid., p. 241. 
 
 ^^De Augmends Scientiarum, ibid., p. 635. 
 
 ^^De Augmentis Scientiarum, ibid., p. 630. Advancement of 
 Learning, ibid., p. 167. 
 
 ^^ Novum Organum, ibid., pp. 257-258. 
 
 ^*Ibid., cxxii, p. 297. "Relying on the evidence and truth of 
 things, I reject all forms of fiction and imposture; nor do I think 
 that it matters any more to the business in hand whether the 
 discovepes that shall now be made were long ago known to the 
 Ancients . . . than it matters to mankind whether the new world 
 be that island of Atlantis with which the Ancients were acquainted, 
 or new discovered for the first time. For new discoveries must be 
 sought from the light of nature, not fetched from the darkness 
 of antiquity." 
 
 ^5 De Augmentis Scientiarum, ibid., xxvii, pp. 523-24. " The 
 noblest Grammar would be a comparative study of many tongues 
 showing defects and beauties of each, and drawing conclusions as 
 to a language the most beautiful of all." 
 
 3» Novum Organum, ibid., pp. 256-257. " Let there be, there- 
 fore . . . two streams and two dispensations of knowledge; and in 
 like manner two tribes or kindreds of students in philosophy . . . 
 tribes not hostile or alien . . . but bound together by mutual serv- 
 ices. Let there in short be one method for the cultivation, another 
 for the invention of knowledge." Fide, eloquent conclusion, p. 258. 
 
 ^'' Novum Organum, ibid., p. 288. 
 
 No one has more succinctly stated the situation than quaint 
 Abraham Cowley in his delicious Ode: 
 
 "Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last; 
 
 The barren Wilderness he past; 
 
 Did on the very Border stand 
 
 Of the blest promised land; 
 
 And from the Mountain Top of his exalted Wit, 
 
 Saw it himself, and shew'd us it. 
 
204 NOTES 
 
 But Life did never to one Man allow 
 Time to Discover Worlds and Conquer too; 
 Nor can so short a life sufficient be 
 To fadom the vast depths of Nature's Sea. 
 The vrork he did we ought to admire, 
 And were unjust if we should more require 
 From his few years divided 'twixt th' Excess 
 Of low Affliction and high Happiness; 
 For <who on things remote can fix his sight, 
 That's alivays in a Triumph or a Fightf " 
 38 Discovered by him at Pisa, circa 1590. 
 
 3^ Galileo did not fully grasp the nature of a vacuum; Descartes 
 did not accept the Copernican System ; Fontenelle clung to Descartes' 
 "Vortex Theory." 
 
 *" Rawley, W., Lije of Bacon. " Yet howsoever his body was 
 mortal, yet no doubt his memory and works will live; and will in 
 all probability last as long as the world lasteth." 
 
 *i Discorsi « demonstrazioni mathematichi intorno a due nuove 
 scienze. He proved that Aristotle's idea that the time of fall varied 
 with the weight of the body was fallacious; and he later demon- 
 strated the law of uniform acceleration. 
 
 *2 The Sidereal Messenger of Galileo Galilei, translated by H. F. 
 Carlos, London, 1880. 
 
 j^'Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del Mundo, Tolemaico e 
 Copernicano, Florence, 1633. 
 
 ** Vide, Fontenelle, Preface de L'Histoire de L'Academie, Oeuvres, 
 vol. i, p. I. 
 
 ** Bacon and Descartes suggest this viewpoint; but their attitude 
 is not an outspoken challenge. 
 
 *^ Both Bacon and Descartes had carefully refrained from 
 laughing at their opponents. But Galileo writes with the freedom 
 of an Italian of the Humanistic Period. 
 
 '^Galileus Galileus Linceus, The Systeme of the World; in Four 
 Dialogues. Found in Mathematical Collections and Translations, 
 The First Tome, by Thomas Salusbury, London, 1661. 
 *^Ibid. The " Dedication to Sir John Denham," pp. 2-3. 
 *9 Ibid., In " To the Reader by the Translator," p. 4, we find in 
 the above, presented in a nutshell, (i) the English ignorance of 
 the vernacular tongues, (2) the prejudice against pedantry, (3) 
 
NOTES 205 
 
 the class distinction between scholars and "gentlemen," (4) the 
 English tolerance of liberal ideas, (5) salient conunent upon 
 French and German intellectual traits. 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. 5. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 3. 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. 23. 
 
