Peripatetics

“ Forasmuch as the Peripatetics assert that everything which they themselves call good, has a reference to living happily; but our school does not think that a happy life necessarily embraces everything which is worthy of any esteem.
But can anything be more certain than that, according to the principles of those men who rank pain among the evils, a wise man cannot be happy when he is tormented on the rack? While the principles of those who do not consider pain among the evils, certainly compels us to allow that a happy life is preserved to a wise man among all torments. ”

“ The Waters of Life, or Chaos—the female principle in symbolism—are the vacuum (to our mental sight) , in which lie the latent Spirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, for “Nature abhors a vacuum,” according to the Peripatetics and every ancient philosopher. ”

“ After the fall of that religion, the Peripatetics, emerging from their obscurity, prevailed in the controversies of the Oriental sects, and their founder was long afterwards restored by the Mahometans of Spain to the Latin schools. The physics, both of the Academy and the Lycæum, as they are built, not on observation, but on argument, have retarded the progress of real knowledge. The metaphysics of infinite, or finite, spirit, have too often been enlisted in the service of superstition. But the human faculties are fortified by the art and practice of dialectics ”

“ HOSE who have treated of natural pilosophy, may be nearly reduced to three classes. Of these some have been attributed to the several species of things, specific and occult qualities; on which, in a manner unknown, they make the operations of the several bodies to depend. The sum of the doctrine of the Schools derived from Aristotle and the Peripatetics is herein contained. They affirm that the several effects of the bodies arise from the particular natures of those bodies arise from the particular natures of those bodies. But whence it is that bodies derive those natures they don't tell us; ”

“ But, Pericles, if nature had given you eyes only as she has to wild beasts, it would be natural enough for you to feel excessive grief. But since she has breathed into you a soul, and implanted in you intelligence by means of which you now behold in memory many past events, though they are no longer before you: and further since your reasoning power discovers many future events and reveals them as it were to the eyes of your mind ”

“ Such glory as belongs to man is enough for me. That is all I sigh after. Mortal myself, it is but mortal blessings I desire.
S. Augustine. Oh, if that is what you truly mean, how wretched are you! If you have no desire for things immortal, if no regard for what is eternal, then you are indeed wholly of the earth earthy: then all is over for you; no hope at all is left.
Petrarch. Heaven defend me from such folly! But my conscience is witness, and knows what have been my desires, that never have I ceased to love with burning zeal the things eternal. ”

“ Every age has a philosophy of life, which reaches and affects, in greater or less degree, the thought and action of all of its members. To the centuries before Petrarch the world was a place in which to prepare for a life beyond; the noblest subject of thought was theology; the saving of the soul was the one important task. The centuries since have realised in some measure that the present life is precious in itself and is not to be thus subordinated. This shifting of the view is of immense significance; and it is owing to Petrarch, more than to any other one man. ”

“ SCENE I. Pentapolis. An open place by the sea-side. [Enter Pericles, wet.]
PERICLES. Yet cease your ire, you angry stars of heaven! Wind, rain, and thunder, remember, earthly man Is but a substance that must yield to you; And I, as fits my nature, do obey you: Alas, the sea hath cast me on the rocks, Wash'd me from shore to shore, and left me breath Nothing to think on but ensuing death: Let it suffice the greatness of your powers To have bereft a prince of all his fortunes; And having thrown him from your watery grave, Here to have death in peace is all he'll crave. ”

“ But you see what will be the consequences of that error in which you stand; it will precipitate your soul into all manner of folly, when shame, and fear, even reason, that now acts as some check on passion, and the knowledge of truth itself shall all have disappeared.
Petrarch. I have already told you you were wasting your time. My own remembrance tells mo that I have never loved anything to be ashamed of, and, on the contrary, have ever loved what is most noble.
S. Augustine. Even noble things may be loved in a shameful way; it is beyond doubt. ”

