II. THE MIDDLE AGES AND THE TRAN SITION TO MODERN PHILOSOPHY THE MIDDLE AGES § 21. Introduction Not long after Augustine's death, the Roman Empire fell, and we enter upon a new era in the history of the world and of thought. What is the general character and significance of this period? 1. The Greek Element. Our modern thought is a compound into which three main elements enter. The framework of our thought, the concepts and ideas which we use, come to us largely from the Greeks. It was the business of the long development of Greek speculation to frame these conceptions, on the basis of which every future philosophy was to build. But philosophy is not simply an exercise of intellectual comprehension. It grows out of the needs of human life, and can only get its final justification as it succeeds in organizing this, and making it effective. And here the Greeks may be said to have failed. All the Greek philosophizing could not prevent the break-up of Greek social and political life; indeed, philosophy was one of the elements which hastened this dissolution. And the Greeks had not the necessary political genius to enable them to work out a practical substitute for the forms which were proving inadequate. 2. The Roman Element. -This lack was supplied by the Roman. However he might be wanting in intellectual subtilty, the Roman was preeminently fitted to impress upon the world the value and the reality of government and law. The principle of authority ran through his life -the authority of husband over wife, of father over son, of master over slave, of state over citizen. And while the outcome was often harsh and forbidding in appearance, yet the rule of blood and iron was the only means of reducing the world to at least a measure of order. The result of this genius for organization passed over to later times, even after the Empire itself had fallen. To the Roman is largely due that external framework of society and government, without which the spiritual side of civilization would be impossible. The most important form in which this inheritance was transmitted, was that combination of Roman practical efficiency with Greek philosophy, which resulted in Roman law. The Stoics, it will be remembered, had reached the conception of a law of nature, binding upon all men alike; and of a consequent cosmopolitanism, which recognized the essential equality of all men as expressions of the universal reason working throughout the universe. This conception had important results by being brought into contact with practical legislation. As the power of Rome gradually extended, there grew up, alongside the civil law, the so-called jus gentium, which governed her relation to those who were not citizens. It was the policy of Rome to bring all her subjects under a common law, but at the same time to make this broad and tolerant in its provisions, and to leave local customs as much as possible unchanged. The jus gentium, accordingly, was made up largely of those elements common to the laws of different countries, which were sifted out in the interests of simplicity and uniformity. In this way there arose, alongside the ordinary Roman procedure, the idea of a more common and universal law; and under the influence of Stoic thought, this came to assume a position of special importance. As opposed to the particular, and more or less conventional enactments due to local or temporary conditions, it came to be regarded as the law of nature, universal, binding upon all by the original constitution of man's being, and recognized by him intuitively as such. This conception had a very con siderable influence in rendering possible a more rational and scientific treatment of legislation. In particular, it gave the theoretical basis for that codification of the laws of the Empire, represented in the Justinian and in other codes, which still remains the legal groundwork of our modern life. 3. The Christian Element. -The work of the Romans was thus the work of embodying in actual institutions the ideas which, for the Greek philosophers, had been mere theory. While, however, by their political genius they performed a service of the greatest value for civilization, in the system of law and government by which they welded society together, in one essential element they were lacking. Roman civilization tended too much to overbear and suppress the individual, and so to furnish no motive power for growth and progress. It was necessary to have not only the external forms of society, but a sense of the value of human endeavor which should make these forms living and significant. Man must be revealed to himself at his true worth, and be given an inspiration which should set him to work. This needed emphasis on the subjective side, on the development of the personal life of the man himself in its completeness, as the only security for the stability and growth of the social whole, Christianity came in to supply. By its appeal to the feelings, it set free the latent forces of man's nature; and by directing these in the channels of a life which at once looked toward God, and expressed itself in love and service to man, it created a wholly new sense of the value of the individual. It did not isolate and narrow man's life as if it were something complete in itself, but related it to the life of all men, through their common relation to God. It is true that this ideal of Christianity was more or less unstable. It depended too much upon an appeal to the emotions, which necessarily lost something of their force as time went on. There was lacking the definite intellectual grasp, and the concrete institutional forms, to direct the emotional life, and give consistency and permanency to its workings. Consequently Christianity needed supplementing by the contributions which Greece and Rome had to offer. It took many centuries for this union to become a vital one, and often in the meantime the characteristic spirit of Christianity seemed on the point of dying out. But its influence never was completely lost in the darkest ages, and under more favorable conditions it was destined to contribute to modern life and thought some of their most essential features. 4. The German Element. There is still a fourth element which enters into modern life-the Teutonic. The contribution which it makes, however, is not so much any new idea, as the human material in which the Roman, Greek, and Christian contributions were to be brought together and realized. The problem of the future was to create a new ideal of human life. This ideal should take its stand, indeed, upon law and social institutions; but instead of accepting these on authority, it should base them upon, and let them grow out of, the essential nature of man himself, and so combine stability with the possibility of growth. It should be free to understand the world; but instead of making this understanding an end in itself, it should relate it to the needs of man's physical and spiritual life. It should get the purchase of an appeal to the feelings, and through them to the will; but it should not allow the feelings to lead us blindly, apart from definite intellectual guidance, and definitely organized forms of social activity. Conceivably, the Roman world might have had within it the power to make a fresh start, and assume this new task. But historically this is not what happened. The German hordes which were always pressing the Empire from the north, had been held in check for a long time, but they became more and more threatening the more the vigor of the restraining forces was impaired. At last the exhaustion of the Empire became too great to hold them back any longer. In successive waves they overran the provinces, and Italy itself. Rome was captured, and the conquerors set up kingdoms of their own. If civilization was to be carried on at all, it could only be by the assimilation of this new material. Hopeless as the task appeared, in reality the Teutons, though barbarians, had in them the possibilities of a higher development than any that had preceded. Their most striking characteristic was a pronounced sense of individuality and love of freedom; but along with this there went a simplicity of character and ruggedness of moral nature, and a cleanness of life, which furnished admirable soil for Christianity. Before, however, the Teutons could realize their destiny, a long period of training was required. A new individualism must arise out of the absolutism of the Roman Empire; but a freedom on the basis of their present attainments would at once have degenerated into chaos. It was the great work of the Middle Ages and of the Church to take this raw material, and mould it into a definite shape; to impress upon it, by external authority, the ideas and institutional forms which could be rescued from the wreck of the ancient world. It was only when, after centuries of training, these checks and guiding principles had been worked into men's natures, so as to form an integral part of themselves, that they could safely begin to find their way to freedom again. The time came once more when a criticism of beliefs and institutions was possible and necessary; that it did not result, as it had in the case of Greece, in the overthrow of society, was due, partly to a difference in racial characteristics, but also to the thoroughness with which the Middle Ages had done their work of education. The result was not a violent break from the past, but a gradual transformation, on the foundation of the essential truth in the old, which still persisted and guided the process of emancipation. Briefly, then, we may say that as it was the peculiar task of the Middle Ages to effect by external authority the training |