 53 Ibid., p. 25. 
 
 5* Ibid., pp. 37-38. 
 
 BB Compare Descartes, The Search for Truth in the Light of 
 Nature. 
 y'The Systeme of, the World, pp. 40-42. 
 
 ^''Ibid., p. 43. 
 
 58 Ibid., p. 44. 
 
 5' /iiV., p. 93. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 94. See also the close of the paragraph. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 95. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., pp. 95-96. 
 
 Sagredius fires the parting shot: "What a pity it is that Guns 
 were not used in Aristotle's Age, he would with the help of them 
 have easily battered down ignorance, and spoke without hesitation 
 of these mundane points." 
 
 '* Ibid., Dialogue Three, p. 250. 
 
 ^Ibid., Dialogue Four, p. 319. 
 
 "Descartes, Rene, Philosophical Works, Cambridge, 1911, vol. i, 
 
 ,^^Ibid., vol. i, p. 6, Rules for the Direction of the Mind (written 
 circa, 1628). 
 (^Ibid., vol. i, p. 84, Discourse on Method. 
 
 *^Ibid., vol. i, p. 305, The Search after Truth by the Light of 
 Nature. 
 
 "^ Ibid., p. 311. 
 
 '"'Ibid., p. 213. 
 
 ''?-Ibid., p. 209. See also statement too long for quotation, pp. 
 208-9. 
 
 '"Ibid., vol. i, p. 146, Meditations. 
 
 '3 Ibid., vol. i, p. 219, Principles of Philosophy. 
 
 ''* Ibid., vol. i, p. 7, Rules for the Direction of the\ Mind. 
 
 " Ibid., p. 8. 
 
 "8 Ibid., vol. i, p. 9- 
 
2o6 NOTES 
 
 ''''Ibid., vol. i, p. lo. Said in disparagement of the dialectic 
 method derived from the Ancients. 
 
 '* Ibid., vol. i, pp. 129-30, Discourse on Method. 
 
 T£/" It is much easier to have some vague notion about any sub- 
 ject . . . than to arrive at the real truth about a single question, 
 however simple that may be." Ibid., p. 5. See also vol. i, p. 208, 
 Author's Letter, Principles of Philosophy. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., vol. i, p. 15; p. 3. Also vol. i, pp. 144-171, Meditations. 
 
 ^^]Ibid., vol. i, p. 83, Discourse on Method. 
 
 «^Ibid., p. 84. 
 
 *3 Ibid., p. 85. Note that Descartes includes even " Poesy and 
 Eloquence " in his disparagement. 
 
 ** As late as Fontenelle, it had followers. Fide, Entretiens sur la 
 Pluralite des Mondes. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., pp. 110-114. 
 
 8* That is, the belief that beyond the Moon lies an atmosphere 
 " coelestial " — unlike that of the " corporeal " earth — in which 
 exist the planets and the stars. Vide, Dante, Conviino. 
 
 8' Ibid., vol. i, p. 309, The Search after Truth. 
 
 ss Phil. Works, vol. ii, p. 348. 
 
 ^9 Encyclopedia Brittanica, (nth ed.), s. v. "Descartes," by Wil- 
 liam Wallace. 
 
 "o Op. cit., vol. i, pp. 185-187, Meditations on First Philosophy. 
 We recall that Bacon earlier had differentiated into clarity the 
 ancient confusion of Metaphysics and Physics. 
 
 °i Descartes' regard for his early teachers in the Jesuit Order 
 seems to have been enduring and sincere. Fathers Dinet and 
 Mersenne are examples of this friendship. 
 
 °2 Wood, Anthony, History and Antiquities, Oxford, II, 2, pp. 
 836-40. Quoted by Robertson, George Croom, Hobbes, London, 
 1886, p. 168. Professorships in Geometry and Astronomy were 
 permanently instituted in 1619. When Hobbes was at Oxford, 
 1603, these subjects were not in the curriculum, and Hobbes never 
 saw a geometry until he was about forty years old. Vide, Aubrey, 
 John, Life of T. H. of Malmesbury, cited by Robertson, p. 32. 
 
 °3 Spinoza and Malebranche are examples of this influence. 
 