“ S. Augustine. I agree that nothing half severe enough can be said of this monstrous perversion of learning. But let me remind you that your zeal of denunciation has so carried you away that you have omitted to finish your definition of man.
Petrarch. I thought I had explained sufficiently, but I will be more explicit still. Man is an animal, or rather the chief of all animals. The veriest rustic knows that much. Every schoolboy could tell you also, if you asked him, that man is, moreover, a rational animal and that he is mortal. This definition, then, is a matter of common knowledge. ”

“ Could he have been ignorant that ours is, in general, greater than the Periclean for the very reason that the Divinity is neither the devil nor a bungler; that three thousand years of human consciousness is not nothing; that a whole is greater than its part, and a butterfly than a chrysalis? ”

“ Petrarch. In my case there is no wound old enough for it to have been effaced and forgotten: my sufferings are all quite fresh, and if anything by chance were made better through time, Fortune has so soon redoubled her strokes that the open wound has never been perfectly healed over. I cannot, moreover, rid myself of that hate and disdain of our life which I spoke of. Oppressed with that, I cannot but be grieved and sorrowful exceedingly. That you call this grief accidie or ægritudo makes no difference; in substance we mean one and the same thing. ”

“ Nor is it confident with reason that the heavenly bodies of the Peripateticks should attend on a centre so decadent and perishable as that of the Earth. They think that Nature seeks rest for the generation of things, and for promoting their increase while growing; and that accordingly the whole Earth is at rest. ”

“ Petrarch. Pray what have I done that you should desire to relieve me of the finest passions of my nature, and condemn to everlasting darkness the clearest faculties of my soul?
S. Augustine. Ah, unhappy man, have you forgotten quite this axiom of philosophy, that the climax of all evils is when a man, rooted in some false opinion, by degrees grows fatally persuaded that such and such a course is right? ”

“ Ambition still has too much hold on you. You seek too eagerly the praise of men, and to leave behind you an undying name.
Petrarch. I freely confess it. I cannot beat down that passion in my soul. For it, as yet, I have found no cure.
S. Augustine. But I greatly fear lest this pursuit of a false immortality of fame may shut for you the way that leads to the true immortality of life.
Petrarch. That is one of my fears also, but I await your discovering to me the means to save my life; you, of a truth, will do it, who have furnished me with means for the healing of evils greater still. ”

“ Then it descends into the Celestiall bodies, where it becomes a store of life, and an effectuall propagation, even a visible splendor. In the fire a certain naturall liveliness infused into it by the heavens. And lastly in men, it is a clear discourse of reason, an knowledge of divine things, and the whole rationall: but this is manifold, either by reason of the disposition of the body, as the Peripateticks will have it, or which is more true, by reason of the good pleasure of him that bestows it, who gives it to every one as he pleaseth. ”

“ Petrarch. What has that to do with the subject, I would like to know?
S. Augustine. Much, every way. To see dearly, listen well. No man is so senseless (unless he be altogether out of his mind) as never once to remember his own weak nature, or who, if asked the question whether he were mortal and dwelt in a frail body, would not answer that he was. The pains of the body, the onsets of fever, attest the fact; and whom has the favour of Heaven made exempt? Moreover, your friends are carried out to their burial before your eyes; and this fills the soul with dread. ”

“ Petrarch. Well do I know that old story bandied about by the philosophers, how they declare that all the earth is but a tiny point, how the soul alone endures for infinite millions of years, how fame cannot fill either the earth or the soul, and other paltry pleas of this sort, by which they try to turn minds aside from the love of glory. But I beg you will produce some more solid arguments than these, if you know any; for experience has shown me that all this is more specious than convincing. I do not think to become as God, or to inhabit eternity, or embrace, heaven and earth. ”

“ In the mean time, pray instantly for the aid of Him who is able to raise you up again. He will perchance be nearer to you just then when you think Him furthest off. Keep ever in mind that saying of Plato we were speaking of just now, "Nothing so much hinders the knowledge of the Divine as lust and the burning desire of carnal passion." Ponder well, therefore, this doctrine; it is the very basis of our purpose that we have in hand.
Petrarch. ”

