U. CXXXI. CANTO IV. Aristotle was the master of the schools in Dante's day; although that supremacy was very soon after (1) conferred on its true owner, Plato (2). Landino hesitates between two such great men as Plato and Aristotle: but surely, by saying that the latter excelled in natural, and the former in moral philosophy, he pronounces their respective rank. I know what is the fashion of the day; and that the chymist who freezes mercury in your presence, divides a sunbeam, or galvanizes a rabbit, plumes himself on the solidity of his discoveries, while the discussor of an ethical question is treated as a visionary. The exact sciences, (as they are inaptly termed) are, it is said, those most deserving of serious attention, because they furnish certain results: a doctrine well calculated to form able generals and calculators, (but not virtuous patriots) and therefore one little obnoxious to the worst tyrants, and often even encouraged by them in order to divert their slaves from higher pursuits; so that, instead of being an argument in favour of the perfectibility of the human-kind, because it at this moment produces a temporary increase of the arts of luxury, it appears to me to be a melancholy proof of the decline of the present generation divinum illum virum quem. sæpius fortasse laudo (1) In Petrarch's time. Trionfo della Fama, Cap. 3. (2) quam necesse est. De Legibus, Lib. 111. p. 1. CANTO IV. and of the approaching downfall of those arts themselves, by the ruin of that public spirit which had been an incentive in producing them. But I also know, that this assumption of exactness in physical researches was denied by one of the wisest of our fellow creatures, "Socrates; who applied himself wholly to the moral part of philosophy and neglected the natural, as a study too fanciful and uncertain (1)." And is not his opinion warranted by the fact? Is not natural philosophy, (that pretends to evidence because it addresses, not the intellect, but the senses) remarkable for its continual fluctuation, not merely with the revolutions of centuries, but with every change of season, not with the rise or fall of mighty empires, but with the female fashions of every mouth? Are those who were authorities in chemistry ten years ago to be relied on now? Must not a student purchase his scientifick journal like a lady's magazine, and unlearn this week what he was at pains to learn last? Even the word of Newton ceases to be revered as law. Except then it can be shown (which it cannot) that physical science is always in a state of progressive improvement, its variations testify that it is, in practice as well as in theory, far more uncertain than that philosophy whose principles are drawn from a few fixed phenomena invariably found in the human mind. These phe (1) Athenian Letters T. 1. p. 94. — Academicorum Lib. 1. Cap. 4. WANTO IV. nomena form part of our nature: and in those instances where they seem eradicated, it is only a false appearance: or if they sometimes can really be eradicated, it is at the expense of vast pains. It has pleased the Creator to implant in every breast the primary laws of morality, and to confer on our sentiments a stability which our senses do certainly not possess; our thoughts are evidently less exposed to violence than our members; and, in spite of cavillers, it is an impugnable position that it is much easier to deceive our eyes, or put them out altogether, than to cheat or totally corrupt a sound understanding. The duties of a citizen laid down by Cicero, or of a general by Homer, or Xenophon, are his duties still, for the distinctions between vice and virtue are and must be eternal; as whispers that inseparable, interior monitor that is not to be readily fooled, like the taste, smell, or sight. To develope those eternal distinctions is (or ought to be) the object of the analysis of the intellect; and, since they are eternal, all the consequences fairly drawn from them must be eternal and exactly true (1). But even though natural philo (1)" This (says Shaftesbury)" is the Philosophy which by nature has the pre-eminence above all other science or knowledge. Nor can this surely be of the sort called vain or deceitful; since it is the only means by which I can discover vanity and deceit. For mathematicians are divided; and mechanics proceed as well on one hypothesis as on the other. Of this, says one, I have clear ideas. Of this, says the other, I can be certain. And what, say I, if in the whole matter there be no certainty at all? Charac. Vol. 1. p. 256 –60. i CANTO IV. sophers could pretend to an equal exactitude in their researches, yet they were for ever precluded from rivalling with moral science by its superior nobility. It were a question between matter and mind; it were whether the mind should stoop to the clod on which we tread, or soar to the investigation of her immortal origin: an ethereal flight that is scarcely more a vindication of her own glory, than a practical, physical benefit. For by it men are restrained from mutual wrongs and disas ters; nations learn the road to honour and happiness; and individuals their rights and duties. It is a study that can be prosecuted in every situation; whether free, or in a dungeon; in crowds, or in solitude; in wealth, or in poverty; in academic bowers mid books and observatories and laboratories, or in the absence of all such aids; in the possession of health and the full acuteness of the senses, or (like Milton) blind and infirm; in the smiles of a court, or in the grapple of a tyrant; a study that teaches, not to decompose or guide the elements, but, what are far more sublime, im material spirits; and subjects to our sway, not earthly atoms but thinking beings, not a brittle lens or furnace, but machines of power almost illimitable, the hopes and fears, passions and energies of our fellow-creatures. It is no longer a question of precedence: the GANTO IV. names that follow are evidently thrown promis. cuously in the text, as chance and rhyme decided. "Democritus, the laughing philosopher, made himself famous for maintaining the atomical system: of which I shall only say, that it excludes the existence of a Deity, and ascribes the formation of the world to the fortuitous concourse of unperishable atoms endowed with motion. The strange humour and temper of the man is not unsuitable to so strange a doctrine (1). " This is well and succintly conveyed by the Italian, il mondo pone a caso.. The Stoics, Ionics, and Cynics are represented by Zeno, Thales, Diogenes, and Anaxagoras, master of all-accomplished Pericles. Empedocles was a good poet, physician and sorcerer; in one or other of which capacities he is said to have resuscitated a young girl. But if he prolonged her life, he balanced the account by shortening his own (2) : however not before giving Cleander a splendid Pythagorean entertainment consisting "of an ox all made of paste composed of myrh, frankincense and spice (3). " Heraclitus I pronounce with the penultimate short, as it is in the original, and in Petrarch (4). Dioscorides was the father of botany; (v) Athenian Letters. Vol. 1. p. 128. (2) ... Deus immortalis haberi Dum cupit Empedocles, ardentem frigidus Aetnam De arte poet. |