 '* It may be that Plato's requirement of Geometry as a pre- 
 requisite to the study of Philosophy appealed to him. He refers 
 
NOTES 207 
 
 to it several times, e. g., in the Leviathan, (Waller ed.), Cambridge, 
 1904, p. 495. 
 
 ^^ English Works of Thomas Hohbes, (Molesworth ed.), 1839-45, 
 vol. i, preface, p. 10. 
 
 "Ibid., vol. i, p. viii. Author's "Epistle Dedicatory," Elements 
 of Philosophy. 
 
 ^'' Ibid., vol. i, pp. viii-x. 
 
 "^ Ibid., vol. iii, p. 25, Leviathan. 
 
 '^Ibid., vol. ii, p. 38, Of Liberty; vol. iv, p. 103. 
 
 ^Ibid., vol ii, p. 135. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. vi, p. 362, Behemoth. 
 
 ' Ibid., vol. ii, pp. 153-154. 
 
 * Ibid., vol. iii, p. 202, The Leviathan. 
 ' Ibid., vol. iii, p. 669, The Leviathan. 
 
 * Ibid., vol. iv, p. 102, De Corpore Politico. 
 ' Ibid., vol. iii, p. 202, The Leviathan. 
 
 ' Ibid., vol. iv, p. 219. 
 
 ■ Ibid., vol. iv, p. 73, Essay on Human Nature. 
 ^'^ Ibid., vol. ii, p. 153, Of Dominion. 
 ^"-Ibid., vol. iii, p. 203, Leviathan. 
 ^^ Ibid., vol. iii, pp. 314-15. 
 
 ^' Hobbes is as insistent as Bacon upon reform in the Universities, 
 but he is less definite as to subjects in a new curriculum. 
 1* Hobbes, Thomas, Leviathan, Cambridge, 1904, pp. 527-8. 
 1' Ibid., vol. iii, p. 366, Leviathan. 
 1' Ibid, vol. ii, p. 3, Of Liberty. 
 
 "Ibid., vol. ii. Philosophical Rudiments, "Epistle Dedicatory." 
 18 Ibid., vol. i, p. X, " Epistle Dedicatory." 
 ^' Ibid., vol. VI, pp. 184-5, Behemoth. 
 20 Hobbes, T., Leviathan, Cambridge, 1904, p. 515. 
 ^^Ibid., p. 473. 
 ^^Ibid., p. 456. 
 ^^Ibid., p. 477. 
 "^Ibid., p. 487. 
 ^^Ibid., p. 491. 
 ^'Ibid., p. 493- 
 "Ibid., p. 494- 
 «' Ibid., pp. 495-496- 
 ''^Ibid., p. 497- 
 
2o8 NOTES 
 
 ^"Ibid., pp. 507-508. 
 
 3i/*iV., p. 516. 
 
 '2 The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, (Molesworth ed.), 
 1839-45, vol. vi, p. 276. 
 
 *^ An epic poem consisting of fifteen hundred four-line stanzas 
 published by Sir William Davenant in 1651, while he was impris- 
 oned in The Tower. The verse was both admired and ridiculed. 
 The story that Davenent was the son of William Shakspere is 
 believed to be without foundation. 
 
 ^* Ibid., vol. iv, p. 456. 
 
 35 Hobbes, T., Leviathan, Cambridge, 1904, p. 527. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 1 Fontenelle, Bernard, Entretiens sur la Pluralite des mondes, 
 i686; and Digression sur les Anciens et les Modernes, 1688. The 
 latter affixed to Poesies Pastorales. 
 
 2 Wotton, William, Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learn- 
 ing, London, 1694, p. 5. 
 
 ^ Temple, Sir William, Essays on Ancient and Modern Learning, 
 and On Poetry, Edited by J. E. Spihgarn, Oxford, 1909. Temple's 
 Miscellanea, Part the Second, was first published in 1690. Temple 
 was a cultivated English gentleman famous as a promoter of The 
 Triple Alliance and the marriage of William and Mary. Fastid- 
 ious in temperament, he retired early from politics and went to 
 live at Moor Park, Surrey, where Jonathan Swift was his secre- 
 tary, and where he died in 1699. Vide, Courtenay, William Tem- 
 ple, London. 
 