“ When all these passions are extinguished, then, and not till then, will desire be full and free. For when the soul is uplifted on one side to heaven by its own nobility, and on the other dragged down to earth by the weight of the flesh and the seductions of the world, so that it both desires to rise and also to sink at one and the same time, then, drawn contrary ways, you find you arrive nowhither.
Petrarch. What, then, would you say a man must do for his soul to break the fetters of the world, and mount up perfect and entire to the realms above? ”

“ Petrarch. May the Most High in His mercy save me from that misery!
S. Augustine. Though Divine Mercy may deliver a man from his folly, yet it will not excuse it. Presume not upon this mercy overmuch. For if God abhors those who lose hope, He also laughs at those who in false hope put their trust. I was sorry when I heard fall from your lips that phrase about despising what you called the old story of the philosophers on this matter. Is it, then, an old story, pray, by figures of geometry, to show how small is all the earth, and to prove it but an island of little length and width? ”

“ A new type of men began with Petrarca, men accustomed to introspection, who selected their own ideals, and moulded their minds to them. The medieval system could prepare him for death; but, seeing the vicissitudes of fortune and the difficulties of life, he depended on the intellectual treasures of the ancient world, on the whole mass of accessible wisdom, to develop him all round. ”

“ The gods requite his charity.
If thou livest, Pericles, thou hast a heart
That even cracks for woe! This chanced tonight.
SECOND GENTLEMAN.
Most likely, sir.
CERIMON.
Nay, certainly tonight;
For look how fresh she looks! They were too rough
That threw her in the sea. Make a fire within
Fetch hither all my boxes in my closet.
[Exit a Servant.]
Death may usurp on nature many hours,
And yet the fire of life kindle again
The o’erpress’d spirits. ”

“ S. Augustine. You may count your prayer already granted, if you will only to yourself be true: for how shall any one be constant to him who is inconstant to himself?
Petrarch. I will be true to myself, so far as in me lies. I will pull myself together and collect my scattered wits, and make a great endeavour to possess my soul in patience. But even while we speak, a crowd of important affairs, though only of the world, is waiting my attention. ”

“ Because 'every creature' should be dear to us because of our love for the Creator. But in your case, on the contrary, held captive by the charm of the creature, you have not loved the Creator as you ought. You have admired the Divine Artificer as though in all His works He had made nothing fairer than the object of your love, although in truth the beauty of the body should be reckoned last of all.
Petrarch. I call Truth to witness as she stands here between us, and I take my conscience to witness also, as I said before, that the body. of my lady has been less dear to me than her soul. ”

“ We may thus understand the perfect concord which prevails in Petrarch's poetry between Nature and Art; between the accuracy of fact and the magic of invention; between depth and perspicuity; between devouring passion and calm meditation. It is precisely because the poetry of Petrarch originally sprang from the heart that his passion never seems fictitious or cold, notwithstanding the profuse ornament of his style, or the metaphysical elevation of his thoughts. ”

“ Western humanity was so morbid at that time, that the consciousness of having done this was enough to cause painful inner conflict to a man like Petrarch--a man of refined feeling, and scientific, though not a deep thinker.' Even granting this, which is too tragically put, the world was on the very eve of freeing itself from this position, and Petrarch serves as a witness to the change. ”

“ S. Augustine. You are the victim of a terrible plague of the soul—melancholy; which the moderns call accidie, but which in old days used to be called ægritudo.
Petrarch. The very name of this complaint makes me shudder.
S. Augustine. Nor do I wonder, for you have endured its burden long enough.
Petrarch. Yes, and though in almost all other diseases which torment me there is mingled a certain false delight, in this wretched state everything is harsh, gloomy, frightful. The way to despair is for ever open, and everything goads one's miserable soul to self-destruction. ”