 * Burnet, Thomas, The Antediluvian World, 1684. This was an 
 English translation of the first-Part of the author's Latin work, the 
 Sacred Theory of the Earth, i68i. Fontenelle, Bernard, Entretiens 
 sur la Plurality des Mondes, 1686. 
 
 " Temple, Sir William, Essays, Oxford, 1909, p. 3. The second 
 work of Fontenelle's which displeased him,, was The Poesies 
 Pastorales published with Digression sur les Anciens et les 
 Modernes, 1688. 
 
 8 Wotton, William, Reflections upon the Ancient and Modem 
 Learning, London, 1694, p. 6. 
 
 'Fontenelle, Bernard, Poesies Pastorales, published in 1688, con- 
 
NOTES 209 
 
 tained an embodiment of the author's ideal of verse form as com- 
 pared with the Ancient. 
 
 * Sir William Temple's idea concerning Geography is an almost 
 exact reproduction of Montaigne's. Indeed he seems throughout 
 his work to be strongly influenced by the earlier writer without 
 having his sanity of judgment. 
 
 » Temple, Sir William, Essays, edited by J. E. Spingarn, Oxford, 
 1909, p. 33. 
 
 ^oibid., pp. 52-53. 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. 53. 
 
 1" For a chronological list of the pamphlets and details of the 
 misunderstanding between Bentley and Boyle, i/ide, Richard Bent- 
 ley, Works, J volumes, edited by Dyce, Alex., London, 1836. 
 Preface, vol. i, pp. v-xix. 
 
 ^^ An interesting example of this is in his investigation of the 
 sources of our knowledge of Pythagoras. 
 
 i^Perrault, Charles, Parallile des Anciens et des Modernes, 16S8. 
 
 15 See summary of Perrault's comparison, in Wotton, p. 46. 
 
 10 Wotton, William, Reflections on Ancient and Modern Learning, 
 p. 50. 
 • yibid., pp. 54-55- 
 
 18 /. e.. Book iii. 
 
 IS Wotton, William, Reflections, p. 69. In this suggestion, Wot- 
 ton refers to, and quotes from Perrault, Charles, Parallile des 
 Anciens et des Modernes, pp. 125-9. 
 
 ^o Ibid.,' -p. 78. 
 
 21 Ibid. 
 
 22 Ibid., E^ 90. 
 ^^Ibid., p. 91. 
 
 2* Diogenes Laertius, a Greek writer who . lived perhaps in the 
 second century A. D. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 103. 
 
 '"Ibid., p. 157. 
 
 "''Ibid., p. 163. The interesting discussion of "The Invention of 
 Instruments" which follows (p. 169 et seq.) is too long to be 
 included here. 
 
 28 Ibid., pp. 3cx>-30i.. 
 
 "^Ibid., p. 303- 
 
 30 Ibid., p. 329- 
 
2IO NOTES 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 316. One feels that he has in mind here his "learned 
 friend Mr. Bentley," altho he is extremely careful throughout his 
 book to be impersonal. 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. 316. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 358. Wotton's Essay was published in 1694, almost 
 exactly ninety years from the date of Bacon's Advancement of 
 Learning, (1605). Viewed as a whole it seems almost like a 
 summary of the century's achievement in the light of Bacon's ideal. 
 
 3* Bentley, IVorks, edited by Alexander Dyce, London, 1836, 
 A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, Author's Preface, vol. 
 i, pp. ii-xxi. Also, Ibid., Editor's Preface, pp. vi to xx. 
 
 ^^ London, 1698. 
 
 3' A Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris, viith An Ansiaer 
 to the Objections of the Honourable Charles Boyle, Esquire. By 
 Richard Bentley, D.D., London, 1699. 
 
 *' For ancient legend about Phalaris, vide, Jebb, R. C, Bentley, 
 pp. 44-45. " All that we really know about Phalaris, however, is 
 that as early as about 500 B. c. his name had become a proverb for 
 cruelty not only in Sicily, but throughout Hellas." 
 
 ^^ Bentley, Works, London, 1836, vol. i. Author's Preface, p. xlix. 
 
 30 Ibid., vol. i, p. Ixix. 
 
 *'>Ibid., vol. i, p. Ixix. 
 
 *i Ibid., vol. i, p. 152. 
 
 *^Ibid., vol. i, pp. 154-155. 
 
 *' Ibid., vol. i, p. 164. 
 
 ** Ibid., vol. i, pp. 168-170. Thericles is established as living at 
 time of Aristophanes. 
 
 *° Dr. Bentley places the first performance of Thespis twelve 
 years after Phalaris' death, (p. 274.) 
 
 *'Ibid., vol. i, p. 361. 
 
 "Ibid., p. 84. 
 
 *^ Vide, Bentley, Works, vol. iii, pp. 487-496. " Proposals for 
 printing the New Testament." For an estimate of his editions of 
 Classical Writers, vide, Jebb, R. C, Bentley, London, 1889, p. 136 
 et seq. 
 
 *s Bentley, Works, vol. iii, pp. 303-4. 
 
 ""> Franklin, Thomas, The Letters of Phalaris, an English Transla- 
 tion, 1749. Vide, Dedication, quoted by Jebb, R. C, in Bentley, 
 p. 81. 
 
NOTES 211 
 
 °^ Stephen, Leslie, Siuift, London, 1920, p. 13. 
 
 Swift served as the Secretary of Temple, almost continually from 
 1689 to Temple's death in 1699. The Tale of a Tub was prob- 
 ably written in 1696, and The Battle of the Books in 1697. 
 
 "Temple, Sir William, Essays, Oxford, 1909, p. 18. 
 
 =3 Swift, Jonathan, The Prose Works of, London, 1911, vol. i, pp. 
 177, 183. 
 
 °* Swift's brilliant mind perceived the mediocre quality of many 
 highly praised literary compositions of his own day. The preten- 
 sions which authors of such made to an equality with the great 
 writers of antiquity, seemed to him so absurd as to be humorous. It 
 was a too keen feeling, not a lack of feeling, which inspired his 
 satire. 
 
 ssBudgell, Eustace, Memoirs of the Life and Character of the 
 late Earl of Orrery, London, 1732, is an example. 
 
 5* Three brothers, Peter, Martin and Jack, by their father's will 
 inherit three coats with instructions as to their care and use. 
 Their adventures with the garments form the story. The Tale of 
 a Tub was an old title used by Ben Jonson and earlier writers long 
 before Swift. 
 
 "^ Swift, Jonathan, Prose Works, London, 1911, vol. i, p. 12, "An 
 Apology." 
 
 ^^ Ibid., vol. i, p. 36, "Dedication to Prince Posterity." 
 
 °* In the Dedication, " Time " was regarded as the governor of 
 Prince Posterity. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., vol. i, p. 38, "Dedication to Prince Posterity." 
 
 »i Ibid., vol. i, p. 38. 
 
 '2 Hid., vol i, p. 40. 
 
 °° Swift is here satirizing the italics and small and large capital 
 letters so often used in his period. 
 
 •* Ibid., vol. i, p. 44, " Preface." 
 
 "5 Ibid., vol. i, p. 48, " Introduction." These wooden machines are 
 the Pulpit, the Ladder, and the Stage itinerant. 
 
 '^This was a London street near Moorfields, formerly much 
 frequented by needy writers. It is now called Milton Street. 
 
 *' This is understood to refer to William Wotton's Reflections 
 upon Ancient and Modern Learning. Swift never tires of assault- 
 ing that author and Dryden ; his animosity to the latter being due to 
 the fact that " Cousin Dryden " had criticised his Ode to the Athenian 
 
212 NOTES 
 
 Society. One suspects, however, a deeper reason, as Swift did 
 not usually resent fair criticism of his work, yide, Stephen, Leslie, 
 Swift, London, 1920, where many later events in his life prove 
 him to have been magnanimous. 
 
 ^* Ibid., p. 66, Section II. Also, " They were a race of men who 
 delighted to nibble at the superfluities and excrescencies of books." 
 
 (P- 74-) 
 
 '^^ Ibid., vol. i, p. 75. 
 
 ''"Ibid., vol. i, section vii, "A Digression upon Digressions." 
 
 '1 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 103-105. 
 
 '2 Ibid. 
 
 ''^ Ibid., vol. i, p. n6. 
 
 ">* Ibid., vol. i, p. 117. 
 
 ^i' Ibid., vol. i, p. 127. 
 
 '6 Ibid., vol. i, pp. 162-168. 
 
 ''''Ibid., vol, i, p. 172. 
 
 ^8 The heavy armed horse were epic poets; the light armed were 
 lyric. Despereaux was another name for Boileau, the French poet 
 who stood for the Ancients and against Fontenelle. 
 
 ''^Ibid., vol. i, p. 176. 
 
 ^°John Scaliger was a noted French scholar of Italian origin 
 who in the latter half of the sixteenth century endeavoured to form 
 a critical chronology of the Ancient Wbrld. 
 
 *i It will be remembered that Bentley in Wotton's second edition 
 of Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning had attacked 
 the genuineness of Aesop as well as Phalaris. 
 
 82 This refers to the fact that Boyle had been assisted in his 
 Refutation by Dean Aldrich, Dr. Atterbury and other learned 
 persons at Oxford, among those termed the Christ Church Wits. 
 See Bentley, R., ITorks, 1836, vol. i. Preface. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ^The Academy of Sciences was founded by Colbert in 1666. 
 It suffered a slight decline upon his death in 1683, but -underwent 
 complete reorganization in 1699, receiving from the king the 
 constitution under which it continued until its temporary dissolution 
 in 1793. Vide, Fontenelle, Oewvres, Paris, 1825, vol. i, pp. 3-76. 
 
NOTES 
 
 213 
 
 2 Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier de, Oewvres, Paris, 1825, vol. i, 
 pp. 1-2. Written at the reorganization of the Academy of Sciences, 
 1699. 
 
 3 Fontenelle, Oeuvres, Paris, 1825, vol. iv, pp. 1-85. English 
 translation Hughes, John, London, 1708, Fontenell^s Dialogues of 
 the Dead. 
 
 * A critic of the early sixteenth century vyho attacked the increas- 
 ing dominance of neo-classic rules. 
 
 5 Quaint John Hughes in his English Translation of the Dia- 
 logues (Hughes, John, Fontenelle's Dialogues of the Dead, London, 
 1708), remai<ks: "The compliment is finely introduced but smells 
 strongly of the Pension.'' (p. 66.) 
 
 •Fulvia quotes Augustus' order, terminating: 
 "'Tis War, she says, if I refuse her Charms. 
 Let's think — she's ugly — Trumpets sound to arms! " 
 
 'The reader will perceive here the burlesque upon the exposition 
 of Love by Diotima to Socrates in Plato's Symposium. 
 
 ^Ibid., vol. iv, p. 64. (Hughes' Translation.) 
 
 ^Ibid., vol. iv, p. 82. ' 
 
 ^"Ibid., vol. iii, Ejitretiens sur til plurality des mondes. English 
 translation. Gunning, Elizabeth, Conversations on the Plurality of 
 Worlds, London, 1803. Fontenelle's Histoire des Oracles, Londres, 
 1785. Fontenelle, Oeuvres, Paris, 1825, vol. iv., De L'Origine des 
 Fables. 
 
 1^ Fontenelle was profoundly influenced by Descartes, and it is 
 probable that the " Vortex Theory " of that philosopher had inspired 
 the train of thought producing his Entretiens. 
 
 12 In modern phraseology, the Work was a bit of " propagandist 
 literature," and probably effected a wider popularization of the 
 new astronomical theories than any other single French treatise. 
 For evidence of contemporary comment upon it, vide, De La Lande, 
 Jerome, Critical Account of the Life and Writings of the Author, 
 prefixed to Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, London, 1803; 
 Hughes, John, Dialogues of the Dead, Preface, London, 1708, p. 
 xiii ; Chamberlayne, John, the Lives of the Philosophers, Dedication, 
 London, 1717. Temple, Sir William, Ancient and Modern Learning, 
 1690. 
 
 ^^ So pronounced in this conception, that one instinctively places 
 Fontenelle's Entretiens as a background to Condorcets' important 
 
214 NOTES 
 
 Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progris de I'esprit humain. 
 
 1* Fontenelle, Oewvres, Paris, 1825, vol. iii, Entretiens sur la 
 pluralite des mondes. English Translation, 1803, pp. 9-10. 
 
 ^5 Ibid., pp. 15-16. 
 
 1^ Ibid., p. 71. 
 
 ^'' Ibid., p. 113. 
 
 ''■^ Ibid., p. 150. 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. 58. 
 
 '^"Ibid., pp. 128-129, "The Fifth Evening." 
 
 ^^Ibid., pp. 56-57. 
 
 22 Temple, Sir William, Essays, Oxford, 1909, p. 3, where he calls 
 the " matter " " old and beaten." 
 
 23 Vide, Fontenelle, Bernard, Oewvres, Paris, 1825, vol. i, Notice 
 Historique, by J. B. J. Champagnac, and De La Lande, Jerome, 
 Critical Account of the Life and Writings of Author, prefixed to 
 English Translation of Entretiens, London, 1803. 
 
 2* Fontenelle, M. De, Histoire des Oracles, Londres, 1785. This 
 book was first published in 1687. 
 
 26 While Fontenelle includes all pagan oracles, his discussion is 
 so saturated with references to the Greek as to make it inevitably a 
 part of the present study. 
 
 "^Ibid., p. 1. 
 
 2' Fontenelle, Oeuvres, Paris, 1825, vol. iv, p. 304. 
 
 28 Ibid., p. 302. 
 
 ^^Ibid., p. 303. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 310. 
 
 SI Ibid., p. 3 10. In this treatise, as in Histoire des Oracles, the 
 material of his investigation is largely drawn from the Greeks. 
 
 32 Under one cover appeared Poesies Pastorales, Discours sur le 
 Nature de I'Eglogue, and Digression sur les Anciens et les 
 Modernes. The Poesies Pastorales were designed to embody 
 Fontenelle's conception of perfected verse, including the improve- 
 ment of the Moderns upon the Ancients. 
 
 33 Fontenelle, Oeuvres, vol. iv, pp. 235-6. 
 
 3^ Since The Digression is far too long to present in detail, the 
 writer has here aimed not at literal translation, but at a faithful 
 reproduction of salient thought. 
 
 3"! Ibid., vol. iv, p. 238. 
 
 ^'^Ibid., p. 241. 
 
NOTES 215 
 
 " Ibid., p. 246. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 253. 
 
 ^^ Ibid., p. 254. In the same volume with Poesies Pastorales 
 and Digression was published Discours sur la Nature de I'Eglogue, 
 which discusses Fontenelle's idea of the rules of pastoral poetry 
 and maintains that Theocritus and Virgil failed to measure up 
 to a perfect standard, because their characters frequently express 
 sentiments out of harmony with their capacity and environment. 
 The scope of the present work forbids a reproduction of the long 
 Discours; nor does it contain anjrthing essentially new, or unimplied 
 in the Digression which presumably was composed after the 
 Discours. 
 
 *^li\ 1725 Ramsay published his Gentle Shepherd; Thomson, 
 The Seasons, 1726-30; William Collins, the Odes, 1746. 
 
1» 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Since the preceding study was designed to trace through 
 the writings of certain formative thinkers the development 
 of a critical attitude toward classical authors, the following 
 bibliography has been made to facilitate approach to the 
 sources, and to indicate authority in the substantiation of 
 collateral historic facts where such was needed. The list 
 by no means represents the whole body of available material, 
 or that consulted in the preparation of this work. 
 
 Aubrey, John, Brief Lives, chiefly of Contemporaries, set 
 down by John Aubrey, betureen 1669 and 1696. 2 vols., 
 Oxford, 1898. Edited by Clark, Andrew. 
 
 Aungervyle, Society, Reprints, Edinburg, 1 885-1 888. 
 
 Bacon, Francis, The Philosophical Works of, London, 1905. 
 Edited by John M. Robertson. 
 
 Bacon, Roger, Compendium Studii Theologiae, edited by 
 Rashdall, 191 1. (British Society of Franciscan 
 Studies.) 
 
 Bacon, Roger, Opera Quaedam Haetenus Inedita. Edited 
 by Brewer, London, 1859. (Master of the Rolls 
 Series).^ 
 
 Bacon, Roger, Opus Maius, edited by Bridges. Vols. I and 
 II, Oxford, 1897. Vol. Ill, London, 1900. 
 
 Beard, Charles, Martin Luther and the Reformation in Ger- 
 many. London, 1889. (Third edition.) 
 
 Bentley, Richard, D.D. The Works of, collected and edited 
 
 ^ Includes Opus Tertium, Opus Minus, Compendium Philosopkiae. 
 
 219 
 
220 BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
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